Darrell G. Moen, Ph.D.

Thirteen Ways to Tax the Rich

DGM — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 01:32:26 +0000

Saturday 3 December 2011

by: Jack Rasmus, Truthout | News Analysis

The Occupy Wall Street movement has raised the slogan of “We are the 99 percent” and coined the catchphrase that articulates the standoff they’ve begun: “99 percent vs. the 1 percent.” So far, the idea of taxing the rich has only been stated in general terms.

In order for it to have impact, it must be further clarified, or else it will be misinterpreted by politicians pushing ideas which they will falsely claim would tax the rich - such as Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain’s phony 9-9-9 plan, or even Obama’s “millionaires’ tax.”

Here are 13 true, progressive tax-the-rich proposals:

1. Require Professional Investors to Bring Their Offshore Trillions Back to US Banks

About $4 trillion today is held in offshore tax havens by US investors, individuals and institutions in island nations such as Cayman Islands, Vanuatu, Seychelles, Isle of Man, Cyprus and others, and in more traditional havens such as Switzerland and Lichtenstein. The IRS has identified 27 of these, which it calls “special jurisdictions.”

If just $2 trillion of that $4 trillion being held offshore was required to be redeposited in US banks, those investors would have to pay the 35 percent, top-bracket personal income tax on that money the first year. This new requirement would raise about $700 billion.

Future earnings on the remainder would also be taxed in the second to fifth years, yielding another $200 billion a year. Anyone refusing to repatriate funds could receive a 10 percent penalty after 90 days, followed by additional similar penalties. Countries that refused to cooperate should have their US-based assets frozen and taxed until they comply.

2. Require US-Based Multinationals to Repatriate Funds Hoarded in Offshore Subsidiaries

Multinational corporations today are hoarding between $1 and $1.4 trillion in their offshore subsidiaries, thereby refusing to pay the required 35 percent corporate tax rate. If they were required to repatriate just the lower amount, $1 trillion, it would raise $350 billion in the first year and another $140 billion a year in each of the next four years. A 50 percent tariff could be imposed on re-imported products produced offshore by any company refusing to repatriate these funds.

3. Incentivize Domestic Investment and Job Creation for Corporations Sitting on Trillions in Cash

Large US corporations today are hoarding between $2 and $2.5 trillion in cash and refusing to invest it in the United States, instead preparing to buy back stock, increase dividends or acquire other companies. US companies refusing to create jobs by domestically investing, within six months, at least one third of their current $2 trillion cash hoard would be taxed at a 15 percent surtax rate for the remaining six months of the first fiscal year. This measure would raise another $300 billion in tax revenue for the first year. The tax would repeat for those not investing their cash hoard in the subsequent second year at the same rate.

4. Implement a Financial Transactions Tax on Stocks, Bonds and Derivatives

At least $150 to $200 billion a year would be raised by implementing a financial transactions tax as follows:

$1.00 per every common stock trade for stock value traded $10,000 or less.
Add $100.00 for stock trades valued $10,000 to $100,000.
One percent tax on all trades worth more than $100,000.
One dollar for every $1,000 value for all forms of corporate bond sales, both investment and junk-grade bonds.
A similar charge for commercial paper transactions.
$1 per $100 notional value for all interest rate, currency and other derivatives trades, levied on each of the counterparties.
1 percent tax of notional value for all credit default swaps derivatives trades.

5. Raise Capital Gains, Dividends Tax and Restore Estate Tax to 1980 Levels

This proposal raises taxes on capital gains and dividends from the current 15 percent to the 35 percent rate that is currently levied on all top-bracket personal incomes. It would also tax carrying interest at the same rate, and require all hedge fund managers to pay 35 percent, instead of their current 15 percent. Estate tax rates and thresholds would be restored to 1980 levels. These measures raise at least $125 billion in the first year, as well as an additional $125 billion per year for the next four years.

6. End the Bush-Era Tax Cuts

The Bush tax cuts passed between 2001 and 2004 cost approximately $2.9 trillion over the last decade. Extending the Bush tax cuts for another decade will cost another $2.2 to $2.7 trillion. These extensions in 2010-2011 alone cost the US budget about $270 billion a year. Immediately suspending the Bush tax cuts for 2012, the second year, will save $270 billion.

7. Restore Top Personal and Corporate Tax Rates to 1980 Levels

Proposal 5 addresses only capital gains, dividends and estate tax rates within the broader personal income tax. Proposal 6 addresses revenue savings for only one more year, 2012. Proposal 6 includes revenue potentially raised from raising the top marginal income tax rate or the top marginal corporate income tax rate back to 1980 levels of 50 percent. It does not include numerous tax credits, exemptions, subsidies and other tax loopholes for the wealthy and corporations.

Restoring the top marginal rates for the personal income tax in general and the corporate income tax to the 50 percent level in 1980, as well as raising capital gains and dividends to the 50 percent level would raise more than $100 billion more in tax revenue per year.

8. Stabilize State Revenues With a Business-to-Business 2 Percent Value-Added Tax (VAT

Consumers and households pay a significant sales tax to provide state government revenues. Businesses buying from other businesses should also pay an appropriate “business to business” sales tax on intermediate goods they buy from each other, just as households pay on final goods sales. The initial tax should be levied at half the consumer sales tax rate in the first year. After that, it should be scaled to an equal rate over a five-year period.

This business sales tax, a “value-added tax” only on intermediate goods sales, would in most cases fully stabilize state revenues.

9. De-Incentivize States’ “Race to the Bottom” With a Relocation Tax

This tax would prevent states from competing with each other in a “race to the bottom” to lure companies from each other, which has been increasingly undermining state revenues for more than a decade. It would be a federal level tax designed to offset any tax advantage to a company from moving from its current state to another state.

Should the company relocate nonetheless, the revenue from the tax is earmarked for spending on job creation and job retraining for workers negatively affected by the relocation.

10: Increase the Social Security Payroll Tax on Wages and Salaries (Earned Incomes)

Currently, less than 85 percent of all wage earners pay up to the current top annual limit of $106,800. This imbalance occurred because wage income at the top wage levels above $106,800 has risen faster than the Social Security base increase.

This proposal would raise the limit to $250,000 a year and indexes future limits to inflation to recover the remaining 15 percent of earned incomes (wages) not paying the Social Security tax above $106,800.

This approach is sometimes called “scrap the cap.” However, the full proposal here - “pay the same” - also calls for requiring an equivalent 6.7 percent tax on all capital incomes (dividends, interest, capital gains, rents) up to the $250,000.

“Pay the same” would not only stabilize current Social Security payments for the rest of the century, but would also create enough revenue to raise Social Security benefit payments by at least 20 percent above current levels.

11. Transform Social Security Into a True Social Insurance Tax

A 6.7 percent tax levied on all incomes (capital gains, dividends, interest, business rents, etcetera) up to $250,000 annually, and also indexed for inflation, would create an even larger Social Security surplus. It is called a “pay the same”: payroll equivalent tax.

This plan would transform Social Security from a “payroll tax” to a true social insurance tax. The tax revenue raised would amount to additional hundreds of billions of dollars a year and stabilize the Social Security trust funds for the rest of the 21st century while simultaneously providing a 20 percent raise in monthly Social Security benefit payments for the 48 million current and future retirees.

12. Increase Medicare’s 1.45 Percent Payroll Tax by 0.25 Percent

An initial 0.25 percent increase in the payroll tax - that’s a combined 0.5 percent for employee and employer - for the next ten years provides all necessary funding to stabilize the Medicare system for ten years. Starting the 11th year, 2022, another 0.25 percent each tax increase is necessary. Thereafter, the 77 million baby boomers begin to decline as a cost factor and the costs of Medicare level off and then decline. So, a total tax increase of 0.5 percent over 20 years for both worker and employer totally covers the Medicare cost shortfalls. Those who consider this mere 1.7 percent tax for the next ten years unacceptable should consider that the typical employer-insured health care plan costs the equivalent of 30-35 percent of a worker’s take-home pay today.

13. Tax the “Big-Four Parasite Industries”: Banks, Oil, Health Insurance and Big Pharma

There are four industries that are sucking the economic lifeblood from the US economy at the expense of not only their workers (the bottom 80 percent households), but also of millions of smaller businesses. These industries “suck” superprofits out of the economy, away from wages and other businesses income. They are the most powerful in terms of both economic and political influence. They are the banks, the oil companies, the health insurance companies and the big pharmaceutical companies.

The excess prices they charge have been rising at double digits now for decades, allowing the big four parasites to reap superprofits at the expense of everyone else. An excess-profits tax equivalent to a minimum 10 percent of the gross profits or net income of the companies in these industries should be levied on the biggest companies in these industries. Those excess profits should be returned to consumers and small businesses as offsets for health care costs, gas and electric utility costs, and mortgage interest in the form of credits on annual federal tax returns.

The preceding proposals to “Tax the Rich” are excerpted from the recent pamphlet by Jack Rasmus, “An Alternative Program for Economic Recovery,” recently produced for various Teamsters unions in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York. The longer pamphlet also includes proposals to restructure the banking and retirement systems in the United States, create 17 million jobs, save 11 million homeowners, and stabilize state and local government finances. For more information about the pamphlet, contact the author [4]. The pamphlet may also be ordered online [5].

The Global Super Rich Stash: Now $25 Trillion

DGM — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 01:05:58 +0000

By Sam Pizzigati

Another super-slick global financial analysis firm has just tallied how much net worth is sloshing around in the pockets of the world’s most spectacularly wealthy. So when will the time finally come to stop the counting — and start the taxing?

In today’s astoundingly unequal global economy, banks can go either of two routes — or both — to bag ever bigger returns. They can squeeze the 99 percent with nuisance fees and penalties. Or they can cater to the richest of the rich.

But both routes have bumps. The 99 percent can squeeze back, as they did earlier this month when Americans by the tens of thousands shut down their Bank of America accounts to protest the bank’s $5 debit card greed grab. And the richest of the rich? To cater to these fortunates, you have to first find them.

That can be difficult. Fortunately, financial industry consulting firms have stepped up to help. These firms have started publishing annual global wealth surveys that pinpoint where banks — and luxury retailers and anyone else who wants in on top 1 percent action — can find “high” and “ultra high” net-worth individuals.

Last week, a new global firm — the Singapore-based Wealth-X — entered the global wealth survey fray, joining a crowded field that already includes Capgemini and Merrill Lynch, the Boston Consulting Group, Credit Suisse, and Deloitte LLP.

Each of these firms has tried to carve out a unique market niche. The Wealth-X specialty? The world of the ultra rich, those individuals who can claim at least $30 million in net worth. And the researchers at Wealth-X haven’t just counted these ultras in their first annual global wealth census. They’ve tiered them.

For the entire world — and major nations — Wealth-X teases out subsets of the super rich, from the $30-to-$50 million set to the $1 billion and up. For the first time, thanks to Wealth-X, we can compare the barely ultra with the comfortably ultra and those super ultras who can make the comfortables seem pinched.

“Our report maps exactly where the biggest money is located,” Wealth-X CEO Mykolas Rambus boasted at a Geneva news conference last week, “and just how much there is.”

The Wealth-X research answers “how many” as well. The firm counts 185,795 individuals worldwide with at least $30 million net worth. These ultra high net-worth individuals — UHNWs — hold $25 trillion in combined wealth.

The global economy may be tottering, the new Wealth-X World Ultra Wealth Report 2011 goes on to inform us, but the “lifestyle habits of UHNW individuals have not been severely impacted.“

“Simply put,” the Wealth-X analyst team gushes, “the world’s wealthy elite are in a class of their own.”

In that class, Americans pack a bunch of the rows. Of the near 186,000 global ultra rich, 57,860 — 30 percent — carry U.S. passports. These American ultras hold a combined net worth of $7.6 trillion, an average of $131.4 million each.

That average masks a huge concentration of wealth at America’s summit. The 455 deep-pocketed Americans worth at least $1 billion hold half a trillion more in wealth than the 29,415 Americans in the Wealth-X $30-to-$50 million tier.

These numbers need a bit more context to have any real meaning, and we can take a stab at providing that context by glancing over at the “super committee” deficit-reductions deliberations now underway in Washington, D.C.

The 12 lawmakers on this congressional super committee — six Republicans and six Democrats — are trying to trim $1.2 trillion off federal red ink over the next ten years. On their chopping block: Medicare, Social Security, and assorted other programs essential to the well-being of America’s 99 percent.

The super committee reporting-out deadline comes next week. No one knows how much budget-cutting pain the panel will be recommending. But panel members could actually avoid all that pain — and raise over $1 trillion in new money for investing in America — simply by subjecting all U.S. individual net worth over $30 million to a modest wealth tax.

Our U.S. ultra wealthy, Wealth-X calculates, together hold almost $5.9 trillion over this $30 million threshold. An annual 5 percent wealth tax on this overage would raise over $293 billion a year, or $2.9 trillion over the next decade — more than double the $1.2 trillion the super committee is so desperately looking to find.

The most amazing part of this? America’s ultra rich could easily pay this 5 percent annual wealth tax for the next ten years and remain as rich as ever.

That’s because wealth begets wealth. All those trillions of dollars America’s ultras are currently holding don’t sit under some mattress. The ultra wealthy have those trillions invested in assets that generate short- and long-term returns.

If America’s ultras averaged returns on those investments not that far above 5 percent over the next ten years, they could pay the wealth tax and still end the decade with higher personal net worths than when the decade began.

Back in the 1990s, a public-spirited financial industry superstar — multimillionaire San Francisco money manager Claude Rosenberg — spent a sizeable chunk of his personal fortune campaigning to get a similar message across about the enormous wealth of the wealthy.

Rosenberg’s particular point: America’s fabulously rich could hike their annual contributions to charity by tenfold and still end up with higher personal fortunes. Rosenberg started a research group dedicated to sharing this message and the analysis behind it. He wrote a book and peppered the periodicals that rich people read with op-eds that detailed his group’s number crunching.

In the year 2000, Rosenberg’s researchers would document, households with $1 million or more in income could have given $128 billion more to charity than they actually did in fact give, without losing any net worth over the course of the year.

Claude Rosenberg died three years ago at age 80, his message to the super rich essentially totally ignored. The vast increase in charitable giving by the rich he had hoped to inspire never materialized.

The message to the rest of us from Rosenberg’s noble effort?

The excess wealth our ultra wealthy hold, if put to the public good, could change the trajectory of America’s future. The ultra wealthy don’t seem to be willing to do that putting on their own.

With a few tweaks of our tax code, we could do that putting for them.

This article was published at NationofChange at: http://www.nationofchange.org/global-super-rich-stash-now-25-trillion-1321201867. All rights are reserved.

Wal-Mart is Larger than Norway: Exposing the Myth of Capital Competition

DGM — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 00:58:07 +0000

By Christopher Petrella

Any epoch of capitalism allegedly premised on competition is visible only from the rearview mirror. It is a leftist truism that in the process of competition, capitalism destroys competition. Competition, therefore, is transformed into its opposite: monopoly. Capitalism no longer survives by enlarging competition, but rather through its reduction.

The supreme outcome of the contemporary globalization of monopoly capital has been an amplification of world exploitation, poverty rates, wealth disparities, and food insecurities. Since the mid-1970s the rate of world growth has stalled by nearly 70%. And one consequence of decelerating rates of growth has been a turn to financialization since about 1980 by giant firms unable to find sufficient high return investment outlets in production. Large corporations gradually began to rely on speculative investments made possible by highly leveraged assets and as a result have fomented financial crises of unfathomable proportions at a time when state systems everywhere are increasingly subject to the vagaries of the “market” and are forced to subsidize the failures of corporate capitalism through taxpayer sponsored “bailouts.” Leaders at national, regional, and municipal levels have begun to ameliorate the resulting fiscal crises by disinvesting in social services and creating more regressive tax systems, thereby intensifying the effective level of exploitation. Hence, the internationalization of monopoly capital, rather than contributing to the stabilization of global systems, is aggrandizing crises in both the scarcely indistinct private and public sectors.

Inequality, in all its repugnance, has become deeper and more entrenched. Today the richest 2% of adult individuals own more than half of global wealth, with the richest 1% accounting for 40% of total global assets. Although the gap in per capita income between the richest and poorest regions of the world fell from 15:1 to 13:1during the golden age of Keynesianism, it increased by 19:1 by 2002. And from 1970 to 2009 the per capita GDP of developing countries (excluding China) averaged a mere 6.3% of the per capita GDP of the G8 countries (the United States, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, and Russia).

The opening decade of the twenty-first century has seen surges of food crises, with hundreds of millions of people chronically food-deprived, in an era of rising food prices and widespread speculation. In a report released last week by The World Hunger Organization 17.2 million U.S. households were food insecure in 2010, the highest level on record, as the Great Recession continues to wreak havoc on families across the country. On a global scale, the World Bank reports that over half the global population lives on less than $2.50 per day and over 800 million people go hungry daily. And according to UNICEF nearly 8 million human beings died in 2010 because they were simply too poor to stay alive. Meanwhile, the U.N. reported in 2005 that the richest 500 people in the world earned more than the poorest 416 million. According to the same report the richest 350 people in the world own assets commensurable to more than 50% of the world’s population. And finally, according to a 1998 UN Development Report the wealthiest 15 people on the planet have assets that exceed the total annual income equal to the poorest 98% of those living on the African continent.

The transcendent irony of the internationalization of monopoly capital is that this entire thrust toward monopolistic multinational-corporate development has been justified at every turn by a neoliberal ideology rooted in the vaulted rhetoric of “free market” competition. Claims like these are specious to the point of logical cruelty.

For example, if Wal-Mart were a country— according to a June, 2011 Report issued by Business Insider— its revenues would exceed the GDP Norway, the 25th largest economy in the world. In less than three minutes Business Insider debunks the mythology of free-market ideologues: Yahoo is bigger than Mongolia, Visa is bigger than Zimbabwe, Nike is bigger than Paraguay, McDonalds is bigger than Latvia, Amazon.com is bigger than Kenya, Apple is bigger than Ecuador, Ford is bigger than Morocco, Bank of America is bigger than Vietnam, General Electric is bigger than New Zealand, Chevron is bigger than the Czech Republic, and Exxon- Mobil is bigger than Thailand. The monopolization of big business is endemic to capitalism. And the monopolization of capitalism produces corporatism. And corporatism bastardizes any prospect of establishing accessible and accountable democratic institutions and practices.

Take, for instance, the unrivaled monopolization of the U.S. financial sector. In 1990, the ten largest domestic financial institutions held only 10% of total financial assets. Today they own 70%. (Former U.S. Secretary of Labor asks “how else could we explain their apparent coordination on charging debit card fees?”) The largest five U.S. banks now hold $11 trillion in assets. Big banks ought to be partitioned (or destroyed). Perhaps we could learn from the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, a piece of legislation designed not only to encourage economic efficiency by reducing the market power of economic giants like railroads companies but also to thwart companies from becoming so large that their political power would undermine the democratic process.

The “capitalist” aspiration is ultimately one of irreducible self-annihilation. Corporate capitalists consecrate and condemn competition in the same breath and in so doing mistake mirrors for windows, growth for progress, and competition for contradiction.

This article was published at NationofChange at: http://www.nationofchange.org/wal-mart-larger-norway-exposing-myth-capital-competition-1322835390. All rights are reserved.

Catia TVe

DGM — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 09:58:45 +0000

Catia TVe: Community Television in Venezuela (2004: 36 minutes. Transcribed by Darrell Moen)

Unidentified woman: In Caracas, at the foot of Mt. Avila, the big mountain, inhabitants of the Barrio Simon Rodriguez, Las Barracas del Manicomio, founded by Maura, Marina Catalina, Luis, Jose, Socorro, Salumino, Victor, Pedro, Rosa and many others, today we say that we are visible, that we have a voice as legitimate citizens of this nation and inheritors of this earth. Those of us who live here announce the refounding of our barrio as a space of dignity, hope, peace, and future [for our children]. We who are today asserting our rights, we tell our history.

Blanca Edkhout (Fundadora de Catia TVe): The Casa de Cullura Simon Rodriguez in the barrio Simon Rodriguez, Lass Barracas del Manicomio, I think it was an experience similar to that of many other barrios. Over the years, the people of many communities in Venezuela were trying to break the circle around the popular neighborhoods the stigma that had been created by the media which meant that if you were living in a barrio you were associated with violence and delinquency instead of being associated with the work and the struggles that are the daily life of the barrio. The Casa de Cultura Simon Rodriquez had as one of its activities the Cineclub Manicomio.
The cineclub came from years of experience. In the 1970s, the Venezuelan Federation of Centers of Cinematographic Culture emerged mostly as a political initiative and also as a social work initiative. It was an initiative of the community itself. The cineclub involved the projection of films on any wall, on any corner of the barrio. This created a space for people to come together in large numbers and from there people would organize the next assembly, the next mobilization, while discussing and socializing.
Then there was a “jump”, and here I’m giving a very brief historical account, a moment in which there is a technological advance and also a change in the situation of the country. In the 1990s, during the city council of Aristobolo as mayor, there were some grants given to the barrios and thus a video camera came to Manicomio. From there, the fact that the projected image was no longer merely of some film that brings the community together but instead now we were the protagonists, we make visible each house, each inhabitant of the barrio, all the different social actors in the community [was a major change]. To see oneself as the protagonist of the images was an enormous advance for community organizing. And from there emerged the possibility of experiences not limited by the cineclub, the exchange of a film tape with another barrio and the ensuing conversation and discussion, of sharing experiences, but the chance to substitute images of ourselves on the TV monitor for the image of those who are denigrating us.

Ricardo Marquez (Presidente de Catia TVe) : In the year 1989, we took a space in the Barrio Simon Rodriquez del Manicomio. There we founded the Casa de Cultura Simon Rodriquez, but all the time were getting threats that we were going to get kicked out by the police and the authorities. So a companero said that we should start a cineclub because if we lost the space we could still carry out our work in the streets. That is how the Cineclub Manicomio was born. The FEVEC lends a 16mm projector, and though an agreement with the CONAC, we were able to buy a Hi-8 camera, one of the first that came out, a VHS, a microphone, and audiophone. From there we took off, documenting the activities in the barrio.
Wilfredo Vasquez: We are here [filming] in the Casa de la Cultura Simon Rodriquez to enjoy the baseball game of Caracas vs. Magallanes. Here in the stands, you have been invited. [Vasquez interviewing a young boy on the street]: We are here with Dilinyer who watches these games every day. Which team are you rooting for?

Dilinyer: Magallanes.
Vasquez: And why are you rooting for Magallanes?

Dilinyer: Because Caracas has sunk too low.
Vasquez: Listen to that! And you think Magallanes will win tonight?
Dilinyer: Yes.
Vasquez: What is the message you would like to say to all the Magallaneros?
Dilinyer: That they should win a lot [of games] and that we will beat Caracas [for the championship].

Vasquez: Well, this is the message from one of the kids of the Magallanes barrio.

Wilfredo Vasquez: This is the site for Casa de la Cultura Simon Rodriquez del Manicomio and la Pastora which the municipal government headed by mayor Antonio Ledesma has refused to finish. Even though a budget of 25 million was approved, he is attempting to take the money away from the project because sadly in this country culture and education do not represent votes for them. That’s why we make the call to you not to get manipulated by the big money guys who will come to the barrio in this election year to manipulate you. Vote, but vote conscientiously!

Blanca Edkhout (Fundadora de Catia TVe): I think the year 1998 was fundamental for the meeting that happened with the companeros from TVC Rubio to share the experiences of 23 de enero, Manicomio, Barquisimeto, everywhere, and to learn that it’s possible to build a transmitter with that technology like the comrades of TVC Rubio did so the images that are produced in the barrio and cineclub can be transmitted through a radio-electrical signal.

Unidentified interviewer: Do you think it’s advantageous that Manicomio is situated in high ground in the west of Caracas?
Unidentified studio technician: Of course. Remember that in the signal transmission part, the part I work in, the higher you can put the antenna and the higher your position, to see the coverage you are going to have and see it with your own eyes, you are guaranteed that the signal will reach there. It doesn’t matter if you are working with low power because that has to do with transmission power, the antenna will compensate so it can reach the interested parties. As you know, the VHF, the channels for 2 to 13 on TV, are already occupied by the national coverage associations, the major broadcast networks. The only small opportunity possible [for local broadcasts] is the channels of UHF, but remember that there are people already there in the area of Caracas. So the stations that want to start setting up must do it now, because you guys will be the pioneers here in Caracas. The situation with Conatel has been, let’s say, difficult. The only thing we have accomplished is getting the first permit for the FM station of Michelana which is in position number 1. We have estimated that we are in position number 3 and 4. We haven’t won the war but have won a battle. Well, here is the TV transmitter, a simple power unit, the amplification unit, the controls, the inputs, and the power supply.

Blanca Edkhout (Fundadora de Catia TVe): In the year 1999, the doors open, there are extraordinary changes because the constitutive assembly also allows, not only that the encounter among diverse community initiatives is possible and the political environment permits discussion, but also it establishes and legalizes community media as a right and that the state must not only permit but stimulate the creation of these spaces of communication for the people.

Ricardo Marquez (Presidente de Catia TVe): The Catia TVe project has been born from a lot of effort and has taken its strength from the power of the people and the process [of gaining power]. And there is an event in particular which I would like to bring up, and this is the first meeting we had with President Chavez. This happened in July of 2000.

Blanca Edkhout (Fundadora de Catia TVe): We were in the midst of a crowd of journalists and there is an interview in which we request a greeting to Catia. The President, with his characteristic wisdom, with his immediate identification with the people and their endeavors was moved by the idea of the community station. He declared this immediately and he made a connection. I think this is fundamental because it shows that the fight is listened to and accompanied by its leader.

Ricardo Marquez (Presidente de Catia TVe): And in that meeting attended by Monica Gil, Leafar Guevara, Wilfredo Vasquez, Blanca Eekhout, we made a makeshift microphone in the middle of the night with tape and cardboard with a sign reading “Community Television of the West”. We met with President Chavez and he became enthusiastic about the idea. He said he wanted to give us support. At that moment, a military official showed up, an undersecretary of state who received orders [from President Chavez] to provide us with full support. This in the end did not really materialize, which was very hard. I kept going to Conatel to try and get our permits, but I would not be heard at that time and I was not taken seriously.

Wilfredo Vasquez [being interviewed]: I think that the time has come for this type of [community] media. It is the moment for a media to not censor. It is time to tell this country the truth. This project, Linterna Majica, an alternative media project that intends to broadcast to [the communities of] La Pastora, to parts of Junquito, to parroquia Sucre, and 23 de Enero, it is important not only to develop this project but to help it spread to many parts of the country in order to transmit information that is truthful and accurate.

President Hugo Chavez [being interviewed]: I bring a very Bolivarian greeting to all the people of Catia.

Blanca Edkhout (Fundadora de Catia TVe): Mr. President, what do you think about community broadcast stations, which is what we are developing, about the social appropriation of the means of communication?

President Hugo Chavez: Well, this is marvelous and you deserve to be congratulated because you have leapt forward in the struggle, the vanguard of the struggle that will now happen with much greater force because as you know, tomorrow I will sign into effect the new legislation on telecommunications. This law establishes, through a very precise articulation, that communities have the right to create and manage communal media. Keep going, forge ahead, and congratulations! Now, when do you broadcast and from where?

Blanca Edkhout (Fundadora de Catia TVe): We will begin TV broadcasts a month from today, but for now we are producing radio and coordinating with communities.
President Hugo Chavez: And where do you have your station?

Blanca Edkhout (Fundadora de Catia TVe): We are presently in the Lidice Hospital. We are with Linterna Majica.
President Hugo Chavez: The idea is that Bolivarian schools with function this way too. We’re moving slowly in the direction – to enable the children themselves to make programs, to record the contents, do the interviews, and otherwise participate. That is wonderful. That is the democracy we want – the democracy of the people. Thank you [for your efforts].
So, where is Rangle Gomez, did he not come? Andrade, you are Vice Minister. This is Vice Minister Andrade, he was a captain [in the military], a Revolutionary Lieutenant, but he is now Vice Minister. I want to help them [talking to Vice Minister Andrade] because I can imagine how many difficulties they have gone through. They are with a community television station and I want you to go see them and find out in what manner we can help them. I also see this as a model that we can show to the people all over the country, in Guasdualito, San Fernando, Della Amacuro, so that
people can begin to learn how beautiful it is to participate. Don’t you think so? You can be a national promoter [of community media]. I leave you in this young man’s hands [Vice Minister Andrade]; he is extraordinary.

Blanca Edkhout (Fundadora de Catia TVe): Your thoughts on the social appropriation of the communications media?

Unidentified person being interviewed: I think it is very appropriate. It is not healthy that public communications remain trapped by only one social interest. It is absolutely indispensable that social participation should be expressed through independent media as well, that it be expressed in its social intention, in its social function. For this reason, if there is something that will make this law endure, it will be precisely these reasons.

Blanca Edkhout (Fundadora de Catia TVe): Your opinion on this law that provides for communities to have access to the means of communication?
Unidentified person being interviewed: I think an important element of this law is that it does not only look at the economics of the question. With this law, we will intensify the plans for citizen participation. Community radio and TV stations have lower wattage because they are intended to serve the local communities, which will help to increase the plural participation of organized communities in the generation of information. I think this is a great step forward for civil society. This organic [communications] law is being established as a medium for organized society to express its interests.

Ricardo Marquez (Presidente de Catia TVe): When our companera Blanca Eekhout attended the Culture Prize events at Miraflores [the President’s Official Residence], she was finally able to talk to the president and to hand him a letter inviting him to the station’s inauguration. President Chavez told Blanca that he had wanted to talk to us, and she replied that we were also eager to talk to him but had been unable to. That very day, the president told us that he wanted to participate in the inauguration, but not on the date that we had planned because that day was the anniversary of the Vargas tragedy, with many activities already organized for that day, but that if it could be done on the 20th of December he could come. So we organized the whole activity for the 20th of December 2000. But the event was suspended because the vice minister of communications and the president of Conatel said that Catia TVe didn’t have a permit, and that a TV station without a permit could not be inaugurated.

Blanca Edkhout (Fundadora de Catia TVe): I think the president has such a gift for listening, and Catia provided a practical example of this. Catia opened the door for discussing new legal rulings for broadcasting and became the first community station legalized this way. Up to that point, all through the Fourth Republic, these community stations were considered illegal and pirate, and could be persecuted and legally sanctioned. So because of this encounter [directly with the president], the door was opened because to go from the letter of the law to its reality there is an important leap, and this was facilitated by the president because on the day of the inauguration we still did not have the permit to function as a community TV station. We did not have it because there were no regulations that would allow it, even though the law was there, it was a dead letter. So the president promised to accompany us for the opening of our station. We had come up against an administrative snag because there had been no ruling made to allow for opening our channel. But the president activated the state structures so that they asserted what was in the Constitution. This encounter triggered the whole discussion about the need to have a new set of rules for community media, and as a consequence Catia TVe came into existence.
Crowd chanting at the inauguration of Catia TVe with the president on March 30, 2001: Our TV station is here! Our TV station is here!
Unidentified person shouting to the president: Hugo, here you will hear about the good things that are happening in our country!
President Hugo Chavez: Very good, but the bad as well. Both the good and the bad. Rather, let’s move away from these categories. We must hear the people’s opinions in their own words. And the alternative communities, and learn about the alternatives, yes, and the projects of the people. And also to wage war against lies.
President Hugo Chavez Frias (speaking at the inauguration of Catia TVe): So it will not be only Chavez on the TV networks anymore. No. Now we also have TeleCatia, in the hands of the people because it is the people who must enter into the battle. A TV station that is not manipulated by powerful economic interests – that is a marvelous thing. That is true liberty. Catia TVe is now officially inaugurated!

Blanca Edkhout (Fundadora de Catia TVe): You can’t talk about organization in recent years without also talking about April 11th [the day that President Chavez was ousted in a coup de etat]. April 11th impacted the political, social, and emotional lives of our people. The 11th, and the 13th of April, were an extraordinary moment for the history of Venezuela and popular struggles around the world. On April 11th, we can see images from the alternative and community media, we can see images of the other voices and perspectives that neither the public nor private media showed. It’s the view of people in the streets, in the city. One can reconstruct what happened from the images from the companeros of COTRAIN, PANAFILMS, Catia TVe, from many people with a camera in their hands who had never been involved in an experience of communication other than their [personal] exercise. It was the [attempt at a] collective participation to document and gather those perspectives. And while all this is important, I think the most important thing is the [telling of] the truth. There were huge numbers of people who were there until the end, who were defending with their open hearts and without arms. Their only weapon was determination and love – they were there believing and defending the nation, the president, defending life. And that was made visible through community media despite its being absolutely ignored by the large media powers.
We were in a difficult situation because we were in enemy territory. We were in the Lidice Hospital, which was under the control of the mayor Alfredo Pena. There were companeros recording, there were companeros taking material to move it elsewhere.

Ricardo Marquez (Presidente de Catia TVe): On that day, the 11th of April, we dismantled the TV transmitter in the very early morning with the help of the hospital guards. The next day, we were concerned, thinking about what we could do.

Blanca Edkhout (Fundadora de Catia TVe): The recording studios had been dismantled and we were trying to set up in various spaces.
Ricardo Marquez (Presidente de Catia TVe): Companero Wilfredo took a vehicle to Miraflores and recorded what was happening there, where people were beginning to congregate. There were soldiers on top of Miraflores. One of the military folks started to make signs, asking the people to come. And Wilfredo took his camera to Catia and showed it around: “Look, the soldiers are with us! Let’s bring Chavez back!” From there began an expansive wave message transmission by means of cell phones, from house phones, by motorcyclists, taxi drivers, truck drivers, everyone began to mobilize with the aim of recovering the democracy.

Blanca Edkhout (Fundadora de Catia TVe): On the 12th, there was an important level of mobilization through the internet, by means of intermediaries, calling for a cacerolazo for the night, searching [for an appropriate response to this emergency]. There, the work of Catia TVe and other community media was important. I think that what is important is the exercise of communication that the people made. Not be means of some pre-established formula, but through the direct exercise of the right to communicate.

Iris Castillo (Director of Catia TVe): On April 12th, several companeros from the channel went to the streets in the evening with a camera and arrived at Miraflores [the Presidential Palace] where they recorded the people assembled there, refusing [to recognize] the coup de etat.

Blanca Edkhout (Fundadora de Catia TVe): When we speak about the 11th, we say that there were three important moments. First was the “big farce”, the show woven by the large media channels, who actually were the architects of the coup in which the political, religious, and military people were merely actors taking part – a mere piece inside a montage – to justify to the world the terrible action that was being carried out against the Venezuelan people.
On the 11th of April, the first important act of communication was to tell people not to believe the lies. Through those at the bridge defending the dignity of the people and through those who were watching television who said this is not true – they did not believe. But in addition to that terrible action, there is a crucial moment when, on the 12th, the media repression emerges. Repressive occupations were accompanied by cameras. The telecasting advices the search of the Bolivarians, where it is said that Aristoulo was dead. Facing this repression that had as a goal to keep people from going out [and mobilizing], the people carried a different reading – it actually became an encouragement to go out to the streets. First, they [the people] did not believe the lie. Then they acted differently from what the media campaign was prescribing and went to the streets. Then, facing the silence in which just cartoons were being on the major media stations on April 13th while an amazing popular insurrection to recover the nation, this media silence was not accepted by the people, who forged their own communication channels. They went to the streets, to the assemblies, from mouth to mouth, by flyers, the internet, cell phones, motorcycles going from one place to another, community media gathering images, and later the recovery of the sate broadcasting station. In other words, there were thousands of actions everywhere, by everybody, not only because of our right to democracy but also our right to speak for ourselves and to change our reality.
Crowd chanting in front of Presidential Palace: Chavez hold on – the people are rising up! We want Chavez! We want Chavez!

Leaders of the Mass Mobilization addressing the crowd in front of Presidential Palace (April 13, 2002): To the Venezuelan people, and to anyone else interested – I, Hugo Chavez Frias, Venezuelan, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela declare that I have not renounced the legitimate power.

Blanca Edkhout (Fundadora de Catia TVe): That a television station as small as Catia, which in our first phase we had a transmitter of barely 30 watts and with a small radius of transmission, that this television station was able to act as a hindrance to those who took up the role of the vanguard of the opposition [to the democratically-elected government of Hugo Chavaz] and who claimed the role of the promoters of freedom of expression, with the mayor, who was [formerly] a journalist. They adopted the role of communication leaders, [defending] the discourse of liberty and freedom of speech – those gentlemen, in addition to threatening and boycotting us, one day decided to shut down Catia TVe.
Blanca Edkhout (July 10, 2003): We don’t have access to this area [our station], but our lawyers are here.

Unidentified man: Today, we are taking the equipment and taking back the space that they [Catia TVe] were occupying.

Blanca Edkhout (Fundadora de Catia TVe): Locks were placed; the equipment was taken, thus expropriating the right of the people of the Catia community on top of closing a space that was actually quite small.

Alfredo Pera (mayor of Caracas): I don’t know if you remember that a year ago, the Vatican, the government of the Pope, received a demand from the government of Rome, because there was a Vatican Radio antenna near a school and it had been proven that the radiation from the antenna was causing health problems in the kids, in some cases cancer, the Vatican had to remove these transmitters, and the Pope never complained that his rights to freedom of speech had been taken away. Our hospitals act with autonomy, I don’t know if you know that. What I know about the events is that the medical community of the Lidice Hospital, all the community, including the workers, were opposed to this so called station.

Blanca Edkhout (Fundadora de Catia TVe): That was terrible, but it also generated a level of identification of the people with Catia TVe. Not only in Venezuela but from around the world we received support from organizations, and a lot of media everywhere that identified with our struggle. All this made visible the true colors of the oligarchy, of the Venezuelan opposition. They are fascists that are radically opposed to letting the people, the communities, have their own voices. They utilize “freedom of speech” to construct a lie, a constant farce, as they have never allowed the people to express themselves. This mayor, who was for a long time the star journalist of a television channel and wrote in one of the main newspapers, the first thing he does is to close a small attempt by the people to communicate to the people from the community of the Barrio Simon Rodriquez, Manicomio.

Unidentified newscaster: The journalist for El Obsevador, Noe Pernia, made a statement in regard to the incident with a supposed community journalist in the context of a protest by university students last Tuesday.

Ricardo Marquez (Presidente de Catia TVe): I think that those journalists attack community media journalists first because they are scared Because all professions want to hold on to their small kingdoms – the engineer is the only one “qualified” to build houses – but in this country, people have built more than two and a half million houses in 40 years without engineers or architects, perhaps poorly made but the people themselves have done it, something that the state had never done. The lawyers are those who supposedly have discernment, truth, because they have the Roman code of law on their side. So certified journalists are in a difficult situation because they want to be the only ones with the right to tell us what is happening.

Blanca Edkhout (Fundadora de Catia TVe): I think that community media are a central experience, but they must be only a school, spaces for gathering, so that the people can develop the audio-visual discourse – build, take power, as we have. The Mission Robinson has been an extraordinary example, the right that everyone has to read and write. We also have the right to write our own history and reconstruct the image that we have of ourselves and project it to the world.

Gabriel Gil (Director of Catia TVe): Catia TVe is proposed as an instrument for the organization of the communities and the people along the path to socialism. The idea is that communication will be useful for organization and formation [of a people’s democracy]. Communication, organization, and formation will be useful in the taking of power by the communities, for the direct exercise of democracy. In socialism, the direct exercise of democracy is key, and communication cannot be excluded from that.
Blanca Edkhout (Fundadora de Catia TVe): What is most important to keep from this experience is first that rights cannot be delegated, and the right to communication is a fundamental one that shapes us as human beings. For this reason the exercise of speaking for oneself must be permanent. The effort for the establishment of Catia TVe is one of many years, of many people, and it’s the search of a people to engage in social transformation. Sometimes, we think that things are there because they were given to us, that they dropped from the heavens. It’s not so, it’s a constant and never ending effort, it’s believing in dreams no matter what.

Ricardo Marquez (Presidente de Catia TVe): The simple fact of having gone through Catia TVe, and of having held a camera, a microphone, made a video, even if it’s only done once, we have reached our goal, we demystify the medium, which is crucial. Television loses its alienating power that it has over individuals because then people know how it’s done. That’s why we say don’t just watch television, make it!

The Population Myth

DGM — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 23:44:06 +0000

The Population Myth

People who claim that population growth is the big environmental issue are shifting the blame from the rich to the poor

By George Monbiot.

October 03, 2009 The Guardian” — 29th September 2009 — It’s no coincidence that most of those who are obsessed with population growth are post-reproductive wealthy white men: it’s about the only environmental issue for which they can’t be blamed. The brilliant earth systems scientist James Lovelock, for example, claimed last month that “those who fail to see that population growth and climate change are two sides of the same coin are either ignorant or hiding from the truth. These two huge environmental problems are inseparable and to discuss one while ignoring the other is irrational.”(1) But it’s Lovelock who is being ignorant and irrational.

A paper published yesterday in the journal Environment and Urbanization shows that the places where population has been growing fastest are those in which carbon dioxide has been growing most slowly, and vice versa. Between 1980 and 2005, for example, Sub-Saharan Africa produced 18.5% of the world’s population growth and just 2.4% of the growth in CO2. North America turned out 4% of the extra people, but 14% of the extra emissions. Sixty-three per cent of the world’s population growth happened in places with very low emissions(2).

Even this does not capture it. The paper points out that around one sixth of the world’s population is so poor that it produces no significant emissions at all. This is also the group whose growth rate is likely to be highest. Households in India earning less than 3,000 rupees a month use a fifth of the electricity per head and one seventh of the transport fuel of households earning Rs30,000 or more. Street sleepers use almost nothing. Those who live by processing waste (a large part of the urban underclass) often save more greenhouse gases than they produce.

Many of the emissions for which poorer countries are blamed should in fairness belong to us. Gas flaring by companies exporting oil from Nigeria, for example, has produced more greenhouse gases than all other sources in sub-Saharan Africa put together(3). Even deforestation in poor countries is driven mostly by commercial operations delivering timber, meat and animal feed to rich consumers. The rural poor do far less harm(4).

The paper’s author, David Satterthwaite of the International Institute for Environment and Development, points out that the old formula taught to all students of development - that total impact equals population times affluence times technology (I=PAT) - is wrong. Total impact should be measured as I=CAT: consumers times affluence times technology. Many of the world’s people use so little that they wouldn’t figure in this equation. They are the ones who have most children.

While there’s a weak correlation between global warming and population growth, there’s a strong correlation between global warming and wealth. I’ve been taking a look at a few superyachts, as I’ll need somewhere to entertain Labour ministers in the style to which they’re accustomed. First I went through the plans for Royal Falcon Fleet’s RFF135, but when I discovered that it burns only 750 litres of fuel per hour(5) I realised that it wasn’t going to impress Lord Mandelson. I might raise half an eyebrow in Brighton with the Overmarine Mangusta 105, which sucks up 850 l/hr(6). But the raft that’s really caught my eye is made by Wally Yachts in Monaco. The WallyPower 118 (which gives total wallies a sensation of power) consumes 3400 l/hr when travelling at 60 knots(7). That’s nearly one litre per second. Another way of putting it is 31 litres per kilometre(8).

Of course to make a real splash I’ll have to shell out on teak and mahogany fittings, carry a few jet skis and a mini-submarine, ferry my guests to the marina by private plane and helicopter, offer them bluefin tuna sushi and beluga caviar and drive the beast so fast that I mash up half the marine life of the Mediterranean. As the owner of one of these yachts I’ll do more damage to the biosphere in ten minutes than most Africans inflict in a lifetime. Now we’re burning, baby.

Someone I know who hangs out with the very rich tells me that in the banker belt of the lower Thames valley there are people who heat their outdoor swimming pools to bath temperature, all round the year. They like to lie in the pool on winter nights, looking up at the stars. The fuel costs them £3000 a month. One hundred thousand people living like these bankers would knacker our life support systems faster than 10 billion people living like the African peasantry. But at least the super wealthy have the good manners not to breed very much, so the rich old men who bang on about human reproduction leave them alone.

In May the Sunday Times carried an article headlined “Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation”. It revealed that “some of America’s leading billionaires have met secretly” to decide which good cause they should support. “A consensus emerged that they would back a strategy in which population growth would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat.”(9) The ultra-rich, in other words, have decided that it’s the very poor who are trashing the planet. You grope for a metaphor, but it’s impossible to satirise.

James Lovelock, like Sir David Attenborough and Jonathan Porritt, is a patron of the Optimum Population Trust (OPT). It is one of dozens of campaigns and charities whose sole purpose is to discourage people from breeding in the name of saving the biosphere. But I haven’t been able to find any campaign whose sole purpose is to address the impacts of the very rich.

The obsessives could argue that the people breeding rapidly today might one day become richer. But as the super wealthy grab an ever greater share and resources begin to run dry, this, for most of the very poor, is a diminishing prospect. There are strong social reasons for helping people to manage their reproduction, but weak environmental reasons, except among wealthier populations.

The Optimum Population Trust glosses over the fact that the world is going through demographic transition: population growth rates are slowing down almost everywhere and the number of people is likely, according to a paper in Nature, to peak this century(10), probably at around 10 billion(11). Most of the growth will take place among those who consume almost nothing.

But no one anticipates a consumption transition. People breed less as they become richer, but they don’t consume less; they consume more. As the habits of the super-rich show, there are no limits to human extravagance. Consumption can be expected to rise with economic growth until the biosphere hits the buffers. Anyone who understands this and still considers that population, not consumption, is the big issue is, in Lovelock’s words, “hiding from the truth”. It is the worst kind of paternalism, blaming the poor for the excesses of the rich.

So where are the movements protesting about the stinking rich destroying our living systems? Where is the direct action against superyachts and private jets? Where’s Class War when you need it?

It’s time we had the guts to name the problem. It’s not sex; it’s money. It’s not the poor; it’s the rich.

www.monbiot.com

Honduras is Only Part of the Story: The Conservative Counter-Attack in Latin America

DGM — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 00:33:23 +0000

Counterpunch Weekend Edition: August 7-9, 2009

By MIGUEL TINKER SALAS

I would submit that events in Honduras are not isolated, but rather part of a conservative counterattack taking shape in Latin America. For some time, the right has been rebuilding in Latin America; hosting conferences, sharing experiences, refining their message, working with the media, and building ties with allies in the United States. This is not the lunatic right fringe, but rather the mainstream right with powerful allies in the middle class that used to consider themselves center, but have been frightened by recent left electoral victories and the rise of social movements. With Obama in the White House and Clinton in the State Department they have now decided to act. Bush/Cheney and company did not give them any coverage and had become of little use to them. A “liberal” in the White House gives conservative forces the kind of coverage they had hoped for. It is no coincidence that Venezuelan opposition commentators applauded the naming of Clinton to the State Department claiming that they now had an ally in the administration. The old cold warrior axiom that the best antidote against the left is a liberal government in Washington gains new meaning under Obama with Clinton at the State Department.

Coup leaders in Honduras and their allies continue to play for time. Washington’s continuing vacillation is allowing them to make full use of this option, but so are right-wing governments in Colombia, Mexico, Panama and Peru. After all, this coup is not just about Honduras but also about left success in Latin America, of which Honduras was the weakest link. It is increasingly becoming obvious that there is no scenario under which elites in Honduras will accept Zelaya back. I do not think that they have a plan “B” on this matter, and this speaks to the kind of advice they are getting from forces in the U.S. and the region. If Zelaya comes back, the Supreme Court, the Congress, the military and the church all lose credibility and it opens the door for the social and political movements in Honduras to push for radical change that conservative forces would find more difficult to resist.

But Honduras is only part of the equation. Colombia’s decision to accept as many as 7 new U.S. military bases (3 airbases, including Palanquero, 2 army bases, and 2 naval bases - one on the Pacific and one on the Caribbean), dramatically expands the U.S. military role in the country and throughout the region. The Pentagon has been eyeing the airbase at Palanquero with its complex infrastructure and extensive runway for some time. This is a very troubling sign that will alter the balance of forces in the region, and speaks volumes about how the Obama administration plans to respond to change in Latin America. A base on the Caribbean coast of Colombia would also offer the recently reactivated U.S. Fourth Fleet a convenient harbor on the South American mainland. In short, Venezuela would be literally encircled. However, Venezuela is not the only objective. It also places the Brazilian Amazon and all its resources within striking distance of the U.S. military as well as the much sought after Guarani watershed. After public criticism from Bachalet of Chile, Lula of Brazil and Chávez of Venezuela, Uribe refused to attend the 10 August meeting of UNASUR, the South American Union, where he was expected to explain the presence of the U.S. bases. The meeting of the UNASUR security council was scheduled to take up the issue of the bases and Bolivia’s suggestion for a unified South American response to drug trafficking. Instead, Uribe has launched his own personal diplomacy, traveling to 5 different countries in the region to explain his actions. In addition, Obama’s National Security Advisor James Jones is in Brazil trying to justify the U.S. position on the bases.

The recent media war launched by Uribe against Ecuador and Correa once again claiming financing of the FARC, and the more recent offensive against Venezuela concerning 30 year old Swedish missiles, that like the Reyes computers, cannot be independently verified, have filled the airwaves in Venezuela, Colombia and the region. The current Colombian media campaign was preceded by Washington’s own efforts to condemn Venezuela for supposed non-compliance in the war against drug trafficking. In addition, Israel’s foreign minister Avigdor Liberman also travelled throughout Latin America in July claiming that Venezuela is a destabilizing force in the region and in the Middle East.

Lost in all this, is the fact that Uribe is still considering a third term in office and his party has indicated it will push for constitutional reform. So conflicts with Ecuador and Venezuela serve to silence critics in Colombia and keep Uribe’s electoral competitors at bay. All we need now is for Uribe to ask the Interpol to verify the missiles’ origins and director Ron Noble to give another press conference in Bogota. Déjà vu all over again!

The right and its allies in the U.S. are also emboldened by the electoral victory in Panama and the very real prospects of leftist defeats this year in Chile and even Uruguay. Obviously, they are also encouraged by the humiliating defeat of the Fernández/Kirchner’s in Argentina. These developments could begin to redraw the political map of the region. Correa of Ecuador has already expressed concern about being the target of a coup and Bolivia will undoubtedly come under intense pressure as they are also preparing for an election later this year.

All this is occurring with an increased U.S. military commitment in Mexico with Plan Mérida, which seeks to build on the lessons of Colombia; maintain in power a president whose economic and social policies are highly unpopular, but who relies on conflict (in this case the so-called war on the drug cartels) to maintain popularity. Parts of Mexico are literally under siege including, Michoacán, Ciudad Juarez, and Tijuana. The backdrop for this is a divided left - the PRD was the biggest loser in recent midterm elections, and social movements remain localized and unable to mount a national challenge.

None of these developments point to forgone conclusions, but they nonetheless speak to the fact that conservative forces in Latin America and their allies in the U.S. are mounting a concerted counter offensive that could increase the potential for conflict in the region.

Miguel Tinker Salas is Professor of History at Pomona College. He is the author of The Enduring Legacy: Oil, Culture and Society in Venezuela.

A Class Perspective on Ecology and Indian Movements: Diversity with Inequality is Not Social Justice

DGM — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:26:51 +0000

By James Petras 14/10/08 Information Clearinghouse” — There are two opposing approaches to the analysis of ecological destruction and the emergence of Indian movements in Latin America: the liberal and the Marxist.The liberal approach emphasizes ‘universal responsibility” for the destruction of the environment – rich and poor, mining companies and miners, factory owners and factory workers, auto manufacturers and drivers, governments and citizens, real estate speculators and slum dwellers. The liberal ecologists claim the negative consequences adversely affect everyone: “We all suffer from the destruction of the environment.”The liberal approach to the development of Indian movements and politics follows a similar approach, using the non-class categories of ‘community’, ‘culture’ and religion, to discuss Indian social structure as a ‘homogenous’ social phenomenon.

The Marxist approach to ecological destruction and Indian social movements focuses on the inequality of power and control over the means of production and destruction, unequal exposure to contamination in the workplace and neighborhoods, inequality in access to land and use of chemical fertilizers and herbicides and other contaminants and unequal access to state power. Marxists focus on the class structure, class inequalities and the class nature of the environmental disasters which take place. Marxists view ethnic and contemporary Indian movements, policies, leadership and relationships in relationship to the larger class system through the lens of class analysis. Marxists do not accept the liberal rhetoric and indigenous identity or ‘indigenista’ ideological assumption that Indian society is made up of homogeneous ‘communities’ bound together by harmonious undifferentiated ethnic interests without class divisions and conflicting class interests. Today, even more than in the past, the deepening penetration of capitalist expansion and market relations, capitalist and socialist ideology and political parties, imperialist funded non-governmental organizations (NGOs) funded by US and European governments and the World Bank, have created class-polarized and divided Indian societies. ‘Communalism’ and communitarian ideology is the ideology of the rising Indian economic and political petit bourgeoisie articulated to subordinate the impoverished Indian peasantry to their struggle to share power with the established ‘European’ or mestizo bourgeoisie.

Case StudiesTo demonstrate the validity and relevance of the class analysis approach to ecology and the Indian movements, it is essential to empirically examine concrete contemporary cases of major environmental issues and existing Indian movements.

We have chosen several cases of environmental disasters, which have large-scale, long-term negative impacts, which are familiar to world public opinion. These include: Fish depletion in the waters off Eastern Canada, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, the world wide food crises and global warming.

Fish DepletionMaritime scientists have published numerous studies documenting the catastrophic decline in fish stocks, the destruction of livelihood of millions of small-scale fishermen and the loss of maritime high protein food for tens of millions of poor people. The causes, according to liberal ecologists are ‘over-fishing’, ‘contamination; and state subsidies – without identifying the class character of those responsible.Over-fishing is the result of the concentration and centralization of the fishing industry in large-scale capitalist enterprises, which operate massive factory ships with 3-mile drag nets that drag the bottom of the sea, indiscriminately destroying fish habitats and pulling in undersize fish thereby undermining the reproductive process.Contamination of fishing waters is the result of large-scale fish farms, the massive use of chemical fertilizers and the run-off of animal waste which destroy the delicately balanced coastal water ecology, as well as oil spills by big petroleum and shipping companies.

State subsidies financed the growth of large fleets with high technology fishing gear, while state de-regulation policies, favored big fishing companies over the interests of the small local artisan fisherfolk. In summary, the world-wide depletion of fishing stock is the result of environmental conditions induced by the operation of the capitalist system – namely the concentration of fishing industry in a powerful capitalist class, subsidized and promoted the state under capitalist control.Hurricane Katrina

In August 2006 Hurricane Katrina hurled winds of over 100 miles an hour through the Caribbean, hitting both Cuba and the Southern Gulf Coast of the United States, especially Louisiana and Mississippi. The consequences for the people of Cuba and those of the two southern states were vastly different: Several thousand poor, mostly black, United States citizens were killed, while in Cuba there were fewer than ten deaths. The difference in mortality was a product of the different social systems: Socialist Cuba has a highly organized and effective, centrally planned civil defense system which puts the highest priority in diagnosing, anticipating and mobilizing tens of thousands of civilian and military personnel and sending thousands of public buses and trucks to transport people and their farm animals to safety. The country is mobilized to prevent even a single Cuban death. In contrast, the capitalist United States Government placed higher priority in creating a repressive political apparatus (Homeland Security) which failed to anticipate the impact of the storm, abandoned hundreds of thousands of low income residents to the raging storm surge and flood waters and provided inadequate mobilization of transport, water supplies and food for the destitute. The results were catastrophic. In the aftermath of the hurricane, Cuba gave highest priority to rebuilding the homes of the displaced people; whereas in the US, the capitalist state displaced the poor and rebuilt the urban landscape to suit the interests of multi-millionaire real estate speculators, commercial interests and the tourist elite. While the hurricane was a ‘natural’ disaster, the unprecedented destruction in New Orleans was a consequence of the capitalist priorities in political repression (Homeland Security and the Patriot Act) over basic civil defense, commercial expansion and speculation over environmental safeguards and individuals forced to survive on their own over state planning. Food CrisisLiberal ecologists argue that natural disasters, excess state intervention in the market and over exploitation of land by peasants and farmers are responsible for the ‘food crisis’, defined as ‘excess demand over supply’ leading to rising prices. Marxists argue that ‘free market’ policies have resulted in the bankruptcy of millions of food producing peasants and farmers, the concentration of landownership in the hands of giant agro-business consortiums which specialize in exports of staples, thus decreasing the production and increasing the price of food for local popular consumption.Neoliberalism has accelerated the normal capitalist process of concentration and centralization of the means of agricultural production (land, fertilizers, marketing, farm machinery); the profit motive has led to agro-business converting land use form food for the people to the production of agricultural commodities (sugar and corn) for automobile fuel (ethanol).The conversion of food to ethanol has led to a massive invasion of finance capital into agricultures, and the demise and destitution of peasants and small farmers, lowering the purchasing power of food and creating large-scale hunger.

The over-exploitation of land is the result of the expansion of agro-exporters and their displacement of peasants into precarious laborers. The high price of agricultural inputs and the low income of peasants producing in low production regions mean that small producers have few financial resources to rejuvenate the productivity of their land. The ‘food crisis’ is a direct consequence of the expansion of capitalist agriculture which determined what is produced (supply), the target market (demand) and the cost of reproduction (the price of inputs/profits).Global Warming
Liberal ecologists blame ‘human consumption’ of fossil fuel, the failure of state regulation, the private transport (automobiles) and manufacturing industries.Class analysis provides a more comprehensive and specific diagnosis. In the first place it was the capitalist owners of the auto-industry in control of state transport policy which destroyed public transportation, eliminating subsidies and lowering budgetary funding for electric light rail while channeling billions of dollars into highways, bridges and road maintenance for private vehicles. The massive increase in CO2 was a result of the power of privately owned automobile industry over publicly owned railroads. The widespread use of highly contaminating private auto was a result of advertising which promoted the purchase of big gas-guzzling automobiles depicting them as status symbols: the bigger the car, the higher the profit, the greater the contamination.Private and public manufacturers who operate on the market principle of higher production, lower costs and higher returns have been the driving force of industrial pollution. It is not manufacturing per se that leads to pollution; technology, productive and organizational processes exist which can substantially reduce or eliminate pollution but they increase immediate costs and lower profit. State policies, which deregulate control over pollution levels, are the result of capitalist power. The problem of climate warmth is not the result of individual car owners or workers in polluting factories. The responsibility of pollution and high CO2 levels leading to climate change rests in the capitalist class and its state, which own and ‘regulate’ the means of pollution.

Indian Movement in Class PerspectiveLiberal writers on ‘Indian movements’ and ‘Indian communities’ wrongfully conceptualize them as homogeneous social phenomena, understating the degree of capitalist penetration, class differentiation and subsequent political polarization. Liberal writers adopt a simplistic bi-polar view in which homogeneous classless ‘Indian communities’ are compared to an undifferentiated ‘white society’. On the basis of this classless conception, liberals argue in favor of so-called ‘communitarian’ politics in which micro-projects, based on class collaboration in which religion and tradition are treated as ‘bonds’ that link upwardly mobile petit bourgeois Indian political and business leaders to the mass of landless and impoverished subsistence peasants.The Marxist analysis is based on several key theoretical assumptions and historical cases backed by empirical observations. Capitalist penetration of Indian communities deepened pre-existing social differences, leading to the formation of multi-class society. A small group of Indians become ‘intermediaries’ between the masses of poor Indians and the local, regional, national and international markets. These intermediaries, speaking in the name of the ‘Indian communities’, in fact became the owners of transport (trucks), local commercial buyers and sellers, moneylenders, commercial farmers. Rather than sending their children to public schools taught in regional indigenous languages, their children went to private schools taught in Spanish in order to become professionals, politicians, lawyers and heads of NGOs specializing in ‘indigenous’ issues and linked to foreign foundations, government agencies and the World Bank.

These linkages between the upwardly mobile Indian petit bourgeois with national and international capital were not without tension, conflict and competition. Two sets of conflict emerged: 1) At one level between the mass of impoverished Indians exploited by agro-business through violent dispossession of communal/individual lands, exploitation of semi-serf (and even semi-slave) and wage labor and repression by the capitalist state; 2) at another level, the rising Indian petit bourgeois competed and confronted the mestizo/European national and international ruling class, which imposed limits on their access to economic resources, finance, credit, markets and land and limited and marginalized their political role. The goal of the bourgeois Indian elite was to share power with the ‘white’ oligarchy, not to overthrow them. Evo Morales provided the exact formula for class collaboration by declaring his intention to interact with the oligarchs as ‘partners not bosses’. To open the doors to social mobility and sharing of wealth and power, the marginalized petit bourgeois Indian minority needed organized mass power to threaten, pressure and force political negotiations with the intransigent ruling class. The politics of the Indian social movements reflect the dual class basis of Indian society: a revolutionary impoverished peasant mass base and an electoral-reformist petit bourgeois leadership. Political influence and government office had two different meanings for each: For the Indian masses it meant a comprehensive integral land reform, public ownership on banking, trade and strategic economic sectors; for the petit bourgeois Indian it meant collaboration with the ‘productive’ agro-business sector and distribution of marginal, less fertile public lands, profit sharing between the Indian/Mestizo elite in the private sector and foreign-owned extractive sectors. The class differentiation of Indian society and the overt and covert conflicting interests became clearer with the electoral advances of the Indian parties in Ecuador and Bolivia.Ecuador: 2000-2003
In 2000, the Ecuadorian Indian movement (CONAIE) played a leading role in the overthrow of the bourgeois government. Three years later, in 2003 the Indian political party, Pachacuti, together with CONAIE formed an electoral alliance with a retired military officer, Lucio Gutierrez, and won the presidency. The ascendant Indian petit bourgeois leaders gained several ministries and many lesser positions under Gutierrez, including the Foreign Ministry and Agriculture. Within a year, the Gutierrez regime proceeded to privatize the oil fields, repress labor, defend and extend support to large agro-business exporters, foreign MNCs and banks and sign an intrusive security pact with the US. Pachacuti leaders in the government were forced to resign from office; CONAIE lost significant membership and was severely demoralized and fragmented. The mass of poor Indians felt betrayed by the political deals their petit-bourgeois leaders had made with the oligarchs.

Bolivia: 2003-2005Between 2003-2005 the Indian movement formed with factory workers, unemployed and informal workers of the city slums and militant miners to overthrow two bourgeois regimes: Sanchez de Losada (2003) and Carlos Mesa (June 2005). In both uprisings the petit bourgeois leadership of the Indian-led electoral part, MAS, or ‘Movement to Socialism’, played no role in the mass struggle. Instead they intervened to block a revolutionary transformation, imposing a neo-liberal substitute (Carlos Mesa) in 2003 and a caretaker bourgeois regime (Rodriguez) in July 2005. Evo Morales, his party - MAS and his followers in the Indian social movements channeled most activity into electoral politics culminating in his successful electoral campaign for the presidency. The social class, property and income inequalities between the ‘white European’ ruling class and the Indian majority in Bolivia has remained intact. What did change was the social inequalities within the Indian society as a whole new strata of former Indian social movement (NGO) leaders received second level government positions and subsidies for restraining and channeling their followers into supporting the Morales government. Numerous petit bourgeois Indian/mestizo lower level professionals occupied government offices and rose in wealth and influence. The mass of Indian peasants were demobilized from the streets and re-mobilized according to the tactical needs of the Morales’ regime as it negotiated with the big bourgeoisie. Morales’ accommodation of the traditional ruling class led to their rapid recovery of power following the insurrection of May/June 2005. It did not lead to an agreement with the ruling class to ‘share power’ with the ‘Indian President’ Morales. The issue was not inequality of land ownership, which was never questioned by the governing MAS regime: 100 ‘European’ families still owned 80% of the arable land after 3 years of Morales’ ‘Indian presidency’. The question was one of sharing political power, state revenues and a recognition of co-government between the ‘flexible’ (often bent over) government of an Indian petit bourgeois leader and the ‘intransigent’ (thoroughly racist and brutal) European big bourgeoisie. It became a struggle between a petit-bourgeois Indian ‘liberal democracy’ and an oligarchic ‘fascist’ European regional government and middle class social movements.Faced with fascist threats to eliminate political freedoms, liberal racial equality (constitutional citizen rights), access to individual social mobility and local autonomy and right to collective organization, the Indian peasants and working class masses overwhelmingly backed the liberal Morales regime against the advance of the fascist ruling oligarchs. As a result, the real divergence of class interests between the property-less and impoverished Indian masses and the upwardly mobile pro-capitalist Indian petit bourgeois professionals and leaders were subordinated to the common struggle against the racially exclusive fascist big capitalist regional power bloc.

Clearly the case studies of Ecuador and Bolivia demonstrate that ‘communitarianism’ is an ideology of the rising Indian petit bourgeois eager to undermine an intensive intra-Indian class struggle. The defining reality of Indian society in Bolivia and Ecuador is that it is class divided – one that poses a continual tension and conflict between a petit bourgeoisie struggling with the larger capitalist society to join the elite and share power and a mass of impoverished Indians without propert or influence over state policy. In summary: There are two class struggles, which are intertwined, one led by the petit bourgeois Indian professionals to consolidate a liberal democracy backed by the masses mystified by religious and cultural symbolism and another led by independent, downwardly mobile, class conscious Indian workers and peasants against both the European ruling class and their own Indian petit bourgeois leaders.

Conclusion

Our discussion suggests that both the ecology and Indian movements are not ideologically or socially homogenous. Underneath the veneer of common goals against ecological destruction and exploitation of indigenous peoples are two diametrically contrasting ideologies – liberalism and Marxism – based on competing and conflicting social interests and political strategies. Marxist class analysis highlights the centrality of property ownership, specifically the class nature of the ownership of the means of production and control over state power as central to understanding the destruction of the environment and the complex politics of Indian society. We reject the notion of a ‘classless’ approach promoted by liberal ecologists and ideologues of Indian communitarianism as intellectually limiting and politically disastrous. These cannot create a sustainable environment and cannot provide the material basis for the social liberation of the poor and Indian majorities in Latin America. Ecology and Indian liberation are essentially and inextricable part of the class struggle.

Stories of Hope and Change

DGM — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 13:15:33 +0000

Stories of Hope and Change You Didn’t Hear About in 2007 and 2008. Project Censored 2009 highlights a new form of journalism: one that looks for the places where real change for the better is already underway. Here are their 10 featured stories…

Communities take on corporate power

Small town citizens are claiming the right to govern themselves by adopting laws that protect their voting rights and their natural resources while challenging the laws stacked in favor of corporations. The courts have not yet ruled on some of these measures. If they are challenged, no one knows what the outcome will be. But these new activists point to the abolitionist and women’s suffrage movements, which also were viewed as radical challenges to well-settled law. In the best tradition of the patriots of the 13 colonies, these communities are asserting their right to govern themselves and to make sure their votes count.
Communities Take Power
Doug Pibel, “Communities Take Power” YES! Magazine #43, Fall 2007
Humboldt County, California, first to abolish “corporate personhood”
Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, “Democracy Unlimited” YES! Magazine #43, Fall 2007

The environmental movement: Now there is a place for everyone

Since the blockbuster success of the 2007 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” the attitude toward global climate change has turned a corner. It seems like everyone is suddenly, and ostentatiously, “going green.” Mainstream media programs are promoting “environmental alternatives” and even Fortune 500 CEOs are talking about their efforts to reduce their companies’ “carbon footprint.” What isn’t making it into the national conversation is a core cause for the global crisis: the inequality of wealth, power, and consumption. Yet millions of environmental activists know that the climate crisis can’t be solved without also taking on the poverty crisis. These hard-working groups from all parts of the world aren’t waiting for the mainstream to catch up. They’re putting these issues on the agenda now.
Social Justice First at Climate Negotiations in Bali
Tom Athanasiou, “Global Fairness” YES! Magazine #45, Spring 2008
The Green Economy Can Carry All
Ian Kim, “Green Jobs for All” YES! Magazine #45, Spring 2008
Retooling for Green Jobs that Serve the Poor and Working People
Doug Pibel, “Unions, Churches, and Schools” YES! Magazine #45, Spring 2008
Young People with a Passion for Climate Protection
Shadia Fayne Wood, “Youth Feel the Power” YES! #45, Spring 2008
A Global Water Movement
Maude Barlow, “Life, Liberty, Water” YES! Magazine #46, Summer 2008

Food: Consumers say yes to local agriculture; no to GMO

A consensus is building around the world about the dangers facing our global food chain. The small farmers at the front lines of this historic struggle are beginning to make important headway—for which we may all owe them a debt of gratitude.
Europe’s Patents Office Revokes Monsanto’s Monopoly on Genetically Modified Soy
Hope Shand, “Challenging Monsanto’s Monopoly”, Z Magazine, July/Aug 2007
Saskatchewan Farmer Reaches Settlement with Agribusiness Giant Monsanto Canada Inc.
Barbara L. Minton, “Small Farmer Wins Moral Victory Over Monsanto” NaturalNews.com, April 01, 2008
World’s Largest Rice Exporters, Processors, and Retailers Won’t Purchase GE Rice
Rik Langendoen, “No to Genetically Engineered Rice” YES! Magazine #42, Summer 2007
Mallorca, Menorca, and Ibiza Declared a GMO-free Zone
“Spanish Islands Go GMO-Free” YES! Magazine #44, Winter 2008

Indigenous peoples: The fight for recognition bears fruit

The global movement to recognize and respect the rights of indigenous peoples took a dramatic step forward in 2007 with the adoption of the UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights. Many corporations and governments continue to exploit and appropriate the lands of native people—including some of the world’s most biodiverse and environmentally productive regions. But the recognition of the rights of first peoples is growing, and the indigenous peoples of the world are joining forces.
United Nations General Assembly Passes Indigenous Rights Declaration
Poka Laenui, “U.N. Declaration on Indigenous Rights” YES! Magazine #44, Winter 2008
Bolivia’s New Constitution Fully Recognizes Indigenous Sovereignty
Juliette Beck, “Bolivia Adopts New Constitution” YES! Magazine #45, Spring 2008
Indigenous Nations Call on the World to Adopt a Culture of Life
Jallalla Indigenous Pueblos and Nations of Abya Yala, “Declaration of La Paz” YES! magazine #42, Summer 2007

Energy alternatives take hold

While the “pain at the pump” is allowing the debate about energy to broaden once again in the mainstream media, think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute are working hard to position nuclear and coal as the only “alternatives.” Commuters, school districts, home owners, and others who are paying the financial, security, and environmental costs of oil dependence are “getting it” though. Real alternatives and opportunities are taking hold around the world, and even here in the U.S.
Solar Industry Poised for Rapid Growth
Alisa Gravitz, “Solar Power Surge” YES! Magazine #43, Fall 2007
Enough Wind, Solar, Geothermal, and Tidal Power to Power the U.S.
Guy Dauncey, “Electricity: an Astonishing Abundance” YES! Magazine #45, Spring 2008
Kansas Secretary of Health and Environment Blocks Two Coal-fired Power Plants
Margit Christenson, “Blocking Big Coal” YES! Magazine #44, Winter 2008
“I won’t buy another new car unless it has a plug on it.”
Sherry Boschert, “The Secret Life of Plug-in Hybrids” YES! Magazine #45, Spring 2008
How Can All U.S. buildings Be 100 Percent Carbon Neutral By 2030?
Guy Dauncey, “Smart, Green Buildings” YES! Magazine #45, Spring 2008

Altering the media landscape

As the corporate media increasingly acts as stenographers and spinmeisters for the status quo; people are looking elsewhere for reliable sources of information. Independent media outlets are becoming the news source of choice for many. Meanwhile, people power and citizen pressure are beginning to chip away at the monolithic structure of big media multinationals.
Maine’s Legislature First in the Nation to Protect Net Neutrality
Jon Bartholomew, “Maine Leads on Net Neutrality” YES! Magazine #43, Fall 2007
Crackdown on Fake News
Margit Christenson, “FCC Fines Comcast for Fake News” YES! Magazine #44, Winter 2008
The People Speak Out at FCC Hearing
“The People Speak Out at FCC Hearing in Seattle” YES! Online

Real health care solutions are on the table

The debate about healthcare is receiving more diverse coverage in the media than it has in many decades. It cannot be denied that the much-maligned Michael Moore documentary “Sicko” created an opportunity to change the conversation. Programs like the PBS series “Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?” and Frontline’s “Sick Around the World” are digging deep into the reality of the situation. Healthcare activists are building on this national movement.
Michael Moore’s Film, “SICKO” Opens Door to Community Organizing
“Sicko Paves the Way” YES! Magazine #43, Fall 2007
San Francisco First to Offer Health Care for All
Brooke Jarvis, “San Francisco’s Health Care for All” YES! Magazine #44, Winter 2008
Has Cuba Got the Cure?
Sarah van Gelder, “Health Care for All; Love, Cuba” YES! #42, Summer 2007

Developing countries take charge of their economies
For years, “developing nations” in Africa and South America have been challenging the neocolonial economic policies that have hindered their growth and autonomy. In 2007 and 2008, many countries pulled away from the old models with a speed that left transnational corporations, multi-lateral agencies (and the US media) speechless.
Latin America Goes Dept Free
Sarah Anderson, “IMF: Paid in Full” YES! Magazine #42, Summer 2007
Reclaiming Corn and Culture
Wendy Call, “New Light in the Sky” YES! Magazine #46, Summer 2008
African Countries Stand Up to European Union
Ignacio Ramonet, “Africa Says No” Le Monde Diplomatique, January 2008 and
Tom Knudson, “Promises and Poverty” Sacramento Bee, 9/23/2007
Ethiopia Wins Battle With Starbucks Over Trademark Entitlement
Matthew Clark, “In trademarking its coffee, Ethiopia seeks fair trade” The Christian Science Monitor

Moving beyond war

While the Iraq conflict sparked large protests throughout the world, the larger “war on terror” has had a quieter, more profound impact that has grown largely unnoticed in recent years. Now, even the hawks of yesterday are recognizing the worth of the anti-war movement and its call for a move beyond war.
Nuclear Abolition More Urgent Than Ever
“George Shultz Calls for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons,” an interview with Sarah van Gelder, YES! Magazine #46, Summer 2008
A Responsible Plan to Exit Iraq
Erik Leaver, “Candidates for Congress Show the Way Out” YES! Magazine #46, Summer 2008
Has Your Town Declared Peace Yet?
Ben Manski and Karen Dolan, “Cities Declare Peace” YES! Magazine #46, Summer 2008
Shifting Our Defense Budget
Miriam Pemberton, “Raiding the War Chest” YES! Magazine #46, Summer 2008

Seattle: The beginning of a new culture of activism

The “Battle in Seattle” against the WTO was but a single event in an ongoing struggle to take back power from global corporations and finance agencies. Nonetheless, the 1999 mass protest, direct action, and popular education events marked a turning point in activism. People around the world are taking notice.
WTO Protests in Seattle Sparked Biggest Global Movement
Paul Hawken, “Remembering the Battle of Seattle” Ode Magazine June 2007
Another World is Possible—Another U.S. is Necessary
Sarah van Gelder, “We Saw Another World in Atlanta” YES! Magazine #43 Fall 2007
Taking On Corporate Power
Michael Marx and Marjorie Kelly, “Who Will Rule” YES! Magazine #43, Fall 2007

Read an excerpt from Project Censored 2009

Fall Semester Fieldwork Research

DGM — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:08:10 +0000

Due date for research proposals: to be announced

In the latter part of the semester you will, either in groups or individually, choose a particular organization (e.g. Polaris Project, Amnesty International, Japan Committee for Negros Campaign, Greenpeace, ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Pornography, and Trafficking), JATAN (Japan Tropical Forest Action Network), Free the Children, Global Village, Sarawak Campaign Committee, Asian Women’s Association, World Peace Now etc.) to focus an in-class presentation on. In preparation for the presentation, you will do a minimum of four hours of participant-observation research on the topic of your choice in an accessible location, taking field notes. You are free, indeed encouraged, to choose grassroots-based organizations that reflect your particular interests. During the presentation, in addition to providing a brief introduction to the group you visited, you will provide a discussion of your fieldwork experience on the research topic and setting, methods used, and data gathered, and evaluate the field experience (noting successes, setbacks, surprises, and adaptations). The grade will not be based on English proficiency or the relative “success” of the fieldwork, but on your analysis of the fieldwork project and critical evaluation of the group studied. This fieldwork research experience is intended to give you an opportunity to see for yourself the ways in which concerned citizens are taking action to create a better future for all as well as provide you with the chance to present your research findings and introduce the group or organization you chose for your project to your classmates.

I will expect a carefully prepared research proposal (typed - to be handed in for my records) with specific information regarding the particulars of the fieldwork proposal: Why did you choose this organization? What is the focus of your research? Why did you choose this focus? When are you visiting the organization? What type of questions do you intend to ask? How do you intend to participate in the activities of the organization? If you are going to form a group, one research proposal for the entire group (with everyone’s name and email address listed) will suffice. Individual oral presentations should be 10-15 minutes in length; in the case of group presentations, each group member will be expected to present for 5-10 minutes. This will require careful coordination and preparation by the group as a whole. We will reserve the last two class periods (three hours) for presentations of fieldwork research.

Suggestions of organizations to contact for fieldwork research

These are just suggestions to help you get started in your search for a grassroots-based organization that is involved in working for progressive social change in an area that you are particularly interested in. Keep in mind that there are a large number of organizations that are attempting to effect basic structural changes at the local, regional, national, and/or international level(s) of civil society. They all have in common a respect for such universal principles as human rights, social justice, and participatory democracy. For a more comprehensive listing of Japanese grassroots-based groups, please visit my Japan Links at: http://dgmoen.net/nihon-links.html. You are also free to choose an organization that you are already familiar with and support.

http://www.worldpeacenow.jp/ (World Peace Now!)
http://www.jca.apc.org/parc/index-j.html (Pacific Asia Resource Center)
http://www.seikatsuclub.org/ikiiki/stop_gmo/ine/keikaku.html (Stop GMO Campaign)
http://www.foejapan.org/aid/ (Friends of the Earth Japan)

Japan Committee for Negros Campaign, JCNC Nihon Negros Campaign Iinkai
ADDRESS Sun Rise Shinjuku bldg., 2-4-15 Okubo, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo-169-0072
PHONE +81-3-5273-8160 FAX +81-3-5273-8667
E-MAIL jcnc@jca.or.jp HOMEPAGE http://www.jca.apc.org/jcnc/

Asian Rural Institute, ARI Jun Gakko Hojin, Asia Gakuin
ADDRESS 442-1 Ohaza Tsukinukizawa Nishi-Nasuno-cho, Nasu-gun, Tochigi-329-2703 PHONE +81-287-36-3111 FAX +81-287-37-5833 E-MAIL ari@nasu-net.or.jp
HOMEPAGE http://www.ari.edu/

, ARI Jun Gakko Hojin, Asia GakuinADDRESS 442-1 Ohaza Tsukinukizawa Nishi-Nasuno-cho, Nasu-gun, Tochigi-329-2703 PHONE +81-287-36-3111 FAX +81-287-37-5833 E-MAIL HOMEPAGE
Global Village, GV
ADDRESS 1-13-16 Noge, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo-158-0092
PHONE +81-3-3705-0233 FAX +81-3-3705-0255 E-MAIL gv@gn.apc.org
Shapla Neer-Citizens’ Committee in Japan for Overseas Support
ADDRESS c/o Waseda Hoshi-en, 2-3-1 Nishi-Waseda, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo-169-8611
PHONE +81-3-3202-7863 FAX +81-3-3202-4593 E-MAIL info@shaplaneer.org HOMEPAGE http://www.shaplaneer.org/ (Japanese only)
A SEED Japan, ASJ
ADDRESS 3-7-26-612 Nishi-shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo-160-0023
PHONE +81-3-3349-5404 FAX +81-3-3349-5412 E-MAIL asj@jca.ax.apc.org
HOMEPAGE http://www.jca.ax.apc.org/~aseed/front.html (Japanese only)
Greenpeace Japan
ADDRESS Yoyogi Kaikan bldg., 1-35-1 Yoyogi, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo-151-0053
PHONE +81-3-5351-5400 FAX +81-3-5351-5417 E-MAIL gri@interlink.or.jp HOMEPAGE http://www.nets.ne.jp/GREENPEACE/ (Japanese only)
Japan Tropical Forest Action Network, JATAN Nettairin Kodo Network ADDRESS Megumi bldg., 6-5 Uguisudani-cho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo-150-0032
PHONE +81-3-3770-6308 FAX +81-3-3770-0727 E-MAIL jatan@igc.apc.org
Sarawak Campaign Committee, SCC
ADDRESS Mejiro bldg., 3-17-24 Mejiro, Toshima-ku, Tokyo-170-0031
PHONE +81-3-3954-3510 FAX +81-3-3951-1084 E-MAIL scc@kiwi.ne.jp HOMEPAGE http://www.kiwi-us.com/~scc/ (Japanese only)
Act Against Aids AAA Un’ei Jimukyoku
ADDRESS 1-9-20 Hiroo, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo-150-0012
PHONE +81-3-3447-0419 E-MAIL aaa@www.hudson.co.jp
HOMEPAGE http://www.hudson.co.jp/AAA/index.html (Japanese only)
Amnesty International Japanese Section, AIJ
ADDRESS Sukai Esuta bldg., 2-18-23 Nishi-Waseda, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo-169-0051
PHONE +81-3-3203-1050 FAX +81-3-3232-6775
E-MAIL webmaster@amnesty.or.jp HOMEPAGE http://www.amnesty.or.jp/
ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Pornography, and Trafficking), Japan
ADDRESS 1-12-4 Yuhigaoka, Toyonaka-shi, Osaka-561-0864
PHONE +81-6-6846-7360 FAX +81-6-6846-7360
E-MAIL mayasonozaki@softhome.net
HOMEPAGE http://tenkomori.org/ecpat.htm (Japanese only)
Japan International Center for the Rights of the Child, JICRC
Kokusai Kodomo Kenri Center
ADDRESS 2-30 Chaya-machi, Kita-ku Osaka-shi, Osaka-530-0013
PHONE +81-6-6375-5466 FAX +81-6-6371-7804
E-MAIL jicrc@sun-inet.or.jp HOMEPAGE http://www.sun-inet.or.jp/~jicrc
The Campaign to Stop the Prostitution of Asian Children and to Protect Their Rights, CASPAR Asia no Jido Baishun Soshi wo Uttaerukai
ADDRESS 1-6-12 Koda, Ikeda-shi, Osaka-563-0043
PHONE +81-727-53-6457 FAX+81-727-53-6457 E-MAIL marvel@interlink.or.jp
The International Movement against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism Japan Committee, IMADR-JC Han Sabetsu Kokusai Undo, Nippon Iinkai
ADDRESS 3-5-11 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo-106-0032
PHONE +81-3-3568-7709 FAX +81-3-3568-7709
E-MAIL HBGO2174@nifty.ne.jp
Campaign for Future of Filipino Children, CFFC Philippine no Kodomotachi no Mirai no Tameno Undo
ADDRESS c/o ACCE Jimusho, 37-1 Sayama Kumiyama-cho, Kuze-gun, Kyoto-613-0034 PHONE +81-774-43-8734 FAX +81-774-44-3102
HOMEPAGE http://www.mediawars.ne.jp/~ji3nip/cffc (Japanese only)

Feminist and Related Women’s Organizations

Asian Women’s Association (Ajia Onna-tachi no Kai) Address: 14-10-211 Sakuragaoka, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150 Phone: (033) 505-7070. Activities: Action for Asian women, especially for working women from Southeast Asia.
Support Center Tachiyori Address: 14-10-211 Sakuragaoka, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150 (033) 463-9752. Activities: Provide Asian women in Japan with support and advice.
Asian Women Workers’ Center (Ajia Joshi Rodosha Koryu Senta) Address: 2-3-18-34 Nishi-Waseda, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169 Phone: (033) 202-4993. Activities: Seminars, lectures, newsletter publication.
Pacific Asia Resource Center: PARC (Ajia Taiheyo Shiryo Senta: PARC) Address: 1-30-402 Jimbo-cho, Kanda, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101. Fax: (033) 232-6775. Activities: Rethinking Japan’s relationship with Asia, PARC Free School, Publications, Research links. http://www.jca.apc.org/parc/index-j.html
Amnesty-Japan Team for Women and Human Rights (Amnesty Nihon Josei to Jinken Chiimu) Address: 2-3-22 Nishi-Waseda, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo. Phone: (033) 203-1050. Fax: (033) 232-6775. Activities: Protecting women’s human rights.
LIP: Lesbians in Pain (Ijimerarekko no Kai: LIP) Address: c/o Regumi Studio, Nakazawa Bldg. 3F, 23 Araki-cho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160. Phone: (033) 226-8314. Activities: Support for lesbians.
Women’s Association Against Police Sexual Violence (Keisatsu no Seiboryoku o Yurusanai Onna-tachi no Kai) Address: c/o Sakazume, 2-29-2-1215 Takashimadaira, Itabashi-ku, Tokyo. Activities: Abolition of sexual violence by the police against women; meetings only open to women.
Women’s Network Against Sexual Violence (Seiboryoku to Tatakau Onna-tachi no Nettowaku) Address: c/o Project Tatakau Akazukin, P.O. Box 35, Fussa Post Office, Fussa-shi, Tokyo 197. Activities: Campaign against pornography and sexual harassment.
Women Opposed to War (Senso e no Michi o Yurusanai Onna-tachi no Renrakukai) Address: c/o Nihon Fujin Kaigi, 1-33-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113. Phone: (033) 816-2057. Activities: Meetings for peace; workshops on the Peace Constitution.
Tokyo Rape Crisis Center (Tokyo Gokan Kyuen Senta) Address: P.O. Box 7, Joto Post Office, Koto-ku, Tokyo 136. Phone: (033) 207-3692. Activities: Telephone counseling; newsletter publication.

Association Against Prostitution (Baibaishun Mondai ni Torikumukai) Address: Kyofukaikan, 2-23-5, Hyakunin-cho, Shinjuku_ku, Tokyo 169. Phone: (035)386-4041.
Activities: Research on issues of prostitution and environment with an emphasis on child prostitution, sex tours, and comfort women; newsletter publication.
Counseling Group for Filipino Brides (Firipin no Hanayome o Kangaerukai) Address: c/o Fujin Minshu Kurabu, 3-31-18 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150. Phone: (033) 402-3238. Activities: Campaign against the importation of women.

Femin (links to many women’s rights groups): http://www.jca.apc.org/femin/

Ten Ways to Democratize the Global Economy

DGM — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 08:32:48 +0000

Global Exchange Fact Sheet: 10 Ways to Democratize the Global Economy

              Citizens can and should play an active role in shaping the future of our global economy. Here are some of the ways in which we can work together to reform global trade rules, demand that corporations are accountable to people’s needs, build strong and free labor and promote fair and environmentally sustainable alternatives.

1. No Globalization without Representation
              Multilateral institutions such as the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund create global policy with input mainly from multinational corporations and very little input from grassroots citizens groups. We need to ensure that all global citizens must be democratically represented in the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of all global social and economic policies of the WTO, the IMF, and the WB. The WTO must immediately halt all meetings and negotiations in order for a full, fair, and public assessment to be conducted of the impacts of the WTO’s policies to date. The WTO must be replaced by a body that is fully democratic, transparent, and accountable to citizens of the entire world instead of to corporations. We must build support for trade policies that protect workers, human rights, and the environment.

Focus on the Global South

Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch/Citizens Trade Campaign

Third World Network

International Forum on Globalization

2. Mandate Corporate Responsibility
              Corporations have so heavily influenced global trade negotiations that they now have rights and representation greater than individual citizens and even governments. Under the guise of ‘free trade’ they advocate weakening of labor and environmental laws — a global economy of sweatshops and environmental devastation. Corporations must be subject to the people’s will; they should have to prove their worth to society or be dismantled. Corporations must be accountable to public needs, be open to public scrutiny, provide living wage jobs, abide by all environmental and labor regulations, and be subject to all laws governing them. Shareholder activism is an excellent tool for challenging corporate behavior.

Program on Corporations, Law, and Democracy

Campaign for Labor Rights

Transnational Research and Action Center

Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility

United Students Against Sweatshops

Student Alliance to Reform Corporations

3. Restructure the Global Financial Architecture
              Currency speculation and the derivatives market move over $1.5 trillion daily (compared to world trade of $6 trillion annually), earning short-term profits for wealthy investors at the expense of long-term development. Many countries are beginning to implement ‘capital controls’ in order to regulate the influence foreign capital, and grassroots groups are advocating the restructuring and regulation of the global financial architecture. Citizens can pass local city resolutions for the Tobin Tax - a tax of .1% to .25% on currency transactions which would provide a disincentive for speculation but not affect real capital investment, and create a huge fund for building schools & clinics throughout the world.

Tobin Tax Initiative

Friends of the Earth

Institute for Policy Studies

4. Cancel all Debt, End Structural Adjustment and Defend Economic Sovereignty
              Debt is crushing most poor countries’ ability to develop as they spend huge amounts of their resources servicing odious debt rather than serving the needs of their populations. Structural adjustment is the tool promoted by the IMF and World Bank to keep countries on schedule with debt payments, with programs promoting export-led development at the expense of social needs. There is an international movement demanding that all debt be cancelled in the year 2000 in order for countries to prioritize health care, education, and real development. Countries must have the autonomy to pursue their own economic plans, including prioritizing social needs over the needs of multinational corporations.

Jubilee 2000

50 Years Is Enough

End the Blockade Against Cuba

5. Prioritize Human Rights - Including Economic Rights - in Trade Agreements
              The United Nations must be the strongest multilateral body - not the WTO. The US must ratify all international conventions on social and political rights. Trade rules must comply with higher laws on human rights as well as economic and labor rights included in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. We should promote alternative trade agreements that include fair trade, debt cancellation, micro-credit, and local control over development policies.

International Labor Rights Fund

GX Corporate Accountability Campaign

HOPE for Africa Act

Alternatives for the Americas

6. Promote Sustainable Development - Not Consumption - as the Key to Progress
              Global trade and investment should not be ends in themselves, but rather the instruments for achieving equitable and sustainable development, including protection for workers and the environment. Global trade agreements should not undermine the ability of each nation, state or local community to meet its citizens’ social, environmental, cultural or economic needs. International development should not be export-driven, but rather should prioritize food security, sustainability, and democratic participation.

Redefining Progress

Food First

Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

7. Integrate Womens’ Needs in All Economic Restructuring
              Women make up half the world but hold less than 5% of positions of power in determining global economic policy, and own an estimated 1% of global property. Family survival around the world depends on the economic independence of women. Economic policies need to take into account women’s important role in nutrition, education, and development. This includes access to family planning as well as education, credit, job training, policy decision-making, and other needs.

Women’s EDGE: Economic Development and Global Equality

International Center for Research on Women

Women’s Environment and Development Organization

8. Build Free and Strong Labor Unions Internationally and Domestically
              As trade becomes more ‘free,’ labor unions are still restricted from organizing in most countries. The International Labor Organization should have the same enforcement power as the WTO. The US should ratify ILO conventions and set an example in terms of enforcing workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively. As corporations increase their multinational strength, unions are working to build bridges across borders and organize globally. Activists can support their efforts and ensure that free labor is an essential component of any ‘free trade’ agreements.

American Federation of Labor/Congress of Industrial Organizations

International Confederation of Free Trade Unions

International Labor Organization

Open World Conference

9. Develop Community Control Over Capital; Promote Socially Responsible Investment
              Local communities should not be beholden to the IMF, international capital, multinational corporations, or any other non-local body for policy. Communities should be able to develop investment and development programs that suit local needs including passing anti-sweatshop purchasing restrictions, promoting local credit unions and local barter currency, and implementing investment policies for their city, church, and union that reflect social responsibility criteria.

ACORN

Sustainable USA

United for a Fair Economy

Alliance for Democracy

10. Promote Fair Trade Not Free Trade
              While we work to reform ‘free trade’ institutions and keep corporate chain stores out of our neighborhoods, we should also promote our own vision of Fair Trade. We need to build networks of support and education for grassroots trade and trade in environmentally sustainable goods. We can promote labeling of goods such as Fair Trade Certified, organic, and sustainably harvested. We can purchase locally made goods and locally grown foods that support local economies and cooperative forms of production and trade.

Fair Trade Federation

Rural Coalition

TransFair USA

Coop America