Felicity Arbuthnot

Warrior for Peace and Justice

[Photo: White Helmet photo op. Interestingly this White Helmet (and requisite waif) comes devoid of background to be used in multiple settings. Credit: Syrian Civil Defense.]

A document (1, pdf) produced last December by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, headed: “UK Non-Humanitarian Aid in Response to The Syria Conflict”, makes interesting reading. The British government it states, has spent “over £100 million” since 2012, “working closely with a range of actors” to “find a political solution to the conflict and prepare to rebuild the country in the post Assad era.” (Emphasis added.)

“Our efforts … include providing more than £67 million of support to the Syrian opposition.”

One of the “actors” to benefit from hefty chunks of British taxpayers moneys is the Syrian National Coalition whose website (2) states, under “Mission Statement and Goals”: “The coalition will do everything in its power to reach the goal of overthrowing the Assad regime …” and to “Establish a transitional government …” (Emphasis added.) Thus the UK government is overtly supporting the illegal overthrow of yet another sovereign government.

It all reads like a re-run of Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraq National Congress and Iyad Allawi’s Iraq National Accord, backed by the British and US governments to equally criminally overthrow Saddam Hussein.

Iraq’s football pitches, gardens and back yards turned graveyards, probably three million deaths between the embargo, the 1991 thirty-two country assault, the 2003 blitzkrieg and invasion – ongoing – the ruins of the “Cradle of Civilisation” of which Syria is equally custodian, are silent witness to that gargantuan crime against humanity – and history. Will Washington and Whitehall never learn – or is destruction of civil societies, Nazi-like aggression, illegal overthrows and rivers of blood their raison d’être?

Incidentally, Foreign Office accounting farcically includes: “more than £29 Million to reduce the impact of the conflict on the region.” Stopping dropping British bombs would surely be the most practical way to do that – and persuading their US “coalition partners” to do the same. Yet more nauseating, murderous, hypocrisy.

Talking of reducing “the impact of conflict on the region” – here is what the UK is contributing to destroying it – courtesy again the (un-consulted) British taxpayer:

“Each of the RAF’s Tornado GR4 jets costs £9.4 million, and each flight costs around £35,000 per hour.

“Two Tornados are typically used for each flight, and each flight lasts anywhere between four and eight hours. Even at the lowest estimate, each flight costs £140,000.

“Their cargo is four Paveway bombs and two Brimstone missiles, costing £22,000 and £105,000 per unit respectively.

“That’s £298,000 plus the cost of the flight which is £438,000, and that’s an optimistic estimate. If the jets carry Storm Shadow missiles – which cost a cool £800,000 a pop – and conduct an eight-hour mission, the total cost is a hell of a lot higher, and none of this takes into account the cost of fuel.” (3)

The British government document informs that: “To date, there are over 2,700 volunteers in 110 civil defence stations across northern Syria, trained and equipped with help from UK funding … The ‘White Helmets’ as they are more commonly known … “ The “White Helmets” of course, only work in the areas held by the “moderate” organ eating, child decapitating, human incinerating, crucifying “opposition.”

In Foreign Office parlance, under the heading: “Moderate armed opposition: £4.4 million”, it is explained that this has been devoted to “life saving equipment”, presumably for the head choppers since the “life savers” appear to be their guests. Indeed the “White Helmets” website states that: “They are the largest civil society organisation operating in areas outside of government control …” (Emphasis added.)

Also, near farcically, the Foreign Office informs: “We have also funded Law of Armed Conflict training to help commanders train their fighters to understand their responsibilities and obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law.” Given their track record of near unique, mediaeval barbarity, the “training” is clearly falling on deaf ears.

The UK of course, is in no position to lecture on the law of armed conflict since the newly unelected Prime Minister, Theresa May, has vowed to halt all cases against British service men and women brought by Iraqis who allege torture, murder of relatives, and varying unimaginable abuses. So much for “responsibilities and obligations under human rights and humanitarian law.”

British generosity is seemingly boundless in murderous meddling in other nations. “Media activists” have been given £5.3 million:  “UK funded projects are helping establish a network of independent media outlets across Syria, whose work has included sending out messages about personal safety after the regime’s chemical weapons attack in Ghouta and, more recently, active reporting produced by civil society groups and the likes of the ‘White Helmets’ across Twitter and Facebook accounts.”

The “regime’s chemical weapons attack on Ghouta” has of course, been roundly disproved despite the best efforts of Western propaganda. As Eric Draitser has written (4):

“What makes that incident significant, both politically and historically, is the fact that, despite the evidence of Syrian government involvement being non-existent, the Obama administration nearly began a war with Syria using Ghouta as the pretext.

“As the months have passed however, scientific studies amassing an impressive body of evidence have shown that, not only were Washington’s claims of ‘certainty’ that Assad’s forces had used chemical weapons in their war with extremist fighters utterly baseless, but in fact the reality was quite the opposite – the rebels were the most likely culprits of the attack.”

The cynic might ponder that funding “media activists” and the “The White Helmets” to possibly “actively (mis)report” is blatant propaganda. As the propaganda master, Joseph Goebbels knew: Propaganda is the art of persuasion – persuading others that your ‘side of the story’ is correct – with mega money and resources thrown at the “persuasion.”

The UK’s arguable illegal munificence also extends to: “ … working with other international donors to establish and build up the Free Syrian Police (FSP) a moderate police force in opposition-controlled areas … “

Breathtaking. Another re-run of Iraq: disband the police, army, all structures of State – and Iraq is the soul searing, haunting, admonishing ghost, mourning the vibrant, cohesive, civil society (for all its complexities, as most societies) it was prior to the embargo and Iraq Liberation Act (1998) which stated that: “It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq…” and signed into law on 31^st October 1998, by President Bill Clinton.

As mentioned previously, there is now of course the Syria Accountability and Liberation Act of 2010 (H.R. 1206.) Spot the parallels.

“The White Helmets” have also benefited from $23 million from the US, according to State Department spokesman, Mark Toner (27^th April 2016) and €4 million from the government of the Netherlands. Last week Germany announced increasing this year’s donation to ‎€7 million. Japan has also chipped in.

A great deal of money, it would seem, is being thrown at insurgents and illegal immigrants in a sovereign country, awarding themselves the title of Syrian Civil Defence. Yet they do not even have an emergency telephone number. As Vanessa Beeley (5) has pointed out in extensive writings on the subject, the real Syria Civil Defence was established in 1953, is a Member of the International Civil Defence Organisation whose partners include the UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs – and as all national emergency services, they have a telephone number: 113.

Among the myriad tasks the “White Helmets” claim to undertake is: “The provision of medical services – including first aid – at the point of injury.” Why then were they trained not by expert first responders, paramedics, or civil emergency operatives, but by a mercenary, sorry “private contractor”?

According to Wikipedia: “Founder of Syria’s White Helmets, James Le Mesurier is a British ‘security’ specialist and ‘ex’ British military intelligence officer with an impressive track record in some of the most dubious NATO intervention theatres including Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine. Le Mesurier has also been placed in a series of high-profile posts at the United Nations, European Union, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.”

Equally interesting is Le Mesurier’s own site (6):

“James has spent 20 years working in fragile states as a United Nations staff member, a consultant for private companies and the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and as a British Army Officer. Much of his experience has involved delivering stabilisation activities through security sector and democratisation programmes. Since 2012, James has been working on the Syria crisis where he started the Syrian White Helmets programme in March 2013. In 2014, he founded Mayday Rescue, and is dedicated to strengthening local communities in countries that are entering, enduring or emerging from conflict. (Emphasis again added.)

“Democratisation programmes” eh? George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-four” had a “Re-education Committee”, but let’s not get too carried away.

On Tuesday 11 October 2016, the UK’s arguably combative Andrew Mitchell MP, ex-Royal Tank Regiment, who allegedly called Downing Street Police after an altercation “f ***** g plebs”, was granted an emergency three-hour debate in the House of Commons on Syria after allegations by the ‘White Helmets’ that Russian military jets and Syrian helicopters were bombing civilians in eastern Aleppo.

Mitchell stormed the debate all guns blazing, calling the alleged situation “akin to the attack on Guernica during the Spanish civil war” and suggesting the RAF should be empowered to shoot down Russian and Syrian aircraft. He also pushed for a “no fly zone.” As is known from Libya, that is a Western-only fly zone obliterating all in its sights. Guernica indeed.

Again of course, all but Russian and Syrian aircraft are there illegally, but  Andrew Mitchell is being advised among others by former CIA Director General David Petraeus, who was also former Commander of US Forces in Afghanistan and of Multinational Forces in Iraq. Not really a mini think tank, some might speculate, where the rule of law is going to have highest priority.

Mitchell also called for extra funding for – you guessed it – “The White Helmets.”

Incidentally, there are rigid protocols for first responders, paramount among which is to protect the injured, the traumatized, from publicity and identification, in their vulnerability.

“The White Helmets” are seemingly never without camera crews handy recording a small body, facing the camera, dust covered, blood spattered, clothes awry, in the arms of the “rescuer.”

“Lights, camera, action”? Heaven forbid.

1.https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/481277/Syria_UK_Non-Humanitarian_Support_-_Public_Document.pdf

2. http://en.etilaf.org
3. http://metro.co.uk/2015/12/03/whats-the-price-of-air-strikes-5542341/
4. http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-infamous-ghouta-chemical-weapons-attack-two-years-on-all-out-war-on-syria-is-still-the-main-course-for-us/5470828
5. http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-real-syria-civil-defence-exposes-natos-white-helmets-as-terrorist-linked-imposters/5547528
6. http://www.maydayrescue.org/content/james-le-mesurier-0

About the author

Paying the Price — Killing the Children of Iraq, which investigated the devastating effect of United Nations sanctions on people of Iraq.^[1]   Ms. Arbuthnot is a dedicated pacificist, and her work proves the adage that "the pen is mightier than the sword."

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Rowan Wolf, PhD
Voice of Conscience

[Photo: Fish kills in Florida from algae blooms. This repeated catastrophe is mostly human caused and the graphic reflects my feeling of the chaos and insanity of what we are seeing.]

I imagine that many of you are shaking your head wondering how the two most hated candidates somehow rose to the top of their parties. Then in twist after twist, the whole scenario gets more and more distasteful, and hateful.

The Republicans have a warped egotistical and hateful caricature of a candidate of mass destruction. He is not just imploding the Republican party, but any semblance of civility and reality. After tapes of him discussing his sexual assaults with crude braggadocio come to the surface, and a growing number of women step forward stating they have been victims of Trump’s sexual assaults, his “surrogates” are all over the talk shows saying that it does not make any difference whether these women’s claims are true or not because it is just a “distraction” from what’s really important.

Excuse me, but when your candidate 1) discounts half of the human race as less than human, and certainly less than him, having no rights in the face of what he wants, and 2) presumably he doesn’t care for much of the rest of the population except perhaps some rich white males like himself. Of course he is the perfect candidate for the “leader of the free world.”

I found myself deeply moved by Michelle Obama’s speech for in speaking the hard truth, all women have experienced some form of demeaning behavior because of our sex. It was a point of unity and clarity. Further, she allowed men of character to step up and say loud and clear that such behavior as Trump bragged about, nor such talk that attempted to create male bonding by demeaning women, is not to be tolerated.

If there has been one honest and true thing in this entire disastrous campaign, it is Michelle Obama’s speech. For what she said was true and every woman knows it. Thank you Michelle Obama for fighting for the humanity of women everywhere of every race, creed, and nation. You are right that this hurts, and this week of revelations and replays of this disgusting exhibition has cut many of us deeply. Thank you for not letting this pain pass without notice. Not only that, but your honesty offered a breath of fresh air in the foetid air of this campaign.

On the other hand we have Hillary Clinton who has left death and destruction in her wake and certainly has had a hand in the crafting of the Democratic Party as it is. Yet she is plagued by “Russian” hackers getting into this server and that and releasing damning information. Then, Wikileaks releases more “emails” that too baldly show the nasty world of behind the scenes political planning.

However, for me, both the Democratic Party server hack and release, and the most recent email release, raise a number of issues and concerns.  Why leak the DNC info when it is way too late to address the issue of sabotaging Bernie Sanders and his campaign? And I am wholly confused and disappointed by Wikileaks and Assange, who seems to have timed the release of private communications in the Clinton camp to have maximum affect in undermining the Clinton candidacy.

Why now Wikileaks? Why not prior to the the Democratic Convention when Sanders, or perhaps even a true third party left candidate could have moved forward? Is Wikileaks manipulating the releases to boost the Trump candidacy?

Are the Russians, or Wikileaks, or some otherwise thought to be “progressive” force, manipulating data and releases to assist Trump?

It is looking at this insane scenario that way, and considering things in this light, makes one have to reevaluate who is friend, who is foe, and what grand game we have found ourselves in the middle of.

There are those across the political spectrum directly and indirectly supporting Trump, and I truly feel a deep sense of betrayal over this for Trump epitomizes everything I have fought against for most of my life. From the oligarchy and enforced class inequalities, to environmentalism and respect for life, to struggles for racial equality and justice, and struggles against various forms of colonization, to the valuing of true diversity and the creation of community in its truest sense. Trumps stands at 180 degrees on every one of those issues, and he does so with an unabashed egotism and a sadistic streak where he laughs as he crushes others under his heels.

Oh, I know the argument that Trump is so off base that he might bring down the system. But then what? Is there some phoenix of love, peace, justice, and honoring of life that is supposed to arise from the chaos that will certainly ensue after the nuclear detritus clears. To find that Wikileaks, who I have supported and trusted, seems to be playing its hand for Trump is just another blow.

I am left wondering just who stands with me for sanity and life, for peace and justice. What allies are there? For this I can claim as a certainty, whether Trump wins or loses, the hatred and bigotry that has been demonstrated amply by Trump and his followers is not going to quietly subside. It has now been elevated, normalized, and nurtured. We have lost decades – decades we cannot afford to lose. It is hard not to lose heart when thinking how much ground every positive movement in this society has lost in this insanity.

Rowan Wolf, PhD

Is Managing Editor of The Greanville Post and Director of The Russian Desk. She is a sociologist, writer and activist with life long engagement in social justice, peace, environmental, and animal rights movements. Her research and writing includes issues of imperialism, oppression, global capitalism, peak resources, global warming, and environmental degradation. Rowan taught sociology for twenty-two years, was a member of the City of Portland’s Peak Oil Task Force, and maintains her own site Uncommon Thought Journal. She may be reached by email at rowanwolf@greanvillepost.com

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=By= Colin Toddhunter

[Photo: Which would you want to eat? Natural yellow mustard seed (lt) or GMO fertilizer incorporated seed (rt)?]

“Stockholm syndrome, or capture-bonding, is a psychological phenomenon described in 1973 in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending and identifying with the captors.” ~ Wikipedia

In political terms, most people might tend to associate the word “occupation” with a (foreign) military presence that controls a region or country. Any such occupation may not necessarily imply troops visibly patrolling the streets. It can be much subtler. Take Britain, for instance. In the U.K., The Guardian journalist Seumas Milne says that the U.S.’s six military bases, dozens of secretive facilities and 10,000 military personnel in Britain effectively tie the country’s foreign policy into the agenda of the U.S. empire and its endless wars.

The vast majority of Brits do not regard this as an occupation. They might feel they are being “protected” by the U.S. with which Britain has a special relationship. Such is the nature of Stockholm syndrome.

The population is caught up in a yarn that the U.S., Britain and the wider NATO project are all forces of good in an unpredictable and dangerous world (despite the reality which suggests the complete opposite). With the U.S. having a strong military presence across the world, that’s certainly a lot of very special relationships.

But occupation can take many forms. It does not necessarily imply a military presence or military domination. For example, in India right now, there is a drive to get genetically modified (GM) mustard sanctioned for commercial cultivation; this would be the first GM food crop to be grown in the country.

Unfortunately, this push for GM is based on a flawed premise and an agenda steeped in fraud and unremitting regulatory delinquency, and any green light to go ahead would open the floodgates for more unnecessary and damaging GM food crops.

The arguments being put forward to justify the entry of GM food crops is that they would enhance productivity, make a positive contribution to farmers’ livelihoods and be better for the environment. All such claims have been shown to be bogus (with the opposite being true in each case) or at the very least are highly questionable.

GM mustard in India is ultimately a Bayer construct, and, given the takeover/merger with St. Louis-based Monsanto, U.S. interests would benefit from its commercialisation. The Bayer-Monsanto marriage would not only be convenient for the U.S. in Europe (providing it with a much improved strategic foothold there, given that Bayer is Swiss based), but it would also (through Bayer’s GM mustard) provide it with the opportunity to further penetrate Indian agriculture.

Monsanto already has a firm strategic presence in India. It has to an extent become the modern-day East India company. The Bayer merger can only serve to further the purposes of those in the U.S. who have always regarded GM biotechnology in more geopolitical terms as a means for securing greater control of global agriculture (via patented GM seeds and proprietary inputs) in much the same way the Green Revolution did.

In broad terms, U.S. geopolitical strategy has seen the exporting of a strident neoliberalism across the globe underpinned by a devastating militarism. For example, aside from Monsanto’s well-documented links to the U.S. military, its seeds conveniently followed hot on the heels into Ukraine on the back of a U.S.-instigated coup and into Iraq after Washington’s invasion.

The reality behind the globalisation agenda (that transnational agribusiness drives and exploits) is an imposed form of capitalism that results in destruction and war for those who attempt to remain independent or structural violence (poverty, inequality, austerity, etc.) via privatization and deregulation for millions in countries that acquiesce.

Part of this structural violence involves the toxic inputs of transnational agribusiness and the imposition of an unsustainable model of Green Revolution farming. The result is huge profits for the agritech/agribusiness cartel and a public burdened with massive environmental, social and health costs.

As if that isn’t bad enough, it must be remembered that the Green Revolution (of which GM represents phase two) is ultimately based on the pilfering of peasants’ seeds that were developed over generations.

Once a country loses control of its seeds and thus its food and agriculture to outside forces, it becomes more deeply integrated into a globalized system of dependency (in some instances, ensuring they become complete basket cases dependent on the U.S.), a process that could be accelerated by trade deals like the the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (U.S.-Europe), the Trans-Pacific Partnership (U.S.-Asia) and the Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture (U.S.-India), which would allow Washington to extend and further cement its political and economic influence over entire regions.

India’s apparent willingness to hand over its seeds and thus its food sovereignty to foreign interests is steeped in its acceptance of the West’s neoliberalism. Whether this entails complying with World Bank ‘enabling the business of agriculture‘ criteria, an unremitting faith in “foreign direct investment” (displacing its existing model of production with a destructive model that would benefit foreign corporations) or complying with the criteria for ‘ease of doing business‘, it is ironically being carried out under the auspices of a ruling BJP whose nationalistic rhetoric helped it gain power.

Report after report has indicated that small farmers using low-input, ecologically-friendly methods are key to feeding populations in countries like India. And a series of high-level reports (listed here) in India have advised against adopting the GM route.

Given the hold that the World Bank has on India, the revolving door between the World Bank/International Monetary Fund and India’s institutions and the influence of foreign interests and corporations within the agriculture sector, it all begs the question: are sections of the Indian political elite suffering a severe bout of Stockholm syndrome?

Colin Toddhunter is an extensively published independent writer and former social policy researcher. Originally from the UK, he has spent many years in India. His website is www.colintodhunter.com https://twitter.com/colin_todhunter

Source: Global Research.

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Nauseated by the
vile corporate media?
Had enough of their lies, escapism,
omissions and relentless manipulation?

——By——
Rowan Jacobsen

[Photo: Coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef. (AAP Image/University of Queensland/Ove Hoegh-Guldberg) ]

For most of its life, the reef was the world’s largest living structure, and the only one visible from space. It was 1,400 miles long, with 2,900 individual reefs and 1,050 islands. In total area, it was larger than the United Kingdom, and it contained more biodiversity than all of Europe combined. It harbored 1,625 species of fish, 3,000 species of mollusk, 450 species of coral, 220 species of birds, and 30 species of whales and dolphins. Among its many other achievements, the reef was home to one of the world’s largest populations of dugong and the largest breeding ground of green turtles.

The reef was born on the eastern coast of the continent of Australia during the Miocene epoch. Its first 24.99 million years were seemingly happy ones, marked by overall growth. It was formed by corals, which are tiny anemone-like animals that secrete shell to form colonies of millions of individuals. Its complex, sheltered structure came to comprise the most important habitat in the ocean. As sea levels rose and fell through the ages, the reef built itself into a vast labyrinth of shallow-water reefs and atolls extending 140 miles off the Australian coast and ending in an outer wall that plunged half a mile into the abyss. With such extraordinary diversity of life and landscape, it provided some of the most thrilling marine adventures on earth to humans who visited. Its otherworldly colors and patterns will be sorely missed.

To say the reef was an extremely active member of its community is an understatement. The surrounding ecological community wouldn’t have existed without it. Its generous spirit was immediately evident 60,000 years ago, when the first humans reached Australia from Asia during a time of much lower sea levels. At that time, the upper portions of the reef comprised limestone cliffs and innumerable caves lining a resource-rich coast. Charlie Veron, longtime chief scientist for the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the Great Barrier Reef’s most passionate champion (he personally discovered 20 percent of the world’s coral species), called the reef in that era a “Stone Age Utopia.” Aboriginal clans hunted and fished its waters and cays for millennia, and continued to do so right up to its demise.

Worldwide fame touched the reef in 1770, when Captain James Cook became the first European to navigate its deadly maze. Although the reef was beloved by nearly all who knew it, Cook was not a fan. “The sea in all parts conceals shoals that suddenly project from the shore, and rocks that rise abruptly like a pyramid from the bottom,” he wrote in his journal. Cook’s ship foundered on one of those shoals and was nearly sunk, but after several months Cook escaped the reef.

After that, the reef was rarely out of the spotlight. A beacon for explorers, scientists, artists, and tourists, it became Australia’s crown jewel. Yet that didn’t stop the Queensland government from attempting to lease nearly the entire reef to oil and mining companies in the 1960s—a move that gave birth to Australia’s first conservation movement and a decade-long “Save the Reef” campaign that culminated in the 1975 creation of Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, which restricted fishing, shipping, and development in the reef and seemed to ensure its survival. In his 2008 book, A Reef in Time, Veron wrote that back then he might have ended his book about the reef with “a heartwarming bromide: ‘And now we can rest assured that future generations will treasure this great wilderness area for all time.’” But, he continued: “Today, as we are coming to grips with the influence that humans are having on the world’s environments, it will come as no surprise that I am unable to write anything remotely like that ending.”

In 1981, the same year that UNESCO designated the reef a World Heritage Site and called it “the most impressive marine area in the world,” it experienced its first mass-bleaching incident. Corals derive their astonishing colors, and much of their nourishment, from symbiotic algae that live on their surfaces. The algae photosynthesize and make sugars, which the corals feed on. But when temperatures rise too high, the algae produce too much oxygen, which is toxic in high concentrations, and the corals must eject their algae to survive. Without the algae, the corals turn bone white and begin to starve. If water temperatures soon return to normal, the corals can recruit new algae and recover, but if not, they will die in months. In 1981, water temperatures soared, two-thirds of the coral in the inner portions of the reef bleached, and scientists began to suspect that climate change threatened coral reefs in ways that no marine park could prevent.

By the turn of the millennium, mass bleachings were common. The winter of 1997–98 brought the next big one, followed by an even more severe one in 2001–02, and another whopper in 2005–06. By then, it was apparent that warming water was not the only threat brought by climate change. As the oceans absorbed more carbon from the atmosphere, they became more acidic, and that acid was beginning to dissolve the living reef itself.

Concerned for the reef’s health, a number of friends attempted interventions—none more poignant than Veron’s famed 2009 speech to London’s 350-year-old Royal Society titled “Is the Great Barrier Reef on Death Row?” Veron quickly answered his own question in the affirmative: “This is not a fun talk to give, but I’ve never given a more important talk in my life,” he told the premier gathering of scientists, accurately predicting that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations of 450 parts per million (which the world will reach in 2025) would bring about the demise of the reef.

No one knows if a serious effort could have saved the reef, but it is clear that no such effort was made. On the contrary, attempts to call attention to the reef’s plight were thwarted by the government of Australia itself, which in 2016, shortly after approving the largest coal mine in its history, successfully pressured the United Nations to remove a chapter about the reef from a report on the impact of climate change on World Heritage sites. Australia’s Department of the Environment explained the move by saying, “experience had shown that negative comments about the status of World Heritage-listed properties impacted on tourism.” In other words, if you tell people the reef is dying, they might stop coming.

By then, the reef was in the midst of the most catastrophic bleaching event in its history, from which it would never recover. As much as 50 percent of the coral in the warmer, northern part of the reef died. “The whole northern section is trashed,” Veron told Australia’s Saturday Paper. “It looks like a war zone. It’s heartbreaking.” With no force on earth capable of preventing the oceans from continuing to warm and acidify for centuries to come, Veron had no illusions about the future. “I used to have the best job in the world. Now it’s turned sour… I’m 71 years old now, and I think I may outlive the reef.”

The Great Barrier Reef was predeceased by the South Pacific’s Coral Triangle, the Florida Reef off the Florida Keys, and most other coral reefs on earth. It is survived by the remnants of the Belize Barrier Reef and some deepwater corals.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Ocean Ark Alliance.

Source: Outside.

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Nauseated by the
vile corporate media?
Had enough of their lies, escapism,
omissions and relentless manipulation?

=By= Federico Fuentes

[Photo: São Paulo – Manifestação na Avenida Paulista, região central da capital, contra a corrupção e pela saída da presidenta Dilma Rousseff (Rovena Rosa/Agência Brasil)]

Less than two years after Workers’ Party (PT) candidate Dilma Rousseff was re-elected as Brazil’s president, she was removed from office by the Brazilian senate. The Brazilian right, which controls the senate, carried out a constitutional coup. In the process, they revealed their contempt for democracy. Dilma committed no crime, much less one that could have triggered an impeachment process. Yet many senators who themselves face corruption charges voted for her impeachment and dismissal. In doing so, the votes of these 61 predominantly old, white male, senators overturned those cast by more than 50 million predominantly youth, Blacks and women who voted for Dilma, as she is commonly known in Brazil.

The question remains, though, how did an internationally renowned left party like the PT, after four successive presidential election victories, find itself battling corruption allegations in parliament and confronted by huge protests in the streets.

To understand the coup, it is worth looking at the campaign waged by Brazil’s capitalist class against the Dilma government and the process of demobilisation of the PT’s support base.

Challenge from above

Internationally, the PT government, first under Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and then Dilma, was not afraid to confront Washington. It played a critical role in the defeat of the US-backed Free Trade of the Americas Agreement in 2005. But unlike former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, the PT never claimed it was building 21st century socialism at home, where its economic policies were much more conservative. In an attempt to break with the right’s failed neoliberal policies, the PT sought to steer the country in a neo-developmentalist direction. It sought to industrialise the economy through greater state planning, financing and regulation. The PT also drastically expanded social welfare programs. Seen as more than just a way to cut poverty, they helped expand the internal market, a vital plank of any industrialisation project.

The global boom in commodity prices and sharp rise in domestic consumption that Brazil experienced throughout the Lula years (2002-2008) helped propel economic growth. The PT’s neo-developmentalist strategy also benefited from the support of trade unions, the urban poor and industrial capitalists.

Under Lula, inequality and poverty rates fell: the income of the poorest 20% grew at a faster rate than that of the top 20% and 28 million Brazilians were lifted out of poverty. At the same time, however, the wealth of the richest 1% grew even more. The biggest beneficiaries were the banks. Despite being among the fiercest critics of the PT government, the finance sector made record profits and received huge state support in the form of debt repayment. Continuing a process that began under previous governments, during Lula’s reign financial institutions consolidated their hold over the economy. This was not the only hurdle the PT’s strategy confronted. The commodities price boom steered investment towards primary industries at the expense of manufacturing, causing the economy to show signs of de-industrialisation.

Economic crisis

Confronted with the evident weaknesses in its strategy and the impact of the global economic crisis causing a collapse in commodity prices, the PT sought to turn this situation around, principally by targeting the banks. The first steps in this direction were taken in 2011 when Dilma announced her government was going to tackle Brazil’s interest rates problem. Brazil has one of the highest long-term interest regimes in the world, with borrowers paying anything from five to 20 times the cost of the same money to lenders. Alongside slashing interest rates, the government said it would lower prices in the electricity sector, raise tariffs, implement new controls on capital, devalue the local currency and kick-start a new industrialisation plan, to be spearheaded by the state development bank.

At first, Brazil’s industrialists publicly greeted the moves with enthusiasm as, on paper, many of them directly benefited this sector. Not long after, however, they broke with the PT to join the financial sector in campaigning for Dilma’s removal. Industrial capitalists sided with the anti-government protests that kicked off in 2013. The strong intertwining of class interests between industrialists and financial capital largely explains the fracture in the PT’s alliance with industrialists. For starters, years of high profits in the finance sector meant many industrialists had begun investing in the sector. Also, the capitalist class as a whole was feeling the effects of declining economic growth with Brazil going into recession in 2014, falling profit margins and rising inflation.

For the capitalists, the way out of the crisis was not greater controls over capital and more investment, but a new wave of privatisations of public assets and social services. Just as important was a rise in class struggle. The number of strikes in Brazil reached 873 in 2012, then more than 2000 in 2013. Together, these factors helped strengthen inter-class solidarity against the PT government.

Collapse from below 

Facing an uphill battle to win the 2014 presidential run-off, Dilma adopted an increasingly left discourse. The ex-guerilla and political prisoner declared that a vote for her opponent represented a vote for austerity and neoliberalism. Her anti-neoliberal discourse was crucial to obtaining a late swing that saw her get over the line. Within days, however, Dilma said her government would implement some of the same austerity measures she had opposed during the campaign. The PT hoped such a retreat might win back the support of a section of the capitalist class.
But sensing weakness, the right began to plot Dilma’s ouster. The problem the PT faced was that, although it won the elections, it had lost its ability to mobilise on the streets where the party had first come from.

In the 1980s, the PT emerged as a mass socialist workers’ party, forged out of trade union and anti-dictatorship struggles. Its growth over the next two decades was due to the PT’s ability to incorporate a broad range of left, popular and working-class sectors — and even segments of the middle class — into the party. This was facilitated by the PT’s democratic structures. The party’s foundations were local participatory grassroots cells. It emphasised consensus and proportional representation on leadership bodies. Perhaps most importantly, as a new party that had emerged from outside the political class, the PT could present itself as a clean alternative to the rotten political status quo. For many, including some who had never supported the left, the PT was associated with a new way of doing politics. This image was bolstered by the programs it implemented at local and state level — such as participatory budgeting that involved local communities in public decision-making.

Before winning the presidency in 2002, the PT had steadily won control over more local and state governments. In Venezuela and Bolivia, the left won government on the back of massive upsurges in struggle. The PT’s 2002 win, however, was a result of accumulating forces and experiences at the institutional level. Through this process, the PT slowly began to move away from its radical roots towards becoming a party geared towards elections and government.

The PT winning government placed pressure on the social movements and trade unions. The PT argued that the priority had to be defending its government from the right, even at the expense of social movements mobilising to defend and extend their rights. This slow transformation of the PT led to several smaller, radical left currents leaving the PT: first in opposition to regressive social security reforms in 2004 and then over a corruption scandal that involved PT party leaders paying opposition parliamentarians for their votes on certain bills in 2005.

Big mobilisations

However, the scale of the gap that had emerged between the PT and the streets was graphically exposed by the demonstrations that kicked off in 2013. The 2013 mobilisations revealed that opposition to the PT was not only limited to big business and the traditional middle classes who had always been hostile to the PT. The initial motive for the June 2013 protests — a rise in public transport fares — was really just the trigger for people to begin discussing important problems common to residents in large cities the world over. Access to social services had dramatically expanded under the PT, but these mobilisations focused on the poor quality of these services that were experiencing extreme stress. Resolving these problems requires huge state investment. This would only have been possible by raising taxes on the rich or cancelling government debt repayment — steps the PT was unwilling to take.

The largely decentralised and spontaneous nature of the movement that erupted in 2013, combined with the inability of the PT to grapple with a movement that in many ways was fighting for the same things it had previously campaigned for, left a large vacuum that the right was able to fill.

Social movements, such as the trade unions and the Landless Workers Movement (MST), were unable to take the lead, in part because many saw them as being too close or even the same as the PT. Confronted by the capitalists, the PT’s polling plummeted as new cases of corruption engulfed the party daily. With the social movements disorientated and demobilised, the PT opted to retreat towards the right, thereby turning on what remained of its traditional base. After that, it seemed only a matter time before the right sought to achieve via other means what it had been unable to do through elections — remove the PT from government.

Federico Fuentes is a member of Australia’s Socialist Alliance and co-author of Latin America’s Turbulent Transitions.

Source: Green Left Weekly.

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