People Before Profit blog

Consequences of Republican Power

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 11:04:00 +0000

No sooner had Republican governors finished their oath of office than they were demanding deep concessions from public sector workers in their respective states.

In Wisconsin, the Republican governor introduced legislation that cut wages and pensions and eliminated collective bargaining. Egged on by the ultra-reactionary billionaire Koch brothers, the governor attempted to railroad the legislation through the legislature, but before he could do so, he ran into an aroused people's movement.

In Ohio, the new Republican governor turned the state into a microcosm for right-wing social engineering and the scene of a mass rebellion by labor and its democratic allies.

Governor John Kasich, who comes out of Fox News, Lehman Brothers and the Kochs' Americans for Prosperity, launched unconcealed class warfare. This includes a law, known as Senate Bill 5, that abolishes collective bargaining rights for all public employees and a budget that slashes $3 billion from the strapped public schools, cuts state assistance to local governments in half and privatizes prisons, liquor sales, the lottery and the turnpike.

Already many school districts, cities and county governments have begun massive layoffs and it is estimated the state budget cuts will result in the loss of 50,000 jobs.

In addition, the Republican majority expects to pass laws to drastically reduce access to voting, promote fracking (hydraulic fracturing of rock to extract natural gas) throughout the state including in state parks, and outlaw use of state hospitals for abortions.

At the same time, the estate tax on the wealthy is being eliminated, funds for vouchers and charter schools are being greatly expanded and a law is being passed to allow concealed weapons in restaurants, bars and sports arenas.

In Michigan, a state with double-digit unemployment, the Republican majority passed a budget that mandates a 48-month cap on welfare cash benefits. Almost 13,000 families face immediate loss of benefits. Shamefully, an $80 clothing allowance for poor children is also eliminated.

The governor's budget cuts aid to universities by 15 percent and by $300 per pupil for K thru 12 education. Towns are being coerced into privatizing their workforce or face greater cuts in revenue sharing.

What is more, the governor's tax overhaul increased the state deficit by giving a $1.8 billion tax cut to corporations. How was that made up? By raising taxes on the working poor and by taxing the pensions of seniors.

What alarms many in the labor movement and in particular public workers is the Emergency Finance Manager legislation passed by the legislature. It gives the governor the power to appoint managers with dictator-like power to replace mayors and councils and void union contracts - a power that he has already exercised.

I could cite other examples, but I think I have made my point that the rightwing-orchestrated assault is unprecedented in its scope and intensity. And for anybody who is wondering what a Republican election victory will look like at the national level next year, they need only look at states where Republicans rule this year.

Meanwhile, congressional Republicans, fresh from their victory at the polls last fall, are also pressing their advantage. As a price to pay for their agreement to lift the debt ceiling (to avert a government default on financial obligations with potential catastrophic effect on international financial markets) Republicans are demanding $1 trillion in cuts to the federal budget. If they have their way we can say goodbye not only to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and more, but also to any hope of economic recovery for the foreseeable future.

This behavior is worthy of gangsters and thugs. It holds the nation hostage to their narrow worldview whose overarching objective is to destroy the social contract and democratic rights – beginning with the right to organize into a union - that were won in the Depression years and consolidated in the decades following World War II.

In doing so, these gangsters show their obeisance to the financial elite and the transnational corporations generally.

To complicate matters, the bug of austerity has bitten the Obama administration and many Democrats too. While their deficit reduction plans are more modest, these are still the wrong medicine for a faltering economy. It's akin to pouring gasoline on a fire. Rather than withdrawing monies from the economy, additional monies should be injected into it.

If we want evidence of the counterproductive nature of austerity, we need only look to Europe. There several countries – Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, etc. - that have been forced to solve their debt crisis by means of austerity find themselves mired in debt and economic stagnation.

Our national debt is a problem in the longer term, but in the short term our real deficit is a deficit of infrastructure, renewable energy, education, health care, mass transportation, etc. None of these deficits can be addressed without strong, government-led, national strategies.

Moreover, such strategies will not only solve the immediate crisis in jobs, but also lay the material base for a healthy, productive and green economy, including a sustainable solution to national indebtedness. And, to those who say we can't afford it, let's remind them that plenty of money is available if we go to where it is: the wealthiest families, corporations, banks and the military.

Photo by Teresa Albano/PW/cc by 2.0/Flickr

Ghana's Oil Fields Fuel Foreign Investment

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 08:53:00 +0000

Original source: China Daily

Ghana’s emerging oil sector is attracting vast investment from China and other countries

In March, Ghana’s parliament finally passed the much-anticipated Oil Revenue Management Bill that will determine how the government manages and invests substantial energy revenues to secure the country’s future for generations to come.

The new legislation, which was backed unanimously by MPs, will provide Ghana with the opportunity to secure loans from foreign banks and financial institutions against future oil revenues.

The discovery of the two giant oil fields has led to the rapid expansion of Ghana’s upstream, midstream and downstream oil and gas industry.

The present and future development of the petroleum products sector would not be possible without proper government legislation or major foreign direct investment (FDI) from China and developed countries around the world.

Since the discovery of the Jubilee Field in 2007, the Ghanaian government and Chinese enterprises have signed a series of loan agreements and major infrastructure development deals worth more than $20 billion.

Founded in 1999, Cirrus Oil Services Limited is a private downstream oil trading company and a leader in petroleum product trading and distribution.

Granted a license in 2007 to operate as a bulk oil distributor, Cirrus built and commissioned the country’s most advanced petroleum terminals at Tema and Takoradi.

The computerized facilities can handle tens of thousands of liters of petroleum products per day, including gas oil, gasoline and aviation fuel, with the valuable liquids destined for domestic and foreign markets.

“At Cirrus, safety is our life line and a commitment for life,” said CEO Ivy Apea Owusu. “We run terminals and deal with a lot of products. In this industry, health and safety, as well as environmental concerns are huge. It is part of our culture, as is professionalism.”

Turning to the importance of Ghana’s skilled human resources, she added: “When we view human capital, we look at the individual not just based on resumes but whether they have the same mindset and will be a cultural fit at Cirrus – it’s the little things that count.

“Ghana is socially and politically stable. Ghanaians are constantly developing and learning and so our human capital is growing. In the past, there was a brain drain but lots of foreign-trained Ghanaians are now coming back home.”

Black gold fuels FDI

An experienced businesswoman and oil industry professional, Apea Owusu has identified many of the challenges facing Ghana as the country looks to develop and improve its industrial, social and commercial infrastructure like transport and communications networks.

“With the right commitment and the partnership with the private sector, there is a lot that could be achieved,” she said. “We are working on an expansion project that will leave us well positioned to meet growing market demand in a safe and efficient manner. We sell Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) in Ghana through the Tema refinery, but an important part of our expansion plan is to have our own LPG facility.”

An industry leader, Sage Petroleum Limited is a pioneering petroleum products company with a vertically integrated network of inland, coastal and offshore oil operations, plus activities in other countries.

Headed by CEO Emmanuel Egyei-Mensah, Sage has grown rapidly as it looks to become Africa’s leading energy services provider with the help of foreign investors. The firm recently held talks with Chinese companies about the formation of joint partnerships and knowledge-transfer programs.

“We are trying to diversify and are looking for partnerships and joint ventures,” explained Egyei-Mensah. “We also plan to enter the offshore services sector and want investors who are prepared to transfer technology and skills.”

Tourism takes off

Like the majority of the many diverse sectors that now comprise Ghana’s economy, the tourism industry has enjoyed robust growth in recent years, with the government committed to preserving the extremely broad range of natural, cultural and historical attractions.

With more than 500 kms of gorgeous coastline, Ghana’s beautiful beaches are one of its most popular natural assets, while many of its attractive forts and castles have been awarded UNESCO World Heritage status.

In addition to heritage and beach tourism, Ghana offers visitors rare ecological treasures in large and unspoiled tropical rainforests teeming with birds and rare wildlife, while game parks are complemented by sparkling lakes.

A private, award-winning, boutique-style hotel, The African Regent is popular with oil industry executives and tourists. Located in Accra’s most prestigious neighborhood, the luxury hotel is close to the city’s international airport, major highway and shopping mall.

The hotel blends more than 100 comfortable and well-equipped rooms, including a presidential suite, executive club suite and penthouse, with world-class service and premium cuisine and beverages.

“We have noticed an increase in Chinese groups staying at The African Regent and even hired a Chinese speaking staff member to help us communicate with these guests,” said hotel CEO, John Kufuor.

Reduce the Deficit Without Increasing Poverty

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 09:41:00 +0000

Congress should take steps to protect anti-poverty "safety net" programs during the federal budget deficit negotiations, a coalition of community and civil rights organizations said this week.

In a letter signed by about 20 prominent leaders of civil rights, charitable, family advocacy, and faith-based groups, the coalition pointed to a precedent of exempting anti-poverty programs from automatic cuts in order to reduce the deficit.

Since the 1990s, the letter reads, "every automatic budget cut mechanism of the past quarter-century has exempted core low-income assistance programs from any automatic across-the-board cuts triggered when budget targets or fiscal restraint rules were missed or violated. The 1985 and 1987 Gramm-Rudman-Hollings laws, the 1990 Budget Enforcement Act, the 1993 deficit reduction package, the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, and the 2010 pay-as-you-go law all exempted core low-income programs from automatic cuts."

The letter went on to applaud an appeal by a broad coalition of Christian churches to draw a "Circle of Protection" around safety net programs in the budget negotiations.

Since the Great Recession, the poverty rate in the U.S. is the highest since the 1950s.

Congress should not make the poor double victims of the recession and budget cuts, said Vicki Escarra, president and CEO of Feeding America. "With more of our nation's men, women and children facing hunger today than ever before, it would be unconscionable for the Congress and the Administration to cut the first line of defense against hunger in America."

"We must find solutions to our nation's economic challenges that do not send millions more people into the grips of hunger and poverty," she said in a statement announcing the release of the joint letter.

Echoing these remarks, Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change, added, "Our families are struggling to make ends meet and our communities are suffering from record levels of unemployment and increasing poverty. It's time to get the country back on track and that means focusing on job creation and supporting our families."

"Protecting the programs that serve families in need is a vital component of any budget negotiations," he said. "It's time to move beyond the partisan gridlock and to the real solution, good jobs for unemployed and underemployed workers and adequate support for families in need."

Indiscriminate budget cuts would harm women and children first, said Nancy Duff Campbell, co-president of the National Women's Law Center, and Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund.

"Women disproportionately rely on Medicaid, SNAP (Food Stamps) and other safety net programs to meet their own and their children's basic needs – and on programs like child care assistance and Pell grants for a chance to get ahead and give their children a better life," said Campbell. "Maintaining supports for low-income women and their families isn't just fair – it's a smart investment in our common future."

Edelman added, "Children are the poorest age group in America, and hunger, homelessness and poverty have risen dramatically for them in the last two years. Two-thirds of the 15.5 million poor children live in families in which at least one person is working."

"We must protect children, their families and other vulnerable people while finding ways to reduce the deficit that reflect moral sense, common sense and economic sense." she explained.

Wade Henderson, president of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, added that increasing poverty would violate American values. "Our leaders would be wise to follow the precedent of previous administrations and Congresses and refuse to cut any programs that strengthen economic security for low-income families."

Hilary O. Shelton, director of the NAACP Washington Bureau & Senior Vice President for Advocacy and Policy, described the safety net as a basic civil right. "It is incumbent upon the federal government to meet the unique needs of the most vulnerable Americans among us and that they are allowed to engage in their Constitutional right to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness."

Readers should call or write to their members of Congress to urge support for the call by religious and community coalitions to protect safety net programs during the federal budget negotiations.

Congress can easily reduce the deficit without increasing poverty by bringing the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan faster, eliminating the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and reducing wasteful military spending.

Photo by ImNotQuiteJack/cc by 2.0/Flickr

Chicago Trial: Spotlight on Pakistan

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 08:08:00 +0000

Original source: Peoples' Democracy

The trial of Chicago businessman Tahawwur Rana, accused of helping David Coleman Headley in the planning of the Mumbai terror attacks of November 2008, has once again focussed attention on Pakistan and the terror networks that are still active within its borders. The Chicago court, which delivered its judgement in the second week of June, found Rana, a minor accomplice of Headley, guilty on two out of the three charges against him. Rana has been acquitted of the main charge that he was involved in the Mumbai terror attacks. The jury in the Chicago trial court agreed with the argument of the defence that the accused was misled by Headley and was in the dark against the plot to stage terror attacks against Mumbai. Rana was, however, found guilty of plotting revenge attacks in Denmark along with Headley against those responsible for publishing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed. The court also found Rana guilty of delivering materiel help to the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the group held responsible for the Mumbai terror attacks.

Arrangement of convenience

Headley has been in American custody for more than a year and has since become a star witness for the prosecution. To escape the death penalty, the man who claims to have played a key role in the Mumbai massacre has negotiated a plea bargain with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The arrangement apparently suits both the parties. As the proceedings in the Chicago trial court showed, Headley only talked about the alleged complicity of Pakistani intelligence agencies in the terror attacks against India. Headley’s past as an agent for the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), which has close links with the CIA, has been conveniently glossed over.

During his five days of testimony on the witness stand, Headley provided no new information. But the trial, coming as it does in the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden and the terror attacks against a Pakistani naval base in Karachi, brought more unwelcome attention to Pakistan. The Obama administration is deeply suspicious about sections of the Pakistani army and intelligence services after the Al Qaeda leader was discovered living in the balmy cantonment town of Abbotabad, near the capital Islamabad, undisturbed for around six years. “Rana is on trial, but in many ways the Pakistani army and the Pakistani intelligence is on trial,” Bruce Riedel, a former senior CIA official and currently working at the Brookings Institute, told the New York Times.

In the open court room, Headley once again named “Major Iqbal” as his ISI contact in Pakistan and Sajid Mir, as his handler from the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Headley, however, did admit that he had no contacts with any senior officials from the ISI. The Pakistani government denies the existence of the mysterious “Major.” Headley admitted under cross examination from the defense lawyer, Charles Swift, that he could neither identify Major Iqbal nor help in the efforts to locate him. The well known American lawyer reminded the court about Headley’s track record. Headley, he said, was working for the DEA when he started training with the LeT and allegedly started taking orders from the ISI. He described Headley as a “master manipulator” who had pleaded guilty on earlier occasions in order to escape severe sentences. Swift is the lawyer who successfully got the US Supreme Court to strike down the military commissions set up under the Bush administration to try the Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Despite his continuing anonymity, the US authorities have already put Major Iqbal on its “most wanted” terror list. Headley also told the court that he had met with Ilyas Kashmiri, the leader of the Harakat-ul-Jihad during his frequent trips to the Indian subcontinent. Kashmiri, according to Headley, had wanted militant groups to target the offices of Lockheed Martin, the American armaments company which manufactures the drones that have been running havoc all over Pakistan. Kashmiri has been held responsible for many acts of terror in India as well as Pakistan. He had claimed responsibility for the attack avenging the death of Osama on the Pakistani naval base in Karachi. A few days after Headley named him in the Chicago court, he was reportedly killed in a US drone attack in Southern Waziristan. Pakistani authorities claim that they helped the US forces locate his whereabouts. “I understood these (militant) groups operated under the umbrella of the ISI and Lashkar,” Headley had told the Chicago trial court.

Headley made to stick to the script

The LeT has now become the common enemy of both the US and India. A recent US government report describes the LeT as one of the most dangerous and well organized terror groups that considers American targets as legitimate. According to Headley, both the ISI and Lashkar wanted him to conduct surveillance on targets in India. During his plea bargain hearings, Headley admitted to having visited India for five reconnaissance missions between 2006 and 2008. On all the five occasions, he returned to the US via Pakistan after “meeting various co-conspirators, including but not limited to the LeT.” The Obama administration has so far not officially acknowledged Headley’s contention that the ISI top brass was involved in planning the Mumbai attacks. Nor has Washington accepted the suggestion that at the most only a handful of rogue elements from Pakistan’s security establishment were involved in the Mumbai terror attack.

Headley, from all available accounts, is not a credible witness. He is an admitted drug user who has spent more than six years in an American prison. He was only released after he agreed to work as an undercover agent for the DEA. He has admitted to lying to the FBI and has been diagnosed by psychiatrists as suffering from “mixed personality disorder.” Under relentless defense cross examination, Headley had admitted that on more than one occasion he had used Rana for his nefarious activities, while keeping his friend from his school going days in the dark. The defense is arguing that Rana was unaware of Headley’s terror links.

The Indian prime minister as well as the home minister have both said that no new actionable information has emerged from Headley’s testimony. The American authorities had allowed Indian investigators to politely question but not interrogate Headley on his role in the Mumbai terror attacks. The information he provided first to the American authorities and then to the Chicago court tallied with the information that was already in the hands of the Indian government and was already in the public domain. The American authorities have ensured that Headley sticks to the script he has been given and not divulge details about his role as a double agent working both for the American and Pakistani secret services. Many American reporters covering the Chicago court proceedings got the impression that Headley’s deposition was a tutored one.

The agreement between the US federal agencies and Headley stipulates that no evidence on his links with American intelligence agencies are brought under the ambit of the court. Headley’s links with US intelligence will remain classified secrets.

American duplicity

The FBI has also made it clear that it will not allow Headley to be extradited to India to face justice for the massacre of 166 people during the Mumbai terror attack. The FBI has also not bothered to share “actionable intelligence” with India. Close cooperation in counter-terrorism is at the heart of the close US-India strategic ties forged by the UPA government. But so far, the US has refused to share much of the information it has on the terror networks in Pakistan with New Delhi as it continues to walk the diplomatic tight rope with Pakistan. American interests seem to supersede that of Indian national interests when it comes to terrorism related issues affecting the continent. There is speculation that Washington knew about Headley’s repeated visits to India and had enough information to forewarn India about the imminence of an attack on Mumbai.

All this has, however, not stopped the Indian government from further deepening the existing counter-terrorism links with the US. The US homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, was in Delhi in the last week of May to hold talks with the home minister, P Chidambaram. After the end of what was billed as a “homeland security dialogue,” the two sides issued a statement reaffirming their common resolve to defeat terrorism and called for effective steps by all countries to eliminate “safe havens of terror.” Napolitino said that the two governments had agreed to “strengthen our strategic partnerships, to share best practices and to identify future areas of collaboration.” The US homeland secretary told the media in Delhi that she viewed the LeT as equal in danger to the Al Qaeda network. She also held forth a promise that the Indian law enforcement agencies would be given further access to Headley.

Jobs – Where's the Urgency?

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 09:02:00 +0000

Remarks by AFL-CIO President Richard L. Trumka, Executive Council on Diplomacy, Army and Navy Club, Washington, DC
June 24, 2011

Thank you for the honor of inviting me to speak to you today. I'm delighted to be with you.

The relationship between the business community and working people can be difficult at times—tension is natural across the space between us—but I know that we share the same goals – for our economies to grow and our nations to prosper. We are all committed to that same end.

Yet I sometimes feel like shaking the world, and saying, "Wake up!"

Because I think, collectively, we're pretty much all headed in the wrong direction.

During the 2008 financial crisis, I'm told that everyone at the Treasury Department here in Washington was in a great panic—as they were right to be—proposing every idea under the sun to stop the financial panic. We understood that we had to stop the panic to save our economy for everybody.

Yet while we're still reeling from the effects of that crisis, today we see no similar sense of urgency concerning jobs, even though—after two years of recovery—America has 11 million jobs missing from our labor market, and one out of every five working age men in America is not working—they are either unemployed, or out of the labor market altogether.

Forgive me for being blunt. If you take one idea away from this luncheon, please take this: Our economies will not recover until our governments and global financial institutions begin to govern not just for the banks, but for the well-being of all of us.

We need shared sacrifice, truly and evenly shared.

And we need to rebuild on a solid foundation—or as President Obama has said, on rock instead of sand. Otherwise, our economies will continue to suffer from a malaise that saps our strength and prevents robust growth. And ultimately, global investors will lose, as we all will lose.

Remember that in the years before the 2008 crisis, America borrowed nearly 6 percent of our GDP to pay for the things we consume as a nation but do not produce. Our trade deficit and the way it was recycled into global debt markets by China and our other trading partners, drove the bubble economy.

And let's not forget that we're still feeling the pain of the continued deflation of a housing bubble of historic proportions.

But working people and lenders alike will hurt less, and our economies will recover more quickly, if our governments and international institutions review troubled balance sheets with a cold eye and re-structure debt in an orderly way, as soon as possible, wherever it's needed – whether we're talking about government debt in Greece or mortgage debt here in America.

What about austerity, you might ask? Won't that cure the same problem?

No. For one thing, rough-handled austerity is not "tough love". It's not the hard-but-necessary path. It's cruel—it hurts people who had no part in creating the crisis. And when it goes too far, regular people who would much rather go to work and go about their lives – those regular people will swarm into the streets against it.

Plus, austerity simply isn't working—on an economic level, and it won't work. It won't be good for workers and it won't be good for business.

Today, the economies in America and Europe remain in terrible shape and fundamentally weak, and so threaten the global economy because of massive and growing inequality, and a lack of jobs.

High unemployment—an amazing 205 million unemployed workers in the world—has worsened the growing imbalance between the wealthiest families and the rest of us, and those twin problems are the real threats to our long-term recovery.

Here in the United States, unemployment is forcing millions of foreclosures, driving down home prices and destroying trillions of dollars of household wealth.

And yet our leaders in Washington want to cut federal spending further, which will eliminate more jobs and further depress household income.

Look at how well cost-cutting has worked in Greece! That country is more insolvent and more uncertain every day. Look past the riots, austerity there is pulling the country into a downward spiral, into a debt-trap.

It's not helping us here, either. This year, leading forecasters have downgraded annual growth predictions in the United States from 4 percent to below 2 percent. In other words, we're operating at stall speed. The slightest tremor will buckle this fragile and weak recovery and knock us back into recession.

Austerity will never kick our economies up to speed. Instead, it will kill jobs, stall growth and ruin our chances of recovery.

Rather than austerity, we need our governments to keep people in their homes and create jobs with large-scale public investment.

The conditions could not be more ripe for massive, sustained public spending. In the U.S. we have millions of unemployed construction and manufacturing workers and a $2.2 trillion deficit in basic infrastructure, and we need another $2 trillion to build the infrastructure of the future—a smart energy grid, nationwide broadband and high speed rail, among other improvements.

It's crazy not to do it.

We need to put people to work. That's the most important thing America can do to improve our housing market, and to provide a reliable market for private businesses, which have socked away more than $2 trillion in cash on their balance sheets. Business needs customers. Supply needs demand.

Long-term public investments will crowd in private investments. Those combined dollars, and the growth that will come from good jobs from a rebuilt manufacturing base will rebalance our economy and put the global economies on an upward cycle.

Don't misunderstand me. I believe that all our countries must have a plan to restore fiscal balance in the medium- to long-term. And some countries have acute fiscal crises and must address them immediately.

Yet many countries – including the United States – have plenty of time to make aggressive public investments to strengthen the global recovery, restore balance to the global economy and build a sustainable basis for long-term growth.

Unless we straighten out our priorities, we'll never leave behind the policies that got us into this crisis in the first place, and that, if left unchecked, will drag us back.

That will be a catastrophe for all of us – for business as well as for workers.

Please join me and America's working people as we call for large-scale investments to create jobs, to rebuild our middle class and to lead us all forward.

Thank you, and God bless you. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and questions.

U.S. Smears China’s Aid to Africa

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 08:55:00 +0000

Original sourc: Shanghai Daily

The US Secretary of State’s remarks likening China’s presence in Africa to “new colonialism” aims to estrange relations between China and African countries.

The comment made by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Lusaka, Zambia, last weekend aims to maximize the US interests in Africa and ensure its interests will not be eroded, said He Wenping, director of the African Studies Office of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The “new colonialism” talk lacks historical evidence or comprehensive and powerful facts and the United States is viewing the growth of Sino-African relations through some outdated “cold war mentality,” He said.

On the one hand, the United States is rebuking China over “robbing” Africa of resources, on the other hand, it is expanding investment in Africa’s resources sector and importing more oil from Africa.

Sixteen percent of the United States’ oil imports came from Africa in 2006. The proportion is expected to go up to 25 percent in 2015, according to the US National Security Council.

Exxon Mobil Corp has banded together with other investors to invest in laying an oil transport pipeline in Chad to facilitate oil exports to the United States. The pipeline project, costing around US$3.7 billion, is the largest private investment in infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa.

China’s current oil imports from Africa amount to less than one third of the United States’ oil imports from the continent.

It’s baseless to say China is exploiting the African market through sales of cheap goods since the low-priced goods actually provide affordable commodities to Africans and improved their livings, He said.

There are not attached conditions in China’s investment and aid to Africa, reflecting the country’s stance of not interfering in African countries’ civil affairs and fully respecting their independently chosen growth paths, He said.

The label of “new colonialism” should never be put on China, said Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in his visit to seven African countries in June 2006.

“China had suffered about 110 years of colonialism since the Opium War in 1840. The Chinese people understand the pains brought about by colonialism and know colonialism should be battled against. This is one of the reasons that we have long been supporting liberation and revival of the African nations,” Premier Wen said.

Hillary Clinton said she was concerned that China’s foreign assistance and investment practices in Africa have not always been consistent with generally accepted international norms of transparency and good governance.

“We saw that during colonial times, it is easy to come in, take out natural resources, pay off leaders and leave … And when you leave, you don’t leave much behind for the people who are there. We don’t want to see a new colonialism in Africa,” she said.

It’s not the first time China has been criticized for “new colonialism” and such rebukes are increasingly prevalent in some Western countries, especially some original colonizers of Africa.

A report by US think tanks, including the RAND Corp, the Heritage Foundation and the US Council on Foreign Relations, claimed China was one of the largest rivals for the United States in Africa in the future and urged development of full strategies to weaken China’s influence in Africa.

Dangers of Spray-on Sunscreen

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 08:46:00 +0000

EarthTalk®
E - The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: Isn’t spray sunscreen a health and environmental nightmare when it seems that more of the sunscreen ends up going up my nose than on the kid at the beach next to me? -- Lillian Robertson, Methuen, MA

Spray cans of sunscreen may no longer contain chlorofluorocarbons (also known as CFCs, which were phased out in the 1990s for causing holes in the stratospheric ozone layer), but many contain other chemicals that are no good for our health or the environment. Researchers have found that the chemicals and/or minerals in the vast majority of commercially available sunscreens—even the rub-in creamy or oily varieties—can cause health problems just from ordinary use; inhaling them only magnifies the risks.

And just what are the risks? According to the non-profit Environmental Working Group (EWG), there are two major types of sunscreens available in the U.S. “Chemical” sunscreens, the more common kind, penetrate the skin and may disrupt the body’s endocrine system, as their active ingredients (e.g., octylmethylcinnamate, oxybenzone, avobenzone, benzophone, mexoryl, PABA or PARSOL 1789) mimic the body’s natural hormones and as such can essentially confuse the body’s systems. Quite a risk to take, considering that the chemical varieties don’t even work for very long once applied.

Meanwhile, “mineral” sunscreens are considered somewhat safer, as their active ingredients are natural elements such as zinc or titanium. But “micronized” or “nano-scale” particles of these minerals can get below the skin surface and cause allergic reactions and other problems for some people. EWG recommends sticking with “mineral” sunscreens whenever possible but, more important, taking other precautions to avoid prolonged sun exposure altogether. “At EWG we use sunscreens, but we look for shade, wear protective clothing, and avoid the noontime sun before we smear on the cream,” the group reports.

As for spray varieties, EWG recommends avoiding them entirely: “These ingredients are not meant to be inhaled into the lungs.” With so little known about the effects of sunscreen chemicals on the body when rubbed into the skin, we may never know how much worse the effects may be when they are inhaled. But suffice it to say: When your neighbor at the beach is spraying down Junior, it’s in your best interest to turn away and cover your nose and mouth.

The root of the problem, according to EWG, is failure on the part of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), despite repeated requests from public health and consumer advocates, to implement sunscreen safety standards, some of which were proposed by government scientists more than three decades ago.

EWG only considers a small percentage of the sunscreens on the market—none of which come packaged in spray cans—safe for human use. Some of the top rated varieties come from manufacturers including All Terrain, Aubrey Organics, Badger, Blue Lizard, California Baby, La Roche-Posay, Purple Prairie Botanicals, thinksport, and UV Natural. None of the mainstream drug store variety brands appear on EWG’s recommended list. The full list is available on the sunscreens section of EWG’s Skin Deep website. With summer now upon us, stock up on good sunscreen before it’s too late.

CONTACT: Skin Deep, www.ewg.org/skindeep.

EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E - The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe. Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.

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Russell, Mao and the Fate of China (Part Four)

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 08:20:00 +0000

The last chapter in Bertrand Russell's The Problem of China is entitled "The Outlook for China." Russell, writing in 1922, thinks that China (due to its population and resources) has the capacity to become the second greatest power in the world (after the United States). Today the US seems to be slipping economically so maybe China will become number one in the world sometime in the present century.

Three things will have to about for China to reach its full potential. Russell lists them as: 1.) The establishment of an orderly government [the CPC has accomplished this requirement]; 2.) Industrial development under Chinese control [this too has been brought about by the CPC whether you call it "market socialism" or "state capitalism"]; 3.) the spread of education [ditto care of the CPC].

All three prerequisites put forth by Russell have been attained if not quite in the manner he imagined in his book. Let's look at some of Russell's elaborations on these prerequisites.

First, the problem of orderly government: Russell says that in the 1920s China was functionally anarchic with battling warlords and weak central governments in the north and south of the country. He envisioned an eventual constitutional setup and a parliamentary form of government. But he cautioned that even so the masses of the people (Russell uses the term "public opinion") will have to be guided by what amounts to a Leninist political party using democratic centralist methods.

Here is what Russell wrote: "It will be necessary for the genuinely progressive people throughout the country to unite in a strongly disciplined society, arriving at collective decisions and enforcing support for those decisions upon all its members." That is just what happened under the leadership of CPC.

Second, the problem of industrial development: China, or any country for that matter, to be truly free has to also be economically free and that requires that it has control of its own railroads and natural resources. He thus thinks the Chinese government should own the railroads and the mines of China. He also thinks that state ownership of "a large amount" of the industry in China should also occur. "There are many arguments for State Socialism, or rather what Lenin calls State Capitalism, in any country which is economically but not culturally backward."

Russell thinks that is possible for China, with a strong and honest government, to skip over the stage of capitalism and lay the foundations for socialism. This is tricky business as the Chinese would find out much later. If you skip too far and too fast you can trip and fall on your face. With the right government "it will be possible to develop Chinese industry without, at the same time, developing the overweening power of private capitalists by which the Western nations are now both oppressed and misled." We can only hope that China is heading in this direction.

Third, the problem of education: Russell says that "Where the bulk of the population cannot read, true democracy is impossible. Education is a good in itself, but is also essential for developing political consciousness, of which at present there is almost none in rural China."

By "democracy" Russell then, and almost all Western governments and their intellectual tools today, mean "bourgeois democracy" – i.e., "democratic" institutions and constitutions that guarantee the government will be controlled by, for, and of one of two contending classes that exist in the modern capitalist world, i.e., the capitalist class. Russell proclaimed his belief in "socialism" (Mao even said Russell believed in "communism") but he never transcended the bourgeois concept of "democracy" inculcated in him by the British ruling class by which he was educated.

But the wider, and I believe correct, meaning of "democracy" (rule of the "demos" or people) includes other forms of government than those proclaimed by the bourgeoisie and their lackeys. It must refer to any form of government that objectively rules in the interests of its people i.e., the vast majority of its population composed of working people, called by old time communists "the toiling masses" and historically personified by the "people's democracies" and "people's republics" of eastern Europe and Asia, and by the only completely democratic state in the Western Hemisphere, Cuba.

In just a few years after Russell wrote the above words, hundreds of millions of the peasants of "rural China" would develop a political consciousness that would lead to the overthrow of the rule by landlords and capitalists in China and the establishment, however flawed, of a true people's republic. Then they learned to read.

Russell was both correct and incorrect in saying the following: "Until it has been established for some time, China must be, in fact if not in form, an oligarchy, because the uneducated masses cannot have any effective political opinion [or in the case of the US – miseducated masses]. If that "oligarchy" is a real communist party (not one in name only) it will bring to the masses the correct political opinion that they and they alone control their own destiny and can abolish their subjection to a class that only lives off of their exploitation. The one party state may be the instrument leading to this liberation and its own eventual elimination, along with the state, but it also gives to the masses "effective political opinion" and if it doesn't it may find itself being eliminated ahead of schedule.

Russell hoped the Chinese, by combining "Western" science with their traditional culture, would create a new civilization free of the deficiencies of the capitalist West. What we are seeing now, in the 21st century, in China is perhaps the fulfillment of Russell's vision but it is a synthesis of Marx, left wing Confucianism, and modern science. Hopefully the coming century will see the end of Western "civilization" as we know it, a predatory war based imperialist system attempting to enchain the world, and the establishment of a real new world order. The values of Bertrand Russell will be better remembered and served in such a world.

Epilogue: What Mao thought of Russell's views on China.
Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung
COMMUNISM AND DICTATORSHIP
November 1920. January 1921
[Extracted from. two letters to Ts’ai Ho-sen [1895-1932 a leader of the CPC, arrested in Hong Kong by the British and turned over to the Kuomintang which killed him- tr], in November 1920 and January 1921.]

In his lecture at Changsha, Russell .... took a position in favour of communism but against the dictatorship of the workers and peasants. He said that one should employ the method of education to change the consciousness of the propertied classes, and that in this way it would not be necessary to limit freedom or to have recourse to war and bloody revolution.... My objections to Russell's view point can be stated in a few words: 'This is all very well as a theory, but it is unfeasible in practice' .... Education requires money, people and instruments. In today's world money is entirely in the hands of the capitalists. Those who have charge of education are all either capitalists or wives of capitalists. In today's world the schools and the press, the two most important instruments of education are entirely under capitalist control. In short, education in today's world is capitalist education. If we teach capitalism to children, these children, when they grow up will in turn teach capitalism to a second generation of children. Education thus remains in the hands of the capitalists. Then the capitalists have 'parliaments' to pass laws protecting the capitalists and handicapping the proletariat; they have 'governments' to apply these laws and to enforce the advantages and the prohibitions that they contain; they have 'armies' and 'police' to defend the well-being of the capitalists and to repress the demands of the proletariat; they have 'banks' to serve as repositories in the circulation of their wealth; they have 'factories', which are the instruments by which they monopolize the production of goods. Thus, if the communists do not seize political power, they will not be able to find any refuge in this world; how, under such circumstances, could they take charge of education? Thus, the capitalists will continue to control education and to praise their capitalism to the skies, so that the number of coverts to the proletariat's communist propaganda will diminish from day to day. Consequently, I believe that the method of education is unfeasible....

What I have just said constitutes the first argument. The second argument is that, based on the principle of mental habits and on my observation of human history, I am of the opinion that one absolutely cannot expect the capitalists to become converted to communism.... If one wishes to use the power of education to transform them, then since one cannot obtain control of the whole or even an important part of the two instruments of education — schools and the press — even if one has a mouth and a tongue and one or two schools and newspapers as means of propaganda.... this is really not enough to change the mentality of the adherents of capitalism even slightly; how then can one hope that the latter will repent and turn toward the good? So much from a psychological standpoint. From a historical standpoint.... one observes that no despot imperialist and militarist throughout history has ever been known to leave the stage of history of his own free will without being overthrown by the people. Napoleon I proclaimed himself emperor and failed; then there was Napoleon III. Yuan Shih-K'ai failed; then, also there was Tuan Ch'i-jui.... From what I have just said based on both psychological and a historical standpoint, it can be seen that capitalism cannot be overthrown by the force of a few feeble efforts in the domain of education. This is the second argument. There is yet a third argument, most assuredly a very important argument, even more important in reality. If we use peaceful means to attain the goal of communism, when will we finally achieve it? Let us assume that a century will be required, a century marked by the unceasing groans of the proletariat. What position shall we adopt in the face of this situation? The proletariat is many times more numerous than the bourgeoisie; if we assume that the proletariat constitutes two-thirds of humanity, then one billion of the earth's one billion five hundred million inhabitants are proletarians (I fear that the figure is even higher), who during this century will be cruelly exploited by the remaining third of capitalists. How can we bear this? Furthermore, since the proletariat has already become conscious of the fact that it too should possess wealth, and of the fact that its sufferings are unnecessary, the proletarians are discontented, and a demand for communism has arisen and has already become a fact. This fact confronts us, we cannot make it disappear; when we become conscious of it we wish to act. This is why, in my opinion, the Russian revolution, as well as the radical communists in every country, will daily grow more powerful and numerous and more tightly organized. This is the natural result. This is the third argument.....

There is a further point pertaining to my doubts about anarchism. My argument pertains not merely to the impossibility of a society without power or organization. I should like to mention only the difficulties in the way of the establishment of such form of society and of its final attainment.... For all the reasons just stated, my present viewpoint on absolute liberalism, anarchism, and even democracy is that these things are fine in theory, but not feasible in practice....

Theme of Obama's Afghanistan Speech: End This War

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 20:52:00 +0000

In an address to the nation, President Obama announced a timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan. He said 10,000 U.S. troops will return home beginning next month, another 23,000 by the end of the summer next year, and the steady withdrawal of U.S. troops as Afghanistan gains control of its internal security by 2014.

In part the President said, "We have learned anew the profound cost of war – a cost that has been paid by the nearly 4,500 Americans who have given their lives in Iraq, and the over 1,500 who have done so in Afghanistan – men and women who will not live to enjoy the freedom that they defended. Thousands more have been wounded. Some have lost limbs on the field of battle, and others still battle the demons that have followed them home."

"Though we have known disagreement and division, we are bound together by the creed that is written into our founding documents, and a conviction that the United States of America is a country that can achieve whatever it sets out to accomplish. Now, let us finish the work at hand. Let us responsibly end these wars, and reclaim the American Dream that is at the center of our story," he said.

Senior administration officials earlier in the day explained the President's decision to accelerate the planned troop withdrawal timeline resulted from "a position of success" in Afghanistan. Goals for improving Afghan-controlled internal security, serious defeats of Al Qaeda leadership and forces, and the reduced influence of the Taliban in key areas, especially in the south of the country, have been met.

Eighteen months after a troop "surge" of more than 30,000 troops, successes in Afghanistan allow for implementing a timeline for withdrawal, they said. Afghanistan is no longer a "safe haven" for Al Qaeda, a fact that made it possible for that terrorist organization to launch attacks around the world just a few years ago, they said.

"We're not trying to make Afghanistan a perfect place," he said. "We're not trying to pacify the entire country of Afghanistan. We're not trying to engage in a military campaign that destroys every last vestige of the Taliban." The administration's goal all along has been to defeat Al Qaeda, prevent the country from becoming a safe haven for that group, and create a space in which an Afghan government would be viable.

"We're simply trying to support a government that can stand on its own and defend itself from extremist elements," he said. "And we're pursuing a political settlement that could potentially split the Taliban from Al Qaeda as well."

In addition, the administration says the international community has committed to boosting its support of security forces and resources to aid Afghanistan.

Senior administration officials explained that counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations succeeded in eliminating Al Qaeda fighter embedded in Taliban fighting units. Troop withdrawal won't negatively impact the success of these anti-terrorist efforts.

Afghan security forces number 100,000, and a training infrastructure now run by Afghans has been put in place, they pointed out.

The troop withdrawals announced by the President are only the initial numbers, a senior official added. Troop withdrawal will continue as the transition to Afghan control of the country's security needs is completed in 2014.

"We haven't seen a terrorist threat emanating from Afghanistan in the past seven or eight years," another senior administration official said.

Military successes have also been paired with political success, the officials said. He also cited joint operations with Pakistani intelligence as contributing to successes in defeating Al Qaeda's leadership, blocking the flow of "Al Qaeda-types" into the country, and near complete elimination of their training and other activities there.

"We've developed a very sophisticated blend of military and civilian tools to have had this affect," another official explained. Here the reference was to the policy of arming and paying local leaders to patrol and police their communities in order to prevent Taliban or Al Qaeda forces hostile to the U.S., NATO, or the Kabul government from gaining control or influence, a tactic put into place by Gen. Petraeus in Iraq.

"When we came into office, the situation in Afghanistan was deteriorating, in part because there had been a shift in focus in the previous several years to Iraq," one senior administration official said.

According to the senior administration officials, after Bush launched the invasion of Iraq and moved U.S. resources there, the Taliban and Al Qaeda increasingly took control of larger and larger areas of Afghanistan.

According to media reports, Bush repeatedly said that he was not very concerned about Al Qaeda's leader Osama bin Laden.

When President Obama took office, some 180,000 U.S. troops occupied Iraq and Afghanistan alone. Today that number stands at over 130,000, according to White House sources. After the drawdown scheduled for next summer, that number will be under 100,000 a senior administration official said.

President Obama responded to widespread anti-Iraq war sentiments which had called for a timeline for troop withdrawal from that country. In July 2010, the combat mission in Iraq was ended and final troop drawdowns will be finalized at the end of this year.

After the "surge" troops return home from Afghanistan next summer, draw downs will continue until 2014, though senior officials wouldn't' give a detailed schedule.

Most of the troops are expected to return to home bases in the U.S. and Europe.

"It is time to mark the fact that we substantially wound down the war in Iraq, removing 100,000 troops, going forward with our efforts to end the war there," a senior official said. "And now we're beginning to reduce our troops in Afghanistan and to pursue our plan to wind down this war."

He added that the administration remains "on the offensive" against Al Qaeda where it may appear in other parts of the world. Unlike the Bush administration, "we're not at war against a tactic; we're at war with a specific group of people," he said.

During the deliberations on the decision, senior officials said that the entire national security team in the White House, along with Afghanistan commander Gen. David Petraeus, agreed with the final decision.

The administration officials denied the influence of public opinion on the deliberations, despite increasingly negative attitudes in the American public about a continued role in Afghanistan. The latest public opinion polls show that more than half of Americans want to remove U.S. troops as quickly as possible.

Progress in Afghanistan on the goals laid out by the President as well as the costs to taxpayers are the main considerations, the senior official explained. "He is certainly aware that the American public, after nearly a decade of war, is focused on making sure that we are pursuing a responsible end to these wars."

"It's an important moment for him to say to the American people, we're winding down the war in Iraq. We've removed 100,000 troops there. We'll continue to remove our troops over the course of the year who remain in Iraq. And now we've peaked in Afghanistan, and are beginning to come down there as well."

Observers of the speech generally welcomed the announcement. Robert Borosage of Campaign for America's Future said, "We went into Afghanistan to track down those who launched the 9/11 attacks on America. With Osama bin Laden dead, and Al Qaeda smashed, that mission has been accomplished." He urged national attention on the economic crisis in the U.S.

A statement from the Center for American Progress described the announcement as a "step in the right direction" though one that could have been "more aggressive in terms of troop reduction." Overall, however, the statement endorsed the President's plan, noting the military and political successes.

On Twitter, comments varied. Former Clinton advisor Donna Brazile (@donnabrazile) praised the announcement and tweeted,

He was more definite about where the goalposts should be. I like the firmness of setting objectives -- even if we change dates, let's end it.

A @PeaceAction tweet urged supporters to:

send a message: Mr Prez, u have missed opportunity to end human & economic costs of war that demands diplo solution.

Senior Research Fellow at the American task Force on Palestine Hussein Ibish (@Ibishblog) tweeted,

Again, if you want the Afghan war to end, you MUST welcome this speech. Any other reaction would be incoherent, contrarian for own sake.

A @WinWithoutWar tweet read,

@WhiteHouse announcement means very little change through this and next fighting season. #JulyDrawdown

Republican critics of the President rejected the troop withdrawal. Channelling George W. Bush, Republican Presidential frontrunner Michele Bachman wrote in a statement: "I firmly believe that we are at a point where we've got to stay the course, and we've got to finish the job."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and former Republican presidential candidate who once said we could "muddle through" in Afghanistan and that capturing Osama bin Laden wasn't a major goal, also criticized the President for not staying the course.

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Cuban Society: Racial Equality for All

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 12:48:00 +0000

When international institutions like the United Nations affirms that Cuba is among the most advanced nations in the world in the fight against racism, it is recognition to our society that follows the thinking of Jose Marti when he said that “man” includes all races of a nation.

This does not mean that we are perfect. The Cuban revolutionary laws installed the concept of total equality among all its citizens, beyond the color of their skins, religious beliefs and origins. None of these percepts can become a reality if it is not incorporated into the minds and the notion of the people regarding their environment.

Cuba shows tremendous advances in the elimination of racism, but we cannot say that everything has been achieved.

Not only should legal work continue, but also the formation of the Cuban people’s convictions regarding the abolition of racism that has its origins in the societies nourished by exploitation and humiliation of one against others.

The truth is that the positive comments of the UN representative in Havana during the International Seminar: Cuba and the Peoples of African Descendants in America on the reality of the country in the fight against racial discrimination held in the Cuban capital shows how the island attempts to fully guarantee the key human rights of its citizens.

It is not only to proclaim equality, but make it happen effectively through the rights to jobs, education, social security, health and culture currently in the hands of the population without preferences and only with the condition that each with their efforts, work and construct their own future.

Several of the high ranking international officials told the press: “Cuba solved the main problems of discrimination and achieved incorporating African descendants into society.”

Other voices, meanwhile, point out the importance of the existence of a state policy on the island favoring all sectors of society, while the UN Population Fund stressed that “the country’s achievements is an example for the world and currently heads the list of Latin American nations in equality of opportunities for all its citizens.”

In comparison to Cuba, he added that in developed nations, discrimination and exclusion condemns millions of people of African descendants and other races that are included in the high unemployment figures, lack of education and marginalization and are victims of repression while living in a country that boasts in being the global champion in equality, justice and human rights.

Can Big Business Solve the Jobs Crisis?

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 11:27:00 +0000

Jobs and job creation, White House officials say, remain the top priority of the Obama administration. But with Republicans in Congress blocking new stimulus proposals and forcing discussions on budget cuts, the administration has turned to non-legislative economic measures, which seem mainly focused on encouraging private investment and improving the administration's relationship with corporate America.

To discuss recent job-creating initiatives, outgoing White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Austen Goolsbee talked with reporters by conference call June 20.

When asked if the administration agrees with economists and commentators who say creating jobs is more important than manufactured worries over the federal budget deficit, Goolsbee hemmed.

"That is a bit of an abstract question. It's a hypothetical, so I can't answer that directly," he said. "The number one goal on the President's mind in my experience for years not just now has been how do we get the country back to work and how do we get the economy growing. That is our most important priority."

"An important component of that is long run having the government live within its means," he added. "I think we will likely see substantial deficit reduction, but that should not take away from the number one priority, being that we must grow and add jobs."

Late last week, after meetings with business leaders as part of the White House Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, which is composed primarily of corporate CEOs, labor union leaders and academics, the Council advised the President to take steps to spur business investments.

Following the meeting, President Obama signed an executive order creating the SelectUSA initiative, which centralizes the federal government's promotional tools for foreign direct investment (FDI) in the Department of Commerce.

The program is designed to help foreign corporations planning to open businesses in the U.S. deal with red tape, to fulfill regulatory requirements quickly, and to gain access to the appropriate agencies needed to comply with local, state, and federal laws.

“SelectUSA," Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said, "will leverage existing resources of the federal government to ramp up promotion of the U.S. as a prime investment destination to create jobs at home and to keep jobs from going overseas."

In discussing the importance of FDI to the U.S. economy and the promotion of new job growth, Goolsbee noted that FDI grew 49 percent in 2010.

He cited the fact that the U.S. remains the "safest" place for foreign investors. The U.K. and France are tied for second in global FDI behind the U.S., which attracts three times as much investment as those two European powers.

The U.S. also outpaces emerging markets such as China, Russia and India in FDI dollars by five times or greater.

Goolsbee pointed to a trend in the U.S. economy that may have also played a role in making the U.S. an attractive place for FDI, which working-class people will find disturbing. Over the past four years, wage growth in the U.S. relative to other countries that attract FDI has been weaker.

"We've got the most productive workers in the world with the highest wages in the world," Goolsbee explained.

"That said, our competitiveness in the last two to four years has improved quite dramatically as productivity rose a lot in the U.S. relative to other countries, and the relative wage against many of these emerging markets has gone in the U.S.'s favor because those relatively poor countries their incomes have been rising," he added.

Goolsbee inflected his tone ominously when he announced the latter fact as if to say higher incomes are bad for merging economies.

Simply put, the large growth in FDI resulted from the fact that the U.S. economy is more productive but wages are not growing as quickly as in other countries.

Businesses who profit from FDI will be encouraged by falling living standards for working families.

FDI is an important part of the U.S. economy. Close to six million workers are employed by foreign-owned businesses worth some $3.1 trillion, the White House Council of Economic Advisers reported.

Media reports indicate that as whole corporations in the U.S. are holding some $9 trillion in capital that might be invested in job creation. According to insiders that cash is being held to create an impression of shareholder value.

Economic and political implications

To boil this down, corporate America appears poised to increase private investment only when they believe profits margins can return to previous levels. Part of achieving this, the evidence suggests, means reducing the living standards of working-class Americans.

Like the issues of taxes and the federal budget, this economic policy doesn't reflect a "shared sacrifice" of the economic stakeholders in this country.

A reasonable and responsible alternative to this low wages/high profits scenario is to enforce U.S. labor law to protect the rights of private and public sectors workers to join or organize labor unions in order to bargain collectively for their wages.

While President Obama includes support for labor in his agenda, guaranteeing the rights of workers is not on corporate America's radar – except to the extent they can undermine those rights.

Labor and its allies will undoubtedly continue to make collective bargaining rights and the rights of workers a key part of their electoral political action to ensure those rights do not get short shrift.

In addition to support for labor, since entering office, President Obama has won several major economic stimulus programs: the $800 billion economic recovery act, expanded small business tax credits for hiring new employees, a second bill that provided aid to states with budget difficulties, important renewals of the expanded unemployment benefits program, and the "auto bailout." In addition, the President on his own authority initiated two mortgage refinancing program, a program to buy out troubled small business loans, and a program to boost U.S. exports.

Even the President's staunchest supporters say all of this hasn't been enough, as unemployment remains over nine percent and other economic data points to a "double dip" recession.

Last week the Congressional Progressive Caucus, for example, launched a national tour to promote more direct public investment in job creation. The Caucus also rejected calls to slash federal spending, a move, they say, that will spur on a second recession.

The danger posed by an empowered Republican Party to working families has never been more apparent since it pushed disastrous policies successfully in places like Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan. The broadest, multi-class coalition of center and left forces will be needed to defeat their agenda on a national level. Labor's efforts to both build broader coalitions with social movements and its own political independence may be an effective way to enhance its own influence over the direction of the political balance of forces that must emerge in the event Democrats regain control of Congress and the President is reelected.

Photo by AFL-CIO/cc by 2.0/Flickr

Capitalism and Imperialism

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 10:26:00 +0000

Original source: People's Democracy

The anti-colonial struggle in the third world countries had brought together workers, peasants, agricultural labourers, artisans, middle class intellectuals, and even the national bourgeoisie into one camp, demanding decolonisation. This was a reflection of the fact that colonialism, or imperialism (if one uses the term in an inclusive sense to refer to all stages of metropolitan domination, and not in the strict sense of Lenin which refers to the stage of finance capital), oppressed all sections of the colonial economy, including even the national bourgeoisie which did not have adequate scope for capital accumulation. Put differently, the main contradiction in that situation was between “imperialism” and the “third world.”

Change in perception of imperialism

There was something more. Lenin had argued that imperialist exploitation enabled monopoly capital to “buy off” the trade union bureaucracy and a thin upper stratum of the working class in the metropolis, the so-called “workers’ aristocracy.” Post-war literature advanced an even more striking proposition: theories of “unequal exchange” for instance saw the entire working class in the advanced capitalist countries as being beneficiaries, though not necessarily conscious beneficiaries, of imperialist exploitation of the third world. As a result a picture of imperialism emerged where the entire third world, including its national bourgeoisie, was on one side, the side being exploited, while the entire advanced capitalist world, including its working class (though it was not necessarily a conscious participant), was on the other side, the side that did the exploiting. This was not a correct picture; but it was the picture of imperialism that came to be widely perceived.

Two very obvious changes in this picture have taken place in the neo-liberal era. On the one hand the workers in the advanced capitalist countries have seen, for almost four decades now, no increase in their absolute level of real wages; on the contrary there has been some decline in this level. On the other hand, the capitalists of many third world countries like India, the so-called “emerging market economies,” have flourished during this period, as the high rates of growth experienced in these economies have led to the accumulation of huge surpluses in their hands. The gaps inside the advanced capitalist countries, and inside the third world, have widened enormously. Hence the old picture of imperialism derived from the colonial period, which existed in the minds of many, and which posited two totalities, “the advanced capitalist world” and “the third world,” and an exploitative relationship between the two, has become palpably obsolete. This, not surprisingly, has given rise to a perception that imperialism itself has become obsolete in the new situation.

The third world bourgeoisie, which in an earlier era, was opposed to imperialism and actively supported the non-aligned movement after decolonization, has now, in the era of its new-found prosperity, little use for the term “imperialism.” And the same is true of several middle class intellectuals in the third world who benefit from the burgeoning surplus value in the hands of the capitalists. Metropolitan capital in any case always sought to bury the term, and to convert economics into a branch of apologetics, where there would be no room for the concept of imperialism. What is worse, many radical and Marxist intellectuals in the advanced capitalist countries, under the influence of arguments of the sort mentioned earlier, are now moving away from the concept of imperialism. As a result the concept has few takers now. The question naturally arises therefore: can we still talk of imperialism? It turns out, as we shall see, that not only can we and should we talk about imperialism, but that capitalism without imperialism is inconceivable. One important reason for it can be stated as follows.

Surrogate "world money" and its implications

Wealth-holders in a capitalist economy hold their wealth in a number of alternative forms: physical elements of capital, claims on others or debt instruments like bonds and equities, and money or claims on the banking system. Since not everybody would like to hold physical elements of capital, it is essential for the functioning of a capitalist system that there must be this alternative form of holding wealth in the form of money or monetary claims (like equities or bonds). But for these alternative forms to be meaningful, there must be some stability in the value of money in terms of commodities, or, what comes to the same thing, in the money values of commodities. And if we are looking at the world economy as a whole, where there are numerous different kinds of money, it is the money of only some particular nation (a leading nation), which typically constitutes this stable medium of holding wealth. (Money of other nations, in terms of which wealth is also held, plays this role of being a wealth-holding medium, only in so far as its value in terms of the money of the leading nation is expected on the whole to remain stable.) In today’s world the US dollar plays this role of being surrogate “world money,” the medium in terms of which a substantial part of the world’s wealth is held. It is essential for the entire system that the value of the US dollar in terms of commodities should not start declining rapidly.

How is this ensured? A whole complex set of arrangements is put in place to ensure this. The first element is the existence of a reserve army of labour within the leading capitalist economy itself, which ensures that its domestic money wages do not rise rapidly, or, preferably, do not rise at all. But the prices of commodities do not depend on the money wages alone. There are imported material inputs, like oil, a rise in whose prices can give rise to an overall increase in the price level and hence undermine the position of the leading currency of the capitalist world. And even if the existence of the domestic reserve army of labour prevents any autonomous “wage-push”, if there is a rise in the prices of imported means of subsistence which squeezes real wages in the leading capitalist economy, then that too would give rise to an increase in its domestic price level, undermining the stability of its currency. Hence it is essential that the prices of its imported means of production and subsistence should also remain stable.

There is an additional, rather ironical, factor here: any tendency for an initial rise in the price of an imported means of subsistence or mean of production, gets compounded many-fold, threatening the stability of the wealth-holding medium in the capitalist world, and hence the entire financial stability of the system, by the actions of financial speculators who are a part of this very system! The fact that economic agents belonging to this very system can act in a way which undermines the system itself is an irony of capitalism which arises because of its anarchic, unplanned character. It is rather like a tiny hole in a boat, which in itself should not threaten survival, causing the boat to capsize because of the panic-stricken behavior of its occupants. The system’s stability requires all the more therefore that there should be no such small holes in the first place, i.e. that any primary inflationary tendency should be pre-empted in the first place.

An obvious condition for this is the existence of reserve armies of labour in countries producing such imported means of production and subsistence, so that there is no autonomous wage push in those economies. But that is not enough. Not only should there be no autonomous wage push, but any autonomous increase, say in the profit margins in the metropolitan economies owing to an increase in the power of the monopolists, should not cause even a compensatory increase in wages in those economies from where means of subsistence and means of production are imported into the leading capitalist economy. In other words, the workers in such economies must be “price-takers,” which means that they must be located within massive labour reserves, reserves that are so large that there are neither autonomous nor compensatory wage increases. Hence the existence not only of domestic labour reserves but also of labour reserves, and that too in massive proportions, in such “feeder” economies, is a condition for the stability of the world capitalist system.

Crux of mechanics of imperialism

But even this is not enough. Even if all autonomous wage push everywhere is ruled out, even if all compensatory wage increase in response to autonomous profit-push is also ruled out, there will still remain the possibility of a threat to the stability of the wealth-holding medium, arising from shortages, or excess demand situations, with regard to critical means of production and means of subsistence. There are two obvious areas where such shortages may arise: the first relates to exhaustible resources, of which oil is the most significant example today. And the second relates to products of the tropical land mass which is fixed in supply, occupied by numerous peasants and petty producers, and already so intensively used that the scope for increasing output from it is limited. True, technological progress can raise land productivity and hence increase supplies from this fixed land mass. But this can happen only at a certain rate, and not just at will.

It is essential for the stability of the system therefore that oil supplies must be controlled to prevent any secular increase in their prices, and that products of the tropical land mass should be extracted from their existing uses to meet the requirements of the metropolis without any rise in their prices. This latter in turn requires that this extraction should take the form of compressing the incomes of the vast mass of petty producers and workers who live in these economies, and other economies that also use such products. Control over the oil-producing economies, and the imposition of “income deflation” upon the third world workers and petty producers are thus essential for the stability of the capitalist system. And these measures constitute the crux of the mechanics of imperialism.

The manner in which the metropolis has imposed these controls has varied over time. In the colonial period, income deflation was imposed through the colonial tax mechanism. Now it is imposed through a plethora of neo-liberal policies that squeeze the third world working people. Likewise in the colonial period when Britain was the leading capitalist economy, it controlled the supply of exhaustible resources like oil, by the simple device of acquiring de jure or de facto control over the producing economies. Now it is ensured through political influence, though direct colonial-style control is also tried, as in Iraq. But no matter what the form is, imperialism, in the sense of acquisition of control over the world in both a social and a spatial sense, is essential for capitalism. The identity of the leading country may change but the necessity for such control will not.

In the era of globalization, though the third world bourgeoisie may have got progressively more integrated with international finance capital, this still does not negate the need for world capitalism to have control over third world resources and products. The imposition of income deflation on third world working people is a necessary element of such control, which constitutes imperialism.

Labor Dents Appear in China’s Factory Armor

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 10:14:00 +0000

Original source: Caixin

Climbing wages and a diminished demographic dividend point to big changes for the manufacturing sector in China

As labor costs rise, China’s manufacturers are facing unprecedented challenges. Some are being forced to move to less expensive regions in the nation’s interior, others are shifting production to Southeast Asia, and some are shutting down.

Manufacturers may have been especially spooked by a report released May 5 by the U.S.-based Boston Consulting Group, which predicted a narrowing wage gap between the United States and China over the next five years. The report said the change will increase the number of Made in USA products appearing on U.S. store shelves at the expense of Made in China products.

Some wonder whether China’s labor-related challenges may threaten the country’s status as the world’s factory. Increasing numbers of manufacturers may relocate plants from China to India, Vietnam, Myanmar and Cambodia, countries that have been stepping up efforts to attract business and investment.

How much should China worry? Actually, the worrying is already over for some enterprises: They’ve closed shop.

An executive in the city of Jiaxing at Zhejiang Youbang Integrated Ceiling Co. Ltd., which makes integrated ceiling, said his firm is among the 90 percent of more than 500 local integrated ceiling enterprises that have managed to survive since wages started climbing last year. Others, though, have not.

“Since last year, there have been reports of enterprises collapsing, one after another,” the executive said. “About 10 percent went out of business.”

Taiwan’s Lovely Creation toy company operates two factories in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province. A company executive surnamed Chen told Caixin that her firm’s wages and raw material costs have increased more than 30 percent since last year.

Textile maker Shandong Feixian Dachang Co. Ltd. faces a similar challenge, according to the company’s regional manager Gao Yongjie. Higher wages contributed 30 percent of their products’ price rises.

‘Out of Control’

Demands for higher wages spread to Chen’s factories after a mid-2010 incident at a Foxconn electronics plant in Shenzhen, where labor unrest prompted the company to promise higher employee wages.

“The overall situation got out of control,” Chen said. “Workers kept on demanding wage hikes.”

Minimum wages have been rising as well. Almost every provincial government has increased its official minimum wage over the past year, with hikes averaging 20.6 percent during the first quarter 2011 in 13 provinces. And every minimum wage increase forces companies to pay more for worker social security.

The American Chamber of Commerce in China (AmCham) in April said in an annual report on U.S. businesses in China cited the challenges of rising labor costs and shortages. These issues have become a top priority for many companies, the report said.

Seventy-one percent of the executives interviewed by AmCham said wage hikes have had a negative impact or have resulted in major losses for their companies. Some enterprises with operations in southern China reported a more than 50 percent in increase in worker wages.

The report’s authors concluded that rising labor costs and worker turnover have weakened the capacity of China’s rapid economic development, as well as its competiveness on the global stage.

Meanwhile, Taiwanese and Hong Kong enterprises, which account for a relatively high proportion of foreign-based manufacturers in China, are increasingly looking toward Southeast Asia. Taiwan-based Foxconn International’s Chairman and CEO Samuel Chin said his firm may shift some plants inland and to northern provinces in China, as well as to new locations in India and Vietnam.

The World Bank has estimated that employers in China will have to pay an addition US$ 1.5 trillion between this year and 2015 in additional labor expenses. Rising wages are expected to raise labor costs as a percentage of the nation’s gross domestic product to 30 percent in 2015 from 15 percent today, it said.

The Chinese government’s economic roadmap for the next five years, outlined in the 12th Five-Year Plan, proposes synchronizing growth for personal incomes and the national economy. It also calls for more closely synchronizing worker compensation growth rates and labor productivity.

The AmCham report said China’s labor shortage is worse than in other parts of Asia in part because it affects the ranks of executives, project managers and skilled technical workers. Not only is this labor gap hindering existing businesses that want to expand in China, the report said, but it’s also making China less attractive to new investors.

Vanishing Dividend

Results from the latest census in China, released April 28 by the National Bureau of Statistics, confirmed forecasts about the nation’s population growth rate, which is declining, and overall aging, which is accelerating. These demographic factors will likely make a difference for manufacturers who in the past relied on China’s low-cost labor.

“Rising wages is not a short-term change, but rather a long-term one,” said AmCham President Christian Murck. “The root cause being the change in population structure.”

Between 2000 and 2010, the population growth rate has averaged 0.57 percent a year, down 0.5 from 1990-2000, census figures show. Experts have called this phenomenon a rapid decline.

Meanwhile, the average age in China is rising at an increasing rate. People who’ve reached age 60 and over accounted for 13.26 percent of the population last November, a 2.93 percent increase since 2000. And those 65 and older accounted for 8.87 percent, up 1.91 percent.

Ba Shusong, deputy director of the Development Research Center at the State Council’s Financial Research Institute, said the latest census figures confirm that China has passed the Lewis turning point, which describes the stage in the development of an emerging economy when labor shortages bring on inflation and slowing growth, and soon the demographic dividend window in China will close.

That dividend has given China an advantage over other countries as a manufacturing center and investment focus.

Harold Sirkin, a senior partner at BCG, expects China’s wages to grow at an annual rate of 17 percent through 2015, based on what’s expected to be appreciation of the yuan currency and comparatively higher labor productivity rates in the United States. That means net labor costs for China’s and America’s manufacturers will be on par by 2015.

“Over the next five years, businesses selling in the United States will reduce their investments in China,” Sirkin predicted. “And everyone will be seeing an increasingly greater number of Made in USA products.”

But that’s not the opinion of Shen Minggao, chief economist for Greater China at Citibank. Shen noted that in 2008 labor costs in China’s manufacturing industry were a mere 8 percent of those in the United States. So even if Chinese labor costs climb 15 percent a year, he said, it will take some time to reach America’s pay scales.

Shen also argued that, due to inadequate infrastructure and smaller market size, countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia cannot be expected to offer a new home for an entire industrial chain now housed in China. And if only part of an industrial chain relocates, various companies with links to the chain may face inconveniences and difficulties.

Productivity Factors

Many companies have found labor productivity rates in some Southeast Asian countries are not very high, Shen said, and that plants in these countries cannot meet rapid delivery and high quality requirements.

Shen thinks China’s manufacturing industry will retain plenty of strengths for some time. “An important reason is China’s strength as a large country,” he said. “Its industrial chain is extremely long, and it would be difficult for Southeast Asian countries to compete in this area.”

Stephen Green, a China economist at Standard Chartered Bank, noted that in addition to labor costs, companies site plants based on infrastructure, regulations, taxation, labor flexibility, and upstream and downstream industrial chains.

Green’s bank recently studied 80 companies that manufacture for export and found only six enterprises had moved from China to escape higher wages. He told Caixin that textile and shoe makers are among the most likely to consider moving to another country.

Meanwhile, many enterprises have chosen to move to inland provinces in China, away from traditional manufacturing bases along the east coast. Standard bank researchers found eight of nine Taiwanese enterprises based in the Shanghai area were considering shifting to production bases in other parts of China.

Many Wenzhou-based enterprises in Zhejiang have been willing to move operations inland, where land is less expensive and local governments offer preferential policies to attract business and investment, said Zhou Shikun, deputy director of the Wenzhou-based People Electrical Appliance Group’s Northwest office. He added that more finished goods are being sold in inland provinces as incomes rise, and that transportation systems are becoming more convenient in these regions.

Fudan University’s Professor Peng Xizhe, vice chairman of the China Population Association, thinks the shift of labor-intensive industries to inland provinces will provide more opportunities over the next five years. But later they may move to India and Vietnam.

AmCham’s Murck says some enterprises will find it difficult to move away, such as those that manufacture notebook computers, for which labor accounts for a very low percentage of overall costs.

The opportunity to tap China’s huge domestic consumer market is also expected to keep some manufacturers from drifting away, said Ting Lu, China economist of Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Another plus for Chinese manufacturing is that some companies are adapting to labor trends by turning toward automation. Imports of labor-saving machines and equipment have been increasing since the second half 2010, and China is now the No. 1 customer for machine tool equipment exported from Japan. Fixed asset investment in manufacturing rose to 35 percent from previous 30 percent.

Shen thinks raising labor productivity rates are of paramount importance to China, because unless productivity improves “enterprises will leave” China.

Shen estimated labor productivity in China’s manufacturing sector has risen by about 10 percent annually over the past decade. If an annual consumer price index growth rate of 4 percent is factored into the equation, he said, enterprises should be able to a nominal increase in labor costs of about 14 percent annually.

NAACP, GCPA Sue Georgia for Neglecting Low-Income Voter Registration

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 09:35:00 +0000

Original source: The Atlanta Progressive News

(APN) ATLANTA -- Advocacy groups filed a lawsuit on June 06, 2011 in federal court to force Georgia's state public assistance offices to comply with a section of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) that requires all public assistance offices to offer voter registration forms to people seeking public assistance.

The Georgia State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (Georgia NAACP) and the Georgia Coalition for the Peoples’ Agenda (GCPA) filed the suit.

The plaintiffs are represented by lawyers from the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Project Vote, Demos, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the NAACP, and the law firm Dechert LLP.

The Defendants are Georgia Secretary of State (SOS) Brian Kemp and Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Human Services (DHS) Clyde V. Reese III.

On January 25, 2011, citing clear evidence that low-income Georgia residents are being denied a legally-mandated opportunity to register to vote, these legal groups sent an official notice letter to SOS Kemp, on behalf of the Georgia NAACP, demanding Kemp immediately act to bring Georgia into compliance with the NVRA.

According to evidence cited in the January notice letter, the Georgia DHS has largely disregarded this law in recent years.

According to the Complaint, the number of Georgians registering to vote at public assistance offices has dropped dramatically since the NVRA first took effect in 1995.

During the 1995-1996 reporting period, DHS received more than 100,000 registration applications, but in 2010 the number of registrations had dropped to a mere 4,430.

By comparison, in 2009, Georgia, on average, received nearly 70,000 applications each month for just one of the public assistance programs (Food Stamps) covered by the NVRA’s voter registration requirements.

Field investigations conducted by the voting rights groups found that eight out of eleven DHS offices surveyed were not providing voter registration applications to their clients at all, and that voter registration at the other three offices also was not being conducted in compliance with the procedures mandated by the NVRA.

“The State of Georgia has been ignoring its responsibilities under the NVRA for too many years,” Nicole Zeitler, director of the Public Agency Voter Registration program at Project Vote, said in a statement.

“The result is that thousands of low-income Georgians have been denied the opportunity to register to vote,” Zeitler said.

“Georgia public officials must take seriously their legal responsibility to provide voter registration services to the State’s public assistance clients,” Bob Kengle, co-director of the Lawyers’ Committee’s Voting Rights Project, said.

“Congress required that public assistance offices serve as voter registration agencies to ensure that low income persons, who historically have been disenfranchised, are given a periodic opportunity to register to vote or update their existing voter registration,” Kengle said.

“When states violate the NVRA, they have the opportunity to take corrective action after receiving notice of the violation,” Allegra Chapman, counsel at Demos, said.

“We had hoped the Secretary’s office would want to remedy the violations quickly and efficiently. Because that has not happened, plaintiffs had no other choice but to sue to ensure that, going forward, low-income Georgia citizens receive the voter registration opportunities to which they’re entitled," Chapman said.

Section 7 of the NVRA requires all states' public assistance offices to provide clients with a voter registration application each time they apply for benefits, recertify, or fill out a change of address form.

The Complaint alleges Georgia has been largely ignoring this mandate for many years, and asks the court to enjoin Georgia to take all necessary action to bring about compliance with the NVRA, according to a copy obtained by Atlanta Progressive News.

This must include proper procedures for distributing voter registration applications, training of public assistance office personnel as to their voter registration responsibilities, and measures to track voter registration data and monitor compliance.

"DHS policy has specified that clients who once decline an offer to register to vote should never be offered registration again, which clearly violates the NVRA’s requirement that voter registration be offered with each application, recertification, and change of address," the plaintiffs' attorneys said in a press release.

"Georgia state law only requires that voter registration services be offered to persons completing transactions in person, despite the Department of Justice’s instruction that voter registration must be provided for remote transactions as well," the press release said.

The decline of poor people's voter registration applications during the first decade of 2000 seems to correlate with the rise of Republicans in power in the State of Georgia. It is not in Republican self-interest for the state's poor and disenfranchised people to vote because they generally vote Democratic.

“I’m disappointed that the groups behind this meritless lawsuit are more interested in grabbing headlines than increasing opportunities for Georgians to register to vote. Voter registration and participation among all Georgians has continuously increased as we have implemented numerous measures to strengthen election security," Secretary of State Brian Kemp said in a press release.

The NVRA, also known as The Motor Voter Act, was signed into law by US President Bill Clinton on May 20, 1993, and went into effect in 1995.

The legislation required state governments to allow for registration when a qualifying voter applied for or renewed their driver's license--hence the nickname Motor Voter--or applied for social services.

Initally, this act has had a significant impact on voter registration. For example, in the first quarter of 1995, two million new voters overall were registered nationwide. Georgia registered 180,000 voters overall in a three-month period, compared to 85,000 for the entire preceding year.

In the past several years, lawsuits filed by voting rights groups have forced other states that had been violating the NVRA to comply, with dramatic results.

For example, voter registration applications from Missouri public assistance agencies skyrocketed, from fewer than 8,000 a year to over 130,000 a year, following settlement of a suit in that state in 2008.

More than 200,000 low-income Ohioans have applied to register since a similar case was settled there at the end of 2009.

Settlements also recently have been reached in New Mexico and Indiana, and a similar lawsuit was filed in Louisiana in April of this year.

The US Justice Department of Justice also reached an agreement with Rhode Island on voter registration at public assistance and disability offices on March 18, 2011, according to a USDOJ press release obtained by APN.

“I am pleased that officials in Rhode Island worked cooperatively with the Justice Department to reach this agreement, which will ensure that all citizens who apply for public assistance or disability services in Rhode Island will be able to register to vote as easily and conveniently as possible,” Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said.

But Georgia is not taking the same cooperative approach as Rhode Island.

"Unfortunately, we must once again spend taxpayer dollars to defend against a baseless lawsuit. Georgians have my word that we will vigorously fight this and all attempts by organizations to discredit our voter registration and elections procedures,” Kemp said.

Complaints about discriminatory voting practices may be reported to the Voting Section of the USDOJ Civil Rights Division at 1-800-253-3931.

Russell, Mao and the Fate of China (Part Three)

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 09:29:00 +0000

Russell's chapter, "Present Forces and Tendencies in the Far East" (in The Problem of China) deals with the balance of power in this region in the 1920s and focuses on China, Japan, Russia and America. I will omit his comments on Japan here and concentrate on China's dealings with America and the influence of Russia. Russell points out that the interests of Britain are (leaving India to the side) basically the same as those of America – at least its ruling sector of finance capital and NOT "the pacifistic and agrarian tendencies of the Middle West."

At this time Russell thought that the two most important "moral forces" in the Far East were those emanating from Russia and America. He thought the Americans to be more idealistic than the jaded imperialists running the European capitalist states. However he thought that cynical imperialist views were an inevitability as a nation's power increased and the Americans would abandon their idealism.

We must keep this in mind, he warns us, "when we wish to estimate the desirability of extending the influence of the United States." Today we can see that Russell was right. The United States has evolved into the most cynical and ruthless imperial power in the world, encircling the globe with its garrisons and fleets, and subjecting whole nations and peoples to its bloody domination in search of power, wealth, and resources.

All this, however, was in the future. The benign United States that appeared to Russell was that of the Harding Administration and the Washington Naval Conference, presided over by Secretary of State Charles Evan Hughes. The conference was held from late 1921 to early 1922 and was the first disarmament conference in modern history. It was designed to reign in Japanese aggression in China, limit naval construction, and keep the Open Door Policy in place in China.

Russell thought America's policy at the conference was a liberal one, but only because the outcome of the conference was in line with American interests in the Far East. What Russell really believed was that "when American interests or prejudices are involved liberal and humanitarian principles have no weight whatever." Have we seen anything to contradict this assessment since the days of Warren Harding (or those of George Washington for that matter)?

If American plans for the future economic development of China should be successful Russell thought it would be disastrous for China. It would certainly be good for America and her allies, but would involve "a gradually increasing flow of wealth from China to the investing countries, the chief of which is America [the CPC appears to have reversed this flow]; the development of a sweated proletariat [still a problem]; the spread of Christianity [another great evil]; the substitution of American civilization for Chinese [not yet but McDonalds and KFC have secured beach heads];…. the gradual awakening of China to her exploitation by the foreigner [China was already awake when Russell wrote]; and one day, fifty or a hundred years hence [around 1972 or 2022], the massacre of every white man throughout the Celestial Empire at a signal from some vast secret society."

Well, the great awakening was already at hand when Russell wrote, he was just blind to it. China liberated itself in a little over 25 years, despite the best actions the US and its allies could do to prevent it, and no vast secret society sprang up to threaten every "white man." The Celestial Empire has become a People's Republic.

Well, Russell's vision of the future was off, but the definition he gave of what the West considers "good" government was spot on, even today: "it is a government that yields fat dividends for capitalists." This is still the game plan in the 21st century.

Russell now embarks on some ill founded speculations which, nevertheless, hint at a grain of truth. He predicts, for example "it is not likely that Bolshevism [as seen in Russia-tr] as a creed will make much progress in China." He gives the following three reasons: 1) China has a decentralized state tending towards feudalism whereas Bolshevism requires a centralized state. Russell doesn't seem to understand a successful socialist revolution would reverse this tendency.

2) China is more suitable for anarchism because the Chinese have a great sense of personal freedom and the Bolsheviks need to have (and do have) more control over individuals "than has ever been known before." This is strange. The Chinese had just emerged from an oriental despotism under the Manchus that had regulated everything including dress and hair styles for the population, and had no tradition of anything like "personal freedom" as had developed in Europe.

3) Bolshevism opposes "private trading" which is the "breath of life to all Chinese except the literati." But 90 percent of the Chinese at this time were basically illiterate peasants most of whom were under the control of a feudalistic landlord class. The Chinese masses had more in common with the Russian masses than Russell seemed to realize.

The greatest appeal of Bolshevism, Russell said, was to the youth of China who wanted to develop industry by skipping the stage of capitalist development. But Russia was now engaged in the New Economic Policy and Russell thought this signaled a slow return to capitalist methods which would disillusion the Chinese.

But, Russell said, the fact that as a creed Bolshevism [i.e., Marxism] would not hold any lasting appeal, Bolshevism "as a political force" had a great future. What he meant was that Bolshevik Russia would continue to play the Great Game in Asia and follow in the footsteps of Tsarist imperialism with Bolshevik imperialism since "the Russians have an instinct for colonization" [!!].

Here is where Russell becomes very confused in his analysis. He doesn't really define "imperialism." Marxists at this time defined it as the international policy of monopoly capitalism based on the control of the state by financial capital sometimes allied with industrial capital. In this sense Bolshevik imperialism was a contradiction in terms. As far as "the Russians," lumped together without any attempt at class analysis, having an "instinct" to become colonialists – such general statements are useless in trying to describe social reality.

Regardless, Russell thinks it would not be so bad for Russia to become hegemonic in Asia. The Russians could enter into more nearly equal relations with Asian peoples because their "character" [!!] is more "Asiatic" than that of the "English speaking-nations." English speaking nations would not be able to have the same understanding and ability "to enter into relations of equally" with these strange inscrutable Orientals. As a result an Asian Block of nations would arise as a defensive block and this would be good for world peace as well as "humanity."

Russell recommends that outside powers leave off meddling with the Chinese and attempting to impose their own values on them as the Chinese will, left to themselves, "find a solution suitable to their character" for their own political problems. This idea is of "national character" is quite unscientific and if Russell had understood what he read of Das Kapital and other Marxist writings and substituted some such phrase as "find a solution based on their own historical development and class relations" he would have made better sense. POC would have been better understood, in fact, if "national character" had been replaced by "historical development" whenever it occured along with a brief description of that development.

Russell goes on to predict what the future of China will most likely be. Marxists, as great predictors of the future themselves, especially its inevitable trends and outcomes, understand what a risky business this is and should have great sympathy for Russell's wrong headed prognosis.

Since the US emerged unscathed from World War I it had an excess of available capital to invest and would be the principal nation involved in China's future development. "As the financiers are the most splendid feature of the American civilization, China must be so governed as to enrich the financiers." The US will contribute greatly to building educational institutions in China so that Chinese intellectuals will end up serving the interests of the big Trusts just as American intellectuals do. As a result a conservative anti-radical reform system will be produced and touted as a great force for peace. But, Russell points out: "it is impossible to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear or peace and freedom out of capitalism."

The US will encourage the growth of a stable government, foster an increase in income to build up a market for American goods, discourage other powers besides themselves from meddling in China, and look askance upon all attempts of the Chinese to control their own economy, especially the nationalization of the mines and railroads, which Russell sees as a "form of State Socialism or what Lenin calls State Capitalism." The reference to Lenin is in respect to the New Economic Plan (NEP) in Russia.

The US would also keep lists of radical students and see to it that they would not get jobs, try to impose its puritan morality on the Chinese, and because Americans think their own country and way of life are "perfect" they will do great damage to what is best in Chinese culture in their attempts to make China as much as possible resemble what they call "God's own country."

As a result of all this a "Marxian class-war will break out" between Asia and the West. The Asian forces will be led by a socialist Russia and be fought for freedom from the imperialist powers and their exploitation. These views are very different from those Russell will be representing in his future Cold War phase.

Ever the pessimist, Russell sees this war as so destructive all around that probably "no civilization of any sort would survive it." When the actual war came is was very destructive, but it was a civil war between the bourgeois democratic capitalist powers and the authoritarian fascist capitalist powers into which the Russians were drawn against their will and from which the Chinese emerged as a free and independent people determined to build socialism.

Russell ends his chapter on a socialist note about the evils of the "present "(1920s) system of world wide capitalist domination. Russell's conclusion is almost a perfect description of the world we live in today. "The essential evil of the present system," he says, "as Socialists have pointed out over and over again, is production for profit instead of for use." American power may, for a while, impose peace, but never freedom for weak countries. "Only international Socialism can secure both; and owing to the stimulation of revolt by capitalist oppression, even peace alone can never be secure until international Socialism is established throughout the world."

Read part two here. Part four coming up.

Preparing for the Next Katrina

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 09:05:00 +0000

EarthTalk®
E - The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: Coastal areas here in the U.S. have taken a real beating in recent years due to natural disasters that many would argue are due to changing climate. What’s being done to safeguard these communities for when, say, the next Katrina hits? -- Helen Kelman, Troy, NY

Coastal regions in the U.S. are more popular—and more heavily populated—than ever. But even before the effects of global warming started to kick in, reports the non-profit World Resources Institute, more than half of the coastal ecosystems of the world—including the vast majority of America’s coastlines—were reeling from threats including habitat destruction, sewage outflows, industrial pollution and the impacts of non-native species introductions.

Recently, though, a string of unprecedented natural disasters, including hurricanes like Katrina and tsunamis like that which devastated Japan, has made many people re-think the wisdom of moving to the coast. And the federal government has begun to advocate that coastal communities adopt tougher building codes and zoning ordinances, but there is little public officials can do to deter people from being drawn in by the lure of the coast—even as ice caps melt, sea levels rise and storms brew fiercer and fiercer.

Critics say the federal government should be doing more to protect coastal areas which, besides being attractive to home buyers, are among the richest storehouses of biodiversity we have. But traditionally, such responsibilities have fallen to local and regional officials. In the case of New Orleans following 2005’s disastrous hurricane season, the Louisiana state legislature formed the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) to protect, conserve, restore and enhance coastal wetlands, barrier shorelines and reefs so as to protect the city from the impacts of future hurricanes. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is now working with Louisiana authorities to implement CPRA’s master plan. Of course, restoring wetlands and other natural buffers that have been decimated by a half century of development and overpopulation is no small task. It’s unfortunate that such plans only come to pass after a disaster of huge magnitude takes place, instead of beforehand.

In response to such concerns, green groups, consumer advocates, taxpayer associations, insurance companies and other organizations have come together as Americans for Smart Natural Catastrophe Policy (also known as SmarterSafer.org). Coalition members, which include the Sierra Club, Liberty Mutual Group, Americans for Tax Reform, the United Services Automobile Association and others, have aligned behind shared goals of restoring coastal wetlands and increasing protection for barrier islands while influencing local officials to make smarter decisions about where to allow development in light of the expected effects of climate change and other problems.

The coalition applauds the vision and work of CPRA in Louisiana, and would like to see such planning take place in other U.S. coastal regions as well. Furthermore, it is critical of the federal government for pumping funds into the National Flood Insurance Program, which it says only spreads the costs of natural disasters around instead of taking measures that would prevent damage in the first place. Such approaches, the coalition argues, “provide a perverse incentive to encourage development in risky coastal areas” and “expose taxpayers, including those who do not live in at-risk coastal areas, to significant financial costs.”

CONTACTS: CPRA, www.lacpra.org; Smartersafer.org, www.smartersafer.org.

EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E - The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe. Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.

Photo: Flooded area of northwest New Orleans and Metairie, Louisiana in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. (U.S. Coast Guard)

Podcast: Real Life Struggles Against Republican Bamboozles

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 16:02:00 +0000

On this episode, Latinos are an increasingly influential segment of the voting population. Social Security is under attack -- by its defenders. And a coalition of labor and community organizations in Ohio has apparently gathered enough signatures for a voter veto of the Republican authored anti-working families law known as SB 5.

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Balanced Budget Amendment Would Threaten Critical Programs and the Economy

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 13:33:00 +0000

Original source: Coalition on Human Needs

Under the guise of fiscal discipline, House and Senate Republicans are proposing a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. On June 15, the House Judiciary Committee passed a balanced budget amendment along party lines (H.J. Res. 1, with a vote of 20-12). In March, the Senate introduced a similar measure, S. J. Res. 10. The disastrous effect of these proposals – even more radical than when a balanced budget amendment (BBA) was last voted on in the mid-1990’s – would be to decimate programs that are part of our nation’s social contract. Virtually all programs like Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and other safety net programs would be dealt a severe blow. To achieve a balanced budget these programs would have to be cut even more deeply than in the House-passed budget. (See Human Needs Report from April 19.) Service cuts are made all the more extreme because the amendments would make it extremely difficult to raise revenues.

These ill-conceived proposals would require a balanced budget each year and additionally would cap spending at 18 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) unless two-thirds of the members vote to exceed that amount. Earlier BBAs in the 1990s did not impose a spending cap. Spending by the federal government now comprises 24-25 percent of GDP. By comparison, annual spending under President Reagan averaged 22 percent of GDP. Since then the baby boomers have started to retire, our nation is involved in two wars, there is a new and costly Department of Homeland Security, and the economy is struggling to recover from the deepest recession since the Great Depression. Both the House and Senate proposals would require a three-fifths supermajority vote to increase revenue, placing an intolerable burden on the spending side of the budget.

A BBA is problematic at any time and particularly onerous when the economy is weak. During economic downturns there is an increased need for spending for unemployment insurance, food stamps, Medicaid and other social programs at the same time that revenues tend to fall. Enforcing a BBA when the economy is weak by cutting programs would only exacerbate the problem, with more jobs lost and unemployment higher. (For further details see the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report “A Constitutional Balanced Budget Amendment Threatens Great Economic Damage.”)

Proponents of a BBA argue that since families and states must balance their budgets, so the federal government also ought to balance its budget. But the comparison is inaccurate. States balance their operating budget but may borrow money for capital projects like schools, roads and other infrastructure. They may also store up reserves when the economy is strong for when downturns occur. The proposed federal BBAs would not allow surpluses from prior years to be used to balance the current year budget and would not allow borrowing for capital projects. Families often borrow to pay for unforeseen expenses or for investments in a home or the education of their children.

H.J Res 1 currently has 133 cosponsors. Passage in the House requires the support of two-thirds (290 votes); final passage would also require a two-thirds vote in the Senate. Bill proponents have indicated that they will not bring the bill to the floor until later this summer when they hope to have garnered the votes to pass the bill. In a letter to House leadership, 103 members of the conservative Republican Study Committee have indicated that passing a BBA ought to be done in tandem with raising the ceiling on the debt, a vote that must occur by August 2 to avert financial disaster, according to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. House Democratic leaders doubt that the votes will be there to pass this version of a BBA. Republicans could bring forth a less radical version which does not include a cap on spending. The Senate has not yet scheduled a vote on their similarly extreme BBA proposal, which all 47 Republicans have cosponsored. While the path to passage of these versions of a BBA seems highly improbable, less stringent but still harmful versions could also be brought up for a vote. In 1997, a balanced budget amendment without a spending cap passed the House and came within one vote of passing the Senate.

Rethinking Nuclear Energy

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 12:10:00 +0000

EarthTalk®
E - The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: Radioactive rain recently fell in Massachusetts, likely due to Japan’s nuclear mess. Given the threats of radiation, wouldn’t it be madness now to continue with nuclear power? How can President Obama include nukes as part of a “clean energy” agenda?

-- Bill Mason, Hartford, CT

In the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan, countries around the world that were growing more bullish on nuclear power are now reconsidering their future energy investments. Germany has shut down seven of its oldest nuclear reactors and is conducting safety studies on the remaining facilities; those that don’t make the grade could be closed permanently. Meanwhile, in earthquake-prone Chile some 2,000 demonstrators marched through the capital to protest their government’s enthusiasm for nuclear power. And China, the world’s fastest growing nuclear energy developer, has suspended the approval process on 50 nuclear power plants already on the drawing board, and begun inspections on 13 existing plants.

But despite calls to shutter the U.S. nuclear program, President Obama remains committed to the industry despite his stated opposition to it pre-election. In December 2007, Obama told reporters at a campaign stop in Iowa: “Until we can make certain that nuclear power plants are safe...I don’t think that’s the best option,” adding that he was much more keen on solar, wind, biodiesel and other alternative fuels.

According to investigative journalist Karl Grossman, Obama changed his tune on nuclear as soon as he took office, “talking about ‘safe, clean nuclear power’ and push[ing] for multi-billion dollar taxpayer subsidies for the construction of new nuclear plants.” Right away, Grossman says, Obama brought in nuclear advocate Steven Chu as energy secretary, and two White House aides that had been “deeply involved with…the utility operating more nuclear power plants than any other in the U.S., Exelon.”

Undeterred by the Japanese nuclear disaster, Obama pledged just two weeks following the initial explosions at the Fukushima Dai-ichi facility that nuclear power should be revived in the U.S., as it provides “electricity without adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.” He added that he requested a comprehensive safety review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to ensure the safety of existing facilities. “We’ll incorporate those conclusions and lessons from Japan in designing and building the next generation of [nuclear] plants,” Obama added.

But just because nuclear energy isn’t a fossil fuel doesn’t make it green, given the ongoing risk of radioactivity. Also, reports the non-profit Beyond Nuclear, “Nuclear power is counterproductive to efforts to address climate change effectively and in time…funding diverted to new nuclear power plants deprives real climate change solutions, like solar, wind and geothermal energy, of essential resources.”

Indeed, if policymakers were able to divert the hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to the U.S. nuclear industry every year to solar, wind and geothermal developers, there is no telling how quickly we could innovate our way to sustainable non-polluting energy independence and put the specter of nuclear power that much further in our rearview mirror. But it looks like as long as Obama remains in office, nuclear will remain a big part of our near term energy future, damn the torpedoes.

CONTACTS: Karl Grossman, karlgrossman.blogspot.com; Nuclear Regulatory Commission, www.nrc.gov; Beyond Nuclear, www.beyondnuclear.org.

EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E - The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe. Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.

Photo by U.S. Department of Energy

Power Argument: The Need for Nuclear Energy

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 08:57:00 +0000

The television screen flashed with the horrific images coming from thousands of miles away. The massive tsunami in Japan had created a crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant. Stories were heard about radiation in the air and even in milk. The media is always sensational about these kinds of things, and seems to enjoy whipping people into a froth of panicky rage. If we step aside from the hyperbole and the news reports and really take an honest look at nuclear power, what will we really find? The answers we need come from rationality, not from fear. In spite of these recent events that has made the world more wary of the expansion of nuclear power, it is still a viable source of clean energy that should be utilized with the proper regulation and oversight.

From the very beginning, humans have relied upon fuel. The fuel source has changed over time, but the basic need for energy has not. From the earliest use of fire to warm and cook, to present day uses of nuclear power, the need for energy sources is quite apparent. Most of our energy comes from fossil fuels, finite resources that will be completely expended within a few decades at present rates.

Then of course there is the problem of climate change. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, a majority of greenhouse gas emissions comes from electric power production. We knew some time ago that we would eventually have to have sustainable energy sources. One source of electric power is nuclear power. The quest for more, cleaner energy takes us to the famous Albert Einstein. Most people know his equation stating the relationship between energy and mass. Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. This breakthrough by Einstein would be the idea that would lead to nuclear energy.

The online booklet “The History of Nuclear Energy” by the U.S. Department of Energy tells how the technology was developed, and provides a timeline of its progress. The discovery of nuclear energy changed the world forever. The world first saw what this new technology could do in 1945, when the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This instilled in the world a sense of the unprecedented power of nuclear technology.

Ever since it was created, nuclear power has been controversial. People wondered about what it would do to the environment, and the possible dangers to humans from such a powerful energy source. There seems to be a multitude of myths about nuclear power abounding these day. Many people argue that it nuclear power is inherently dangerous, and that it should be completely banned. The answers are there for us, if we take the time to look at them.

The word Chernobyl is almost synonymous with nuclear disaster. The reactor explosion in Chernobyl, Ukraine in 1986 was a horrible disaster The U.S.S.R. struggled to contain the contamination with little success. In the aftermath of the incident in 1986, there was widespread panic throughout Europe. The book Chernobyl: The Real Story relates how the sensationalism sometimes crossed the line into absurdity. “Daily Mirror newspaper in the United Kingdom, 30 April 1986. The main headline was ‘Please get me out mommy’ and the sub-headline was ‘Terror of trapped Britons as 2000 are feared dead in nuclear horror”. This kind of sensationalism certainly didn’t help the situation at all. The only major nuclear incident in the United States was Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania in 1979. The U.S. Nuclear regulatory Commission tells us that while frightening, TMI resulted in no deaths or injuries.

Cartoons, movies and television shows have helped contribute to the many myths that surround nuclear energy. When exposed to radiation the fictional character grows tentacles, or gains superpowers. In reality the effects of radiation sickness are nothing to laugh at. However, the chances that you will get radiation poisoning are minute, especially if you are living in Washington State that only has one nuclear power plant. Many anti-nuclear activists’ hearts are in the right place, they only want to protect and defend people from being harmed. The problem is that their fears are misplaced.

Nuclear energy is not the most dangerous energy source, and not by far. We can look at different sources of energy side by side, comparing their costs, both environmentally and in human lives. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, electric power accounted for a majority 41% of greenhouse gas emissions. If we are going to tackle climate change, certainly electric power production must be addressed. Coal is the most used fuel source in the world for electric power production. It is also one of the dirtiest, producing tons of pollutants and greenhouse gases.

While many would agree that nuclear power produces little in the way of emissions, some would argue that its benefits would be far outweighed by its detractions. In his article, David Krieger argued that nuclear power should be done away with. He stated ten different reasons why nuclear power should not be utilized. At first glance it would seem that Mr. Krieger is making an impassioned and well thought out argument, but it turns out that that is not the case at all. One could go through and counter his every argument one by one, but that would be too time consuming for the reader. He uses arguments about the supposed hubris of the industry, and of the complacency of regulators in the government. He rails against the government, saying that they do not regulate enough, or enforce standards to ensure public safety. He even states that Chernobyl and Fukushima should be “reminders” to get out of nuclear energy and into renewable energy based off of solar, wind and geothermal energy. He believes that humanity and nuclear power are not compatible, and cannot coexist. There are many organizations out there who would agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Krieger. No one doubts that they mean well. They want to protect the environment, and human life, and what could possibly be nobler than that enterprise. The problem is that things are not so cut and dried. The idea of nuclear power as danger to the environment and as a danger to humanity is largely wrong, especially when viewed alongside the statistics from the other sources of energy including fossil fuels like coal.

For all the fear and fuss surrounding the nuclear power debate, nuclear power is the safest energy alternative available these days. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), nuclear power is the safest energy source being mass produced today. It is safer than coal, safer than natural gas. In a news release from 2005, the WHO reported on new studies that examined the impact of the Chernobyl disaster. In spite of all the panic that surrounded that event, the results are actually surprising.

Here are some facts from that report. About 4000 children became ill with thyroid cancer as a result of the disaster. Since then the survival rate has been about 99%. Poverty and unhealthy lifestyles are more dangerous to the population than the radiation contamination. There has been no increase in infertility rates among workers and other people exposed to the whole body low level radiation doses.(WHO) They even point out in the article that one of the biggest problems is psychological, a fatalism that comes from living in the area, and all the bad things they have heard about it. If even the world’s worst nuclear disaster was not nearly as bad as everyone thought, then might it be time to take a closer look and examine the reality surrounding it, instead of the myths? If the objection to nuclear power is the safety, we have proven that it is statistically the safest energy source in mass use. We already know that nuclear power produces very little greenhouse gases. It would seem that the remaining objections to this form of energy production are ones based on stigma, and fear rather than reason.

In comparison to other sources of energy production, coal is by far the worst. It is also one of the most widely used fuels. While it is cheap and relatively plentiful, it is dirty, dangerous, and downright deadly. When we look at the whole picture of coal, how it is mined and how its use affects the climate, we can easily understand that a transition to nuclear power in place of coal is a good idea. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 150 people have died in the U.S. from injuries sustained in coal mining since 2003. In 2008, 2,130 million metric tons of CO2 was spewed into our atmosphere by the coal industry. Nuclear power is a cleaner, safer alternative to coal, and other fossil fuel energy sources.

Many different countries are already nuclear powers, not just in the military hardware sense, but also in the production of peaceful uses of nuclear power. France’s electric energy needs are met by nuclear power. In fact, nuclear power makes up about 80% of France’s power supply. In their response to John W. Farley's 'Our Last Chance to Save Humanity', the authors lay out the reasons why nuclear power is needed, and how the left’s opposition to it is misguided. The authors tell of how France has below half of the world average for greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, they have the view that France is a model country in this regard and that the world could also half its emissions if they followed France’s example. Obviously government oversight in that country seems to be working. Most of the radiation that we humans are exposed to is due to natural causes and sources of radiation that exist in nature.

Nuclear energy has the potential to make our lives a lot better. It can reduce pollution, reduce CO2 emissions, helping to slow the pace off global climate change and it can be a boon to jobs and the economy if handled correctly. In the many years that it has been around, nuclear power has been proven to be a very reliable source of energy.

The recent events in Japan have shaken the international community. The news reports coming out of Japan were unsettling to say the least. Even though the danger is mostly gone, and the plants in Fukushima Japan are not in the daily news anymore, people still have the jitters over it. Like kids afraid to ride the bicycle again after a nasty fall and a scraped knee, certain countries in the world have decided that that certain road is not for them. Ironically, these countries need it as much if not more than others. According to an article in the Tulsa World, most countries have not decided to abandon nuclear energy, and for good reason. Up and coming emerging economies like China need energy, and also have to grapple with trying to tie down greenhouse emissions at the same time. Germany has decided that it will phase out all nuclear power in the coming years, as a direct reaction to the events in Japan. Japan also may be limiting current and future nuclear energy. Most of the world however realizes that nuclear power is still a viable option, and indeed is needed in this age of global warming and uncertainty in the commodity markets.

For the problem of nuclear waste, the U.S. Government has a comprehensive system by which they dispose of nuclear waste. Studies are done to ascertain the suitability of a location for a nuclear waste disposal site, and much research is done to ensure that the environment is protected. In fact the volume of the waste is usually small, and easily disposed of in a specially designated are, where it will be surrounded by rocks. These rocks will shield the waste from human beings, and other animals. Low level waste would produce even less deaths than the high level waste produced. Those deaths that would result from these wastes would be negligible compared to the deaths caused by coal. (Cohen)

It seems that Germany’s reactionary response to the events in Japan might be harmful in the long run. Pawar Yogesh points out in the article in the Daily News that Germany is going to eliminate nuclear power in their country by 2021. According to the European Nuclear Society, nuclear power currently accounts for almost a quarter of electric power production. Germany is going to have to compensate in some very expensive ways to make up for the lost energy production. This could ripple across the economy and cause even more hardship than was necessary. What could possibly be the purpose of this exercise in overreaction? Why would events thousands of miles away prompt such a reaction from Germany? Why not use nuclear instead of the much more deadly coal that currently accounts for 43.5% of their energy consumption? (Power Generation, Germany) It seems as though if you put these same actions with any other situation, that it would be seen as absurd to the highest degree. When miners are trapped for a month in a mine due to a collapse, no country decides they are going to swear off coal, even though coal is the most dangerous form of energy production on the earth. No country decided that they were going to forswear oil and petroleum products after the gulf oil spill in 2010. Not a single one. It seems that the some in the world are letting themselves be overtaken with fear, instead of looking at things with reason, and formulation plans of action based on careful thought out reasoning and an objective look at the facts. Mass hysteria is no basis for energy policy.

Nuclear technology is unfathomably powerful. In the form of a bomb, it has the power to erase cities like it was a smudge of graphite on a piece of paper. On the other hand it has the power to give life. Powering hospitals and schools. Houses and theme parks lit up with the power of existence itself. Energy production is one of humanity’s biggest issues. The need for clean, renewable energy is a quest that has not yet been fulfilled. Time is running out to find the answers. I do not argue that nuclear power should be a permanent solution. It is not. It is not renewable. Yet it has the power and efficiency, with no CO2 emissions to maybe buy us a little more time to figure out better energy production. I hope that we as humanity can work together to build a brighter future.

Works Cited

Brian Lindquist, Walt McCarron, Robert D. Furber, and Sheldon C. Plotkin "On Nuclear Power/Response to John W. Farley's 'Our Last Chance to Save Humanity'.” Monthly Review 62.9 (2011): 54-57. Research Library Core, ProQuest. Web. 17 May. 2011.

"Coal Mining: Injuries, Illnesses, and Fatalities Fact Sheet." U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. U.S. Department of Labor, Apr. 2010. Web. 11 June 2011

Cohen, Bernard L. "Nuclear Power Risk." The University of Pittsburgh. Web. 10 June 2011.

"Power Generation, Germany." European Nuclear Society. Web. 11 June 2011.

Foster, Malcolm and Jahn, George. "Few nations retreat from nuclear energy.” Tulsa World 15 May 2011, ProQuest Newsstand, ProQuest. Web. 17 May. 2011.

Krieger, David. "Ten lessons from Chernobyl and Fukushima. " McClatchy - Tribune News Service 13 May 2011 ProQuest Newsstand, ProQuest. Web. 17 May.2011.

Mould, Richard F. Chernobyl: The Real Story 1st Ed. Oxford, England; New York: Pergamon Press, 1988. Print.

"NRC: Backgrounder on the Three Mile Island Accident." NRC: Home Page. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 15 Mar. 2011. Web. 11 June 2011.

"The History of Nuclear Energy." U.S. Department of Energy. U.S. Department of Energy, Unkown. Web. 28 May 2011.

“U.S. Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Energy Sources 2008 Flash Estimate." Energy Information Administration U.S. Department of Energy. U.S. Department of Energy, n.d. Web. 29 May 2011.

WHO/IAEA/UNDP. "Chernobyl: the true scale of the accident ." World Health Organization. N.p., 5 Sept. 2005. Web. 28 May 2011.

Yogesh, Pawar. "Now, German panel backs anti-Jaitapur movement." DNA : Daily News & Analysis 14 May 2011, ProQuest Newsstand, ProQuest. Web. 17 May.

Photo by Paul J. Everett/cc by 2.0/Flickr