OpEds: Forcing Down the Bolivian President’s Plane Was an Act of Piracy

By John Pilger

Bolivian President Evo Morales. (Photo: Alain Bachellier / Flickr)

Imagine the aircraft of the President of France being forced down in Latin America on “suspicion” that it was carrying a political refugee to safety – and not just any refugee, but someone who has provided the people of the world with proof of criminal activity on an epic scale.

Imagine the response from Paris, let alone the “international community,” as the governments of the West call themselves. To a chorus of baying indignation from Whitehall to Washington, Brussels to Madrid, heroic special forces would be dispatched to rescue their leader and, as sport, smash up the source of such flagrant international gangsterism. Editorials would cheer them on, perhaps reminding readers that this kind of piracy was exhibited by the German Reich in the 1930s.

The forcing down of Bolivian President Evo Morales’s plane – denied air space by France, Spain and Portugal, followed by his 14-hour confinement while Austrian officials demanded to “inspect” his aircraft for the “fugitive” Edward Snowden – was an act of air piracy and state terrorism. It was a metaphor for the gangsterism that now rules the world and the cowardice and hypocrisy of bystanders who dare not speak its name.

[pullquote] Shame on France, Spain, Portugal, Austria and other US lackeys. Their prompt collaboration with Washington in some of the most indecent [/pullquote]

In Moscow for a summit of gas-producing nations, Morales had been asked about Snowden, who remains trapped in Moscow airport. “If there were a request [for political asylum],” he said, “of course, we would be willing to debate and consider the idea.” That was clearly enough provocation for the Godfather. “We have been in touch with a range of countries that had a chance of having Snowden land or travel through their country,” said a US state department official.

The French – having squealed about Washington spying on their every move, as revealed by Snowden – were first off the mark, followed by the Portuguese. The Spanish then did their bit by enforcing a flight ban of their airspace, giving the Godfather’s Viennese hirelings enough time to find out if Snowden was indeed invoking article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: “Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.”

Those paid to keep the record straight have played their part with a cat-and-mouse media game that reinforces the Godfather’s lie that this heroic young man is running from a system of justice, rather than preordained, vindictive incarceration that amounts to torture. Ask Bradley Manning and the living ghosts in Guantanamo.

Historians seem to agree that the rise of fascism in Europe might have been averted had the liberal or left political class understood the true nature of its enemy. The parallels today are very different, but the Damocles sword over Snowden – like the casual abduction of the Bolivian president – ought to stir us into recognizing the true nature of the enemy.

Snowden’s revelations are not merely about privacy, nor civil liberty, nor even mass spying. They are about the unmentionable: that the democratic facades of the United States now barely conceal a systematic gangsterism historically identified with if not necessarily the same as fascism. On Tuesday, a US drone killed 16 people in North Waziristan, “where many of the world’s most dangerous militants live,” said the few paragraphs I read. That by far the world’s most dangerous militants had hurled the drones was not a consideration. President Obama personally sends them every Tuesday.

In his acceptance of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature, Harold Pinter referred to “a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed.” He asked why “the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities” of the Soviet Union were well known in the West while America’s crimes were “superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged.” The most enduring silence of the modern era covered the extinction and dispossession of countless human beings by a rampant America and its agents. “But you wouldn’t know it,” said Pinter. “It never happened. Even while it was happening it never happened. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest.”

This hidden history – not really hidden, of course, but excluded from the consciousness of societies drilled in American myths and priorities – has never been more vulnerable to exposure. Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing, like that of Bradley Manning and Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, threatens to break the silence Pinter described. In revealing a vast Orwellian police state apparatus servicing history’s greatest war-making machine, they illuminate the true extremism of the 21^st century. Unprecedented, Germany’s Der Spiegel has described the Obama administration as “soft totalitarianism.” If the penny is finally falling, we might all look closer to home.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Pilger, Australian-born, London-based journalist, film-maker and author. For his foreign and war reporting, ranging from Vietnam and Cambodia to the Middle East, he has twice won Britain’s highest award for journalism. For his documentary films, he won a British Academy Award and an American Emmy. In 2009, he was awarded Australia’s human rights prize, the Sydney Peace Prize. His latest film is “The War on Democracy.”

What’s Next in Egypt?

by Stephen Lendman

El Baradei: Our new stooge in Cairo

Morsi’s out. Junta power rules. Generals have final say. Democracy’s verboten. Popular interests don’t matter. They never did. They don’t now. What’s next? Headlines said Egyptians celebrated Morsi’s ouster. Fireworks lit up Cairo’s sky. On February 12, 2011, jubilant crowds reacted the same way. Millions hailed Mubarak’s removal. People overthrew entrenched power, they believed.

Hoped for change didn’t follow. So-called Arab spring didn’t bloom. It wasn’t meant to. Expect nothing different this time. Wealth, power and privilege alone matter. It’s de rigueur. It’s true throughout the region. It’s how things are in Western and most other societies.

Washington largely dictates Egyptian policy. One to two billion dollars annually buys lots of influence. Imperial power assures it most of all. Egyptians want real change. They want vital concerns addressed. They want real democracy, not pretense. They want respect, not repression.

They want decent jobs and pay, affordable prices, and better services. They want longstanding corruption ended. They want poverty alleviated. They deserve it and much more. They’ve been denied much too long. They put their bodies on the line for change. They showed courage doing so.

Morsi’s stripped of power. He and his presidential team are under house arrest. They’re held at a military intelligence facility. Warrants were issued for hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood members. Some already are in custody. Freedom and Justice Party head Saad el-Katatni was arrested. So was Muslim Brotherhood deputy head Khairet el-Shater.

Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said:

“The address of the president (Tuesday) did not meet the demands of the people.” He added that talks remain ongoing to agree on an interim transition. Before his ouster, Morsi said he didn’t recognize coup authority. He urged mass opposition. He’s out of office. He’s out of luck. He may end up in prison. He’s powerless to prevent what’s planned.

Coup d’etat power rules. Martial law was declared. Egypt’s constitution was suspended. A new one will be written.

Parliamentary elections were promised. SCAF said soon as possible. Perhaps months will pass before held. They’ll lack legitimacy like last time. Military.com headlined “Marines Put on Standby to Respond to Egypt Unrest,” saying:

Marines in Spain, Italy and perhaps elsewhere are poised to intervene. Military.com said they may be sent to Cairo to protect and/or evacuate US citizens. They’ll guard Washington’s embassy. Perhaps Obama has something else in mind. Pentagon spokesman George Little said:

“We do believe we have taken steps to ensure our military is ready to respond to a range of contingencies.” He stopped short of elaborating. On July 3, a White House statement was typically duplicitous. It expressed support for “core (democratic) principles (and) universal human rights.”

Obama’s words rang hollow. They always do. He deplores what he claims to endorse. He “urge(d) all sides to avoid violence and come together to ensure the lasting restoration of Egypt’s democracy.”

Egypt never had democracy. It has none now. It won’t no matter what happens going forward. Entrenched power rules. Washington supports it. Obama’s right saying “(t)he longstanding partnership between the United States and Egypt is based on shared interests and values.” He didn’t explain. He means power, not populism.

Morsi was Washington’s man. He became damaged goods. He fell from grace. SCAF’s coup followed Obama’s approval. Good relations with America matter. Much depends on them. Ousting Morsi required permission to do so. Defying Washington is a bad idea. It risks trouble. It assures retaliation. SCAF knows how things work. Going along to get along is fundamental.

Obama effectively endorsed Morsi’s removal. He duplicitously requested Egypt’s military to “move quickly and responsibly to return full authority back to a democratically elected civilian government as soon as possible through an inclusive and transparent process.”

On July 4, Voice of Russia headlined “Judge to lead Egypt after army ousts Morsi,” saying:

SCAF chose Adly Mansour. He’s interim president. He’s an establishment figure. He heads Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court. He helped draft legal procedures ahead of Egypt’s June 2012 election. On June 1, he was appointed SCC chief justice. Now he’s interim president.

Former IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei is Egypt’s interim prime minister. He heads the so-called National Salvation Front. He does so jointly with former Arab League secretary-general Amr Moussa and Egyptian Popular Current leader Hamdeen Sabahi. It’s an anti-Morsi umbrella group. It represents divergent views. It defends privilege against populism. It’s pro-Western. It offers no change.

Ordinary Egyptians are entirely left out. Soon enough they’ll know. Celebratory exuberance won’t last. Widespread anger will again erupt. Mansour and ElBarardei represent same old, same old. They’ll govern until parliamentary elections are held. ElBaradei looks like Washington’s choice to lead. If elected, Egyptians will again be cheated.

He’s a longstanding establishment figure. Populism’s not his mandate. It’s not his concern. He represents what Egyptians deplore. Soon enough they’ll know. He’s a pro-Western stooge. His credentials are worrisome. He’s connected to the International Crisis Group. In 1995, it was founded by former World Bank vice president Mark Malloch Brown and former US diplomat Morton Abramowitz. It supports power, not popular interests.

Current and former top officials include Zbigniew Brzezinski, General Wesley Clark, Kofi Annan, Javier Solana, Larry Summers, George Mitchell, Thomas Pickering, George Soros, Kenneth Adelman, Stanley Fischer, and Carla Hills among others. Ahead of Mubarak’s ouster, ElBaradei supported the US-backed April 6 Youth Movement. Egypt’s so-called revolution was more color than real. Its strategy was fomenting unrest.

It’s objective was regime change. It’s about installing pro-Western puppets. When previous ones fall from grace, they’re replaced. ElBaradei’s a reliable imperial ally. He’s a 2005 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Nearly always it’s for establishment figures. It reeks of hypocrisy. Disreputable recipients win. It’s more about war, not peace.

Steven A. Cook is a Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) senior fellow. He specializes in Middle Eastern studies. On March 26, 2010, he headlined “Is ElBaradei Egypt’s Hero?”

“Egypt’s close relationship with the United States has become a critical and negative factor in Egyptian politics,” he said.

“The opposition has used these ties to delegitimize the regime, while the government has engaged in its own displays of anti-Americanism to insulate itself from such charges.”

“If ElBaradei actually has a reasonable chance of fostering political reform in Egypt, then US policymakers would best serve his cause by not acting strongly.”

“Somewhat paradoxically, ElBaradei’s chilly relationship with the United States as IAEA chief only advances US interests now.”

ElBaradei’s a useful stooge for good reason. He won’t be accused of being one. He’s part of Washington’s plan going forward. He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He’s connected to America’s power elite. They’ll present him as a unifying figure. The new boss resembles previous ones. It’s true for reasons mattering most.

ElBaradei looks like Washington’s new man in Cairo. Watch for scoundrel media endorsements. Foreign Policy associate editor David Kenner asked “Could (he) be Egypt’s Next Ruler?”

Rumors suggest maybe so. Ahead of Morsi’s ouster he told Kenner “John Kerry had raised the possibility with him.” At the time, he denied interest.

“At this stage,” he said, “I think I would be more effective frankly being outside the system and try to focus on the bigger picture.”

Saying it perhaps was diplomatic coyness. At the same time, he didn’t discount the possibility. He stressed getting Egypt on the “right track” going forward. Doing so requires Washington-endorsed leadership. Maybe he has himself in mind. His agenda isn’t what Egyptians want or deserve. They’ll know soon enough.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

The hijacking of Evo Morales

International gangsterism in Snowden manhunt

Bill Van Auken, Senior Political Commentator, wsws.org

The forcing down Tuesday night of President Evo Morales’s jet on suspicion that it was carrying Edward Snowden to asylum in Bolivia is part of a descent into imperialist lawlessness unprecedented since the 1930s.

France, Portugal, Italy and Spain all refused to allow the plane to cross their air space, rescinding approval of its flight plan after it had been airborne for three hours and forcing it to make an emergency landing, with its fuel running low, in Vienna, Austria.

In La Paz, hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the French embassy, throwing stones, burning the French flag and shouting, “Hypocrite France!” As if to prove their point, France’s Socialist Party President François Hollande claimed Wednesday that it had all been a misunderstanding, and had he known Morales was aboard, the plane would have had no problem.

[pullquote] The US government has emerged ever more openly in the Snowden affair as a gangster regime that is prepared to kill to keep the ex-NSA contractor or anyone else from exposing its crimes. Obama is nothing but a front man for the Pentagon and the vast intelligence apparatus that dominates his administration. [/pullquote]

The lives of Morales and other senior Bolivian officials were placed in imminent danger as they returned from a summit of gas-exporting nations in Moscow, where the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor has been trapped in an airport transit zone for 11 days, with no country yet willing to receive him. Afterward, the Bolivian president was essentially held hostage in Vienna until the next morning, when the European countries lifted the flight ban.

These methods amount to state terrorism and air piracy. While they were carried out by European governments, there is not a shred of doubt that their real author was the Obama administration in Washington, which is waging a relentless, extralegal manhunt for Snowden in retaliation for his exposure of the NSA’s secret and unconstitutional spying program against millions of people in the United States and all over the world.

Morales reported that Spain’s ambassador to Austria came to the airport and told him he would inform the Bolivians of whether their plane would be allowed to pass through Spanish airspace and refuel in the Canary Islands after Madrid had consulted with “friends” in the morning. There is no doubt that these “friends” reside at the US State Department and the Langley, Virginia headquarters of the CIA.

The actions of the European leaders are extraordinary. Secret files made public by Snowden only days before exposed Washington’s systematic spying on their governments and diplomatic missions as well as the European Union itself. The French government had vowed that the revelations would preclude the signing of an EU-US trade pact or virtually any other collaboration.

Yet these governments acted as willing accomplices in Washington’s scheme to effectively kidnap the president of Bolivia on the unfounded suspicion that he was exercising the sovereign right of granting Snowden asylum. The apparent basis for this suspicion was Morales’ statement in Moscow that Bolivia was “ready to accept those who disclose espionage” and would seriously consider Snowden’s appeal for asylum.

That Snowden merits asylum is unquestionable. If he falls into the hands of US authorities, he has every reason to fear he may be subjected to torture, incarceration without trial, or death, all of which have been meted out with impunity by Washington under the pretext of its “global war on terrorism.”

[pullquote] The abject and cowardly collaboration by European governments in this sordid affair prove there is no real sovereignty left in the world, nor authentic democracy, alongside the dictates of hypocritical plutocracy in Washington.[/pullquote]

All of the pretensions that US imperialism is a champion of “human rights” and democracy have been exploded by the Snowden affair, arousing collective contempt and anger throughout the world.

While Washington is occasionally prepared to embrace right-wing dissidents who function in their own countries as assets of US policy, when it comes to anyone who stands up to challenge its interests, Washington’s answer is violence.

The forcing down of Morales’s plane has once again exposed Barack Obama as a liar. It is barely a week since the US president cynically dismissed fears that he would “be scrambling jets” to capture Snowden. Yet this is precisely what he would have done had Washington’s NATO allies refused to obey his illegal order to intercept Morales’s flight.

As for the media, it remains as always a faithful conduit of government lies. On Wednesday, the talking heads of CNN were describing the incident with Morales’s plane as “bizarre,” meaning they had not yet been given an official pretext to justify a flagrant international crime. Had the Bolivian president’s plane crashed in the sea, they would have no doubt blamed him for his own death.

The US government has emerged ever more openly in the Snowden affair as a gangster regime that is prepared to kill to keep the ex-NSA contractor or anyone else from exposing its crimes. Obama is nothing but a front man for the Pentagon and the vast intelligence apparatus that dominates his administration.

On the world stage, this government more and more relies on militarism and aggression, treating nations like Bolivia in the manner that Hitler dealt with small nations in the late 1930s and 1940s.
Here the old adage that foreign policy is an extension of domestic policy finds expression. At home, as Snowden’s exposure of the NSA domestic spying operation makes clear, the US government is erecting the infrastructure of a police state dictatorship.

This has been spelled out in both Snowden’s case and in the US military’s court martial of Private Bradley Manning for providing secret documents on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars as well as classified State Department cables to the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks.

In summing up their case Monday, military prosecutors argued that Manning was guilty of “aiding the enemy” because material he is accused of making public was seen and republished by Al Qaeda. This included the “Collateral Murder” video depicting the massacre of Iraqi civilians by a US helicopter gunship.

According to this logic, anyone—journalists, demonstrators and the World Socialist Web Site itself—who dares to expose US war crimes, or indeed any crime of the US government against the American people, could be charged as a traitor and spy for “aiding the enemy,” or designated an “associate” of Al Qaeda and placed on a kill list.

The courageous actions of Edward Snowden have earned him broad popular support from people around the world as well as in the US itself, where the words spoken by Abraham Lincoln nearly a century and a half ago—“of the people, by the people and for the people”—read today like an indictment of the existing regime, which is of and by the military/intelligence apparatus, and for the banks, the corporations and the financial oligarchy.

Snowden is hated by wealthy ruling layers not only in the US, but in Western Europe as well, for exposing the criminal conspiracy being organized by gangster regimes against the democratic rights of the people.

In the end, Snowden’s defense depends crucially on the political intervention and support of the working class.

How We Can Wrench Independence from the Corporate State

ClimateStoryTellers.org / By Subhankar Banerjee

This week we learned what “extreme” in climate changed extreme weather means for human loss — so what are we doing about it?

The Prescott (AZ) "Hotshot" firefighters. Noble men sacrificed by political corruption and popular ignorance. It's sadly ironic that the Southwest is a Republican bulwark, a hotbed of climate deniers.

The Prescott (AZ) “Hotshot” firefighters. Brave men sacrificed by political corruption and massive public ignorance. It’s sadly ironic that the Southwest is a Republican bulwark, a hotbed of climate deniers.

“Within a few years we are going to have more people off the surface of this planet more often, and we’ll have to determine value in that new environment.” —Jill Tarter, chairwoman of the SETI Institute, CNN Money, June 27, 2013

Do we write words of mourning? Or, do we write words of resistance? Those two braids have joined and from now on will flow together—in our age of the Antropocene.

On October 11, 2012 I participated as a panelist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC in what was perhaps the first public symposium on the Anthropocene. “A consensus has been reached that the tremendous scope of transformations now occurring on the Earth, with profound effects on plants, animals, and natural habitats, is primarily the result of human activities. Geologists have proposed the term Anthropocene, or the ‘Age of Man,’ for this new period in the history of the planet, which follows the relatively stable Holocene period. On a geological scale the planet has entered a new era,” the Smithsonian press release stated. Climate change and ocean acidification—the evil twins—are the two most destructive forces of this geologic era.

[pullquote] Many unsung victims of these fires are subterranean animals—gophers, snakes, and similar species—all of which are burnt alive by rapidly advancing fires. [/pullquote]

Two recent disasters: one in Uttarakhand, India and the other in Arizona, US show us—that not only ecological devastation but also human casualty—arise from climate change. In both cases, those who tried to save lives—lost their lives. On June 25 an Indian air force helicopter crashed on a steep hillside in Uttarakhand “while on a mission to rescue people stranded in monsoon floods,” the Times of India reported. Twenty people died in that crash. And last Sunday nineteen firefighters died in Arizona “as they were overcome … by the swift, erratic Yarnell Hill Fire,” the USA Today reported.

According to one estimate the flood in Uttarakhand has claimed more than 10,000 lives. If that indeed were true, then it would be the largest human casualty in a single climate change event. Two recent scientific studies: here and here make the connection between climate change and—erratic monsoon and extreme floods in India. And if you have any doubt about the connection between climate change and—extreme drought and fires in the desert southwest of America, take a look at William deBuys’ remarkable book, A Great Aridness: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest (Oxford University Press).

I have a personal connection with both places: last November I visited Uttarakhand, and I lived on two separate occasions, a total of eleven years in the desert southwest, in New Mexico. I’m now mourning the deaths in Arizona and Uttarakhand.

For sometime now we have been using the word “extreme” when talking about climate change disasters. We’ve known what it means for ecological loss (see forest death from bark beetles infestation hereand coral graveyards here). Now we know what “extreme” in climate changed extreme weather means for human loss also.

I know less about recent floods in India than I do about fires in the American southwest. So I’ll share a few words about the latter.

In 2011 the Las Conchas Fire burned 156,593 acres and became the largest fire in New Mexico history. As the fire started I wrote an article “New Mexico is burning with potential for nuclear contamination.” I wrote:

I live inside a small old true adobe home. … since Sunday June 26 I’ve had to keep all windows closed to avoid toxic ash from wildfires from entering the breathing space inside the house. The result—I’m hot as hell inside my home and can’t sleep properly.

Large fires send a lot of toxic pollutants in the air. The previous year NASA reported that the “raging forest fires in central Russia, Siberia and western Canada have created an enormous cloud of pollutants covering the northern hemisphere.” Furthermore, many of us were concerned that the smoke from the Las Conchas Fire might contain nuclear material due to previous unregulated dumping of nuclear waste at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).

But our main concern was—the entire southwest could have been nuked. There were some 20,000 55-gallon drums filled with plutonium-contaminated waste that sat on the surface underneath fabric tents in Area G at LANL. The fire was about 3.5 miles from Area G when I wrote the piece. Unsurprisingly the government lied: “Lab spokesman Steve Sandoval declined to confirm that there were any such drums now on the property,” the Associated Press reported on June 27. Three days later another lab spokesperson told the same AP writer that there were 10,000 drums stored on the property—belching out a half-truth. New Mexico and the neighboring states got saved from nuclear contamination not because of human ingenuity but Nature came to the rescue—wind started to blow in a north-south direction, away from Area G.

To understand the ecological impact of the fire, I sat down with New Mexico state land commissioner Ray Powell and his team of nearly a dozen staff that included many ecologists. I never wrote about what I learned from that meeting until now. They told me that the Las Conchas Fire was burning so hot and was moving so fast that the firefighters reported to them that they had “never seen a fire like this before.” The heat was so intense that it was burning all the way down to the roots of trees. The sub-surface desert dwellers—gophers, mice and reptiles—surely got burnt alive. And the speed of spread was astonishing—“averaging an acre of forest burned every 1.17 seconds for 14 straight hours.” To give you a linear perspective: say the acre is a square with four equal sides; then each side would be about 209 feet. No animal could ever move 209 feet in 1.17 seconds. I came to realize then what “extreme” means in extreme weather events.

Following year the Whitewater-Baldy Complex Fire that started in the Gila Wilderness burned 289,478 acres and became the largest fire in New Mexico history.

Last month the Black Forest Fire in Colorado destroyed more than 500 homes and was called, “the most destructive fire in Colorado history.” Then the came the news: nineteen firefighters died in the Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona. The change of wind direction (that saved New Mexico in 2011) it seems might have been the cause that killed the Arizona firefighters. “The sole survivor of the blaze … warned his fellow firefighters … when he saw [from the lookout] the wildfire switch directions and head straight for them,” the Associated Press reported on July 3. As I write this, the Silver Fire in New Mexico has grown “to 137,326 acres with 59% containment” as of July 2.

So what are the Beltway politicians doing about climate change?

***

On June 25 President Obama gave a much-anticipated climate change speech. The day before, in an email Bill McKibben wrote: “Well, some good news: five years in, we’re starting to see at least the outlines of a strategy from President Obama to deal with climate change.”

Each time golden words arrive from Obama—supporters cheer, opponents sneer, apologists veer, while critics use spear—to expose his peace with terror. I’ll take a closer look, not at what he said, but just a few of the responses that resulted from the speech.

Elizabeth Kolbert is one of the most respected environmental journalists working today. She writes environmental articles and op-eds for The New Yorker and is author of the widely acclaimed book on climate change, Field Notes from a Catastrophe (2006). So it is all the more troubling that she wrote what I’d call—a patla sorbot (roughly translates from Bengali to English—seriously diluted Kool-Aid) op-ed after Obama’s speech. She avoided the thorny issues (more on that soon) and instead focused on two things: a Democrat-Republican ping-pong match and regulating emissions from coal fired power plants.

What Obama’s “aides had billed as a major initiative to fight climate change,” Kolbert correctly observed “was not really news, since it had already been widely reported—was that the Administration will impose rules limiting carbon emissions from both new and existing power plants.” But if you take climate scientist Dr. James Hansen’s words literally: he says Washington is “coal-fired.” So the conundrum before us is: how could one coal-fired enterprise honestly regulate another coal-fired enterprise? It cannot. The issue here is not emission regulation but burning coal itself. A few days later Lauren McCauley pointed out on Common Dreams, “Energy Chief Confirms Critics’ Fears: Obama Still Loves Coal.”

In 2011 Obama sold the Powder River Basin in Wyoming to Big Coal. In a fantastic piece, Jeff Biggers had dug up the poop and released the stink: “President Obama needs to be called out for his less than transparent catering to his long-time billionaire and coal-profiteering friends.” Biggers wrote that Obama’s buddies on this lucrative affair were—Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Precisely because of this greedy decision two years ago, today the activists in the Pacific Northwest are fighting the coal-port through which (if built) Wyoming coal would go to Asia. In an Earth Day op-ed Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Joel Connelly wrote: “[T]he anti-coal-port movement in the Northwest is growing in leaps and bounds. It’s a grassroots effort based in towns through which mile-and-a-half-long coal trains would pass. It has far outclassed an industry campaign consisting typically of TV commercials, an ‘astroturf’ front group and legions of flack-mercenaries.”

“But if the President deserves to be congratulated for finally taking action—and he does—then he also deserves to be admonished for having waited so long,” Kolbert continues. There are two serious problems with this statement. The use of “admonished” isn’t criticism but affectionate scolding that we do to a child (more on this below). The second issue is that it gives an impression that Obama indeed has finally taken action on climate change. That’s very misleading to put it politely.

Kolbert points out that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell denounced the speech, even before it was delivered. McConnell wrote that Obama’s “climate change plan is a ‘war on coal’ and on jobs” (an example of ‘opponents sneer’). Referring to McConnell’s words, Kolbert wrote: “That reflexive political reaction goes a long way toward explaining why it took Obama so long.” This is what I’d call Democrat-Republican ping-pong while life on Earth races toward oblivion.

Kolbert’s op-ed is an example of—‘apologists veer.’

If you want to see an example of ‘supporters cheer’—take a look at 350.org executive director May Boeve’s response to Obama’s speech here.

The reason I focused on Kolbert’s op-ed is to show the rot in mainstream American environmental journalism. Few journalists can be courageous like Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill, but at a minimum a journalist’s job is to tell the truth and not become the mouthpiece of a particular political party.

Democrats are scared that if the Republicans take over the government all hope of climate change legislations would be doomed. Bill McKibben wrote earlier this yearon TomDispatch: “The movement is what matters; the Democrats are, at best, the eventual vehicle for closing the deal.” This too is hiding the truth and is an illusion (more below). A climate movement that is a mirror image of MoveOn.org is not honest and will not succeed.

What I just discussed is the political reason why ‘supporters cheer’ and ‘apologists veer,’ but there is a larger insidious reason, and it is—sociological.

It is easy to criticize the other. It is much more difficult to criticize one’s own. This is true at a macroscopic level (nation to nation) and also at a microscopic level (one family to another).

Take for example, domestic violence: it is easy to say that domestic violence “is going on in my neighbor’s house” than to acknowledge “is happening in my own home.” Similarly, it is easy for the US government to announce: “China is spying on the US” than to acknowledge “US is spying on its own citizens and everyone else.” This issue is particularly pronounced in the US.

In her concise yet immensely thought-provoking book, Regarding the Pain of OthersSusan Sontag wrote:

Americans prefer to picture the evil that was there, and from which the United States—a unique nation, one without any certifiably wicked leaders throughout its entire history—is exempt. That this country, like every other country, has its tragic past does not sit well with the founding, and still all-powerful, belief in American exceptionalism.

Climate change is not a Democrat or Republican issue and its solution (if there ever will be one) does not involve cheeringleading of Democrats.

Now I’ll turn to critics’ spear.

***

To understand the true intent of Obama’s speech I begin with AlterNet senior environmental editor Tara Lohan’s article, “Obama Uses Major Climate Speech to Cheerlead for Natural Gas Industry; Keystone XL Fate Still Undecided.” She recognizes that “Obama’s speech will likely be met with cheers and jeers, even in the environmental community.” She first acknowledges the “cheer” part and then throws a solid 400-lb punch and points out the “hypocrisy of Obama’s allegiance to the gas industry and his pledge to fight climate change”:

It’s hard to imagine that Obama has ever visited with communities who are in the crosshairs of natural gas extraction—a process that has proven already to be anything but clean and safe. And yet Obama promised to “strengthen our position as a top natural gas producer” and even to use our private sector to help other countries “transition to natural gas.” This translates to exporting fracking worldwide—a process already underway in Poland, South Africa, Australia and other countries.

It’s all the more remarkable, because these words didn’t come from a writer/editor sitting in her ergonomically uncomfortable chair and throwing out some angry words. It came from someone who is reporting from the field now. Tara is traveling across North America documenting communities impacted by energy development for a new AlterNet project, Hitting Home. This is what I’d call—good environmental journalism that includes honest criticism.

Next, if you’re looking for an in-depth socio-ecological analysis of Obama’s speech, take a look at Professor Chris Williams’ essay “Mass Protest, Not A Speech, Is Needed To Address Climate Change” that I published on ClimateStoryTellers.org. About the Democrat-Republican ping-pong match, Williams wrote:

And on the ground, where people are forced to deal with the growing ramifications of climate change and the disruption and cost to their lives, the picture is very different. As reported in a recent survey of self–described Republicans and Republican–leaning independents, 62 percent said the U.S. should address climate change, and 77 percent said that the U.S. should use more renewable energy sources. This is all the more remarkable given that virtually no political representative from either party has been arguing for these things, and they have certainly not appeared on the TV screens or in the newspapers of the mainstream media.

And about relying on politicians to solve the climate crisis, Williams wrote:

The biosphere of which humans are a part cannot afford half measures or rely on dubious “friends” in high places. Nor can we set our sights any lower than the swift dismantling of the fossil–fuel infrastructure of death and its replacement with publicly owned and democratically controlled clean energy systems.

Lastly, if you’re looking for a good example of thoughtful criticism of the environmental policies being perpetuated by a head of state, look no further than Canadian journalist Andrew Nikiforuk’s most biting critique of Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper’s devastating energy policy. In his essay, “Oh, Canada: How America’s Friendly Northern Neighbor Became a Rogue, Reckless Petrostate,” in the July/August issue of Foreign Policy Nikiforuk wrote:

More than a decade ago, American political scientist Terry Lynn Karl crudely summed up the dysfunction of petrostates: Countries that become too dependent on oil and gas riches behave like plantation economies that rely on “an unsustainable development trajectory fueled by an exhaustible resource” whose revenue streams form “an implacable barrier to change.” And that’s what happened to Canada while you weren’t looking. Shackled to the hubris of a leader who dreams of building a new global energy superpower, the Boy Scout is now slave to his own greed.

I have repeatedly pointed out over the past three years (see my interview last year with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez on Democracy Now! here) that Obama too is turning the US into a “rogue, reckless petrostate.” While Kolbert thinks that Obama “deserves to be admonished” (like you would do to a Boy Scout), Williams on the other hand thinks that a “swift dismantling of the fossil–fuel infrastructure of death” is what is needed.

As you can see environmental journalism is far from dead. On the contrary, it is vibrant like a gushing mountain stream about to flood climate change activism with new energy and ideas. We need it because climate change is here and a lot of people are beginning to die from its devastation.

***

Often people ask me: Aren’t the super-rich worried about climate change? I cannot provide a good answer. Instead all I can do is make a wild-ass guess that may sound to you like sci-fi—but it isn’t—like climate change it too is here.

Would the gassed-up “well-oiled” “coal-fired” (last two are Hansen’s words) rogue, petrostates (US, Canada, and add your favorites to the list) ravage the whole Earth to a point where it is useful only for extraction of natural resources. Earth as an extraction of natural resources resources. You might wonder where will the super-rich escape to then? To space.

On June 27 the Yahoo! Finance reported:

PayPal today announced the launch of PayPal Galactic, an initiative that addresses the issues to help make universal space payments a reality. PayPal Galactic brings together leaders in the scientific community, including the SETI Institute and Space Tourism Society, to prepare and support the future of space commerce.

Furthermore, Yahoo! Finance quotes John Spencer, founder and president of the Space Tourism Society: “Within five to ten years the earliest types of ‘space hotels’ and orbital and lunar commerce will be operational and in need of a payment system.” Leaders are now working “on the big questions”:

What will our standard currency look like in a truly cash-free interplanetary society?
How will the banking systems have to adapt?
How will risk and fraud management systems need to evolve?
What regulations will we have to conform with?
How will our customer support need to develop?

And CNN Money included a wise quote from PayPal president David Marcus:

“It’s easy to perceive this as kind of gee-whiz, even silly, if you just read the headline [“PayPal to launch inter-planetary payment system]. But these are real, difficult, important problems that need to be sorted out.”

Pack your bags and get ready for your new job—no longer on this Earth, but out there, working in a ‘space hotel’ finally getting paid $10.70 per hour that Ralph Nader has been advocating for.

We are screwed. The Earth is doomed.

Do you have any idea how we can find independence from the corporate-state terror?

Subhankar Banerjee is a photographer, writer, activist, and founder of ClimateStoryTellers.org.

In hunt for Snowden, US forces Bolivian presidential jet to land

By Peter Symonds, wsws.org

About 100 protesters threw stones and burned the French flag at Paris’s embassy in La Paz Wednesday, as Bolivians expressed rage over France’s decision to deny their president’s aircraft permission to enter its airspace. “Hypocrite France! Colonizer France,” shouted the protesters, who included representatives from indigenous groups.
“Fascist France, get out of Bolivia!” they chanted.

In a flagrant breach of international law and diplomatic norms, the Obama administration, in collusion with its European allies, today forced a plane carrying Bolivian President Evo Morales to land in Austria, on suspicion that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was on board.

Morales, who had been in Moscow for energy talks, was returning home. Bolivian Defence Minister Ruben Saavedra, who was also on the flight, told CNN that Portuguese authorities refused to allow the plane to land at its scheduled stop in Lisbon for “technical reasons.”

The crew changed course for the Canary Islands but, as the plane was about to cross into France, French authorities denied permission, again citing “technical reasons.” On the advice of the crew, the plane, with its fuel low, landed in Vienna, where the Bolivian president remains. Saavedra also reported that Italy had refused permission for the plane to overfly its airspace.
[pullquote] The facts on the ground demonstrate that the US has successfully bullied or bribed practically all major governments around the world and that the notion of national sovereignty is now obsolete, except for one superpower. [/pullquote]

“This is a hostile act by the United States State Department, which has used various European governments,” Saavedra told the media.

Austrian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Schallenberg told the Associated Press that Snowden was not with the Bolivian president and his party at the airport. The Bolivian vice president Alvaro Garcia Linera, however, said that since the plane landed, some European officials insisted that it had to be searched before allowing it to fly over their airspace.

While the Obama administration has not formally acknowledged any involvement, there is no doubt that it was behind the plan. Since Snowden left Hong Kong and arrived in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, American officials have been engaged in intensive efforts to pressure Russia to hand him over and to exert further pressure on other countries not to grant him asylum.

The decision to force down the plane has demonstrated the utter lawlessness of the Obama administration, which has risked the life of the Bolivian president and provoked a major diplomatic row in its bid to capture Snowden. His only “crime” has been to expose the criminal actions of the US in establishing a vast NSA spying operation on the American people and the population of the world.
There is literally no line that Washington will not cross. Last week Obama declared that he would “not scramble jets” to force a plane suspected of carrying Snowden to land. This week European authorities have in effect done just that. If the Bolivian plane had entered Portuguese or French airspace, their air forces could have been used to compel it to land.

Washington’s actions underscore the Obama administration’s desperation to silence Snowden. His revelations so far have already exposed the vast extent of US spying. American intelligence agencies are no doubt well aware that Snowden has more information in his possession that will further compromise their criminal activities.

Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca has denied that Snowden was on board the president’s plane. “We don’t know who invented this lie. We want to denounce to the international community this injustice with the plane of President Evo Morales,” he told reporters.

Choquehuanca accused France and Portugal of putting “at risk the life of the president.” He dismissed the explanation of “technical reasons”, saying: “After getting explanations from some authorities we found that there appeared to be some unfounded suspicions that Mr Snowden was on the plane.”

Bolivia is one of a handful of countries that have indicated their willingness to consider Snowden’s appeal for asylum. In Moscow, President Morales told Russian broadcaster, RT Actualidad, that if there was a request “of course we would be willing to debate and consider the idea.” He said that Snowden “deserves the world’s protection.”

The incident has already provoked an angry reaction in Bolivia and other Latin American countries. Protesters waving Bolivian flags gathered outside the French embassy in the Bolivian capital of La Paz calling for the embassy to be shut down. One protest leader told the media that the demonstration was to tell France and Portugal that “they have no right to deny the president of a country, such as Bolivia, to land.”

The US has bullied a number of countries, including Ecuador, into either denying Snowden asylum outright, or indicating that his application would only be considered once he is within their national territory. Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared that Snowden could have asylum in Russia, but only on condition that he cease leaking information—which Snowden has refused to do.

In a statement on Monday on the WikiLeaks website, Snowden condemned the efforts of the Obama administration “to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.”

In a separate letter in Spanish to Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa, Snowden wrote: “I remain free and able to publish information that serves the public interest. No matter how many more days my life contains, I remain dedicated to the fight for justice in this unequal world.”