The African National Congress: The Rise and Tragic Fall of a Revolutionary Movement

by Anthony Monteiro

Black “rule” in South Africa is illusory. “White supremacy without the obvious hand of white people is the form of social and political control, which replaces legal apartheid.” The revolution was derailed. “The road from the Freedom Charter, to the Morogoro Consultative Conference, to the 1994 elections, to the murder of 34 miners at Mirikana in 2012, is the ANC’s road to counter-revolution.”

“How did a revolutionary movement get transformed into a bourgeois electoral party along lines of the British Labor Party or the Democratic Party in the US?”

It is widely believed that the 1994 election brought the ANC to power and Nelson Mandela to the presidency of South Africa. Such a view is historical revisionism and diminishes the centrality of the revolutionary struggle. It was the fifty-year struggle that broke the white regime’s capacity to fight that brought on elections and Mandela’s presidency. It was not enlightened and transformed parts of the white regime or the “liberal” West that made this possible. To grasp 1994 and the events afterwards we must understand what came before. After 1948 the ANC and its allies moved to become a revolutionary movement. The revolutionary alliance composed of the ANC, the South African Communist Party (SACP), Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) and the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), was the most extraordinary movement in Africa’s anti-colonial history and one of the great movements of the 20^th century.

The colonization of South Africa proceeded in a unique manner, occurring over 250 years. In this time white settlers confronted African resistance, the most well known are the wars of the Zulus, lead by their great military/political leader Shaka Zulu. The British Boer War of 1899 established the British Empire and English settlers as the dominant force in South Africa. In 1948 the Nationalist Party, the Party of Afrikaners (Dutch speaking settlers) took power in an all white election. The system of apartheid (in the Afrikaner language means separation) institutes a new system of white supremacy. This system was defined by its similarities to the US Jim Crow system and the pro Hitler and neo-Nazi declarations of its leaders. All Africans in South Africa were viewed as legal outsiders in their own nation. Africans’ land was forcefully taken. The wealth of the nation was concentrated in white hands. Blacks were forced to carry the dreaded passbook, live in squalid townships and fictionally independent and resource depleted “Bantustans,” i.e. homelands for the so-called Bantus. It was a police state that rivaled the well-known fascist regimes of the 20^th century. The whole system was openly and blatantly white supremacist, that defended the interests of the white minority and foreign mining and banking corporations based in Britain, the US and other European nations.

“It was a police state that rivaled the well-known fascist regimes of the 20^th century.”

The first steps of the ANC towards a revolutionary solution to the problems of colonialism, apartheid, black dispossession and labor super-exploitation came with the founding of the ANC Youth league by an insurgent and impatient generation. Among the insurgents were Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Nelson Mandela, Duma Nokwe and Alfred Nzo. Founding the Youth League represented a break with the old methods associated with the leadership of Chief Albert Luthuli and the generation that sought legal reforms and gradual change in the pre-apartheid system of colonial rule. The insurgent, and soon to be revolutionary generation, were more in tune with the fact that apartheid was a more brutal system than what came before it. They believed, as well, that the international situation after World War II favored their struggle and the tide of African independence would soon engulf all of southern Africa. A good part of this group was either in the South African Communist Party (SACP) or soon to be members and leaders. They would lead the great Defiance Campaign of the 1950’s. It was the leadership of Walter Sisulu that in 1955 called for the Congress of the People, that adopted The Freedom Charter. One hundred and fifty six of the defiance campaigners – among them Mandela, Tambo, Mbeki , Walter Sisulu, Dennis Goldberg, Ruth First and Mac Maharaj – were put on trial in 1956 for treason under the infamous Suppression of Communism Act. A five-year court battle ensued. All were ultimately acquitted.

March 1960 was a turning point in the transformation of the ANC and the movement for freedom in South Africa. The Sharpsville massacre occurred at a demonstration called by the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) where 69 unarmed Africans were murdered by the regime. For the ANC a red line had been crossed, making armed struggle decisive to the people’s movement. In 1961 the ANC commits itself to the formation of a military wing – Umkonto weSizwe (the Spear of the Nation). Once committed to people’s war and armed struggle the ANC also committed itself to the armed seizure of power by the people. At the same time that the ANC prepared for peoples war the regime instituted a new Constitution that proclaimed South Africa a white republic, legislating white supremacy and “separate development” for the black majority.

For most of its history the ANC was a movement seeking to change the system of colonialism and apartheid by means of legal protests and reforms. This path was similar to the way most of Africa had achieved independence. Political parties such as the Convention People’s Party in Ghana, Tanganyika African Union, and Kenyan African National Union were examples. Algerians fought a long and bloody armed struggle, but this was the exception. The turn to people’s war would fundamentally change the ANC and its relations to the people and to the regime. New international alliances would have to be developed. New ideological relationships within the ANC and between the ANC and its allies would be necessary. Ideologically and organizationally the ANC was transformed. In the end, the ANC changed from a broad anti-apartheid and anti-colonial movement to a revolutionary party of liberation.

“The Morogoro conference upheld the correctness of the Freedom Charter and its language that South Africa belonged to its people.”

At Morogoro, Tanzania, in 1969 the ANC held its first national consultative conference which quickened the actualization of the ANC as a revolutionary party, committed to toppling the fascist colonial state by armed means. Armed struggle, the Morogoro delegates insisted, would be combined with mass resistance and intensified class conflict in the mines, farms and factories. The Morogoro conference upheld the correctness of the Freedom Charter and its language that South Africa belonged to its people. It called for the return of the resources of the nation to the people and highlighted the centrality of 250 years of African resistance. In substance the Morogoro meeting put the ANC and its allies upon the path towards a revolutionary democracy and a socialist economy.

Morogoro began the final push towards consolidating the unity of anti-apartheid solidarity against the regime. Successive and continued national uprisings followed. The Soweto Uprising of 1976 and the Black Consciousness Movement, personified in Steve Biko, initiated a new moment in the national liberation struggle. The decade long uprising of the 1980’s galvanized by the heroic actions and personality of Winnie Mandela, demonstrated to the South African people and the world their fighting spirit and resolve and undermined the legitimacy of the regime worldwide. After Morogoro few within the movement questioned the need for armed resistance. After the regime’s brutal crushing of the 1976 student uprising, several thousand youth left the country to seek military training. In the 1980’s the uprising increasingly became a people’s armed uprising, taking on the form of people’s war. In this period Umkonto gains the support and confidence of the people and its leader Chris Hani became a national hero. The ANC’s revolutionary slogan of that period was “Make South Africa Ungovernable and Apartheid Unworkable.” As the armed struggle and people’s war intensified so did the class struggle, especially among miners in the gold, silver and platinum mines. The highpoint of the class conflict of this period was the 1986 strike of 300,000 miners. The apartheid economy was shaken to its core. Never in Africa, and seldom anywhere else in the world, had armed struggle and class conflict merged into a mass revolutionary uprising. Side by side with the setbacks for the police and military in the largest townships, Soweto and Alexandra, and attacks upon the puppet Bantustan “governments,” the most powerful colonial army ever assembled in Africa, the South African army, was defeated in Angola in 1988 by a combined force of the Cuban and Angolan armed forces, Umkonto we Sizwe and fighters of SWAPO of Namibia. As a revolutionary party the ANC along with its allies led the struggle to topple apartheid. In so doing it transformed itself and the world’s understanding of the revolutionary potential inherent to the struggle for African liberation.

“Never in Africa, and seldom anywhere else in the world, had armed struggle and class conflict merged into a mass revolutionary uprising.”

Freedom was not handed to the people as a gift from a more enlightened and changed white regime and its American and western backers, but came about through unrelenting and bitter struggle. The white regime and its American and European backers raised the white flag and sued for peace negotiations in the late 1980’s. This led to the freedom of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners and the legalization of the ANC, the SACP, PAC and other banned organizations. (For more detail see my previous BAR articles “Nelson Mandela The Contradictions of his Life and Legacies [23]” and “Nelson Mandela, Free Market Capitalism and the Crisis of South Africa [24].”)

The question that is without a final answer is how did a revolutionary movement get transformed into a bourgeois electoral party along lines of the British Labor Party or the Democratic Party in the US. How did a stellar organization defined by ideologically and politically sophisticated and self sacrificing leadership become a debased and corrupt institution serving as apologists for western transnational banks and mining companies and neoliberal policies? When did the ANC cease being the party of the people, especially the working masses, and become one serving the interests of a parasitic and comprador black petit bourgeois? When did people whom the South African people and the world see as revolutionaries and freedom fighters, such as Thabo Mbeki and Cyril Ramaphosa become committed to neo-liberal capitalism and a democracy that defends white interests and sacrifices the African working class? Why did the SACP abandon its revolutionary history and adopt a social democratic and reformist worldview, and as a result become apologists for a corrupt capitalist government? Why has the Congress of South African Trade Unions become an ally of a government that is against the working class and the poor?

It seems clear the turning point occurred between roughly 1988 and 1991. Without the deployment of the tremendous moral and political authority of Nelson Mandela in the service of a deal that saved the interests of the white minority and the West the current situation is inconceivable. He and his supporters accepted a deal where elections that made him president would take place, but the seizure of power by the people would not. Whites would give up total power in return for holding on to strategic power, especially in the economy. The substance and subtext of the Mandela symbology contests the call for the revolutionary seizure of power as a mistake and replaces it with the bogus notion of a “Rainbow Nation” and multiculturalism. To claim the moral high ground they proposed a Truth and Reconciliation process rather than trials under international law for the perpetrators of crimes against humanity. Reparations and land redistribution, along with nationalization of the mines, banks and factories are all off the table. A limited democracy prevails and power remains where it was during the height of apartheid. The West deployed every means of propaganda and PR to make Mandela not just a great man, but also a messiah and a savior. At the same time there is the racial and class bribe to the black elite, thereby inventing a tamed and compliant black misleadership class.

“The substance and subtext of the Mandela symbology contests the call for the revolutionary seizure of power as a mistake and replaces it with the bogus notion of a ‘Rainbow Nation’ and multiculturalism.”

A significant, yet little known event in the process of turning the ANC against itself, and ultimately the people, was the publication in the African Communist (the theoretical journal of the SACP) of an essay by the then chairman of the SACP Joe Slovo. The article, “Has Socialism Failed” claimed to be an explanation of the events in the Soviet Union that led to its collapse. He sided with the stance of Mikhail Gorbachev (then General Secretary of the CPSU) that existing socialism was a failure. Slovo said the party should abandon Leninism for Social Democracy (the historical opponent of communism within the international left). In attacking existing socialism as a failure Slovo attacked one of the main pillars of the ANC and the revolutionary alliance. He also called for the abandoning of revolutionary ideology and acceptance of social democracy, elections rather than power and a liberal bourgeois state, rather than people’s power.

Lastly, of major political and symbolic significance was the 1991 demand by the ANC leadership for Umkonto to cease all military operations against the regime. This was literally pulling defeat from the jaws of victory. There were no grounds for undermining Umkonto as a fighting force at a time when the regime and its black puppets continued attacking the people.

The revolutionary offensive of the people after Mandela’s release was called off, and it was argued the black resistance was endangering peace and reconciliation. It was insisted by some that the ANC-led alliance and the great mass of the people were anti-democratic, even “racialists” and therefore had to be toned down and reined in. To the rising black elite and bourgeoisie the masses and their fighting organizations were threats to the “Rainbow Nation.” Through the uses of bourgeois propaganda a new South African narrative was advanced. Through Mandela’s example of reconciliation, it insists, white racists and fascists were suddenly transformed into democrats. F.W. De Klerk, the last white prime minister, and responsible for the murders and imprisonment of thousands of freedom fighters, was given the Nobel Peace Prize and presented as a democrat and anti-apartheid figure. Winnie Mandela, on the other hand, was politically marginalized and demonized as a dangerous outsider and unreasonable radical. In the name of reconciliation no one from the white regime has been tried or gone to jail for what the UN had called crimes against humanity.

When Mandela was released from prison, the three most popular figures in the nation were, Mandela, Winnie Mandel and Chris Hani. Winnie and Chris Hani opposed the new direction of the ANC under Mandela. Hani became chair of the SACP replacing Slovo in 1991 after the party’s leadership rejected Slovo’s anti-revolutionary and social democratic positions. Hani at the time of his assassination in 1993 was the head of two of the most powerful organization in the ANC led alliance, Umkonto and SACP, with huge popular standing. Hani was viewed as a possible future president of South Africa, which would have pushed aside the likes of the pro-capitalist Thabo Mbeki, Cyril Ramaphosa and Jacob Zuma.

“Winnie Mandela was politically marginalized and demonized as a dangerous outsider and unreasonable radical.”

The vilest, most ugly, commercialized and corporate aspects of African American “popular culture” are fed to the youth. A generation that has little or no memory of the struggle has imposed on it dehumanizing, misogynistic, homophobic “Black culture.” This is part of the political, cultural and ideological diminishment of the poor and working masses. The new leaders of the nation have a plan to alter the consciousness of the people, replacing images of revolutionaries and resistance fighters with thugs or hyper individualistic and selfish entertainers and clowns. On a daily basis Tyler Perry minstrelsy and Oprah Winfrey imitators are fed to a now confused, leaderless and ideologically disoriented nation. While the majority of black South Africans endure the farce of a “Rainbow Nation,” whites are held responsible for nothing and in return get wealthier. The daily racist insults have somewhat abated, though they still occur far too regularly, but are replaced by new forms of institutionalized white supremacy. White supremacy without the obvious hand of white people is the form of social and political control, which replaces legal apartheid. Indeed, these are cruel ironies that must play havoc upon the collective consciousness of black South Africans.

The path of the ANC from revolutionary party and tribune of the people to the party of government in “the free South Africa” is a story of great sacrifice, struggle and, in the end, a tragedy for the people. The road from the Freedom Charter, to the Morogoro Consultative Conference, to the 1994 elections, to the murder of 34 miners at Mirikana in 2012, is the ANC’s road from revolution to counter-revolution. The road from Chief Albert Luthuli, Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo to Jacob Zuma and the current leadership, is the road from revolutionary sacrifice and commitment to venality, corruption and bootlicking.

Soon after Mandela’s mortal remains were lowered into the ground from which his ancestors sprung the press was filled with accounts of the nation’s largest union, the National Union of Miners, withdrawing its support from the ANC. Other reports tell of Cyril Ramaphosa, former head of the mineworkers union, now billionaire, having called for and signed off on the murders of the 34 miners at Marikana. The South African and international media are filled with stories of President Jacob Zuma’s money deals and multiple wives and girl friends. Every day there are new accounts of corruption and theft by government and ANC officials. And as the world reflects upon Mandela’s legacy the spectacle of white wealth and black poverty and misery haunts the discussions. In the end, we see not a free nation, not a nation united to abolish the past and build an egalitarian future, but a divided nation with a black government that protects white and western wealth and enforces black poverty.

What is South Africa’s future? Can the dream of the Freedom Charter and the Morogoro Conference ever be achieved? To the last question the answer is yes. To the first the answer is that the immediate future for South Africa is a new struggle grounded in the Freedom Charter and the Morogoro Conference. Oliver Tambo in 1969 summed up the spirit of Morogoro, he said, “Close Ranks! This is the order to our people; our youth; the army; to each Umkhonto we Sizwe militant; to all our many supporters the world over. This is the order to our leaders; to all of us. The order that comes from this conference is: Close Ranks and Intensify the Struggle!”

Anthony Monteiro is a professor of African American Studies at Temple University. He can be contacted at tmon(at)comcast.net.

Source URL: http://blackagendareport.com/content/african-national-congress-rise-and-tragic-fall-revolutionary-movement

60 Minutes Hit Job On Clean Energy Ignores The Facts

BY JOE ROMM ON JANUARY 5, 2014

CREDIT: DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Clean technology is booming by every key indicator — but you would never know that from Sunday’s absurd 60 Minutes piece touting an imaginary “Cleantech Crash.”

As documented in the recent Department of Energy (DOE) report, “Revolution Now: The Future Arrives for Four Clean Energy Technologies,” the only thing in cleantech that is crashing is the cost of key components. This price crash has enabled explosive growth in wind power, solar power, LED lights and electric vehicles, as shown in the four charts from the report reposted here.

CREDIT: DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Ironically, this boom is so self-evident that just Saturday the New York Times published a front page story on “the solar power craze that is sweeping Wall Street.” As the article notes, “Solar companies have had the wind at their backs lately.”

It’s true there have been some losers among cleantech companies, but that’s precisely what you would expect in an industry where the norm has become ruthless cost-cutting, which in turn is a great boon to consumers.

CREDIT: DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

But for 60 Minutes, this incredible boon is a bust. Here’s a transcript of a clip from the show:

LESLEY STAHL (over pictures of solar panels, biofuels, wind turbines): “It’s called clean tech. And the new technologies that were developed in the energy sector were supposed to create jobs, and help America break its reliance on fossil fuels. The government supported it, and billions of tax dollars were spent. So how is the investment going?

STAHL (to DOE interviewee): “Solyndra went through half a billion dollars before it failed. Then I’m going to give you a list of other failures. Abound Energy. Beacon Power. Fisker. VPG. Pfff…I’m exhausted.”

INTERVIEWEE: “As I told you at the beginning, the energy business is tough!”

Memo to CBS: Every business is tough! In 2012, the Wall Street Journal ran an informative piece on just how tough the private sector venture-capital businesses is, headlined, “The Venture Capital Secret: 3 Out of 4 Start-Ups Fail.”

It seems at first that this is a secret 60 Minutes is unaware of, since the show focuses almost entirely on the failures. But CBS explains that “the venture capital model is that for every ten startups, nine go under” — except that CBS appears to see that as a bug, not a feature, failing to understand that the successes more than pay for the failures.

[pullquote]It’s a depressing and infuriating story: When big media does not damage the public interest through lies, it hurts it through appalling ignorance or sheer dumbness. What’s more, the real story is not that the US government has sunk so much money into clean energy—obviously a good thing at any cost considering the comatose state of the planet and our own role in it—but that it has done so little and so late. Is this just a case of misguided muckraking or there’s something else to this story?[/pullquote]

Moreover, 60 Minutes is apparently unaware that the DOE Loan Guarantee Program has a whopping 97 percent success rate, while the companies CBS focuses on such as Solyndra and Abound Solar were just three percent of the portfolio.

It’s as if 60 Minutes did a profile of the venture firm Kleiner-Perkins and focused primarily on its failed investments with only passing mention of AOL — and no mention at all of Amazon.com, Genentech, Sun Microsystems or Google! In fact, when 60 Minutes profiled co-founder Tom Perkins several years ago, they called him “the captain of capitalism” and only found time to mention the winners!

Let’s set aside the question of why 60 Minutes chose to do a hit-job on cleantech, which clearly was unwarranted, after producing widely criticized puff pieces on the NSA and Amazon’s wildly impractical delivery drones.

The key point is that the goal of DOE’s investments is not to make money. The goal is to accelerate the drop in price — and increase in deployment — of clean energy in the market, which it clearly has done in industry after industry. A secondary goal was to create jobs in this country, which it also succeeded in doing.

CREDIT: DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Every major independent review, including one by John McCain’s former National Finance Chairman, found the loan guarantee program was cost-effective for taxpayers. A review by Brookings found “DOE’s loan guarantee program will likely result in minimal costs and large gains for taxpayers.”

In fact, the Atlantic Wire reported last year that this one program successfully shepherded 28 companies with clean energy projects creating over 20,000 jobs — with a net cost to the public that will either end up being very low or zero. DOE projects that all of its clean energy loan programs taken together will generate some 55,000 jobs.

Inexplicably, the 60 Minutes correspondent asserts that according to “everything I’ve read there were not many jobs created” (and they even found an uninformed former DOE official to agree with them). CBS claims taxpayers have little to show for the investments when the data clearly show otherwise.

The whole segment is baffling. CBS asserts that the key cleantech investor they interview, Vinod Khosla, is “known as the father of the cleantech revolution.” He ain’t, and in fact he’s about the last person you’d want to talk to on the subject (see my 2010 post, “Is anyone more incoherent than Vinod Khosla?“).

They even found a Chinese cleantech entrepreneur to say “clean tech is not going well” — even though China is the leader in both solar and wind power. CBS complains that the Chinese have created U.S. jobs using some of the technology U.S. taxpayers supported, as if the only U.S. jobs that count are ones created by U.S. companies. CBS correctly notes that China is willing to take a long term view of clean tech, but never mentions how opposition to U.S. clean energy standards, cleantech investment, and a price for carbon by conservatives in Congress have hurt the competitiveness of U.S. companies.

For those who want the facts of the cleantech boom, a good place to start is the DOE report:

In 2012, wind was America’s largest source of new electrical capacity, accounting for 43 percent of all new installations. Altogether the United States has deployed about 60 gigawatts of wind power — enough to power 15 million homes.
Since 2008, the price of solar panels has fallen by 75 percent, and solar installations have multiplied tenfold. Many major homebuilders are incorporating rooftop panels as a standard feature on new homes.
In that same five years, the cost of super-efficient LED lights has fallen more than 85 percent and sales have skyrocketed. In 2009, there were fewer than 400,000 LED lights installed in the U.S.; today, the number has grown 50-fold to almost 20 million.
During the first six months of 2013, America bought twice as many plug-in electric vehicles (EVs) as in the first half of 2012, and six times as many as in the first half of 2011. In fact, the market for plug-in electric vehicles has grown much faster than the early market for hybrids.

APPENDIX
The Cleantech Crash
Despite billions invested by the U.S. government in so-called “Cleantech” energy, Washington and Silicon Valley have little to show for it

Toyota Unveils Zero-Emissions Hydrogen Fuel-Cell ‘Car Of The Future’ For Sale Next Year

BY ARI PHILLIPS ON JANUARY 7, 2014
Climateprogress

“Toyota Unveils Zero-Emissions Hydrogen Fuel-Cell ‘Car Of The Future’ For Sale Next Year“

CREDIT: TOYOTA

Toyota announced the launch of a hydrogen-powered fuel-cell car in the U.S. next year on Monday at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The car, which resembles the popular Corolla, is yet to be named, but like the birth of a royal child it’s the pedigree that counts — and Toyota is the largest auto manufacturer in the world. However, unlike a royal child, hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles have been fighting an uphill battle against logistical, technological and economic odds since their inception.

“For years, the use of hydrogen gas to power an electric vehicle has been seen by many smart people as a foolish quest,” Bob Carter, senior vice president of automotive operations for Toyota Motor Sales, said at the CES event. “Yes, there are significant challenges. The first is building the vehicle at a reasonable price for many people. The second is doing what we can to help kick-start the construction of convenient hydrogen refueling infrastructure. We’re doing a good job with both and we will launch in 2015.”

Calling it the “car of the future,” Carter said the vehicle will be a zero-emission, mid-size, four-door sedan with a driving range of at least 300 miles between refueling and a fill-up time of less than five minutes. No official price tag was announced, but it is estimated that the cost will range from $50,000 to $100,000.

“We aren’t trying to re-invent the wheel; just everything necessary to make them turn,” said Carter.

Not only does this include the technology inside the car, but also the infrastructure needed for refueling.

Hydrogen-powered fuel-cell vehicles run on hydrogen gas, making them similar to battery-only models such as the Nissan Leaf that plug-in to recharge in that they emit none of the tailpipe pollution association with burning gasoline. The only exhaust on the Toyota fuel-cell vehicle will be water vapor.

“Battery models carry electricity in their lithium-ion battery packs while fuel-cell vehicles make electricity on board in a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen,” Bloomberg Businessweek reported. “While hydrogen vehicles have a range comparable to gasoline vehicles and need only a few minutes to refuel — compared with hours for most battery autos — there are few hydrogen pumps currently open to the public.”

To be precise there are currently nine hydrogen refueling stations open to the public, all of them in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, and another dozen in California that are private or for demonstration. For this reason the vehicle will initially launch in California — a state known for leading the nation in emissions standards and efficiency mandates. In 2012 the California Air Resources Board required that by 2025 one in seven new cars sold be zero-emission.

California has set aside more than $200 million to build another 20 hydrogen fueling stations by 2015 with as many as 100 possible within the next decade. Toyota has partnered with UC-Irvine to help determine the best locations for these fueling stations.

Addressing concern over the sparseness of refueling opportunities, Carter said, “Stay tuned, because this infrastructure thing is going to happen.”

South Korean automaker Hyundai also recently announced plans for a hydrogen-powered fuel-cell vehicle. Honda already has a fuel-cell car called the FCX Clarity that is available forlease primarily in Southern California.

A study from last year by the firm Lux Research found that, “The dream of a hydrogen economy envisioned for decades by politicians, economists, and environmentalists is no nearer, with hydrogen fuel cells turning a modest $3 billion market of about 5.9 GW in 2030.”

While hydrogen-powered cars will not likely make a significant automobile market impact or greenhouse gas emissions dent before 2030 as once hoped, production costs are rapidly falling and infrastructure is gaining steam.

So perhaps all the past hype about hydrogen-powered cars as a major mitigator of greenhouse gases can be replaced with a realistic goal of becoming a small part of the solution as some of the hurdles are overcome.

“We estimate a 95 percent cost reduction for the powertrain and fuel tanks of the vehicle we will launch in 2015 when you compare that to what it cost for us to build the original Highlander Fuel Cell in 2002,” Carter said at the CES event.

________________

SELECT COMMENTS

David Bruderly · Top Commenter

Hydrogen fuel dispensers are no more difficult to deploy than compressed natural gas dispensers and the capital costs will be similar. The most cost-effective way to produce hydrogen is to reform natural gas into hydrogen. This can be done at the fuel station or at a central facility with hydrogen delivered via pipeline. Distributed hydrogen production, i.e. at the fuel station, from natural gas will be the most practical, near-termand cost-effective method of producing hydrogen motor fuels. Lifecycle HFCEV GHG emissions from methane reformed hydrogen production are lower than emissions from a battery electric vehicle powered by electricity produced from natural gas. Near-zero life cycle emissions can be achieved by producing hydrogen with simple electrolysis of water using solar or wind electricity. Energy cost to operate high efficiency HFCEVs will be competitive with $3-4 gasoline used in inefficient, and dirty, IC engines. Books documenting these claims have already been writen. Accurate information is readily available on the USDOE Hydrogen Program website as well as on European Hydrogen Program websites.

Reply · 1 · Like · Follow Post · 22 hours ago
Gracie Gragg · Top Commenter · Prototype Assembler at Electronics, many places in California

We have a Toyota Hybrid which does not have to be plugged into anything. Gets excellent gas millage as it is an old car. 2001 and still runs great! Recharges by using the breaks. Only trouble is that the taxes on it are a lot higher than most cars because it does not use enough gas. So much for trying to help out with global warming and climate change!

Reply · 1 · Like · Follow Post · 21 hours ago

Mary Kaye Waterson · Follow · Top Commenter · Crystal Lake, Illinois

The price is going to have to come down significantly before a regular person even considers buying it.

Reply · 1 · Like · Follow Post · Yesterday at 2:15pm

Antigua Farms · Top Commenter · The University of Arizona

Let’s say the cost is $60,000. This would be around $40,000 more for a comparative non-hydro model of the same car. If one purchases this vehicle putting $20,000 down and finances $40,000 with home equity (at 5% APR), that is $316 a month in principal and interest (using a 15-year amortization table). I would consider buying this car, but most would not. The car would be paid for in 15 years. It would be beneficial financially the longer you held on to the care, and years 15-25 would be where you got your money back. Thanks for the brain walk math problem opportunity 🙂

Reply · 2 · Like · Yesterday at 3:15pm
Mary Kaye Waterson · Follow · Top Commenter · Crystal Lake, Illinois

Antigua Farms still too much for me. I like my cars to be paid off in 5 years, tops LOL

Reply · Like · Yesterday at 3:16pm
Clifton Hamilton · Top Commenter · Temple University

Same with electric cars. Same with hybrid cars before that. Same with just plain old normal cars before that.New technologies are not immediately distributed to everyone. The price comes down over time and eventually we all have a computer in our home and a car or two in our driveways.

OpEds: Damaged human attacks father , beats up family dog to death

L.I. Man Charged With Attacking Father, Beating Dog With Bat

December 28, 2013

Steven Errante is charged with beating a dog with a baseball bat on Long Island. (Credit: Suffolk County Police)

DIX HILLS, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) — A Long Island man appeared in court Saturday, on charges that he broke his father’s ribs with a baton and then beat the family dog with a baseball bat.

As WCBS 880’s Sophia Hall reported, prosecutors in Suffolk County said Steven Errante, 26, first used a baton on his father and broke his father’s ribs. At least a day afterward, he attacked the family dog with a baseball bat and beat her so severely that she ended up having to be euthanized, prosecutors said.

The bottom line is that the animal defenders’ struggle is caught in an impossible dichotomy in the treatment of animals. On one hand, many humans wish to shield animals from abuse. On the other, wanton cruelty and mistreatment carry very light penalties in most cases. This schizoid approach to the problem—reflected in weak protection laws— stems from the fact that we live in a society in which “recreational hunting” and factory farms are still legal, in which fur coats are regarded as normal, in which the oceans are fished to depletion, along with a myriad of other forms of exploitation and abuse of non-human creatures in just about every corner we care to look. Until a breakthrough is secured in the institutionalized tyrannization of animals, anti-cruelty laws will remain at best an uneven response to a common problem. [/pullquote]

Suffolk County police were called this past Sunday to 800 Deer Park Ave. in Dix Hills, after someone saw the Labrador mixed breed with serious injuries.

The female dog had suffered fractures to her head and face, trauma to her body, and a broken front leg, police said. Police took the dog to an emergency veterinary clinic, and then took her to an animal hospital for further treatment.

Ultimately, the efforts to heal the dog failed. Doctors said the dog was so severely injured that she had to be euthanized.

Following the incident, the Veterinary Medical Center of Long Island released updates about the dog, named Chantel Girl. A day ago, the dog had gained strength and was able to stand up and move herself in her cage, and also went outside to use the bathroom, the shelter said in a Facebook post.

But Chantel Girl declined significantly Friday evening.

Dog Beaten

This dog, named Chantel Girl, had to be euthanized after she was beaten on Long Island. (Credit: Veterinary Medical Center of Long Island)

“Regardless of our aggressive intervention, she became dull, and began to experience seizures, likely as a result of her critical condition and trauma sustained. It is with a heavy heart that we report that ‘Chantel Girl’ is no longer with us,” the shelter said on Facebook. “Thank you all for your kindness, prayers, concern, and support. It is a reminder to us all that from an awful act such as this, that we still must have faith in humanity, as you are all a testament to the good that people can do.”

Following an investigation, police arrested Errante in Mastic around 6:50 p.m. Friday. He was charged in the attack on his father and on the dog.

Errante, 26, was charged with aggravated cruelty to animals under the New York State Agricultural and Markets law, and second-degree assault.

Errante’s attorney, Mary Beth Abbate, said her client is a U.S. Army veteran who spent some time in a Veterans Affairs hospital.

“It’s always said, whether it’s an animal or a person, it’s always, always sad when somebody gets hurt,” Abbate said. “But at this point, they’re only allegations.”

At a hearing in Suffolk County First District Court in Central Islip Saturday, Errante was ordered by a judge to stay away and have no contact with his father. He was being held on $75,000 bond Saturday.

NYC must ban carriage horses, but they must sent to sanctuaries.

Stop giving new NYC mayor grief for trying to ban horse-drawn carriages

A horse-drawn carriage is ridden near Central Park on Thursday in New York. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced he would like the city council to outlaw the horse-drawn carriages in Manhattan, calling the practice inhumane.(AFP/Getty Images / January 2, 2014)

By Carla Hall / January 3, 2014, 3:01 p.m.

Bill de Blasio, the new mayor of New York City, has been getting grief for making a priority of banishing horse-drawn carriages from Central Park in Manhattan. It was one of his campaign promises and he announced at a news conference on Monday—two days before he was sworn in—that the city would “get rid of horse carriages, period.”

Let me get this straight: The first week a mayor comes into office, he announces, in no uncertain terms, that he’s going to do something he promised to do and do it right away. Yeah, that’s outrageous.

I know taking a shot at any new mayor is kind of like trophy hunting, but it’s ridiculous to blast De Blasio on this. Animal welfare advocates have been trying for years to get rid of the horse-drawn carriages. The Humane Society of the U.S. says that carriage horses in New York City live and work in inhumane conditions. According to a 2007 independent audit of the industry by the city comptroller, “the city’s horses are not provided with enough water, risk overheating on hot asphalt, and are forced to stand in their own waste in stables.”

A 2011 editorial in the New York Times presented a different picture, saying that horses are kept in large stalls with hay and water at the ready and don’t work when the outdoor temperature is above 90 degrees or below 18.

Good. Now, let’s treat these horses even better and get them off carriages and the streets altogether. Even if conditions for horses are better than they used to be, this is still an outdated, unsophisticated and unnecessary use of horses for recreation. Less than a month ago, a carriage driver was arrested in New York for animal cruelty after a police officer spotted the driver working an injured horse.

Besides–it’s Manhattan. Do we really think tourists won’t find something else to do? In place of the carriages, De Blasio wants to have electric vintage replica vehicles for tourists to ride, which would also provide jobs for carriage drivers.

And by the way, that’s only part of what De Blasio promised. He also wants to toughen up laws on the sale of puppy mill animals, wants more regulation of pet dealers, and would revamp the city’s municipal shelter system, which definitely needs an overhaul. (The Los Angeles City Council bans the sale of animals from large-scale breeders—so-called puppy mills—at all pet stores in the city.)

The mayor still has to get this plan through the city council. After that, though, he can probably get the 200 some working horses retired into sanctuaries relatively quickly. The Humane Society of the U.S. and other groups have offered to take them.

Of course, De Blasio has colossal issues in the city to fix. (Or try to fix.) But I don’t think his announcing that one of the easier problems to solve would get tackled right away means he can’t promptly address poverty, pensions and everything else ailing New York City.