TIFF*: Cultural Starwars
by Eric Walberg
Originally Posted: September 13, 2012 in Eric Walberg, politicalfilm.wordpress.com
To whom we offer our thanks.
*TIFF= Toronto International Film festival

The empire requires a nice juicy enemy to keep people’s minds off its own sins. During the Cold War, Hollywood responded admirably to the challenge, churning out anti-communist thrillers with Russian bad guys, most memorably during Reagan’s surreal presidency, when “Red Dawn” and “Rocky IV” reduced international politics to a comic book parody.

Given who the official enemy is these days, it is no surprise that the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), which boasts of 72 participating countries, did not include a ‘Spotlight on Iranian cinema’ this year. On the contrary, it showcased the latest serving of propaganda against Iran with the premiere of “Argo“, a docudrama depicting the escape of six US diplomats from Iran following the November 1979 seizure of the US embassy in Tehran, when 52 Americans were held hostage, and Iranian student protesters dumped US diplomatic correspondence on the street in a spectacular premodern WikiLeak.

“Argo” is based on then-Canadian ambassador Kenneth Taylor, who indeed hid the six Americans who showed up at the Canadian embassy during the 1979 hostage crisis and issued them fake Canadian passports. Taylor was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1981 for his help.

As if scripted in Hollywood, the Friday evening TIFF premier began just hours after the announcement that Canada was closing its embassy in Tehran, adding extra spice.

“Argo” was produced by George Clooney and directed by Ben Affleck, who also plays the lead role of the CIA agent Tony Mendez, posing as director of a fake Canadian science-fiction film (appropriately entitled “Argo“). Mendez convinces Iranian officials that Iran’s stark desert panoramas would make a convincing extraterrestrial terrain (the Hollywood subtext being that Islamic Iran is loony and Iranian officials are easily duped).

Clooney and Affleck are not Zionist zealots. They are even criticized for being ‘pro-Palestinian’ (though that means very little in the case of Hollywood), and both are identified with opposition to US neocon wars. So their production of this blatant propaganda potboiler is a sad commentary on just how obsessed America is with the one country to successfully stand up to it and Israel today. It’s as if a muted critique of US government crimes must be balanced by fawning displays of patriotism. Affleck even entertained US troops aboard the USS Enterprise on a USO-sponsored tour of the Persian Gulf in December 2003, despite his reservations about US warmongering (no doubt mock-firing a missile at Iran from the US naval base in Bahrain).

The CIA-cum-Hollywood producer of the movie-within-the-movie is another icon of anti-war liberals, Alan Arkin, who starred in “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming” (1966), directed by Norman Jewison, and the screen version of the satirical anti-war Catch-22 (1970). However, he also did an HBO TV movie “Doomsday Gun” (1994) about a Canadian weapons builder whom helped Israel “defend’ the Golan Heights, but then cynically decides to sell his talents to the highest bidder — Saddam Hussein, who wants to build the eponymous weapon-of-mass-deception (excuse me, ‘destruction’). Arkin plays an Israeli intelligence officer who politely changes the misguided Canadian’s mind. No doubt Bush junior saw this nuanced bit of hasbara, prompting him to invade Iraq in search of WMDs.

“Argo” was received with raves and calls for an Oscar for Arkin. His past displays of anti-war liberalism should not be a problem, given his devotion to Israel as shown in “Doomsday Gun” and now this latest sop to America’s Israel-firsters.

The timing of this screening of the fantasy Canadian embassy intrigue must have been coordinated with the real-life Canadian embassy closing. There’s no other explanation. Worthy of an Oscar in itself. In sharp contrast to the scandal at the 2009 Toronto festival. Despite Israel’s invasion of Gaza just months earlier, it featured a ‘City to city Spotlight on Tel Aviv’, funded by the Israeli Embassy and the Canada-Israel Cultural Foundation, the centre-piece of Israeli Consul Amir Gissin’s “Brand Israel” campaign. At the time, Gissin unashamedly was calling Toronto “an arena for Israel from a PR, cultural and commercial point of view”. The idea was “to promote Tel Aviv as a city of peace”, even after killing more than a thousand Gazans in Operation Cast Lead a few short months earlier.

TIFF’s cozying up to the Israeli propaganda machine blew up into a global scandal, as a spontaneous movement of protest among a few filmmakers turned into an international incident, bringing 1,500 signatures from prominent Israeli public figures and the likes of Jane Fonda, Julie Christie, Alice Walker, Naomi Klein, Guy Maddin, and Harry Belafonte to the “Toronto Declaration” criticizing Israel and TIFF. It was a huge embarrassment, a sign that Israel propaganda is becoming harder to swallow, even by devotees of Hollywood.

Since then, no more tributes to Tel Aviv. Now, to show how open-minded it is, TIFF even shows Arab films tsk-tsking Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinians, but all safely within the bounds of North American discourse on Palestine, Syria etc. This year’s include:

• “After the Battle”, by Egyptian Yousry Nasrallah, about Mahmoud, who makes a paltry living taking tourists on horseback rides at the pyramids but was conned into participating in the “battle of the camels” during the Egyptian revolution last year. He is now unemployed and ostracized, and has a fateful encounter with a liberal rich divorcee from Zamalek.
• “As if We Were Catching a Cobra”, by Hala Alabdalla, about the tradition of caricature drawing in Egypt and Syria, filmed before, during and after the uprisings of 2011–12.
• “Inescapable”, by Arab-Canadian director Ruba Nadda, about a former officer in the Syrian military police who is forced to return to Damascus when his globe-trotting daughter goes missing.
• “Fidai” and “Zabana!”, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Algeria’s independence, the former reminiscences of a combatant, the latter a biopic about the legendary freedom fighter guillotined by the French in 1956 who inspired the Battle of Algiers.
• “The Attack”, by Lebanese director Ziad Doueiri, about a Palestinian doctor in Israel who faces discrimination and whose wife is involved in a suicide bombing.
• ““When I Saw You”, by Palestinian Annemarie Jacir, produced by Ossama Bawardi, who produced “Paradise Now“.
• “A World Not Ours”, by Mahdi Fleifel, about life in the Ain al-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon.
• “State 194″, a documentary by Dan Setton, on Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s plans for a Palestinian state, with Fayyad in attendance.
• “Inch’ Allah”, by Anais Barbeau-Lavalette, about a Quebec doctor who works in a women’s health clinic on the Palestinian side of the barrier but resides in an apartment on the Israeli side.

Uprisings against Arab dictators, celebration of Algerian independence, Palestinian angst balanced by a paean to the chief Palestinian sellout.

As another sign of the times, there is now an annual Toronto Palestine Film Festival (TPFF) following TIFF at the beginning of October, where more probing films are shown and where Palestinian filmmakers invited to TIFF (this year — Jacir, Bawardi and Fleifel) can meet with local activists fighting Israeli apartheid.

This year’s line-up includes some hard-hitting documentaries:

• “The War Around Us“, by Abdallah Omeish, about the Israeli invasion of Gaza in 2008.
• “Road Map to Apartheid“, by Ana Nogueira.
• “This Is My Land”Hebron”, by Giulia Amati and Stephen Natanson, about Hebron, where 160,000 Palestinians are confronted by an Israeli settlement of 600 settlers, guarded by 2,000 Israeli soldiers, intent on expelling the indigenous population and occupying their homes.

If patrons of TPFF have their way, Toronto may not be Gissin’s “arena for Israeli PR” much longer.

Eric is a journalist and writer for Al-Ahram Weekly in Cairo. He specializes in Russian and Eurasian affairs. Walberg’s “Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games” can be purchased at www.claritypress.com/Walberg.html
http://ericwalberg.com/

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By Bill Van Auken, wsws.org
Thank you, wsws.org

In preparation for a direct US intervention in Syria and a wider war in the Middle East, the Pentagon has secretly deployed a 150-strong military task force in Jordan.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta Wednesday confirmed the existence of the task force, which was first reported by the New York Times. Speaking to the media at the close of a two-day NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels, Panetta stated, “We have a group of our forces there working to help build a headquarters there and to insure that we make the relationship between the United States and Jordan a strong one so that we can deal with all the possible consequences of what’s happening in Syria.”

ANNALS OF ORWELLIAN BULLSHIT
According to the WIKI page, probably controlled by the Jordanian regime or some obscure PR asset in the bowels of the Pentagon, “The Jordanians have helped Iraqis (sic) by providing them with military and police training as well as donating military and police equipment.^[19] The armed forces trained tens of thousands of Iraqi troops and policemen after the U.S.-led invasion.”  With solidarity like this among the Arab rulers, it’s no mystery why their peoples continue to be enslaved by the West.—Eds
^{_________________________}

Panetta said that the US force in Jordan was also tasked with ensuring the security of chemical and biological weapons inside Syria. President Barack Obama has declared that any use of such weapons would represent a “red line” that would shift US policy toward direct military intervention in Syria.

In Syria, just as in Iraq a decade ago, the alleged threat from “weapons of mass destruction” is being readied as a pretext for a US war of aggression.

The Times article revealed that “the idea of establishing a buffer zone between Syria and Jordan—which would be enforced by Jordanian forces on the Syrian side of the border—had been discussed in conjunction with the setting up of the US military outpost, located near the Syrian border. Creating such a zone would be possible only in coordination with a massive US intervention.

According to the Times report, “the outpost near Amman could play a broader role should American policy change” and Washington decide to launch such an intervention.

Jordan’s military, meanwhile, flatly denied the US presence. The state-run news agency, Petra, quoted a spokesman of the country’s armed forces as stating: “News reports that the United States is helping Jordan deal with Syrian refugees or face dangers related to chemical weapons are not true. The Jordanian forces are capable of facing any kind of threats.”

The spokesman went on to say that any foreign military presence was “to conduct an annual and routine military exercise” and “has nothing to do with any regional issues or developments.”

The origins of the previously secret US deployment in Jordan date back to last May, when the Pentagon sent American troops, including Special Forces units, to the country to participate in joint military exercises dubbed Operation Eager Lion. Afterwards, some 100 military personnel stayed behind and were joined by dozens more who were flown in. The task force, according to the Times, is commanded by a “senior American officer.”

The task force is headquartered in a Jordanian military base built into an abandoned quarry north of the Jordanian capital of Amman. Just 35 miles from the Syrian border, it is the closest US military deployment to Syria’s civil war, in which Washington is backing a collection of Islamist and sectarian militias as a proxy force in a campaign to oust President Bashar al-Assad and replace him with a more pliant puppet regime.

The military deployment in Jordan parallels the CIA’s establishment of a similar command-and-control base near the US Incirlik Air Force Base in Turkey, where it is coordinating the arming of the so-called Syrian rebels with weapons and munitions provided by Turkey and Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Persian Gulf Sunni monarchies.

The New York Times article suggests that the principal concern of the US military contingent in Jordan has been dealing with the influx of an estimated 180,000 refugees from neighboring Syria.

“Members of the American task force are spending the bulk of their time working with the Jordanian military on logistics—figuring out how to deploy tons of food, water and latrines to the border, for example, and training the Jordanian military to handle the refugees,” according to the Times.

The article offers no explanation of why the US military is uniquely suited for providing relief for refugees, having created millions of them over the course of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Jordan’s treatment of the refugees from Syria has been so brutal that it has provoked riots. Protests have been put down by heavily armed police at the Zaatari refugee camp, which was set up in the middle of the desert.

The unnamed “American officials familiar with the operation” who spoke to the newspaper are attempting to provide a humanitarian cover for the preparation of a new explosion of US militarism in the region.

If Washington and the Pentagon are concerned about the refugees flowing into Jordan, it is, on the one hand, for their possible use as a pretext for intervention and, on the other, over their potential for intensifying the political crisis of the Jordanian monarchy, which heads one of the most servile US client states in the region.

In a report released last week, the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the nonpartisan research arm of the US Congress, acknowledged: “King Abdullah II is facing an emboldened opposition that has grown more openly critical in recent years of continued royal rule, particularly as Jordan continues to suffer from high unemployment, high underemployment, and a large fiscal deficit. Small scale protests in Jordan have become a regular occurrence, not only in the capital of Amman, but in more rural tribal areas in the south once considered to be a bedrock of support for the government. Though economic grievances remain paramount, concern over high-level corruption and continued restrictions on political freedoms also has generated unrest.”

Last Friday saw a demonstration of tens of thousands in Amman, with protesters chanting, “The people want the regime to go,” and marching behind banners reading, “Down with all unelected governments,” and, “We prefer to die rather than live a humiliating life.”

As the Jordanian regime has faced rising internal opposition, the US has increased the aid upon which it depends. According to the CRS report, Washington is providing Jordan with $360 million in economic support funds and over $300 million in military aid during the current fiscal year.

Since 1951, the US has poured some $13.1 billion into propping up the Hashemite monarchy’s rule over the country.

The revelations about the secret military base in Jordan are one more indication of the advanced state of US preparations for a new and more devastating war in the Middle East.

BILL VAN AUKEN is a prominent member of the World Socialist Web Site and the SEP, the socialist formation behind it.

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By Stephen Lendman

The scummy American media and its Western acolytes are bound to increase their campaign of nonstop lies and innuendo against Hugo Chavez as his own popularity expands in Venezuela.

Chavistas celebrated Sunday’s victory. Bolivarianism triumphed over exploitive neoliberal harshness. In open, free, and fair elections, Venezuelans got to choose. It’s constitutionally mandated. Every vote counts equally.

Americans don’t have that right. On November 6, choice won’t be the ballot. Column A matches Column B. Money power chooses candidates and winners. Some election! No wonder half the electorate ops out.

On October 7, Venezuelans turned out in record numbers. Over 80% of registered voters showed up. Turnout was so great, many waited hours to exercise their franchise.  It’s important because what they say matters. They wanted Chavez for another six years and got him. They want Bolivarianism sustained and deepened.  Chavez pledged he’ll do it. He keeps promises. Vows US leaders make aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. Obama broke every major one he made.

It shouldn’t surprise. It’s the American way. Bolivarianism chooses another. Its good example shames Western faux democracies. Today they’re more hypocrisy than ever. Prioritizing wealth, power and imperial interests means depriving most people of vital social services. No wonder unemployment, poverty, homelessness, hunger, and overall human misery keep growing.

Venezuela is mirror opposite. Beneficial social change is prioritized. It shows. Poor people are helped generously. Child mortality fell from 20 per 1,000 to 13. Unemployment dropped from 14.5% to 7.6%. Income inequality is Latin America’s lowest. Poverty was cut in half. Extreme poverty fell from 23.4% to 8.5%.

According to Census figures, half of US households are impoverished or bordering on it. Real unemployment approaches 23%. Most jobs are temporary or part-time low pay/poor or no benefit ones. They’re rotten. With no other choice, people take them. It’s either that or starve and sleep on city streets.

America’s industrial base is a shadow of its former self. It’s located offshore in low wage countries. US workers are left high and dry. Conditions keep worsening, not improving. Venezuela’s far from perfect. Violent crime, corruption, high inflation, infrastructure needs, and a menacing northern neighbor are worrisome. Chavez’s health is uncertain. His cancer’s in remission. If it returns and he can’t serve, who’ll succeed him isn’t clear. Venezuela’s poor love him for good reason. They turned Sunday evening into New Year’s eve. Victory was sweet, and they celebrated.

Sour grapes showed up prominently elsewhere. It’s standard practice after every Bolivarian triumph. More on that below.

Venezuela is comprised of 23 states, a Capital District (Caracas), and offshore Federal Dependencies. Chavez carried 21 states and Caracas. Lead opponent Capriles took Zulia and Carabobo states.

Venezuela’s state-of-the-art electoral process shames America’s. It’s far less susceptible to fraud and identity theft than elsewhere.

Postal and proxy votes are excluded. Fingerprints identify voters electronically. Paper receipts verify ballots cast. They’re recorded and available for recounts if needed.

Every candidate was identified by name and full color photo. It helps assure votes are cast as intended. Observers monitored fairness. Opposition supporters turned out in force. They agreed. Voting was open, free and fair.

The Union of South American Nations praised what went on. Mission head Carlos Alvarez said:

“Venezuela has given an exemplary demonstration of what the functioning of democracy is and has taught a lesson to the world.”

“Venezuela strengthened democracy in the nation and the region.”

Alvarez also praised Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE). He called its work “extraordinary.” It’s a model to help “achieve the construction of a South American electoral system.”

Throughout Sunday, everything proceeded smoothly. No major disturbances occurred. Opposition strategists hoped otherwise. They planned to highlight fraud and other irregularities but couldn’t find any.

Capriles had no recourse but to concede defeat. He left unsaid why most Venezuelans spurned them. They need no explanations. Triumphant Chavismo is all that matters.

On January 10, Chavez begins his fourth term. He told supporters he’s not waiting. “(F)or me,” he said, “the new cycle begins today. We’re obligated to be better every day, more efficient, obligated to respond with greater efficiency to the needs of people.”

He promised “to be the best president that I have been in these years.” Take him at his word. He’ll try because he cares. Imagine if US and other Western leaders felt this way and showed it. Perhaps another time in a new era, but not now. Other priorities take precedence.

Beating up on Bolivarianism

If you can’t beat ’em, beat up on ’em. Sour grapes postmortems made headlines. Scoundrel media editorials and op-eds featured them. The Wall Street Journal’s Mary O’Grady is ideologically to the right of many neocons. Her style reflects character assassination. Her rhetoric drips with vitriol. She wins awards for genuflecting to power and suppressing vital truths for power brokers who pay her.

Her electoral postmortem was typical. She headlined “Chavismo Wins, Venezuela Loses,” saying:

“Control of the media and the voting polls, plus some old-fashioned fear, have won Hugo Chávez six more years.”

False, false and false! Corporations control virtually all Venezuelan major broadcast and print media. They unanimously endorsed Capriles. Venezuela’s electoral process is called the world’s best for good reason. Voters turned out en masse because it matters. Neoliberal extremists alone stoke fear.

O’Grady lied saying internal Capriles polling showed he’d “win by three to four percentage points.” Days before October 7, opposition insiders privately conceded. They knew they had no chance to win and said so. Chavez “seized control of television and radio stations and used them during the campaign…” Those same stations opposed him. They promoted Capriles. They featured him on air.

“Mr. Capriles tried to tap into (Venezuelan) misery by presenting himself as a social democrat….” He’s a wealthy neoliberal hard-liner. He deplores beneficial social change. If elected he’d return Venezuela to its bad old days. Voters wanted none of him and his extremism.

O’Grady’s litany of canards infested her piece. Ones included sound like America, not Venezuela. She never misses a chance to beat up on Chavez. She was true to form calling him a “dictator,” a “world-class demagogue.”

He “mortgaged Venezuela to help him buy another six years in power….(N)o one believes that the final vote spread reflects the public’s opinion of the winner.”

“With China underwriting his populism and Cuba manning his intelligence and security apparatus, his near-term comfort in Miraflores palace is practically guaranteed.”

O’Grady reflects the worst of US opinion journalism. Yellow can’t begin to describe it.

WSJ writers Jose de Cordoba and Sara Schaefer Munoz had their say. They were dishonest in less strident form than O’Grady. They headlined “Victory Tightens Chavez Grip on Power,” saying:

“Another decisive electoral victory for Hugo Chávez has convinced many Venezuelans in the opposition that his only vulnerabilities are a turn for the worse in the ailing president’s health or a sharp drop in oil prices.”

“The win allows Mr. Chávez to press ahead with his Socialist revolution, deepening government intervention in the economy, including price controls and nationalizations.”

“Observers see him as likely to continue his role as the leading voice against U.S. interests in the region, enhancing alliances with everyone from Tehran to Beijing.”

What else would a Murdoch publication say. They have marching orders, salute and obey. So does Carnegie Endowment for International Peace analyst Moises Naim. The Journal writers quoted him saying:

“You have the head of a petrostate with authoritarian propensities who controls the legislative branch, the supreme court, the electoral tribunal and the oil industry which generates 98% of the country’s wealth, without any checks and balances.”

The entire article wreaked with misinformation. Corporate media scoundrels offer nothing else.

Bloomberg headlined “Chavez Election Victory Signals Accelerated Socialist Revolution,” saying:

Since taking office in 1999, “he nationalized more than 1,000 companies or their assets…” Nationalizations were far fewer. He paid fair compensation every time. No one was cheated.

“With voters giving the former paratrooper another six-year term, he’ll probably push policies, such as currency controls and takeovers, that have driven away investors….”

Chavez combines populism with business friendly practices. Level playing field politics perhaps best describes it. Before crisis conditions erupted in 2008, banker profits were so high they said they were “having a party.”

During today’s hard times, Venezuela’s growth is impressive. Q II 2012 advanced 5.4%. In contrast, Europe’s in recession. America is close. Economist Jack Rasmus predicts it in 2013. He calls overall conditions dire.

In a section devoted to Chavez, The New York Times said the “fiery socialist defeated a youthful, more moderate challenger….”

“He is an ailing and politically weakened winner facing an emboldened opposition that grew stronger and more confident as the voting neared, and at times seemed to have an upset victory within reach.”

The Times spent the last dozen years or longer beating up on him mercilessly. It can’t bear admitting social democracy works. It supports wealth and power. It spurns ordinary people. It calls fascist America democratic. It calls the real thing in Venezuela autocratic. Truth was never The Times’ long suit.

The Dallas Morning News was no better. Its editorial headlined “Venezuela’s sad electoral statement,” saying:

“Score another lamentable election victory for Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. The fiery, anti-U.S. revolutionary now has another six-year term to continue with the plans he launched after his first election in 1998 to dismantle Venezuela’s free-market economy and pursue his anachronistic socialist agenda.”

Washington has “national security” concerns to worry about for another six years. Chavez “rankled US leaders” by friendly relations with governments America opposes.

His “so-called Bolivarian revolution has proved hollow. Revolutionary socialism is almost impossible to sustain….Chavez should increasingly be dismissed for what he is – a toothless tiger.”

Media scoundrels call success failure. Their arguments don’t wash. Rhetoric substitutes for hard truths. Too bad so many people believe them. Venezuelans aren’t fooled. They support what works and showed it.

Pre-election, the London Guardian headlined “Hugo Chavez: a strongman’s last stand,” saying:

“No one ever accused Hugo Chávez of thinking small. He casts politics as an existential contest between good and evil, the oppressed and the oppressor.”

The election will decide “the comandante(‘s)” fate “and his revolution. (It) hangs by a thread….Chávez surrounded himself mostly with mediocrities, valuing loyalty over competence.”

“His legacy will be debated for decades….Many outsiders made up their minds long ago. There was Chávez the dictator who jailed opponents, sponsored terrorists and left his people hungry.”

“Chavez….is a hybrid: a democrat and autocrat, a progressive and a bully.” The Guardian also called him “a caudillo (strongman)” running a “dysfunction(al)” economy.

It’s hard imagining any broadsheet letting this trash end up in print. Inconvenient truths are ignored. Admitting them would discredit everything else said.

Shameless editorials and op-eds hounded Chavez for years. In its November/December 2005 Extra edition, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) headlined “The Op-Ed Assassination of Hugo Chavez,” saying:

Pat Robertson literally wanted him killed. Even so-called “moderate” columnists beat up on him mercilessly. The usual characterizations call him a strongman, autocrat, dictator, another Hitler.

“In studying the opinion pages of the top 25 circulation newspapers in the United States during the first six months of 2005, Extra! found that 95 percent of the nearly 100 press commentaries that examined Venezuelan politics expressed clear hostility to the country’s democratically elected president.”

It was no different earlier and perhaps worse today. The longer Chavez survives and gets majority Venezuelan support, the more media scoundrels beat up on him.

It’s nearly impossible finding major media commentaries portraying him accurately. Doing so would be out of character. Contributors would be out of work. Party line opinion only is tolerated. Truth and full disclosure are prohibited. It’s the American way.

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour

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One Of The Greatest Environmentalists Of The 20th Century
by RALPH NADER

Dr. Barry Commoner, equipped with a Harvard PhD in cellular biology, used his knowledge of biology, ecosystems, nuclear radiation, public communication, networking scientists, political campaigning, and community organizing to become the greatest environmentalist in the 20th century. He died on September 30 at the age of 95, deeply involved in challenging conventional dogmas in the field of the genetic engineering.

The range and depth of his work flowed from an integrative public philosophy of what makes the world work or not work in the interaction between what he called the “technosphere and the ecosphere.” His best-selling books were brilliant, clear and motivating.

In all the years I’ve known him, he maintained his methodical approach to analyzing problems and recommending superior strategies to achieve superior solutions. He kept his composure even in the most raucous public gatherings where others were arguing or shouting at one another. The mainstream media liked his calm demeanor, conveying a searing evaluation that went to the root causes of what and how we produce. He made the cover of Time magazine, as a symbol of the first Earth Day’s activities nationwide in April 1970, was a frequent guest of network TV shows and wrote for major publications such as The New York Times.

A fundamental inquirer, Commoner took on his fellow scientists who seemed indifferent to the nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union and the radioactive fallout from A-bomb testing. While working as, in the Times’ words, a “brilliant teacher and a painstaking researcher into viruses, cell metabolism and the effects of radiation on living tissue” at Washington University, he sparked the St. Louis Committee for Nuclear Information, which in turn mobilized enough scientists around the country to push for the nuclear test ban treaty that President John F. Kennedy proposed in 1963.

One of his “laws of ecology” is that “everything is connected to everything else,” and he wasn’t just referring to natural systems. Wars, corporate power and greed, injustice, discrimination and poverty connect to what makes people sick and die.

He declared that prevention, rather than wrangling over piecemeal regulation, was the most effective way to protect our air, water, soil and food. He pointed to lead in gasoline that was prohibited at long last, not gradually regulated. The banning outright of vinyl chloride was another example of prevention.

He told Scientific American: “What is needed now is a transformation of the major systems of production….Restoring environmental quality means substituting solar sources of energy for fossil and nuclear fuels; substituting electric motors for the internal-combustion engine; substituting organic farming for chemical agriculture, expanding the use of durable, renewable and recyclable materials – metals, glass, wood, paper – in place of petrochemical products that have massively displaced them.”

He told me in the 1980s that he wanted to write a book about the necessity and practicality of replacing the petrochemical industry. Commoner urged the Department of Defense in detail to use solar technologies for economic and environmental reasons and thereby jumpstart an expanding civilian market for solar. The Navy, where he served in World War II, did install thousands of photovoltaics at remote locations to save money and cut pollution. Procurement by government is a great stimulus to innovation and avoids the regulatory delays by corporate lobbyists.

Pollution in the workplace attracted his expertise when we needed it in pressing for the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. When he brought poverty into his focus, he showed how impoverished racial minorities were exposed to higher intensities of polluting installations where they lived, due to their powerlessness. This “laid the groundwork for what later became known as the environmental justice movement,” as Professor Peter Dreier of Occidental College recently wrote.

Always the practical modern Renaissance man, Commoner helped start the Citizens Party in 1979 and was chosen as the party’s presidential candidate. He knew how Third Parties are structurally marginalized in the U.S., as compared with the Green Party in Germany, but he wanted to enlarge the public consciousness to connect causes and consequences. He later joked about the time a reporter in New Mexico asked him: “Dr. Commoner, are you a serious candidate, or are you just running on the issues?” Too bad the media didn’t heed his clarion calls to action.

Unperturbed, Commoner applied his knowledge in many other directions, including a pioneering pilot recycling program in New York City, to show how most trash could actually be reused or recycled.

Today’s younger environmental activists hardly know of Commoner and his three great books – The Closing Circle (1971), The Poverty of Power (1976) and Making Peace With the Planet (1992), all of which remain unsurpassed and timely in their integrative frameworks for understanding and leveraged action.

I called Barry to congratulate him on his 90th birthday. “It happens,” he replied wryly. For the people, flora and fauna on the planet Earth, it is a great gift that Barry Commoner “happened.”

His students, supporters and some wealthy benefactors in this nation should extend his broad-gauged approach (“the finely-sculptured fit between life and its surroundings”) by establishing an Institute of Thought and Action in his name. Those interested in this proposal should contact Barry’s former colleagues at Queens College or his widow Lisa Feiner.

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer and author of Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us! He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, published by AK Press. Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition.

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Paul Craig Roberts /  October 10, 2012