 |
| Dr Afari Gyan, Electoral Commissioner |
Ghana’s
voters register is neither bloated nor over bloated, it is statistically very
credible and reliable for the conduct of any national and local elections, the
Electoral Commission (EC) has said.
The
Commission also said it is very transparent when it comes to voter
verifiability due to the use of the biometric machine.
It
explained that the demographic structure of each country differs, and there is
no need for individuals or groups to make any comparisons of segments of population
in relation to the voters register.
Deputy
Chairman of the Commission, Mr Amadu Sule, told journalists at a capacity
building workshop for the media in election reportage in Accra over the
weekend, that the term “bloated” and “over voting” are not defined in the
electoral laws.
There
is no clearly stated definition of “over voting,” he said, adding that,
instances where ballots cast are more than the number of registered voters at
an electoral area and counting ballots that are more than the number of ballots
issued at a particular electoral area are obvious cases of over voting.
He
said that the terminologies are only defined in administrative language, noting
that “bloated” means when persons who are 18 years and above are more than the
registered voters.
Given
the classical definition of the term, bloated, and the statistics furnished the
EC by Ghana Statistical Service, Mr Sule
said the voter register could not therefore be said to be bloated.
“The
voted register is not bloated, it is a credible register, people have concerns
and they have written to the EC and it has responded to them appropriately,”
Mrs Georgina Opoku Amankwaah, EC Chairperson responsible for Finance and
Administration added.
She
said the EC has established platforms for people or groups to challenge the
status of minors or foreigners, and therefore encouraged stakeholders to do so
when such opportunities are created.
Journalists
were urged to abreast themselves of the operations of the EC and its laws in
order to appropriately inform the electorate to understand electoral terms such
as irregularities, rigging, observer, ballot swapping and ballot stuffing.
The
EC cautioned the media to refrain from misinterpreting electoral languages to
the electorates because such acts have the potential of misleading and
misinforming the public and consequently resulting in chaos.
It
said the Commission faces serious challenges in organising local elections,
adding it often records very low turnouts invariably less than 40 per cent, and
pressed on the media to whip public interest to attract the right calibre of
people to contest the District Assembly Elections.
About
6156 plates need to be printed for 6,156 electoral areas as well as the Unit
Committee levels which demand a high volume of input by the EC, all these make
organising elections at the district levels more challenging to the commission
than in the general election.
Mr
George Sarpong, Executive Secretary, National Media Commission asked the media
to be very cautious about how they frame and contextualise political issues and
use of certain terminologies.
“This
is because; how the electorate perceive operations of political parties or
political candidates, and commitment of electorates to particular political
association is determined by the projections of the media.
“Therefore,
the media must rededicate themselves to their work, reflect on what they want
to do, and allow themselves to be guided by the ethics of the profession as
well as their conscience,” he added.
Mr
Steven Edminster, Director, Office of Democracy, Rights and Governance of USAID
- Ghana said the United States deemed it relevant to support the EC in
organising series of educational workshops for the media on electoral
operations and laws, since it would be
very productive for the nation.
GNA
Editorial
Where is the Bank of Ghana
Over
the last three days we have published internal documents of the First Capital
Plus Bank which shows the bank is in distress.
If
the Bank of Ghana fails to take actions there could be very grim consequences
for the bank itself and its customers.
The Insights wonders
why the Bank of Ghana has not taken any firm action to restore sanity in the First
Capital Plus Bank.
We
call on the Governor of the Bank of Ghana to take immediate action to restore
sanity in the first capital plus bank.
UDS
graduates third batch of trained doctors
 |
| Naana Opoku Agyemang, Education Minister |
A
total of 33 newly trained doctors from University for Development Studies
(UDS) have graduated with a call on them
to respect the cultural values of
clients, who would patronise their services.
The
doctors are the third batch to be trained by the UDS, which brings the total
number to 186.
Professor
Haruna Yakubu, Vice Chancellor said at the weekend that admission into the UDS
School of Medicine and Health Sciences continue to be highly competitive.
He
said out of a total of 1,582 qualified applications the university was able to
admit only 122 representing eight per cent of the figure.
Prof
Yakubu explained that the university is constrained by lack of infrastructure
facilities teaching staff.
He
appealed to the government to allow UDS to recruit its own staff to enhance
academic work and also improve the development of the university to serve the
purpose for which it was established.
He
announced that UDS would soon enter into research collaboration with the
Groningen University in the Netherlands to study and document some of Ghana’s
indigenous knowledge and cultures to enhance the country’s development agenda.
He
said the proposed research would focus on “Society and Change in Northern
Ghana” and the purpose is to develop and
augment the academic knowledge about the history of Northern Ghana in the
context of long term processes of change and socio-economic and political
inclusion and exclusion.
Prof
Yakubu said UDS is also adopting innovative ways of helping to train more
medical doctors for the country and as such the university had signed a
memorandum of understanding with the Galilee International Management Institute
in Israel, under, which the two institutions launched a programme for offering
joint medical programme designed for both local and international students.
He
said the training of these doctors would be done at the UDS Medical School and
other medical schools outside Ghana to serve the needs of the country, Africa
and the international community.
Prizes
were given to the doctors for their outstanding performance during the seven-
year programme with Edwin Sangwie emerging as the overall best student who
swept four out of the six awards.
GNA
“We can Change 2015
Budget”-Govt
 |
| Mr Seth Tekper, Finance Minister |
Mr Seth Terkper, Minister of Finance, has said his ministry was mindful of the
falling crude oil prices on the global market and and was putting together a
report on the impact of the reductions to cabinet.
The
report, he said, would also contain the necessary adjustments that would have
to be made in order to ensure the achievement of Ghana’s fiscal consolidation
objectives, adding that they would go back to parliament if necessary.
“If
it requires that we make immediate changes, government will not hesitate,” he
said at a press briefing on the state of the economy.
Mr
Terkper said the reduction in the prize of crude oil would have mixed impact on
the economy.
He
said his ministry had used a methodology prescribed by the petroleum revenue
management act, 2011 (act 815) to estimate the petroleum benchmark revenue for
the 2015 budget in order to determine crude oil price and quantity; using price
per barrel as $99.376.
However,
as at January 15, Brent crude price had fallen by more than 50 percent to
$48.80 per barrel.
This,
he said, meant that the estimated petroleum benchmark revenue price of $99.376
per barrel might not be achieved, with negative implications for the budget and
as well as potential negative implications for the current account and
reserves.
He
said in analyzing the impact of the reductions, care should be taken not to
base the analysis on just one indicator, thus making hasty conclusions.
“A
certain balance will help not to overstate the impact on the economy,” he said.
Mr.
Terkper said the ongoing negotiations with the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) were on track and had not been derailed in any way, as speculated by some
sections of the media.
He
said three rounds of negotiations had so far been held with the Fund since Ghana
formally requested for policy and credit support from the IMF in August 2014,
two in Ghana and one in Washington.
“Government
does have its own policies. There are strong domestic policy underpinnings in
the negotiations” he stressed, adding that meeting would be held in the coming
weeks to finalise a draft Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (MEFP)
for submission to the IMF Executive board for approval.
Speaking
on ongoing negotiations on the 2015 minimum wage and base pay, Mr Terkper said
ideally negotiations on this should have been concluded before the reading of
the annual budget but added that organized labour, employers and government
were working to conclude the negotiations as soon as possible.
He
said government, in order to prevent fiscal slippages from the wage bill, had
since 2013 been implementing measures aimed at controlling the wage bill and
improving payroll management including the introduction of the electronic
salary payment voucher (ESPV) system to reduce the incidence of ghost workers
on government payroll as well as periodic audits to streamline the payroll.
He
said incidence of ghost workers and other payroll problems were not always
accounting issues but human resources management problems, thus a human
resource management system (HRMS) is being developed to address such issues in
the public service and related payroll issues.
A
cabinet subcommittee has been set up to oversee the implementation of these
measures to improve payroll management.
GNA
Employment Ministry
Starts negotiations
 |
| Haruna Iddrisu |
Mr Haruna Iddrisu, Minister of Employment
and Labour Relations has announced the commencement of earnest negotiation of
the base pay and the daily minimum wage for 2015 in Accra.
He
said the negotiations commenced on the 13th of January at the public services
joint standing negotiating committee chaired by the Fair Wages and Salaries
Committee.
He
said representatives from organized labour, Secretary General of the TUC,
leadership of the Public Services Worker Unions among others, were present to
participate in the negotiations.
Mr
Iddrisu indicated that it was necessary to keep the public informed about new
projects and developments that were put in place after every discussion and
consultation as part of the public accountability process.
He
said it was the expectation of government to conclude negotiations much earlier
than had happened in previous years in order to get the Controller and
Accountant General to facilitate payment of the determined base pay and daily
minimum wage.
“I
believe it is important for both partners, government and labour, to appreciate
legitimate concerns and needs of organized labour and their demands against
constraints and capacity of the budget to contain whatever they may be
demanding”, he stated.
Mr
Iddrisu said that was why globally, the ability to pay was always a function of
the negotiation process.
He
indicated that it was necessary to recognise the contribution of labour to
enhance productivity, significant contribution into gross domestic product, and
mindful of inflationary trends in the country.
“It
is the determination of government to work with labour to contain the wage
bill. As a Ministry, our determination remains on the fact that improved and
better economic fortunes will be better shared by both government and labour”,
he added.
No job losses at ECG -
MiDA assures
 |
| Mr Kofi Buah, Minister of Energy |
The
Millennium Development Authority (MiDA), which is spearheading the
execution of the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) Second Compact that is
meant to restructure the power sector, has said there will be no job- losses at
the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).
"We do
not anticipate any job losses. We are talking about partial privatisation; ECC
is not being sold. We are only inviting the private sector to come in to
participate and share with government in managing ECG," Mawunyo Robson, a
Power Consultant at MiDA, told the B&FT.
The second
compact of the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), which comes into force this
June, could see Ghana draw up to US$498.2million to transform, mainly, the
power distribution sector and make it more viable.
The ECG is
supposed to be the largest beneficiary of the funds, on condition that it
partners "an internationally reputable power distribution utility",
which has led to fears that privatising the company will lead to massive job
losses.
A total of
US$339.6million will be committed to what has been christened the ECG Financial
and Operational Turnaround Project".
According to
Mawunyo Robson, due to the premium MiDA places on the welfare of ECG's workers,
it will prioritise preventing job losses; but in the event such losses become
inevitable, affected workers will be very well compensated.
"The
well-being and welfare of employees are very key to the whole business of ECG,
so whoever is coming on board will ensure as far as possible preventing losses
- but should there be any, whoever is affected will be duly compensated,"
he added.
The Power
Consultant said implementation of the MCA Compact II is very crucial to
businesses, particularly at a time instability in power supply has led to
companies having to cut down on production or incur additional operational
costs by running on fuel plants.
The focus on
power distribution rather than generation, Mr. Robson said, is to ensure that
losses (commercial and technical) within the sector are reduced, making ECG a
viable organisation.
"The
idea is that they are the final off-takers of power from the producers. At this
point in time, we are talking about more independent power producers (IPPs)
coming on board in order to increase generation; but if they are not assured of
their revenue streams, if ECG is not a credible off-taker, then we have a
problem and we are never going to get them on board. That is why it is critical
to focus on the distribution sector and make it healthy enough, financially
viable so that IPP's can feel comfortable to come on board," he explained.
MCA Compact II
The five-year
compact is divided into two: the first tranche will see the Millennium
Challenge Corporation commit US$149.6million to the ECG Financial and
Operational
Turnaround
Project, whereas other projects will receive combined resources of
US$158.6million under the first tranche.
If certain
conditions are met within two years of the Compact coming into force, a further
US$190million will be provided for the ECG Financial and Operational Turnaround
Project under Tranche Two.
In creating a
sustainable power sector, the Compact will pursue a two-pronged approach -
changing the governance and management of ECG by bringing in a private sector
operator coupled with infrastructure and foundational investment designed
largely to reduce loss and improve service quality.
The Compact
is aiming achieve this objective, which v benefit at least 4.8 million people
in the short-term and 7.8 mill people in the long-run, encouraging reforms such
Private Sector Participation (I and modernising EC operations.
The Compact
is targetting a reductior commercial losses and incr revenue collection, which
w done mainly thro improvement in meti systems and the installati more prepaid
meters in accustomed to the po system.
Further
interventio focus on reducing tec losses through the lowe thermal losses in
distr systems. Overall, all improvements should see stability in power sup;
homes and factories.
To reduce
outa; Compact will over introduction of improvi protection and sectit devices
in the power dii system, which currently close to 2,000MW du periods of demand.
President Mahama
advocates sychronization
 |
| President John Mahama |
President John Dramani Mahama, Chairman of the Economic Community of
West African States (ECOWAS), on Friday suggested the synchronization of
strategies in African States, to fight against terrorism and other human
molestations.
He said, while
Nigeria and Cameroon were plagued with Boko Haram, Somalia and others were also
battling against Al-Shabab, a situation he said, called for collective efforts
to fight against, to restore peace and order to the continent.
President Mahama who
was addressing a press conference at the sidelines of a two-day high level
coordination meeting of ECOWAS partners on the fight against the Ebola virus
disease in Accra, said terrorism was
assuming different dimensions in different regions, and therefore needed concerted efforts to
eliminate it.
The Press conference
was to throw light on the efforts ECOWAS was making to stem its incidence in
the West African sub-region and beyond.
President Mahama
said while Cameroon and Nigeria were considering the option of using the
military to meet the terrorists head-on, there was the need to draw other
strategies that could expedite their movements against the inhuman practices
that had engulfed the region.
He said as the
leader of the ECOWAS, he would organise a special session on terrorism in the
forthcoming African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to strategize
against the menace.
At the summit,
President Mahama, hinted that members would re-define protocols to pave way for
more effective measures of combating Boko Haram and other inhuman practices
that had over the years disturbed peace in the region.
He said re-training
of personnel against terrorism was another measure to be considered in the
special AU session, but cautioned member-states to be
cautious in dealing with such sensitive issues in their various countries.
President Mahama,
however, gave the assurance that in spite of the disturbances of the
terrorists, governments of various states would continue to play their roles
meaningfully, to ward off all negative measures that undermined the orderly
progress of the region.
On the impact of
Boko Haram on the Nigerian elections, President Mahama gave the assurance that
ECOWAS would offer all the necessary safety measures that would enable Nigeria
to organise peaceful and successful elections.
He said his outfit
would also continue to work in collaboration with other international
development partners, to fight the menace and make Africa a better continent
for investment and habitation.
GNA
Where is the replacement
of Luther King
 |
| Martin Luther King |
By Paul Craig Roberts
January
19 was Martin Luther King Day, a national holiday.
King
was an American civil rights leader who was assassinated 47 years ago on April
4, 1968, at the age of 39. James Earl Ray was blamed for the murder.
Initially, Ray admitted the murder, apparently under advice from his attorney
in order to avoid the death penalty, but Ray soon withdrew his confession and
unsuccessfully sought a jury trail. Documents of the official
investigation remain secret until the year 2027.
As
Wikipedia reports, "The King family does not believe Ray had anything to
do with the murder of Martin Luther King.
. . . The King family and others believe that the assassination was carried out
by a conspiracy involving the U.S. government, and that James Earl Ray was a
scapegoat. This conclusion was affirmed by a jury in a 1999 civil trial against
Loyd Jowers and unnamed co-conspirators."
The
US Department of Justice concluded that Jowers' evidence, which swayed the jury
in the civil trail, was not credible. On the other hand, there is no
satisfactory explanation why documents pertaining to the investigation of Ray
were put under lock and key for 59 years.
There
are many problems with the official story of King's assassination, just as
there are with the assassinations of John F. Kennedy
and Bobby Kennedy. No amount of suspicion or information will change the
official stories. Facts don't count enough to change official stories.
Many
Americans will continue to believe that having failed to tar King as a
communist and womanizer, the establishment decided to remove an inconvenient
rising leader by assassination. Many black Americans will continue to
believe that a national holiday was the government's way of covering up its
crime and blaming racism for King's murder.
Certainly,
the government should not have fomented suspicion by settling such a high
profile murder with a plea bargain. Ray was an escapee from a state
penitentiary and was apprehended at London's Heathrow Airport on his way to
disappear in Africa. It seems farfetched that he would imperil his escape
by taking a racist-motivated shot at King.
We
should keep in mind the many loose ends of the Martin Luther King assassination
as we are being bombarded by media with what Finian Cunningham correctly terms
"high-octane emotional politics that stupefies the public from asking some
very necessary hard questions" about the Charlie Hebdo murders, or for
that matter the Boston Marathon
Bombing case and all other outrages that prove to be so convenient
for governments.
Those
gullible citizens who believe that "our government would never kill its
own people" have much understanding to gain from knowledge of Operation
Gladio and Northwoods Project, about which much information is available on the
Internet and in parliamentary investigations and officially released secret
documents.
The
Northwoods Project was presented to President John F. Kennedy by the US Joint
Chiefs of Staff. It called for shooting down people on the streets of Washington
and Miami, shooting down US airliners ("real or simulated"), and
attacking refugee boats from Cuba in order to create an atrocity case against
Castro that would secure public support for a full-fledged invasion to bring
regime change to Cuba. President Kennedy refused the plot and removed the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, an action that some researchers conclude led to
his assassination.
Operation
Gladio was revealed by the prime minister of Italy in 1990. It was a secret
operation coordinated by NATO and operated by European military secret services
in cooperation with the CIA and British intelligence.
Parliamentary
investigations in Italy, Switzerland, and Belgium and testimony by secret
service operatives have established that Gladio, originally established as a
"stay-behind" secret army to resist Soviet invasion, was used to
commit bombing attacks on Europeans, especially women and children, in order to
blame communists and keep them from gaining political power in Europe during
the Cold War era.
In
answer to questioning by judges about the 1980 bombing of the central train
station in Bologna resulting in the deaths of 85 people, Vincenzo Vinciguerra
said: "There exists in Italy a secret force parallel to the armed forces,
composed of civilians and military men . . . a super-organization with a
network of communications, arms and explosives [which] took up the task, on
NATO's behalf, or preventing a slip to the left in the political balance of the
country. This they did, with the assistance of the official secret services and
the political and military forces."
Vinciguerra
told the UK newspaper The Guardian that "every single outrage that
followed from 1969 fitted into a single, organized matrix . . . mobilized into
the battle as part of an anti-communist strategy originating not with
organizations deviant from the institutions of power, but from within the state
itself, and specifically from within the ambit of the state's relations within
the Atlantic Alliance."
There
is no doubt about Gladio's existence. The BBC did a 2.5 hour documentary
on the secret terrorist NATO organization in 1992. There are a number of books,
articles and reports in addition to the parliamentary investigations and
testimonies from participants.There are reasons to believe that, although
exposed, Gladio is still in operation and is behind terrorist attacks, such as Charlie Hebdo,
in Europe today. Of course, today Washington has such control over Europe that
no parliamentary investigations comparable to those that exposed Operation
Gladio are possible.
With
the documented and officially admitted existence of many official government
conspiracies against their own peoples resulting in numerous deaths, only
witting or unwitting agents of government conspiracies respond to valid
questions about alleged terrorist events by trying to shout down truth-seekers.
The
function of shutting down suspicion of official stories has been well performed
by the "mainstream" print and TV media in the Western world.
This presstitute function has been joined by many tabloid internet sites, such
as Salon, and other such sites that originate in money or desire for profit.
Money
flows to those who serve the establishment. The way to riches is to cover
for the powerful private interest groups that comprise the One Percent and
control the government.
Many
websites unwittingly contribute to the power of the One Percent to control
explanations and to discredit truth-seekers. This is the main function of
comment sections on Internet sites where paid trolls operate.
Studies
have concluded that the largest percentage of a population is too insecure to
take a position different from peers. Most Americans simply do not know
enough to have confidence in making independent decisions. They go with
the flow and rely ontheir peers to tell them what is safe to think.
Trolls
are hired for the purpose of making disparaging and ad hominem attacks on those
who diverge from accepted opinion. For example, I am constantly attacked
in personal terms in comment sections by people hiding behind first names and
aliases. Others employ left-wing and progressive hatred of Ronald Reagan
to discredit me on the grounds that anyone so wicked and evil as to serve in
the Reagan administration cannot be trusted. Many of my denigrators
worship the ground that Hillary Clinton
walks on.
Today
in the so-called "western democracies," it is permissible to be
politically incorrect against Muslims and to invoke denigration and hatred
against them. However, it is not permissible to criticize the government
of Israel for indiscriminate and murderous attacks on Palestinian
citizens. The position of the Israel Lobby and its obedient and well-intimidated
presstitutes is that any criticism whatsoever of Israel is anti-semitism and an
indication that the critic desires a new holocaust. In other words, the Israel
Lobby defines any critic of any Israeli government policy as an incipient mass
murderer.
This
effort to silence all critics of Israeli policies applies also to Israelis and
Jews themselves. Israelis and Jews who legitimately criticize Israeli
policies in hopes of steering the Zionist State away from self-destruction are
branded "self-hating Jews" by the Israel Lobby. The Lobby has
demonstrated its power to destroy academic freedom and to reach into private
Catholic universities and public state universities and both block and withdraw
tenure appointments of candidates, both Jews and non-Jews, who have incurred
the Lobby's disapproval.
I
see Martin Luther King as an American hero. Whatever his personal
failings, if any, he stood for justice and for the safety of every race and
gender under law. King actually believed in the American dream and wanted
to achieve it for everyone. I am confident that had I confronted King
with criticism, he would have considered my case and responded honestly
regardless of any power he might have held over me.
I
cannot expect the same consideration from any western government or from the
trolls that operate in comment sections provided by Internet sites in hopes of
boosting their readership.
Gullible
and credulous people are incapable of defending their liberty.
Unfortunately these traits are the principal traits of western peoples.
Western liberty is collapsing in front of our eyes, and this makes absurd the
desire by Vladimir Putin's Russian opponents to integrate with the collapsing
western states.
Source: www.globalresearch.ca
“Je
Suis CIA”
 |
| John Brennan CIA Boss |
By
Larry Chin
Since 9/11, the imperial playbook has consisted of a
favorite and time-tested tactic: the false flag operation.
Carry out or facilitate a spectacular atrocity. Blame it on
the enemy of choice. Issue a lie-infested official narrative, and have the
corporate media repeat the lie. Rile up ignorant militant crowds, stoke the
hatred, and war-mongering imperial policy planners and their criminal
functionaries get what they want: war with the public stamp of approval.
Here we are again.
The
Charlie Hebdo incident is being sold as “the French 9/11”. It certainly is, in
all of the most tragic ways: France, like the United States on 9/11, has been
used. The masses of the world have been deceived, and march in lockstep to
NATO’s drumbeat again.
All
signs lead from French intelligence back to Washington—and Langley,
Virginia—directly and indirectly. Red herrings and deceptions comprise the
official narrative.
The
Al-Qaeda narrative, the classic CIA deception, gets fresh facelift. The fact
that Al-Qaeda is CIA-created Anglo-American military-intelligence is ignored.
The agenda behind the ISIS war—a massive and elaborate regional CIA false flag
operation—registers even less.
The
Charlie Hebdo terrorists have ties to Anglo-American intelligence and the Pentagon
that the masses do not bother to think about. They are also tied to the
(conveniently dead) 9/11-connected Al-Qaeda mastermind/CIA
military-intelligence asset Anwar Al-Awlaki. These and other obvious
connections to Washington and the CIA do not raise alarm bells among the ardent
ones waving Je Suis Charlie signs (which “magically” appeared, and seem to have
been mass-produced in advance).
Signs
of an inside job and a still unfolding cover-up are
significant, from pristine, undamaged passports found on scene to the convenient suicide of Helric Fredou, the Paris police
commissioner in charge of the Hebdo investigation.
The
Kouachi brothers and Amedy Coulibaly were not only well known by French
authorities, French intelligence and the CIA. The Kouachis were tracked and
monitored—guided—over the course of many years, arrested many times, yet were
allowed to continue training and plotting with fellow Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Yemen,
Syria, etc. These are telltale signs of a guided military-intelligence
operation. A blatantly obvious terror cell, known to authorities, “drops out of
sight”, and then set loose at an appropriate moment. And then executed.
None
of these things, which alarm seasoned observers, registers among the emotional
masses; the lemmings who willfully refuse to address its real source: the
architects of Anglo-American war policy.
Only
the NATO war agenda benefits from any of this.
“France’s
9/11” is more accurately France’s latest Operation Gladio. As noted by Paul Craig Roberts, there is a reason why the
Charlie Hebdo attacks took place when it did:
France
is suffering from the Washington-imposed sanctions against Russia. Shipyards
are impacted from being unable to deliver Russian orders due to France’s
vassalage status to Washington, and other aspects of the French economy are
being adversely impacted by sanctions that Washington forced its NATO puppet
states to apply to Russia.
This
week the French president said that the sanctions against Russia should end (so
did the German vice-chancellor).
This
is too much foreign policy independence on France’s part for Washington. Has
Washington resurrected “Operation Gladio,” which consisted of CIA bombing
attacks against Europeans during the post-WW II era that Washington blamed on
communists and used to destroy communist influence in European elections? Just
as the world was led to believe that communists were behind Operation Gladio’s
terrorist attacks, Muslims are blamed for the attacks on the French satirical
magazine.
Now
France is militarized, just as the US was in the wake of 9/11. And the French
right-wing has newfound cache.
The
hostile takeover of the public mind
Notice
that the last two false flag operations in recent months—the false flagging of
North Korea over Sony and the film The Interview, and the Charlie Hebdo
deception—both revolve around the ideas of “free speech” and “free expression”.
This
is a phantom battle, choreographed by those who could not care less for
“freedoms”. In fact, the masses are being manipulated towards supporting war
and mass murder, and police state agendas that specifically curtail freedoms.
What
more creative way to take away freedoms than to make people give them up voluntarily?
The
hordes of American citizens that supported the “war on terrorism” to “defend
freedom” got the Patriot Act, which gutted what liberties they had; the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights will not be restored. This process
continues all over the world. Ask the average uninformed French citizen today
suffering from post-traumatic stress, and they will gladly give up their
rights, anything so that “terrorists” are stopped.
Note
how the powers that be have taken to inserting their pro-war messages even more
forcefully where the ignorant public spends the majority of its time: in
popular entertainment. In Hollywood products, in their cartoons, in their
magazines, in their celebrities.
Let
George Clooney, Seth Rogen and James Franco transmit the messages of war for
the CIA and the Pentagon.
Weaponize
stupid movies like The Interview and crude magazines like Charlie Hebdo, and
watch people become bloodthirsty, vengeful, unthinking and war-loving.
It
is the CIA’s ongoing mission to plant its assets and its propaganda into the
media and the arts, controlling the perception of culture as well as framing
all debate. It is making a huge push at the moment, relishing the speed and
effectiveness of technology and social media.
Hundreds
and thousands of innocent lives have been lost in this endless, brutal and
criminal war. Yet its architects and functionaries remain untouched.
Je
Suis Langley
No
Anglo-American war of conquest, no Charlie Hebdo massacre.
No
CIA, no Militant Islam, no Al-Qaeda, no ISIS, no Charlie Hebdo massacre.
No
9/11, no “war on terrorism”, no ISIS deception, no Charlie Hebdo massacre.
No
war against Russia, no Charlie Hebdo massacre.
Je
Suis Charlie? No.
To
the naïve ones who believe the lies and march on the streets carrying the signs,
you are the victims, the gullible, the dupes, the pawns.
Tu es CIA.
Tu es NATO.
Source:www.globalresearch.ca
Zionist murder Iranian
general And American filmmaker
By
Kevin Barrett
In
Syria, an Israeli helicopter strike murdered General Mohammad Allahdadi and
five other members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Meanwhile, in the
American Midwest, professional killers slaughtered anti-New World Order
filmmaker David Crowley, his wife, Komel, and their 5-year-old daughter –
employing the same modus operandi used in the killing of 9/11 truth author
Philip Marshall two years ago.
The
lesson of the twin killings was painfully clear: American and Iranian patriots
face a common enemy.
The
murder of General Allahdadi and his colleagues was the most recent of many
Israeli attacks on Syria aimed at helping ISIL. Why don't Americans
understand that ISIL and Israel are close allies? Because their media won't
tell them.
The
US mainstream media is owned by Zionists dedicated to achieving a New World
Order. At the June, 1991 Bilderberg meeting in Baden, Germany, David
Rockefeller, whose family has fronted for the Rothschilds for generations,
said:
"We
are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and
other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and
respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have
been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been
subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But the world is more
sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The
supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely
preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries."
New
World Order Zionism aims to blast the Middle East into balkanized bits in
accord with the Oded Yinon plan, and establish a Greater Israel stretching from
the Nile to the Euphrates with Occupied Jerusalem as its capital. That is why
the Zionists created ISIL and sent it to fight Muslims and Christians in Syria
and Iraq. And that is why the Zionists are attacking Syria in support of ISIL.
New
World Order Zionism is also targeting the USA for destruction. The Zionist
bankster elite staged a coup d'état on September 11th, 2001 aimed at turning
the USA into a police state – and sending American military forces to the
Middle East to smash Israel's enemies into pieces.
David
Crowley was one of the New World Order's most effective enemies. His movie
project Gray State had the potential to mobilize millions of people.
Infowars
described Gray State as "a highly-anticipated independent film envisioning
a brutal police state, martial law crackdown, complete with biometric
identification, a ubiquitous surveillance state and FEMA stormtroopers rounding
dissidents up into camps." Now it appears the New World Order police state
Crowley warned against is pre-emptively murdering those who might succeed in
rallying the American people against the coming dystopia.
The
Zionists murder or otherwise disable people they deem an actionable threat.
Anyone they believe may seriously threaten Zionist New World Order interests in
the future is a potential target for elimination.
General
Mohammad Allahdadi posed a serious threat to the Zionists. A competent,
capable, patriotic military man, General Allahdadi was a key figure in the Axis
of Resistance that has stymied Zionist New World Order plans for the complete
destruction of Syria, Iraq, and Iran.
David
Crowley was also an actionable threat to the Zionist New World Order. Crowley's
film project Gray State generated tremendous buzz among anti-New World Order Americans,
and was poised to become the movement's definitive statement.
The
professional killing of Crowley and his family exemplifies how Zionist
pre-emptive murderers excel at "killing the future." Other examples
include the 22 July 2011 assassinations in Oslo, Norway of the entire youth
wing leadership of the Norwegian Labor Party. A team of Zionist-liked
professional killers executed a total of 77 people, while Zionist-freemasonic
assets in the Norwegian police and military stood by.
The
Labor Party's youth wing was about to succeed in making Norway the first
European country to boycott Israel. By killing the leaders of the Norwegian BDS
movement, the Zionists not only stopped that movement in its tracks, but also
eliminated dozens of likely future Norwegian government leaders who would have
posed a long-term threat to Israel and its aspirations for New World Order
global tyranny.
Another
example of "killing the future" was the likely murder of Malcolm
Shabazz, Malcolm X's grandson, on May 9th, 2013. In a May 11th 2013 Press TV
article I wrote that the assassination seemed designed to pre-empt
"Malcolm's impending rise to superstar-dissident status. Make no mistake:
Malcolm Shabazz, like his grandfather, posed a serious, 'actionable' long-term
threat to the powers-that-be. Malcolm had converted to Shi'a Islam and become a
spokesman for the 'axis of resistance' - not just anti-Zionist forces in the
Middle East, but anti-empire forces around the world."
The
New World Order covert operators learned long ago that killing the charismatic
messenger is an effective way to stop the message from spreading. They killed
Huey Long on September 10th, 1935 to stop an anti-bankster revolution during
America's Great Depression. They poisoned Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945 to stop
FDR's Economic Bill of Rights and instead fund a Cold War against the Soviet
Union. They shot John and Robert Kennedy to save the Federal Reserve, the
military-industrial-intelligence complex, and Israel's nuclear weapons program.
They shot Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. to prevent black and non-elite
white Americans from joining a world anti-imperialist alliance. They murdered
Senator Paul Wellstone and his wife and daughter to cover up 9/11 and remove an
obstacle to the US invasion of Iraq.
The
same people – Zionist-freemasonic forces funded by the world’s biggest bankers
– are killing patriotic Americans and patriotic Iranians. The outrageous
killings of General Allahdadi in Syria, and David Crowley and his family in
Minnesota, on the same weekend, should mobilize the people, and the militaries,
of both countries to do battle against their common enemy.
Source:
www.presstv.com
Afraid
of the Big Bad Wolf
By Hans Vogel
According to US National Security Agency (NSA),
"Islamic terrorists" under orders from the Islamic State are about to
carry out a series of attacks in Europe. At least this is what the NSA
reportedly told the German newspaper BILD. With almost 40,000 personnel, the
NSA, is responsible for the "global monitoring, collection, decoding,
translation and analysis of information and data for foreign intelligence and
counterintelligence purposes," Incidentally, the NSA is only one of 16 US
intelligence services, together employing perhaps some 200,000 spies.
Could you name one reason for believing anything that a
spy agency says? Why haven't NSA spies nor those of any other US spy service
been able to prevent the recent attack on Charlie Hebdo? These folks and their colleagues in all NATO
countries have been monitoring all telephone conversations in North America,
Europe and the Near East, haven't they? They are reading all our emails, and
are monitoring all facebook pages, all twitter accounts, and all linkedin
pages, aren't they? They have taken away our privacy, haven't they? Their data
bases contain our finger prints, facial scans and the iris scans of many of us,
don't they? NATO's spy services are receiving billions upon billions of euros
and dollars each and every year, are they not? And yet they cannot even prevent
an attack! They even claim they did not see it coming!
Do you know why?
Because the perpetrators of the attack on Charlie Hebdo
were hired by those very same spy services. The "Islamic State" is being supported, co-funded and armed
by the US, its NATO vassals and Israel. The Islamic State may be a Big Bad
Wolf, but it is an artificial Big Bad Wolf. Like one of those from the Disney
Studios, but a bit more dangerous. A real Bad Wolf. But it is our Bad Wolf. It
is a Bad Wolf that has been created especially to make us afraid. Because, the
more we are afraid, the easier it is for the terrorists that govern us, to
control us and meanwhile to stuff their pockets.
The recent Paris attack is not the only act of terror
that the "Western" spy agencies purportedly protecting us with their
hundreds of thousands of overpaid impostors have not warned us against. Nor
could they have done so, since many of the most widely reported acts of terror
have been organized, staged or perpetrated by these very same spy agencies:
- The bomb attack on a bank
at Piazza Fontana, Milan, Italy in 1969 (12 December): 17 dead. By the Italian
intelligence service in cooperation with the CIA.
- The kidnapping and murder
of Italian politician Aldo Moro in 1978 (16 March-9 May), by the Red Brigades,
acting upon orders from Italian intelligence and the CIA.
- The bomb attack on
Bologna Central Station in 1980 (2 August), 85 dead. By the Red Brigades acting
upon orders from Italian intelligence and the CIA.
- The bombing of Pan Am
flight 103 in 1988 (21 December), 243 killed. Blamed on the Libyan government,
it was in fact done by the CIA. Used as a pretext for stricter passenger
controls.
- The series of attacks on
supermarkets in and near Brussels by the "Brabant Killers" in 1985,
16 dead. By Belgian members of NATO's Gladio "stay behind network",
directed by the CIA
- The bomb attack in
Oklahoma City in 1995 (19 April) by Timothy McVeigh, who was being manipulated by the FBI, 168
dead.
- The "attack" on
New York's Twin Towers in 2001 ("9/11").
Allegedly by Osama Bin Laden who would have directed the operation from his
cave in Afghanistan. He did not do it, but who did is a matter of debate: was
it a faction within the US government led by VP Dick Cheney, was it Mossad, or
were they acting in collusion?
- Failed "attack"
by the "shoe bomber" Richard Colvin Reid, 2001 (22 December).
Allegedly a "member" of "Al-Qaeda", Reid is supposed to
have tried to bring down an airplane with a bomb hidden in his shoes. The event
was used to impose rigid security checks on passengers checking in on airports
all over the world.
- The attack on Madrid's
Atocha Railway Station in 2004 (11 March), 191 dead. Allegedly by ETA and or
muslims. In reality by Spanish intelligence together with US intelligence.
- The London Underground and bus attacks of 2005
("7/7"). Blamed on Muslim extremists, but perpetrated by British
intelligence.
- "Transatlantic
Aircraft Plot" of 2006 (summer). British police claimed to have uncovered
a wide ranging conspiracy to bring down airliners by having the conspirators
put together bombs on board inside the planes' toilets during the flight, with
the aid of improvised laboratory sets and with smuggled liquids. This non-event
was used as a pretext for imposing draconian security on airline passengers all
over the world.
- Failed "attack"
by the "underwear bomber", 2009 (25 December). Allegedly, young
Nigerian engineer Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to bring down Northwestern
Airlines flight 253 (289 people on board) with a "weapon of mass
destruction" hidden in his underpants. Before boarding the flight at
Amsterdam, he was guided past security controls by US embassy personnel. The event
was used as a pretext for stricter controls on passengers.
- The attacks by Anders Breivik in Norway in 2011 (22 July), 77 dead. Strong
indications that it was mounted by Mossad to punish the Norwegian social
democrats for having voted to recognize the Palestinian state. Most of those
killed were youth members of the Social Democratic Party.
- The Sandy Hook massacre in the US in 2012: allegedly deranged
Adam Lanza shoots 20 people in a school (14 December). It soon turned out it
was a staged event. Pure theatre, with third rate actors, paid and directed by
US intelligence.
- Mohammed Merah goes on a
rampage in Toulouse in 2013 (March). Merah was working for French intelligence.
- The attack on the Boston Marathon in 2013 (15 April), three dead. Mediocre
quality street theatre with a high degree of reality because there were real
dead. Staged by US intelligence.
- British soldier Lee Rigby
is butchered near his barracks in London by a "fanatical muslim" in
2013. (22 May). Staged event.
- Crash of flight MH17 over the Eastern Ukraine by a Ukrainian missile. Staged
by the US so as to bring about an armed conflict with Russia.
None of these events has been predicted or prevented by
the double crossing spies who claim to protect us. None, except the 2006
Transatlantic Airline Plot. This hoaxed, trumped up pseudo-event was
"discovered" by normal British police.
The louder public and government officials lament an
event, the more frequently they appear on TV as a result of it, the more time
TV channels devote to such events, the surer you can be these are staged or
managed events. Pure hoaxes, though with real victims, these ought actually to
be considered a modern version of ancient Roman gladiator games. These are
thrilling events and the public gets all excited.
Quite significantly, each of the events cited above is
almost immediately followed by an official narrative of how and why it
happened, often with details about the perpetrators. This narrative may
subsequently be amended and refined, without being altered fundamentally.
Nevertheless, it will be ever more inconsistent and eventually untenable,
because of mounting evidence supporting entirely contrary narratives.
Invariably, the official narratives are official conspiracy theories that serve
to silence any critics with the argument that they would be "conspiracy
theorists."
Invariably, events like those mentioned above are used as
pretexts to push through special rules, regulations and legislation prepared
long in advance, but always limiting civil liberties.
A Big Bad Wolf may be on the loose, but meanwhile, the
true Bad Wolves are to be found in US, NATO and Israeli intelligence services,
in cabinet rooms, government ministries in Washington DC, Brussels, Paris,
London, the various other NATO capitals as well as Jerusalem. The real Bad
Wolves have familiar names: Obomba, Juncker, Barroso, Bush, Blair, Hollande,
Merkel, Netanyahu, well you can complete the list....
Source: www.english.pravda.ru
The Environmental Movement and Capitalism: When
History Knocks
Review of Noami Klein's Book
 |
| Dr Kwesi Botchwey |
To
raise the environmental crisis in Canada is to simultaneously highlight the
notorious Alberta Tar Sands, the fastest growing polluter in Canada. But the
Tar Sands are more than an environmental issue. This crisis-in-motion is
inseparable
from other fundamental issues at the core of Canadian society:
indigenous land claims, Canada’s integration to the American empire and its
oil-hungry military leviathan, a focus on resource extraction as a core of
Canada’s economic development and a set of contested values about ‘the good
life.’ Naomi Klein’s new book, This Changes Everything, incorporates the
contradictions exposed by the Tar Sands and extends such contradictions far
beyond Canada and far beyond the Tar Sands, identifying them with the larger
contradiction between the environment and capitalism. It ‘changes everything’
not so much because of it’s emphasis on the urgency of the environmental crisis
– this itself is now commonly accepted within the movement – but because Klein
locates the barriers to easing and overcoming this crisis in the larger ecology
of social life. It is these links between the environment, the economy, our
vision of an alternative society and especially the discussions this leads to
about how to organize ourselves to actually ‘change everything’ that make this
such an important book
Naomi
Klein is a longtime movement and media icon, a gifted synthesizer and
popularizer who, over the past two decades, has been a leading chronicler of
anti-corporate, anti-globalization, and anti-capitalist social movements (a
series of ‘anti’s that undeniably needs some unpacking).
Who
else on the Left gets a sympathetic interview on the evening news of Canada’s
publicly owned television broadcaster before the release of her latest book?
And who else, as a preview of that book, is immediately given a chance to
explain to a national audience why, from the perspective of the environment,
capitalism is “the main enemy?”
Klein’s
writings and talks have provided ‘the movement’ with needed context and
coherence, and served as a conduit and catalyst for discussions, contributing
to its recruitment and growth. Her new book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate is
the climax of her highly influential trilogy and also registers how much her
perspective has changed over the last fifteen years.
The Main Enemy
This
shift centers on both her assessment of the movement – more than ever before,
Klein expresses frustrations with the movement she is part of and still sees as
fundamental to social change – and her deeper appreciation of capitalism “as
the main enemy.” On this latter point, her earlier criticisms of particular
aspects of capitalism have now expanded into suggesting – or at least coming
very close to suggesting – that capitalism has become the central barrier to
human survival and progress.
Klein’s
trilogy began with No Logo,
which came out in 1999 and exposed the manipulative and exploitative underbelly
of consumer culture. Fortuitously published amid the Battle of Seattle protests
against the World Trade Organization and later branded the “bible of the
anti-globalization movement,” No
Logo built on the moral crusade across university campuses
against the corporate use of sweatshop labour for that culture. But it
mistakenly separated supposedly “good” and “bad” corporations, obscuring the
larger social system in which these companies lived and acted.
Klein’s
second major book, The Shock Doctrine: The
Rise of Disaster Capitalism also arrived at a propitious
moment: in 2007, just before the financial implosion and the most dramatic
economic crisis since the Great Depression. This time Klein chronicled how
corporations and capitalist states pounce on the opportunities provided by
man-made or natural crises to “ram through policies that enrich a small elite.”
In this case, though, the focus on crises underplayed what capitalism
does between crises.
Again
displaying a penchant for well-timed releases, Klein’s This Changes Everything reached
bookstores two days before October’s massive Climate March in New York City.
Here it is no longer capitalism’s bad apples that are the focus, nor capitalism’s
ability to use crises against us, but the organizing principles of the system
itself – and the environmental consequences that follow. “[O]ur economic system
and our planetary system are now at war,” Klein writes, “and it’s not the laws
of nature that can be changed.”
In
characteristically accessible language, Klein summarizes the alarming
scientific consensus on climate change. But the significance of This Changes Everything doesn’t
lie in Klein’s detailed and passionate description of the urgency of the
environmental crisis. Rather, its importance lies in Klein’s determination to
demonstrate that changing our relationship to nature is inseparable from
changing our relationship to each other – by “transforming our economic system”
(I’ll return later to ambiguities in how this is interpreted).
The
immediate threat to the earth “changes everything” in the sense that just
adding “the environment” to our list of concerns is not good enough.
The
sheer scale of the problem necessitates a politics that can take on capitalism.
We must do away with any notions, Klein asserts, that the environmental crisis
can be contained and eventually rolled back through policy tinkering (though
addressing symptoms is necessary); technical fixes (though sensible technological
advances should be vigorously pursued); or market-based solutions (no
qualification necessary – it’s silly to expect the market to solve problems it
was instrumental in creating). Something far more comprehensive is required.
Asking Ourselves the
Hard Questions
To
emphasize this, however, is not just to expose the painfully inadequate
solutions of the Right, but also to ask the hard questions of the environmental
movement. As important as the movement has been to placing the issue on the
agenda and bringing young people in particular into the struggle, its
organizational forms simply do not match what we are up against. After decades
of engagement, the environmental movement remains relatively marginal, capable
of slowing down this or that trend but not of reversing and correcting
capitalism’s reckless trajectory.
Klein
is especially critical of those sections of the movement that jumped on the
“green capitalism” bandwagon in the 1970s. In a pattern eerily reminiscent of
the bureaucratization of unions that environmentalists once held up as the
antithesis of their own politics, their environmentalism “stopped being about
organizing protests and teach-ins and became about drafting laws, then suing
corporations for violating them, as well as challenging governments for failing
to enforce them. In rapid fashion, what had been a rabble of hippies became a
movement of lawyers, lobbyists, and UN summit hoppers. As a result many of the
newly professionalized environmentalists came to pride themselves on being the ultimate
insiders, able to wheel and deal across the political spectrum.”
Klein
goes on to point out that “so long as the victories kept coming, their insider
strategy seemed to be working… Then came the 1980s.” Again paralleling the
labour movement, capitalism’s turn to neoliberalism exposed the extent to which
the environmental movement had become a paper tiger, able to maneuver somewhat
within the system, but without the capacity for independent, sustained mass
mobilization. Yet beyond exposing this orientation, we also need to ask what,
beyond the opportunism of access to resources and entry into the inner circles,
accounts for the eventual betrayals of these former idealists.
How
much of a factor in looking for easy fixes was the mix of extreme urgency
honestly felt and an awareness of the limited impact of sporadic
demonstrations? To what extent was the movement’s vulnerability to co-optation
on the one hand, and exhaustion and retreat on the other, linked to having no
broader vision beyond the environment and little or no strategic plan for truly
challenging power?
These
are, of course, not just questions of history but have immediate relevance. And
they also challenge that part of the movement that didn’t sell out but remained
loyal to their original principles. As much as Klein puts her hope in this
latter group, she also – to her credit – admits to frustrations with key
aspects of its strategic orientation. She makes two overlapping points here,
one organizational, the other strategic.
First,
there is the tendency of many in the movement to mistakenly identify structures
themselves as part of the problem. There is no going forward, however, without
the most serious development of institutions that can deal on a mass scale with
resources, coordination, generational continuity, leadership development,
outreach, popular education, and, especially, the accountability structures to
make complex and difficult collective choices and to keep wayward leaders in
check.
As
Klein writes:
“The
fetish for structurelessness, the rebellion against any kind of
institutionalization, is not a luxury today’s transformational movements can
afford… Despite endless griping, tweeting, flash mobbing, and occupying, we
collectively lack many of the tools that built and sustained the transformative
movements of the past.”
This
reluctance to do deep organizing and institution building, again similar to the
labour movement, has contributed to series of defeats since the early 1980s.
And those defeats have engendered a failure of imagination, inseparable from
the fading of worldviews and structures that bring confidence to and sustain
collective work.
Second,
Klein insists that the struggle against climate change cannot be won by fear
alone. “Fear is a survival response. It makes us run, it makes us leap, it can
make us act superhuman. But we need somewhere to run to. Without that, the fear
is only paralyzing.” (It might also be added that fear can produce support for
the immediate nostrums offered by green capitalism.)
Similarly,
though the issue of consumerism must be taken on, simply calling for a more
austere lifestyle only reinforces the austerity pushed by capitalist states.
The issue is not just living with ‘less’ but living differently – which can
also mean better.
It
is about an alternative society. And to the extent that some sacrifices are
indeed necessary, these must involve both a radical equality of sacrifice and
one that sees such sacrifices as ‘investments’ in transforming society, rather
than concessions to preserve capitalism.
To
the uncomfortable question of “how can we persuade the human race to put the
future ahead of the present,” Klein borrows from Miya Yoshitama and answers
“you don’t.” Instead you act on the presumption that “if there has ever been a
moment to advance a plan to heal the planet that also heals our broken
economies and shattered communities, this is it.”
And
so you point to a long series of issues directly linked to the environment –
housing, transportation, infrastructure, meaningful jobs, collective services,
public spaces, greater equality, and a more substantive democracy – and work to
convince people that “climate action is their best hope for a better present,
and a future far more exciting than anything else currently on offer.”
In
contrast, the mainstream environmental movement, Klein laments, “generally
stands apart from these expressions of mass frustration, choosing to define
climate activism narrowly – demanding a carbon tax, say, or even trying to stop
a pipeline.”
Building
a non-parochial, mass movement against climate change isn’t about
de-emphasizing the central importance of the environmental crisis but of
thinking about it politically and in the context of wider values. Such a mass
movement needs to forge its own common sense, structures independent of
capital, and the energy and staying power that comes with a realizable, if
distant, vision.
Once
we appreciate that the scale of the climate change issue references not just
how much needs to be done in environmental terms, but what needs to be done to
transform society, we are at a new, even more intimidating, stage. We’ve added
the need to take on capitalism and must be clear about what this means.
Taking On Capitalism
Klein
deserves enormous credit for putting capitalism in the dock. Yet she leaves too
much wiggle room for capitalism to escape a definitive condemnation. There is
already great confusion and division among social activists over what
‘anti-capitalism’ means. For many if not most, it is not the capitalist system that is at issue
but particular sub-categories of villains: big business, banks, foreign
companies, multinationals.
Klein
is contradictory on this score. She seems clear enough in the analysis that
pervades the book that it is capitalism,
yet she repeatedly qualifies this position by decrying “the kind of capitalism
we now have,” “neoliberal” capitalism, “deregulated” capitalism, “unfettered”
capitalism, “predatory” capitalism, “extractive” capitalism, and so on. These
adjectives undermine the powerful logic of Klein’s more convincing arguments
elsewhere that the issue isn’t creating a better capitalism but confronting
capitalism as a social system.
 |
| Seth Tekper, Ghana Finance Minister |
This
ambivalence is compounded by Klein’s overemphasis on ideology as a driver of
social change. The dispute here is not over the relevance of ideology, but the
unmooring of ideology from its context. That Friedrich Hayek and Milton
Friedman were largely ignored in the postwar years then idolized in the 1980s
was not because the strength of their arguments won converts but because
contradictions in capitalism and shifts in the balance of class forces placed a
more aggressive capitalism on the agenda, which opened the door to these
waiting ideologies.
It
is one thing to stress popular education and our own ideologies and common
sense as part of taking on structural power in our societies; it is another to
think ideology is all and underestimating what needs to be done (or at the
extreme, naively converting the struggle from below into winning elites over to
our ideology).
Capitalism
does of course vary across time and place, and some of the differences are far
from trivial. But in terms of substantive change, we should not overstate the
importance of these disparate forms. Moreover, such differences have not increased
but contracted over time, leaving us with a more or less monolithic capitalism
across the globe.
It
is not just that any capitalism is inseparable from the compulsion to
indiscriminate growth, but that capitalism’s commodification of labour power
and nature drives an individualized consumerism inimical to collective values
(consumption is the compensation for what we lose in being commodified and is
the incentive to work) and insensitive to the environment (nature is an input,
and the full costs of how it is exploited by any corporation are for someone
else to worry about).
A
social system based on private ownership of production can’t support the kind
of planning that could avert environmental catastrophe. The owners of capital
are fragmented and compelled by competition to look after their own interests
first, and any serious planning would have to override property rights – an
action that would be aggressively resisted.
As
Klein notes, even countries that have spoken out against extractivism –
in response to pressure from indigenous environmentalists – have found
themselves compelled by the options capitalism offers to mine and sell as much
of whatever their soils offer.
As
for the Global North using its technology and wealth to expand the options in
the Global South, this kind of solidarity would imply both a cultural
transformation in the North and direct control over technology and social
wealth so global redistribution is possible – each of which can only be
imagined in a post-capitalist society.
There
are some who, seeing the limits of capitalism in our time, turn to examples
from the romanticized postwar era. But it was during the Keynesian welfare
state period that freer trade made its great leap forward, multinational
companies (MNCs) began their global expansion, finance – benefitting from the
growth of mortgages and pensions and following MNCs abroad – saw its first wave
of explosive expansion, radicals and their ideas were marginalized, and
consumerism spread to the working-class.
“It
is capitalism –
not a qualified capitalism, but really existing capitalism and the only
capitalism on offer – that “is the main enemy.””
Furthermore,
it is hard to miss the fact that capitalists and capitalist states have long
lost interest in that earlier era which, for all its limits, still imposed too
many barriers on the drive for profits. It is capitalism – not a qualified capitalism, but
really existing capitalism and the only capitalism on offer – that “is the main
enemy.” It is crucial to be clear on this point, because if we conclude that
the environment can’t be regenerated under capitalism, then it is this that
becomes the great game-changer. It is one thing to ask how we can organize
ourselves better to register our dissatisfaction and to pressure or lobby
corporations and states to modify some of their ways within capitalism. It is
quite another to conclude that we must organize ourselves for the far more
ambitious task of replacing this powerful system.
We
need to fight as hard as possible for reforms that limit environmental damage,
but such a battle for reforms must be used to build a movement that can
eventually take us beyond capitalism.
With the task of transforming capitalism so daunting and the environmental
crisis so urgent, some might suggest we rethink our argument and retreat into a
broader environmental alliance that includes sympathetic elites, even if it
means sacrificing other goals such as equality and even democracy. This, it
should by now be abundantly clear, is no option at all; it can only mean a
return to a discredited green capitalism. Such a concessionary strategy would
undermine our base while doing little to ward off climate change. ‘Enlightened’
elites won’t take kindly to undermining capitalism’s institutions, so currying
their favor is foolhardy. Pre-emptive disarmament will only ensure that elites
try to save themselves at our expense. We have no choice but to get on with it,
no matter how overwhelming the undertaking.
Klein
doesn’t supply us with an alternate strategic blueprint, but it’s hard to fault
her for the omission – visionary ‘recipes’ for “cook-shops of
the future” have long been in short supply on the Left. This Changes Everything is
still Klein’s best and most important book. It is a contribution to getting us
going in the right direction. It doesn’t shy away from soberly reflecting on
the state of the movement, presents some crucial insights for moving ahead, and
invites – even if sometimes ambiguously – the broadest discussion on what needs
to be done and the necessity of rethinking how to do it.
At
the end of her book, Klein is about to interview the youthful head of Syriza,
the radical Greek party now on the brink of taking
power. She asks a Greek comrade what she should ask him, and the person
answers: “Ask him: When history knocked on your door, did you answer?” As Klein
concludes, “That’s a good question for all of us.”
Sam Gindin was Research Director of the Canadian
Auto Workers from 1974-2000 and is now an adjunct professor at York University
in Toronto. Gindin is the co-author, along with Leo Panitch, of The Making of Global
Capitalism. This article first published on
the JacobinMag.com website.
Source:
www.globalresearch.ca
No comments:
Post a Comment