Category: Sustainable World

The Coming (Ukrainian) Winter of Discontent

As the long hot  Ukrainian summer turns to autumn and winter, the euphoria by  Western Ukrainians of having thrown  off any servitude to  Russia will begin to recede…

The new Kiev government  signed  the IMF agreement so it could access a $17.1 billion bail-out package spread over 2 years. That money will be used to repay  international bank  debt, and will not reach  the Ukrainian population. And, as with all  IMF agreements  there are conditions… These include:

  • Achieving a self-sustained energy sector- ie cutting the subsidy  to  Ukrainian consumers and thus increasing prices significantly
  • Balancing budgets as soon as possible ( Kiev has to determine how to  do  that-likely by  increasing taxes and decreasing expenditure (note that  the  Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament)  has already   approved a temporary 1.5% increase in  taxes to  cover the costs of the war in the East).
  • Reduce corruption,  and “improve the business climate”, to  achieve high and sustainable growth. (note that  “improving the business climate” generally means  reducing subsidies to  consumers, tax incentives to businesses, opening up  Ukrainian businesses to foreign  ownership  etc etc..
  • Pension reform (ie pension cuts and raising  the age of entitlement) have been on  the agenda for a number of years now with  previous IMF agreements, but no  previous Kiev government has been   ‘brave’ enough to   battle the ferocious  activism by   unions and pensioners against  the  draft pension reductions.

This current government led by prime minister and  neocon  Arseniy Yatsenyuk has actively pushed  for a 50%  reduction in  pension from  $160  to  $80 per month for all  pension types along with  a 50% hike in  gas prices .

In just one example of the concessions to  banking solvency Ukrainian  citizens are having to make as of July 1st 2014,  the average cost of heating a standard fifty-square-meter apartment  has risen from about 200 hryvnia to 280 hryvnia (from $18 to $25) per month. It’s a significant hit, considering that the average monthly wage in Ukraine is only about 3,150 hryvnia ($275), more than half of which typically goes toward food, Sergei Kiselyov, an economist from the school of political analysis at the Kiev-Mogilyanskaya Academy, said.

While Yatsenyuk’s policies will  undoubtedly  reduce the influence of  the old Ukrainian oligarchs, the new “transparent ” systems will enable  US and European  companies  the opportunity to  purchase   failing Ukrainian businesses at  rock-bottom prices and in  a new “business-friendly” environment  where  worker exploitation can become the norm.

Yatsenuk (both as a Jew and because of his pro-U.S./pro EU and internationalist  business  policies)  is  anathema to  the Right Sektor and Svoboda parties. Both  right wing groups  are patiently waiting their moment. The  journey to  the Reichstag of their long dead German hero reminds them that patience  and a sense of impeccable timing  are crucial to their ultimately taking the reigns of power in Kiev and smashing any remaining Russian influence in Ukraine.

Ukrainians, Eastern  and Western, are well-educated  but particularly in  the West, have a high rate of poverty, and a long history  of well-deserved grievances against  Soviet Russia. President Putin  as an  ex Soviet KGB man, becomes an  easy  target  for that  anger.  As I noted in  the previous blog on MH17, Vera Graziade, a young British/Russian/Ukrainian says it all :  When you have one big bad figure, and everything is Putin’s fault, the world is simple and you don’t need to think anymore.

While the war in the East provides a very useful  patriotic focus for Western Ukrainians as they fight the evil “Russian terrorists”; that   jingoistic fervour will be hard to maintain unless  the “terrorists” are able  and willing to hit back  at Kiev on  Western Ukraine soil. It will become more and more evident to  Western Ukrainians that they have been conned by  all  the talk of ‘terrorism’ and Russian infiltrators.

While there are increasing numbers of   media reports of desertions from  the Ukraine Army ,and resistance to  further mobilisations, the extent and impact  of these is hard to judge at  this point.

The  callousness of the nazi-like references to  Russian speaking Ukrainians as sub-human and genetically inferior beings  (even President Poroshenko, who  formerly  enjoyed  very  good business relations with the Russians over the border,   has sunk  to   racial  inferiority references about   the people in the East) casts a long shadow over  any potential  for reconciliation between  East  and West  Ukraine.  The neo nazi  influences of the Svoboda Party and Right Sektor seem to have permeated  throughout the ruling cliques in Kiev.  In their view, the Colorado  Beetles (referencing the  black   and orange emblem of  St George so  revered by Russian speaking  Eastern Ukrainians),  must be stamped out underfoot by  the ‘pure race’ of Western Ukrainians .

The irony is that of course, most Ukrainians are of Slavic origin like most Russians, and  share more commonalities of culture than  they do  differences.  However their differences and grievances have been exploited by  outside influences; first  by  the Nazis, and later via  significant  Western intelligence operations in the West  during and after the cold war in order to  undermine Russian influence,  and latterly by  the  purely amoral  connivance of  neocon stormtroopers  like Victoria Nuland (US-Assistant Secretary of State) .

In the past decade we have also  seen the advent of the European Union seemingly help-bent on incorporating  any Russian “satellite” into the Union regardless of the cost to  central  EU states. Whether Ukraine will  be able to access the huge investment and underwriting from  the EU that  Poland has seen, remains to be seen; but in the current economic climate in the EU, that appears unlikely.

Certainly  EU investment and incorporation of European values and  a corruption-free state , is what many in Maidan Square demonstrated for: -along with the opportunity to migrate to  EU states for higher  wages!

It now appears increasingly unlikely in  the short to medium  term that  Ukraine could become an EU member,  particularly with  the anti- democratic  tendencies  entrenched in  Kiev via the Right Sektor and Svoboda Party, as demonstrated by  the   elimination of the Ukrainian Communist  Party.  Those anti-democratic tendencies will become more and more embedded and the  paramilitary influence of the Right Sektor more powerful,  the longer the war in the East continues.

In addition  the war is undoubtedly bleeding Ukraine dry economically. (hence the “temporary”  1.5% war  tax recently imposed by Kiev)

Eastern Ukrainian industrial  infrastructure , (although much of it  outdated Soviet style industry) has provided much income to  the state via predominantly  steel  exports to Russia . Business Insider notes that  exports to Russia accounted for nearly a quarter of Ukrainian external trade and contributed around 8 per cent of GDP before the war. Thirteen per cent of Ukraine’s iron and steel exports used to go to the neighbouring country. That income  resource  is now closed until  such  time as Kiev decides to  negotiate, rather than  impose its will  on Eastern Ukrainians.  While defeat  for the separatists is almost inevitable (given the balance of military  weight)  without real Russian support, victory  for Kiev needs to  come soon.  Kiev may have been banking that the destruction of the industrial   and commercial  infrastructure  in the East could  provide an opportunity for European/U.S.   re-investment, but this is unlikely in  the present international  economic climate.

While the separatists certainly are not  supported by  everyone in Eastern Ukraine  and there will be many in  the East  who  will  welcome victory  by Kiev, the level of anger and resentment towards Kiev for the death  and destruction, and the genuine  fear of  the phobic anti-Russian neo-nazis installed in  positions of state influence in Kiev, will   create a burning resentment  that will  likely erupt again  and again in violence , unless there are more intelligent politicians in power than those who hold sway in Kiev today.

The vicious anti-Russian  propaganda  of the Right Sektor and others in  Western Ukraine against   Russian-speaking Ukrainians is likely to have poisoned  potential  detente between the two   populations for a long time to  come.

As this bombastic jingoisim  begins to lose its appeal  to the majority of Western  Ukrainians,   the resentments and fears of  the previous decades of corruption,  violence and poverty  will  begin to re-surface, as  gas price hikes and pension cuts begin  to bite and  winter approaches. Undoubtedly this is the opportunity that the  Svoboda Party and the Right Sektor will have been waiting for…

Yatsenyuk and Poroshenko  knows this all  too  well- they  will be desperate to  “finish  the job” in Eastern Ukraine in the next  month; although paradoxically it would also be useful politically for those currently in  power in Kiev  to   not include Eastern Ukrainian voters in  the next  Rada parliamentary  elections scheduled for late September/October, as they  would skew the vote towards more  federalist  and less  neocon   perspectives .

One other issue to consider is the urgency of Kiev being able to fast-track   shale extraction in  the Dnieper-Donets basin  in Eastern Ukraine.  Curiously (!)   the first  assault by  the Kiev military  was at  Slayvansk,  the likely centre for shale oil  extraction in  the basin. War creates many possibilities for those who  are victorious….including of course  U. S.  Vice -President Jo Biden’s son , R Hunter Biden.

or see economist Michael Hudson’s take on this…


Maidan re-visited….

Postsript

Read this excellent piece of analysis of the Ukrainian  neo-nazi  movements in  Ukraine by Jonathan Marshall at Consortium News  here

Links

https://twitter.com/tristanmasat

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/28/ukraine-crisis-economy-east-idUSL6N0Q021220140728

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/06/516850.html

http://www.bruegel.org/publications/publication-detail/publication/843-ukraine-can-meaningful-reform-come-out-of-conflict/

America Started This Ukraine Crisis
http://www.williampfaff.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=690

Nazi Roots of Ukraine’s Conflict

Operation “Protective Edge”- The Never-Ending Nakba in Palestine

(note that this post  is  a short updated summary  of the issues previously outlined in other posts  on  this site)

Many articles in  mainstream media  regarding the current  violence in Gaza portray  the  conflict  as a Hamas terrorist vendetta against  Israel and Jews.
The reality is somewhat different.
Al jazeera notes as of 17th  July,  that  “of the 214 Palestinians killed so far in Operation Protective Edge, at least 67 were women and children and 11 were elderly, according to Ashraf al-Qedra, spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry. Over 1,500 have been injured, and Gaza hospitals have reported severe medical-supply shortages. (In contrast)the first Israeli death was reported Tuesday, after shrapnel from a rocket hit a civilian handing out food to soldiers near the Gaza border. The disproportionate  death  and casualty rate between the two  sides in  this conflict  clearly illustrates the overwhelming destructive power of the Israeli  military  machine against  this tiny  isolated ghettoised non-state. Israel, as the occupying force, has a UN mandated obligated to protect  those people’s whose lands   it  has  occupied.
As the history  books show, Israel  has pursued a  violent and illegal  process of the elimination of the ‘Palestinian problem’  since its brutal   occupation of Palestinian lands  in 1948, when  hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were  driven from  their houses and lands by  the Israeli  Army, in what Palestinians  call the ‘Nakba’ -the Catastrophe. That  process of occupation and removal  of people who  have lived in the area for thousands of years, is ongoing.  Operation ‘Protective Edge” is just  one more step  along the way  to  finally eliminating  those troublesome Arabs who  persist in trying to  subsist  in  the homeland of their forefathers.

Shrinking Palestine

Along with  that  occupation goes an ongoing  military ever-tightening noose around Gaza and the West  Bank,  which  has seen Gaza literally strangled by  Israeli occupation  forces into  a primitive society where sewage, water and health  systems are largely nonexistent.  Palestinian  children continue on a daily basis to  be arrested, tortured and thrown  in Israeli  jails for crimes such  as  stone throwing or protesting the occupation. Since the beginning of  2000, 1407 Palestinian  children alone  have been killed by  Israeli  forces.
And this ignores the many  thousands of adults tortured jailed and murdered in Israeli prisons for daring to  resist  the occupation.  And let us  not forget  all  the Palestinian  homes and orchards bulldozed by  armoured bulldozers to make way  for Israeli  “settlers”,  on  a daily basis.
Israel  is one of the largest and most well resourced militaries in  the world (fourth largest);  courtesy  of the United States, who  since 1948  has blindly  promoted and applauded each  atrocity committed by  the Israelis in  the face of overwhelming international  condemnation.
Certainly   no  violence can be supported from  either party in  this horrendous and savage  conflict,  but readers of this post  should not need to wonder why  Hamas is angry and violent in  response to  this  brutal  and seemingly never-ending tragedy.
The only way  forward  is a  one-state solution,  where fair  compensation for lives  and lands lost  is given to  those hundreds of thousands of Palestinians forcibly expelled from  their homeland;  and all the resident populations-whether Jew, Christian or Muslim, learn to create a peaceful  and sustainable future in a new and just  Palestine.
And lastly, lets look  at  who  supports this ongoing terror by the Israeli  war machine ( note an abstention means tacit support for the status quo  of more war).
Postscript:
Note the chilling banner  at  the end of Craig Murray’s blog here on the Gaza genocide
Israeli banner
The banner reads: “There are no innocents in Gaza“

Links

 

Netanyahu’s War-What  it is Good For
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/24893-netanyahus-war-what-it-is-good-for

Human Rights Watch, taking Israel’s side (again)
http://justworldnews.org/?p=3946

 The War on Gaza and the Cycle of Impunity
http://www.thenation.com/article/180683/war-gaza-and-cycle-impunity?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=email_nation&utm_campaign=Email%20Nation%20%28NEW%29%20-%20Headline%20Nation%20Feed%200717%2F2014&newsletter=email_nation#

Gaza News – “At least they wont breed”
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2014/07/july-16-gaza-news.html

Understanding the Gaza Tragedy
http://www.williampfaff.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=687


http://richardfalk.wordpress.com/2014/07/28/joint-declaration-by-international-law-experts-on-israels-gaza-offensive/

The Caliphate for the 21st Century

The video (below) of “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi” (another one of the fictional “nom-de-guerre”  names so beloved of Islamic jihad fighters),  shows a  hesitant  youngish  man  delivering in  Koranic verse style the announcement that  he (in all  modesty  appropriate  to a disciple of Mohammed)  is the new caliph of Iraq, Syria and Levant  that  all  must bow down  to.

As the Angry Arab says;  When you bill yourself as a caliph you inevitably raise expectations. And as the Arabic saying goes: ‘the mountain went into labor and gave birth to a mouse’. What a lousy performance. 

While these young psychopaths  have a certain predilection  for violent murder and ignorance, they are definitely not idolised by the vast  majority of Sunni  Muslems around the world.  The sectarian violence, mysoginism   and vengeance they  espouse,  fomented largely through  Wahhabi  funds from  Saudi Arabia and Qatar and with  “special  assistance” from  U.K. and U.S. “intelligence” over the years,  fools few on the Arab street. These young violent men  are simply tools of those who  wish for nothing better than all-out  mayhem, death  and environmental destruction in  middle eastern states that do  not sufficiently support a Western view of who  should control  the world’s resources.

Desperately seeking fame on Youtube, as they behead another  infidel of whatever religious persuasion, they  are like little children given dangerous toys to play  with by  the grownups.

Their “secret” cavalcade of many miles of brand new Toyota’s through  the deserts of Iraq from Syria to  capture key  Iraqi northern towns, was somehow never spotted by  Western spy  satellites. Make no mistake, these are the “moderates”  that  Western governments have been funding to overthrow  Assad’s Syria , and now Maliki’s Iraq, for the past five years. This is a deliberate plan by  Western governments to de-stabilise and overthrow any middle eastern government that  1) doesn’t support the ongoing Israeli  destruction of Palestine and Palestinians, and 2) doesn’t  support the right of the U.S.  to  basically do  anything it wishes to.

It would be amusing if it were not so  sad that these nasty  little psychopaths  in offices in London,  Paris  and Washington who  get others to do  their killing  and torture for them, believe that  this is the way  to a  brave new future;  a “New American  Century“.  Take the former  British  Chief of Defence Lord Richards’ brilliant proposal  to train  and equip  100,000  jihadists   to  take Damascus from  Syrian Government forces, with substantial  Western  air support- (read  collateral  air damage) on the pretext  that this would reduce civilian casualties in  in Syria! . Fittingly,  the great Lord Richards  was also once Nato commander in the  brutal  fiasco  that is  the fourth  Anglo  Afghan War and is now  a senior advisor  to  the  right wing  British  International Institute of Strategic Studies,  and which  strangely enough, supported the US invasion of Iraq and is now  very  anti the current Shi-ite based Maliki government in Iraq.

And of course let’s not forget  the $500 million dollars worth of armaments and training from President Obama and Congress that will  go only  to  the ‘moderate’ extremists in Syria fighting the Syrian  government forces.

Or perhaps note the leaked ( unverified but eminently plausible )  Rand Corporation document advising the Western Ukrainians how to destroy Eastern Ukraine- these guys in  their cosy  little offices in  the city are oh-so-ruthless in  getting others to   murder and torture and destroy on  their behalf ( but only of course where it benefits their bank  accounts).

Links

SYRIAN INTELLIGENCE CHIEF ATTENDS CT DIALOGUE WITH S/CT BENJAMIN
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/10DAMASCUS159_a.html#efmBraBr6BsHB6RB6UCDN

Is Our Number Already Up?

George Monbiot wrote  a recent  commentary  for the Guardian entitled “Its Simple. If We Cant Change our Economic System, our Number’s Up”.

In that  article Monbiot once again  traces human civilization’s inability to  look  at the reality of our circumstances;  our headlong  race to  “having our number called” because of the  inherent insanity of the  concept of “growth”  and “progress”  in  a  finite world system. It seems  extraordinary  for a  so-called “intelligent species” that  we globally refuse to  acknowledge the inevitable trajectory  of the “growth” strategy  almost every  human  being on the planet has subscribed to.

And not only are we fouling our own  back  doorstep  with  poisons,  the detritus  from our  consumption of  “things” and  the laying waste of the natural  world upon  which  we depend,  we are also  fouling the  world’s upper atmosphere with our “space junk”! We seem determined as humans to  destroy ourselves and all  the living beings we share this planet  with. In less than  a blink of an  evolutionary  eye, homo sapiens have largely destroyed the living fabric of this world.

The logic of this insanity should be absolutely  clear to  every  single human  being on  this planet, and yet  the argument that  ‘growth  and progress’ are anathema to our medium  to long term  survival,  is seen as heresy.   Look  around: the world we share with millions of other species on this planet, is rapidly turning into  a totally homo sapien centric world; where every  living and dead thing exists simply for our use and gratification.  We are rapidly closing down  this planet  as a living entity: – sealing over the soil  with   roads and buildings,  poisoning  the land with   chemicals,  burning pieces of it to spread into  the atmosphere at  colossal  rates, modifying the landscape to  meet  human  needs without regard to  the other species inhabiting  it, digging holes in  the ground so  we can  spread more detritus  over the surface of the planet, killing off innumerable  species to  feed our insatiable appetite-  the list  goes on  and on  and on….

What  are we growing into?-where are we “progressing” to? are we happier?, more contented?, more in tune with the world?,  kinder to our offspring and  other beings?. No;  we are more discontented, more avaricious, more grasping of things we do not have but which  mean  nothing,  and more determined to  destroy both other humans and the environment,  to   satisfy  our short-term greed.

How can  the supposedly so  well-connected  collectivity of humans on this planet have acquiesced to such  an insane model of living? Are humans so  blind that  they  can only see what is immediately before them and the immediate well-being and gratification  of their own species?    Humankind’s current 50 year strategy leads over a cliff.

What  does it take for there to be change?-and will  it be too  late?

We live in a  perpetual cycle of mutual self-justification of our crazy system which  creates a seemingly sane “bubble” of human world activity within  an insane and  dead-end construct. The self-perpetuating myths of  progress measured by  Gross Domestic Product (GDP)  are the  very  measures of change in  countries’ economic activity that  are driving  the world’s living things to  extinction.

Stead and Stead (p1) Joseph Campbell (1988) points out that these myths reflect the underlying  paradigms that guide the thoughts and actions of the people of a particular culture. Espousing society’s myths is a primary function of all of its institutions, be they political, religious, educational or economic. Campbell (1988) says that you can tell the dominant myth of a given society by examining the heights of its buildings. The multi-storey seats of economic activity that define the skylines of our cities today demonstrate that humankind’s most dominant current myth is economic wealth.”

In the  “Common Knowledge”  framework,  a paradigm shift of societal  knowledge can  occur with  the input of just  one new point of reference.
Our lives as social  beings are based on  shared certainties  of how the world works. Because those illusions are no  more real  than  any other “certainty”,  they  can  easily come crashing down, and a new set of “certainties ” or “truths” constructed. Game theory has also often been  used in  the area of economic assumption and speculation.

Every society clings to a myth by which it lives. Ours is the myth of economic growth. For the last five decades the pursuit of growth has been the single most important policy goal across the world. The global economy is almost five times the size it was half a century ago. If it continues to grow at the same rate, the economy will be 80 times that size by the year 2100.  This extraordinary ramping up of global economic activity has no historical precedent. It’s totally at odds with our scientific knowledge of the finite resource base and the fragile ecology we depend on for survival. And it has already been accompanied by the degradation of an estimated 60% of the world’s ecosystems.(from ‘Thinking the Unthinkable’, Tim Jackson)

And yet – despite the hype from corporates and governments, it will be relatively easy for most of us  to  change to  become part of a steady  state  economy. Within  a few decades we will have forgotten  the importance of having the latest  gadget, the  next holiday to  God-knows-where, or the latest fad or food. Small-scale organic farming provides a readily usable model to replace agri-business’ toxic produce, whilst producing   wonderful  benefits to  the world and our  fellow species. We will take our essential equipment for repair, instead of “recycling” to the landfill pit, we will accept as normal that everything we own does not have to be new and shiny, and rely more on local food resources and communities. Yes, the investment banks, multi-national corporations  and billionaires will disappear, but we will all then have the time to re-assess what it means to be human and happy and connected to our living world.

 

Links

http://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/88380/energy-economics-crash-course-chapter-19?utm_campaign=weekly_newsletter_150&utm_source=newsletter_2014-10-24&utm_medium=email_newsletter&utm_content=node_link_88380

Insecticides put World Food Supply at  Risk
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/24/insecticides-world-food-supplies-risk

http://www.steadandstead.com/articles/humankind_change.pdf
Can Humankind Change the Economic Myth?

Joseph  Campbell  and “The Power of Myth”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Myth

http://www.alternet.org/world/how-wealthy-elites-are-hijacking-democracy-all-over-world?akid=11866.1706.3h-bHN&rd=1&src=newsletter998135&t=21

http://www.mauldineconomics.com/outsidethebox/when-does-the-story-break

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/myth-of-perpetual-growth-is-killing-america-2012-06-12

http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Myth-of-Economic-Growth

http://citizenactionmonitor.wordpress.com/2010/06/19/is-humanity-inherently-unsustainable-pt-9-myth-of-perpetual-economic-growth-in-a-finite-world/

https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/84/thinking-unthinkable.html

http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-myth-of-immaterial-growth-and-infinite-happiness/2013/10/15

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jan/23/properity-without-growth-tim-jackson

The Steady State Economy
http://steadystate.org/act/sign-the-position/ 

The Opportunities of the People’s Republic of Donetsk

The People’s Republic of Donestk was formed in  7th  April  2014;  breaking away from  the  state of Ukraine after a very informal  referendum of its local population. The referendum  was largely caused by  the decisions of the  Kiev interim Government, after it deposed the former elected ( but like almost every other President of Ukraine since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 – extremely corrupt) president of Ukraine,  Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych  fled from  power as a result of the  Maidan protests and threats to his life,  led by  right wing extremists.

The interim  Ukrainian government’s decision to  effectively marginalise Russian speaking Ukrainians through  banning the Russian language and subsequently calling   anti-Maidan groups in  the East, “terrorists”,  led to  the formation of  pro-Russian paramilitary groups in  the East, in  the oblasts of Donestk  and  Luhansk. Their stated aim  was to preserve their Ukrainian/Russian identity against  the threats by neo-nazi  extremists  to  “purify” Ukraine, in  the new interim Kiev government;  largely from  within the Slovoda Party and Right Sektor paramilitary groups based in  the West  of Ukraine.

It is currently unclear what level of support the “self-proclaimed” (are not all  state entities initially “self-proclaimed”?) Donestk People’s Republic has with  the local  population, with some very problematic opinion polls run out of Kiev and  funded from  the U.S. which  state pro-Russian support at less than 40%. Facts on  the ground would seem to  suggest otherwise, especially since the  killing  of 39  people in the Trades Hall  centre in Odessa on May 2  2014, apparently  by   right wing football  hooligans from  the West.

It is also  problematic whether those currently running the administration of  the Donestk  PR have the best of the local  population at  heart, or are simply opportunists , ex-soldiers and thugs. In  addition there is always the tendency  with any revolution, especially when under pressure from the outside, to  respond in  more and more draconian and violent  ways towards its own population.  Are the  Donetsk  PR officials any less  rascist,  anti-Jew  and voracious than those in  Kiev?-time will  tell.

Notwithstanding those concerns,   the creation of this ‘people’s republic’ does present a unique opportunity for  a better state  not seen  for perhaps almost a  hundred years on  this planet. The opportunity to begin  afresh, untainted by  cronyism, the powers of the corporates, the drive for “progress” at  the expense of the planet. An opportunity for a  state entity  driven by  altrusim,  responsibility   for the vulnerable and a respect  for the environment. Impossible you say?- certainly improbable  when we look at our current rapacious “growth” (read;  money-for-the-rich and baubles for the poor) driven  state entities.

What we need then, is the development of state structures that  foster:

  • Community initiative and responsiveness-  local  town  “councils” where every  citizen has a voice and a right to be heard and responded to.
  • Central  and local  policies that  recognise that  “growth  for growth’s sake’  is nonsensical  and destroys both  our own living environment and the other  living things around us- ‘growth’  is the short term path  to death
  • Central  and local  initiatives that  encourage inter-connectivity between  people- eg local  community places within  walking distance for food and product  distribution, green  spaces,
  • Town planning which  “forces” people to  mingle together to  get  their work  done: eg  small  interconnected urban areas, green  spaces and  gardens
  • Local and central  state welfare systems that  all  citizens buy into  according to  their capacity to  pay  through  taxes, and all  are recompensed equitably in times of trouble
  • Principles and policies that  create respect  for the other living beings interacting with the human population.
  • Training for all age groups in  the art of mindfulness
  • An understanding that violence to others destroys oneself
  • an inalienable obstruction to  business interests influencing  state and local  political  decisions (i.e absolutely no  capacity for corporates to  finance  politicians)

It can (and must) be done. For the sake of all  of us on  this little blue ball.

______________________________________________________________________

Links

Egalitarian Perspectives on Sustainability – Robert Paehlke
http://www.eolss.net/sample-chapters/c13/E1-45-05-06.pdf

Great  Transition Initiative
http://greattransition.org/

The Commons as a Template for Transformation
http://greattransition.org/document/the-commons-as-a-template-for-transformation

Policies for Shareable Cities
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/39811237/Policies%20for%20Shareable%20Cities.pdf

On Citizenship  in the 21st Century-  Richard Falk
http://richardfalk.wordpress.com/2014/05/20/on-citizenship-in-the-21st-century/

Global Citizenship: Plausible Fears and Necessary Dreams 
http://greattransition.org/document/global-citizenship-plausible-fears-necessary-dreams

The Whimper…

T.S. Eliot’s famous poem, The Hollow Men, ends with the following lines…

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

A recent study,  led by   applied mathematician Safa Motesharrei of the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center and using   new statistical modelling methods, predicts that this  current civilization will likely collapse in  another twenty to  fifty years. The study   draws analogies with past human  civilizations;  the Assyrian, Roman, Mayan, Minoan,  the various  Chinese empires…. We can assume that  like us;  the populations of those civilizations had every reason to believe their civilization was unique and would last  forever. While civilisational  collapse is quite rare, characterised by  entire ways of life, systems of thought, cultural values and worldviews disappearing,  political  collapse occurs frequently ( eg empires and kingdoms disintegrating).  What  appears likely to  happen in our modern context,  given  the confluence of a number of catastrophic events, is civilisational  collapse.

While this particular study  has been  sharply critiqued by  journalists and  scientists  alike for its simplicity and generalisations ; the  broad conclusion that,  as Paul Simon aptly put it ,”everything put together falls apart” , is  a healthy  reminder of human hubris.

The single most important  story   unfolding in  not-so-slow-motion  on this planet  is the  ongoing  destruction of the natural  world  in  the name of “progress”  and “growth” (ie  consuming ever more “stuff”) by  humans;  ,  which  will  in the near  future,  significantly negatively impact  on this species. Despite our insistence to the contrary, humans are entirely reliant on other species for our survival.  It is a  given that is blindly ignored by  politicians, businesspeople and businesses  and all  those with  a current stake in  the way  our “civilization’  currently works ( ie all of us).

As key  resources become more expensive to  extract,  the world economy (which is apparently now the full extent of this ‘civilization’) begins to contract  and distort .  And as the gap  between rich and poor widens,  the “have-nots” increasingly demand in  more and more violent ways,  their right to  a slice of the pie. As the oceans and  atmospheric temperatures rise,  so  do the pressures on  our artificial nation-states. As we progressively and rapidly eliminate species after species to produce more things,  to make “progress”;  our chances of long term survival  as a species are being rapidly reduced.   Our civilization demands that  we assume that  we have an infinite volume  of resources to  consume for  the infinite future in  a closed planetary  system –  a small  contradiction in  terms!   We are indeed heading for the perfect  storm.

Study  after academic  study shows that the more we  gain from  a civilization’s  prosperity,  the more we are blind to its failings and contradictions and its  inevitable fall. This  tunnel vision says , that ‘if I am  doing well out of this catastrophe then it cant be a catastrophe at all!’

Homo  sapiens  pride themselves on their remarkable intelligence; their capacity to manipulate their environment for their own ends. They appear unable to grasp  that  that  self-definition process of  appropriating everything  good, intelligent and wonderful  to  human attributes,  is simply  the result of their blinded vision.  If by  definition, species that manipulate their environment  are determined to be superior to all other species;  then lo-and-behold!- homo sapiens are superior beings! Because homo sapiens are above all other traits,  social  beings,  all of us have an intensely strong need to  “fit in”,  to belong to the group. Agreeing with other people on ‘our’ group’s   thought processes and paradigms is an essential part of this togetherness. However, agreement does not  it make it truth.

Thus, it does not matter that the capacity to manipulate the environment for the benefit of our species and at  the expense of all other species on  this planet might not be quite such an intelligent thing to do, given that  the environmental devastation and species  destruction is largely for homo sapiens’ short term  pleasures, power  and baubles.

Were we to  say  that  a species that can  sustain itself  easily and efficiently without damaging its environment in  the process, were  more ‘worthy’ beings than other species ;  then homo sapiens would not be registering on  the short-list!

Over the millenia, homo sapiens have  been able to convince themselves  that  people of other cultures, or colour,  or background are inferior to one’s own culture because of this self-defining process.  Using the same intellectual process,  the more different another species is from ourselves, the  less worthy , less  intelligent, more expendable and worthy of our  exploitation and destruction that species becomes.   The more differentiated from our species the “other” is,  the easier it is to  dismiss its inherent traits and qualities and its right to life. However on our ever smaller blue planet,  we no  longer have the luxury to differentiate between  “them’  and ‘us”.

How much easier then is it  to dismiss the equality of other species with ourselves when their characteristics, strengths and skills are so different from homo sapiens, and when it  is so  much to our benefit to be able to kill  and exploit other species without moral qualms.

As Henry  Gee also points out succinctly in his Guardian  article , each  species’ particular traits or “strengths” are  based purely on, firstly, what  biological  mechanisms of sense are available to  them ,and secondly, how they use those senses to  that  species’ best  advantage. Homo sapiens  may not value our sense of smell  because its not a particularly efficient sensing mechanism in  homo sapiens, but you can bet  a dog does!

The capacity for self-delusion in our  species is immense. Witness the largely American  driven  anti- climate -change camp. Of course we cannot be  destroying our planet with C02 through  industrialization, because capitalism and owning the means of production   is the reason  for our being!  – after all, aren’t we, the US consumer, the greatest people on  earth because our nation is   the epitome of capitalism?

As another example of  collective self-deception, Seth Klarman, the manager of the $27billion hedge fund, the Baupost Group, recently  remarked on the similarities of the world’s banking system to the ‘Truman Show’, the late nineties Hollywood film, where the lead character  “lives a seemingly charmed world, snuggled comfortably into an American suburbia of white picket fences and crisply cut lawns. But gradually Truman starts to notice something is not quite right. He is actually trapped inside a film set controlled by hidden directors, and discovers to his horror that he is the unknowing star of the world’s most popular reality TV show.”  In one of the more blatant  nuances of reality shifting homo  sapiens have acquiesced to,  our  financial  system  is in  essence simply one of “smoke and mirrors” -the manipulation of facts and figures designed  to  obscure reason and reality;  a fragile house of cards.

The dreaded "black swan"!
                                  The dreaded “black swan”!

One key point of difference with previous human civilizations  around the world  is that  our current  civilization is a global one; each  of the parts are inextricably connected.  Apart from  a few small tribes in   isolated areas, every one of us has bought in to  this unique  method of environmental  destruction. Thus  when this civilization collapses -(and it is a “when” and not an “if” ), that collapse will be both  more  rapid and more global; there will not be another model of homo sapien civilization around for the  survivors to pin their hopes on. The other significant difference with other previous human civilizations is this current one’s geographical  reach.  Vast  areas of the planet have now  been laid waste in  the name of human progress.

So, while the modelling conducted by  Safa Motesharrei  may be flawed, it does provide an opportunity for  serious debate about the direction this global  civilisation of ours is taking us..

 

 

Links

Did Nasa fund ‘civilisation collapse’ study, or not?

The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC)

About that Popular Guardian Story on the Collapse of Industrial Civilization

Plotting the Downfall  of Society-Peter Turchin Book Review

A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation

Crisis of Civilisation 

So, after the IPCC report, which bit of the world are you prepared to lose? | GeorgeMonbiot

“The Government and the police have a duty to protect the public and our national security”- from truth

In the latest  absurdity upon  absurdity in this  fictitious “war  on  terror”, the UK Police have defended their actions in holding and interrogating for 9 hours  Glenn Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda on the grounds that Miranda was suspected of terrorism  because  he may  have been relaying truthful  information about  a wide range of Western governments’  illegal   spying on   its citizens.

As the headline above notes; the UK Police’s rationale for the infringement of Miranda’s rights,  was that they  “had a duty to  protect the public and our national  security ” (from  such unwarranted journalism).  With  both  the UK and US police forces being increasingly accused of both corrupt  and violent behaviour, it is little wonder the public  in  those countries feel  a sense of betrayal by  the state.  Who are their police and armed forces in  fact  protecting?

Certainly the deliberately manufactured farce of  muslim  terrorism ( funded with enthusiasm  by  the CIA, and various other “intelligence” western  agencies around the globe- not to mention our “allies”-  the Saudis), is providing an ever more thinly stretched excuse for heavy handed enforcement behaviours,  surveillance and the  erosion of civil  rights.

Who and what  is  it all for?

DublinBaysmallIt would appear that much of this deterioration in  rights and freedoms is simply to  improve the profits of those international  corporates ,  whether media, arms manufacturers ,  energy  companies telecommunications or security companies that  are able to buy the required  influence in  western  “democracies”.

As it becomes increasingly clear  that  we  are nearing the end of the free capitalistic lunch-with  the remainder of  the world’s  natural  resources  being rapidly frittered away for a few quick  bucks  – the corporate billionaires are rushing for the exits, and trampling us “little people” in  the stampede.

 

How our Fellow Animals make Primates of us all

Over the last 20 years there has been increasing scientific evidence of the reality that “animals” vary little from homo sapiens in terms of their capacity to feel, to have cognition and to be aware of their circumstances. That very ‘useful’  set of historical assumptions  of the lack of true ‘awareness’ of other species compared to  homo  sapiens, which has enabled those of us who  wish to kill  or hurt other species on  the grounds of their implicit inferiority to  humans, has now been fully discredited.

Tilly1
Tilly

It is therefore inevitable that, over the next few decades, a global ethical and moral shift to the full valuing of other sentient life on our little planet will occur. This will in turn translate into a massive reduction in meat eating by homo sapiens and the need for environments where other species are respected and protected. While this world-wide ethical  and moral  shift  and its translation  into  alternative action to  value other species as we would our own, may currently appear absurd to my dear readers, it is worthwhile to  consider how rapid the global moral  and ethical  shifts against issues such  as slavery or the rights of women have occurred in  the last  200 years.

It is therefore vital that  both  states and individuals  start to  explore both the implications of that shift in  attitude towards   species other than our own, and to  assist  in  driving that  change towards a better world for all of us who  inhabit this little blue world.

While the challenges to the economic environment  of those state entities whose economies are predominantly reliant  on the export of meat  are  undoubtedly immense if we are to  shift  to a  no-kill  economy;  the opportunities as a world leader in environmental  and species ethics  and practice are also  enormous.

The evidence for the greater efficiency and sustainability of a non-meat based agrarian economy is out there now; we can start to plan for this inevitable change or be sidelined by other more ethical and forward looking economies.  No-kill agricultural produce that is produced in a fully environmentally sustainable way, will be in huge and ever-increasing demand as the ethical  and moral  framework of our  species shifts its awareness in  the decades to come.

Given the indisputable evidence that other animals than homo sapiens have the same value and senses as ourselves, it is imperative that all laws regarding the management of animals ensure that no cruelty or suffering is permitted under government regulation.

In just one of many examples of research into  animal  behaviour that  explores the real  capacities of  other species,  the recent  Guardian article on the work  of Tetsuro Matsuzawa at  the Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University exposes how chimpanzees on  a number of cognitive fronts are superior to  homo sapiens .

It is important to  note that  all  research  by homo sapiens is naturally slanted to  place positive  attributes on  those skills that  are traditionally deemed “human”,  and to either ignore , minimise,  ridicule or even simply not observe those skills and attributes  of other species that  are less familiar to us or deemed by  humans to be not important or irrelevant. In addition,   our sensory range  as humans limits our capacity to  even understand at  a basic level ,  th edepth of  awareness of many other species.

One revealing comment by  Prof. Matsuzawa in  the Guardian article is his statement that “As humans evolved and acquired new skills – notably the ability to use language to communicate and collaborate – they lost others they once shared with their common simian ancestors. “Our ancestors may have also had photographic memories, but we lost that during evolution so that we could acquire new skills,” he says. “To get something, we had to lose something.”  As the supremely arrogant and species-centric organisms that humans are;  we have  glorified our  skills, while ignoring our sensory  and cognitive deficits in  comparison  to other species on the planet.

Perhaps our most unique  skill, is our capacity to   manipulate our environment  to  suit our own ends. It is likely to also be our, and the rest of the species on this planet’s , undoing.

Postscript

A recent article in  The Guardian entitled “The American lawyer seeking human rights for chimpanzees” examines with  some incredulity and implied mirth at  the idea-that  a US lawyer is campaigning for chimpanzees  to have the same legal rights as human beings.  The article references the NonHumanRights Project ;  one of the first  of many  human organisations devoted to  rights and equality for all sentient beings on this planet.

The Slaves of the World

A recent Guardian article about the lives of  migrant workers in  Qatar highlights the issues of forced labour and slavery in  middle eastern and some European countries.

As the Guardian article notes; Qatra has the highest ratio  of migrant workers to  the domestic population in the world; more than 90%.  Aidan McQaude of Anti-Slavery International has no hesitation in calling many of these migrants not just  forced labour, but true slaves;   people who  are treated as objects.

Craig Murray,  ex British ambassador to  Uzbekistan  and long time campaigner against   child labour/slavery in their cotton  fields, notes that  both the tolerance and the exploitation of slavery or cheap  labour inevitably goes right to  the top. In Uzbekistan’s case,  to its  torture loving  President Karimov and his daughter (who  are such good friends with Tony Blair!) .  Anti Slavery  International  describes the working conditions for children  in the cotton  fields thus:  Cotton production in Uzbekistan is a state orchestrated forced-labour system. The Government of Uzbekistan forces over a million children, teachers, public servants and private sector employees to pick cotton under appalling conditions each year. Those who refuse are expelled from school, fired from their jobs, and denied public benefits or worse. The Government harasses and detains citizens seeking to monitor the situation.

In  Qatar’s case, the official responses to  the accusations  of slavery  are so  far at odds with the reality on  the ground ,  that it would be very  surprising that  the government authorities and companies involved did not have full cognisance of the systemic  exploitation occurring.

Asia News notes that  the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)  highlighted “contradictions with Qatari law” that fail “to give workers any real rights or protection from slavery conditions.”

ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow said the visa sponsorship system in Qatar allows the exaction of forced labour. “Under Qatari law, employers have near total control over workers. They alone choose if a worker can change jobs, leave the country or stay in Qatar,” she said.

In 2012, the Labour Relations Department in Qatar’s Labour Ministry received 6,000 worker complaints. The top concerns facing workers included exploitation, delays in paying wages, violence and work-related safety issues and fatalities.

In one of those most malignant of ironies, Qatar is one of the richest  countries in  the world for its Qatari  citizenship  population of 300,000 (total  population of 1.9  million)

Similarly, across the border in  Saudi  Arabia, the Guardian  in January  2013, noted that  45 foreign maids faced beheading  by  the State executioner . The International  Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Committee of Experts on the Application of (Labour Rights) Conventions  noted in  2012 that in Saudi  Arabia the   vulnerable situation of migrant workers, particularly domestic workers who are excluded from the provisions of the Labour Code, who are often confronted with employment policies such as the visa “sponsorship” system and subjected to abusive employer practices such as the retention of passports, non-payment of wages, deprivation of liberty and physical and sexual abuse which cause their employment to be transformed into situations that could amount to forced labour.

The Himalayan Times in July 2012  stated that up  to  3,000   migrant workers  from Nepal alone  had died in Saudi  Arabia since  2000.

The GypsyHowever as Migrant Rights notes, the abuse of workers is not limited to Qatar or Saudi Arabia, abuse is epidemic and systemic  in  the middle east and beyond.

As I have noted in  a previous blog , “We are all Immigrants”,  none of us have any rights to  this piece of land we currently  plant our feet on. We are simply travelers, as were our ancestors before us. And to  be fully human ,  we must  welcome those new travelers amongst  us too. And yet we continue to  play  this foolish and deadly game of  “us’  and the “others”.

French  attitudes towards  the Roma are also  indicative of the mindless attitude of those in  power towards those who believe that  simply because they  and their ancestors happen to have lived in  a geographically bounded state territory  for some time, they  are entitled to certain  privileges, and those who  are recent comers are not. The brutal   and barbarous attitude by  many in Australia towards  the “boat people” from  Asian countries, is a supreme example of this  vicious mind-set.

The concept of “citizenship” is a useful mirage,  a fiction created by states to  marginalize some populations.

In  reality any person  who lives under the jurisdiction of a state geographic entity needs to be protected by  its laws;  whether they be  occupiers of the lands for many generations,  recent  migrants,  asylum seekers, or migrant workers.

As  As’ad AbuKhalil,  aka the Angry Arab states, it is the ignorance of racsim that  drives these  brutal policies and systems of exploitation and terror.

Sustainable Agriculture: It is possible

Over the years, there have been many discussions about the  potential to  create large-scale organic  farming enterprises to  replace the disastrous  impacts of chemical farming.

A lovely article by  Tom Philpott of Mother Jones outlines  one  attempt by  some US farmers to break  the  dead-end cycle of spraying,  tilling and loss of environment caused by commercial  farming, using no-plough methods and winter “cover crops”. While this method does not completely eliminate  the toxic impacts of spraying ;  it does go  a long way  to  develop  large-scale sustainable  farming practice.

Another “new” farming concept is  is the use of charcoal  in  soil.  Native american indians used Terra preta in pre-Columbian times to  create long term sustainable gardens in  environments where high  rainfall  leaching should have made sustainable agriculture impossible.

The ShortcutGiven  that  at  least  a third of commercially produced food is wasted, it would seen perfectly feasible to  create food sources closer to  food  consumers, allowing less wastage in  transit,  and better targeting of food production to  need.

We dont need the environmental  destruction that is touted as necessary  by  agribusiness to  create sustainable  global food production. We don’t need to  keep  killing our essential  insects   with  insecticides, spraying weedicides to  control  the plants we dont want,   constantly digging up  the soil to  destroy  its structure and life, and  destroying more and more natural  environments  and the plants and animals that live there, for short-term gain. We can live a  wonderful  sustainable and more joyful life through  living instead of buying.