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Making sense of Nathaniel Rich's "Losing Earth"
Filed under: climate,Global Warming — louisproyect @ 1:21 am
I just finished reading last Sunday's NY Times Magazine article "Losing Earth" by Nathaniel Rich on the failure of elites to respond to the climate change crisis between 1979 to 1989. Since the author is the son of leading liberal pundit Frank Rich, it should not come as any surprise that it is something of a morality play with Al Gore, Friends of the Earth staff member Rafe Pomerantz and James Hansen on the side of the angels and John Sununu, Bush '41's Chief of Staff, playing Satan.
In such a personality-driven article, you don't get any sense of the institutional and social pressures that led to inaction. Indeed, you might even draw the conclusion that if Sununu had been more enlightened, the planet would be in much better shape today.
The article has generated angry denunciations by Naomi Klein in Intercept and Alyssa Battistoni in Jacobin. They agree that the main flaw of the article is that keeps talking about "our" failure to respond to the crisis, an analysis that does not address the class distinctions that shut the door on mass participation to avert climate change. Battistoni writes: "Rich recognizes that the problem is political, but again, he draws the wrong conclusions. At one point, he wonders, "if science, industry and the press could not move the government to act, then who could?" I don't know — how about the people?"
For her part, Klein writes:
And yet we blew it — "we" being humans, who apparently are just too shortsighted to safeguard our future. Just in case we missed the point of who and what is to blame for the fact that we are now "losing earth," Rich's answer is presented in a full-page callout: "All the facts were known, and nothing stood in our way. Nothing, that is, except ourselves."
Yep, you and me. Not, according to Rich, the fossil fuel companies who sat in on every major policy meeting described in the piece. (Imagine tobacco executives being repeatedly invited by the U.S. government to come up with policies to ban smoking. When those meetings failed to yield anything substantive, would we conclude that the reason is that humans just want to die? Might we perhaps determine instead that the political system is corrupt and busted?)
I think their critiques are well-taken but why would you expect anything different from the NY Times? Years ago, Alexander Cockburn wrote a piquant critique of FAIR, with its frequent campaigns against the NY Times and the Washington Post for dispensing ruling class propaganda. Why, he asked, would you expect them to write anything that did not promote the interests of the class it serves? Of course, with this in mind, you have to ask yourself why both newspapers have been functioning as PR flaks for Jacobin for almost a decade now.
My attitude toward the Rich article was somewhat more positive since I saw it as a briskly-paced examination of how inside-the-beltway maneuvering takes place. You know the sort of thing I am talking about. As sports radio is to the machinations taking place in the NY Yankees management before a trade deadline, so is this article to how climate change policy-wrangling took place three decades ago. It makes you want to bathe in a disinfectant.
Both Klein and Battistoni seem to think that Jacobin and the DSA honchos are like men and women on horseback riding in to save the day. Klein is practically breathless:
These are the stakes in the surge of movement-grounded political candidates who are advancing a democratic eco-socialist vision, connecting the dots between the economic depredations caused by decades of neoliberal ascendency and the ravaged state of our natural world. Partly inspired by Bernie Sanders's presidential run, candidates in a variety of races — like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York, Kaniela Ing in Hawaii, and many more — are running on platforms calling for a "Green New Deal" that meets everyone's basic material needs, offers real solutions to racial and gender inequities, while catalyzing a rapid transition to 100 percent renewable energy. Many, like New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon and New York attorney general candidate Zephyr Teachout, have pledged not to take money from fossil fuel companies and are promising instead to prosecute them.
These candidates, whether or not they identify as democratic socialist, are rejecting the neoliberal centrism of the establishment Democratic Party, with its tepid "market-based solutions" to the ecological crisis, as well as Donald Trump's all-out war on nature. And they are also presenting a concrete alternative to the undemocratic extractivist socialists of both the past and present. Perhaps most importantly, this new generation of leaders isn't interested in scapegoating "humanity" for the greed and corruption of a tiny elite. It seeks instead to help humanity — particularly its most systematically unheard and uncounted members — to find their collective voice and power so they can stand up to that elite.
I hate to sound like an old stick in the mud but I doubt that electing Sandernistas will have even the slightest impact on climate change. The truth is that it will take many years for a Sanders type administration to occupy the White House and even when in power it will have its hands tied when dealing with the massive inertia the capitalist system imposes on governmental action.
To reverse climate change requires revolutionary action and that is something that is beyond the DSA's capability to carry out. Given every opportunity to present their analysis of the environmental crisis, both Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez never really make clear that capitalism is the main obstacle to climate justice. Corporations will always put their profits ahead of social need, even if alternative energy sources in the USA begin to resemble the kind of advances being made in Europe and China. Given the need to avoid red ink, corporations will always fall back on fossil fuels even if they are supposedly "clean" such as natural gas.
Ultimately, humanity will need to abolish the private ownership of the means of production in order to ensure that its future needs are safeguarded. If you think that Donald Trump is a fascist danger right now, you haven't seen capitalism in its final, most deadly stages defending itself against the rabble. Twenty-five years from now, when the struggle had reached a fever pitch, you can surely expect George Soros's son to be funneling money to Richard Spencer and the Proud Boys. I guarantee it.
Before the Flood; The Ivory Game
Filed under: animal rights,Ecology,Film,Global Warming — louisproyect @ 8:39 pm
Two documentaries with the imprimatur of Leonardo DiCaprio can be seen in New York City and likely in theaters around the country given his clout as one of Hollywood's superstars. Both of the documentaries are timely and excellent. They also raise questions about the role of tinseltown progressives. With DiCaprio, George Clooney, Sean Penn, Angela Jolie, John Cusack and others not so well known picking up where Jane Fonda left off years ago, it is a good time to consider their role in social change. Since there is a natural and even reasonable tendency on the left to regard such personalities as superficial phonies, a close look at DiCaprio's trajectory would be useful.
"Before the Flood" opened yesterday at the Village East Cinema in New York and features DiCaprio in a kind of Michael Moore narrator/main character role. (The film will also be shown on the National Geographic channel on October 30th.) As the title implies, this is about climate change and certainly a follow-up to Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" that helped to draw attention to arguably the most important environmental question we face today even as Gore's film failed to provide adequate answers. Whether DiCaprio's film succeeds in answering them is open to question although it is undeniable that the average audience member will come out the theater with a much better idea of the problems we face.
The film is a kind of odyssey with DiCaprio meeting with people all across the planet who are on the front lines of climate change. Mostly he is content to allow people to speak freely even when they come close to denouncing him as part of the problem. When he meets with Sunita Narain, the director of the Centre for Science and Environment in India, he allows her to excoriate the West for demanding sharp cutbacks in fossil fuel usage across the board when her country and others like it are mired in poverty. After we see an Indian peasant turning cow dung into a patty that is used almost universally in the countryside as a primitive stove fuel, Narain remonstrates with DiCaprio:
Coal is cheap, whether you or I like it or not. You have to think of it from this point of view. You created the problem in the past. We will create it in the future. We have 700m household using biomass to cook. If those households move to coal, there'll be that much more use of fossil fuels. Then the entire world is fried. If anyone tells you that the world's poor should move to solar and why do they have to make the mistakes we have made…I hear this from American NGOs all the time. I'm like, wow. I mean, if it was that easy, I would really have liked the US to move to solar. But you haven't. Let's put our money where our mouth is.
There was nothing like this in Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" and as such makes this new film far more credible.
One of the things you will learn from "Before the Flood" is that Western Europe is making great strides in developing alternative energy sources. Not only that, so is China which is far Greener at least on climate change than the USA. To some extent, this is likely the result of China's need to reduce air pollution from coal-burning plants even if it had nothing to do with the coastal flooding that can put cities under water everywhere, including China. Since protests against unclear air have roiled China, the Communist Party must have felt a need to defuse the situation. Furthermore, since lung cancer does not discriminate between rich and poor, the elite obviously would prefer to enjoy its wealth in good health.
If advances are being made in alternative energy sources, there continues to be profit-driven assaults on the world's great rainforests that serve to absorb carbon dioxide and hence slow down climate change. One of the more shocking examples is the deliberately set forest fires in Borneo, a first step in clearing land for palm oil plantations. Palm oil is a key ingredient of junk food. When DiCaprio visits a shelter for orphaned orangutans, you really have to wonder what kind of mad world we are living in when a bag of Lays potato chips can fuel the extinction of such a gentle and intelligent beast.
There are three interviews that epitomize the shortcomings of a Green outlook that is not rooted in a critique of the capitalist system. DiCaprio gives Harvard economist Gregory Mankiw a platform to advocate for a carbon tax that he feels will reduce its use just as cigarette taxes reduce smoking. We assume that the inclusion of Mankiw, a life-long Republican who served in George W. Bush's economic advisor, is meant to illustrate the possibility of uniting all sides of the political spectrum in a battle against extinction.
The carbon tax is based on the idea that markets can be the solution to climate change after the fashion of Obama's cap-and-trade that provides incentives for reducing carbon emissions. But as long as the market system prevails, there will be enormous pressures to be cost-effective. This might entail allowing big corporations to offset the expense of a carbon tax by drilling in areas of the world where labor costs are minimal, like South Sudan for example. Indeed, even as China is converting to alternative energy sources within its borders, it is stepping up drilling in the South Sudan.
As it happens, Exxon Mobil is in favor of a carbon tax but this might have something to do with the fact that it would likely benefit more than its competitors from a carbon tax that favors cleaner-burning natural gas over coal. Guess what. ExxonMobil has the largest natural gas reserves of any U.S. company.
As another example of progress in the fight against climate change, DiCaprio talks to Elon Musk in his "gigafactory" in the Nevadan desert. Upon its completion in 2020, it will produce 500,000 electric vehicles per year and batteries/cells equal to 85 GWh/yr. Musk is also a proponent of the carbon tax as this exchange reveals:
Elon Musk: What would it take to transition the whole world to sustainable energy? What kind of throughput would you actually need? You need a hundred gigafactories.
Leonardo DiCaprio: A hundred of these?
Elon Musk: A hundred. Yes.
Leonardo DiCaprio: That would make the United States…
Elon Musk: No, the whole world.
Leonardo DiCaprio: The whole world?!
Elon Musk: The whole world.
Leonardo DiCaprio: That's it?! That sounds manageable.
Elon Musk: If all the big companies do this then we can accelerate the transition and if governments can set the rules in favour of sustainable energy, then we can get there really quickly. But it's really fundamental: unless they put a price on carbon…
Leonardo DiCaprio: …then we are never going to be able to make the transition in time, right?
Elon Musk: Only way to do that is through a carbon tax.
It is too bad that DiCaprio did not follow up with a question about lithium mining since this is the primary ingredient of the batteries he will be producing. I first became aware of its environmental impact in a film titled "Salero" that examined the life of a salt extractor in Bolivia whose way of life was threatened by the transformation of the salt flats into a huge lithium mine. Friends of the Earth details the possible outcome, which amounts to robbing Peter to pay Paul:
Lithium is found in the brine of salt flats. Holes are drilled into the salt flats and the brine is pumped to the surface, leaving it to evaporate in ponds. This allows lithium carbonate to be extracted through a chemical process.
The extraction of lithium has significant environmental and social impacts, especially due to water pollution and depletion. In addition, toxic chemicals are needed to process lithium. The release of such chemicals through leaching, spills or air emissions can harm communities, ecosystems and food production. Moreover, lithium extraction inevitably harms the soil and also causes air contamination.
The salt flats where lithium is found are located in arid territories. In these places, access to water is key for the local communities and their livelihoods, as well as the local flora and fauna. In Chile's Atacama salt flats, mining consumes, contaminates and diverts scarce water resources away from local communities. The extraction of lithium has caused water-related conflicts with different communities, such as the community of Toconao in the north of Chile. In Argentina's Salar de Hombre Muerto, local communities claim that lithium operations have contaminated streams used for humans, livestock and crop irrigation.
Finally, there is the interview with Barack Obama in which the chief executive worries about scarce resources becoming subject to competition between populations. This amounts to a national security issue according to the Pentagon. In a way, this has already taken place if you consider the possibility that the revolt in Syria was fueled to some extent by climate change. You can read about this in the December 17, 2015 Scientific American:
Kemal Ali ran a successful well-digging business for farmers in northern Syria for 30 years. He had everything he needed for the job: a heavy driver to pound pipe into the ground, a battered but reliable truck to carry his machinery, a willing crew of young men to do the grunt work. More than that, he had a sharp sense of where to dig, as well as trusted contacts in local government on whom he could count to look the other way if he bent the rules. Then things changed. In the winter of 2006–2007, the water table began sinking like never before.
Ali had a problem. "Before the drought I would have to dig 60 or 70 meters to find water," he recalls. "Then I had to dig 100 to 200 meters. Then, when the drought hit very strongly, I had to dig 500 meters. The deepest I ever had to dig was 700 meters. The water kept dropping and dropping." From that winter through 2010, Syria suffered its most devastating drought on record. Ali's business disappeared. He tried to find work but could not. Social uprisings in the country began to escalate. He was almost killed by cross fire. Now Ali sits in a wheelchair at a camp for wounded and ill refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos.
If there is anything that casts doubt on the ability or willingness of American imperialism to preempt "national security" issues stemming from climate change, it is the situation in Syria that has deteriorated to hellish levels. The USA had zero interest in reducing conflict in the entire Middle East and North Africa, which to one extent or another is suffering from extreme weather conditions. Its general strategy is to support the status quo with one or another dictatorship keeping men such as Kemal Ali from getting out of hand. Oil will be sent from Saudi Arabia while men like al-Sisi and Assad keep the rabble in line. This is the shape of things to come in the 21st century and nothing will stop it except the revolutionary action of working people and farmers who have nothing to lose but their chains. This is a showdown that will force men and women in Leonardo DiCaprio's social position to choose sides. I'd like to think on the basis of the convictions displayed in "Before the Flood" that he can be won to our side.
In the early moments of "Before the Flood", DiCaprio recollects how as a young boy he began thinking about environmental questions. He became preoccupied with animal extinctions and wondered how they happened and how they could be prevented. Since we are part of the animal kingdom ourselves, we have an obvious interest in eliminating any environmental threats to our own existence.
Moving from those early musings to the current day, we see him in conversation with Alejandro González Iñárritu, the director of "The Revenant", a very fine film about one man's struggle to reach civilization after being mauled in the wilderness by a grizzly bear. In a way, this was nature's revenge since the man was a hunter who like thousands of others in the early 1800s helped to bring many creatures to the edge of extinction. We see director and actor looking in horror at a photograph of one of these hunters before a small mountain of pelts. DiCaprio shakes his head at this gruesome spectacle and asks why such men could not see the impact that they would have on nature.
That kind of irrational, cruel and ultimately self-destructive behavior is the subject of the documentary "The Ivory Game" that opens in theaters everywhere on November 4th as well as on Netflix. DiCaprio served as executive producer for the film that is directed by Richard Ladkani and Kief Davidson.
As the title implies, this is about the wholesale destruction of African elephants through poaching. The main market for their tusks is China, where the nouveau riche value artwork made of ivory. Like the rhinoceros tusks that end up in useless cures for a variety of ailments ranging from impotence to cancer, China is a primary cause of the enormous loss of living natural resources that cannot easily be replaced.
The film follows some of the men and women involved in eliminating the black market for ivory in both Africa and China. We meet the cops who are in pursuit of Shetani, a kingpin in the poaching business whose name is Swahili for Satan—appropriately enough. We also meet a young Chinese man who after being horrified as a boy by the slaughter of small animals in an outdoor market decided to take up their cause. He became an investigative journalist covering the ivory game as well as an undercover operative who secretly filmed the Chinese and Africans who take part in this sordid business.
As a further illustration of the insanity of the capitalist system, we learn that the men in the poaching trade and the shopkeepers in China who sell the handicrafts made of ivory want the elephant population to decline since that will drive up the price of their goods. Supply and demand, don't you know? This becomes a vicious cycle that will eventually lead to their extinction.
As it happens, my earliest inklings into the conflict between capitalism and mother nature was a 1958 film titled "Roots of Heaven" directed by John Huston that I wrote about in July 2014:
My duty is to protect all the species, all the living roots that heaven planted into the earth. I've been fighting all my life for their preservation. Man is destroying the forest, poisoning the ocean, poisoning the very air we breathe with radiation. The oceans, the forests, the race of animals, mankind are the roots of heaven. Poison heaven's roots and the tree will be done and die. The stars will go out and heaven will be destroyed.
That was the response of the character Peer Qvist to a colonial administrator charged with the responsibility of tracking down and persuading the small band protecting elephants to give up their struggle. When asked to justify his membership in a subversive group after pledging only to do scientific research in French Equatorial Africa, Qvist (played by Friedrich von Ledebur, who also played Queequeg in John Huston's "Moby Dick") gives the only possible answer for someone who values all life. It would be hard to exaggerate the impact those words had on my when I first heard them in 1959, long before terms like animal rights and ecology had entered our vocabulary.
"The Roots of Heaven" was very much in the spirit of Edward Abbey's 1975 "The Monkey Wrench Gang", a novel that for all I know was inspired by "The Roots of Heaven". While Abbey's work celebrated sabotage against machines that were destroying the West's natural habitats, Romain Gary's heroes were using a monkey wrench against a system that had very little machinery to speak of. That system provided ivory for billiard balls and other ostentatious items, leaving the Africans without industry or wildlife. Indeed, some of the African nationalists who initially hook up with them—mainly for the publicity–view the elephants as an obstacle to progress and would be more than happy to see them sacrificed.
So what do we make of Leonardo DiCaprio? To start with, it is good that he is involved with projects such as these. His name might help to fill seats in theaters that are outside the arthouse ghetto. It also helps that the two films have production values not ordinarily seen in documentaries.
Plus, the man puts his money on the line. He recently donated $1 million to an anti-poaching campaign. While he certainly can afford to make that kind of contribution, we can at least respect him for making it. I also invited you to visit his website where you can see other initiatives that he is funding. I am not sure if there is anybody doing more than him to protect wildlife and the ecosphere, at least in Hollywood.
There were some autobiographical details in "Before the Flood" that I found interesting. It turns out that DiCaprio's father was both a creator and marketer of underground comics and evidently part of the counter-culture. For some reason that only the father could explain, he put a poster of Hieronymus Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights" on his young child's bedroom wall. DiCaprio became obsessed with the images, especially the one to the right that depicts hell. It is that image that evokes what our planet will look like unless the forces of destruction are not confronted and defeated.
Like most people in his milieu, DiCaprio is a Democrat as Wikipedia notes:
During the 2004 presidential election, DiCaprio campaigned and donated to John Kerry's presidential bid. The FEC showed that DiCaprio gave $2,300 to Barack Obama's presidential campaign in the 2008 election, the maximum contribution an individual could give in that election cycle, and $5,000 to Obama's 2012 campaign.
Well, the $5000 shelled out to Obama might have been wasted but the million dollars to save the elephants was much better spent.
On balance, we are better off with DiCaprio as a spokesman for causes we believe in rather than him standing on the sidelines doing cocaine and navel-gazing. In the final analysis, it is the working class and its allies that will transform the economic system that hastens climate change and the extinction of African elephants but we should be looking for all the help we can get in a monumental struggle upon which everything rests, including the survival of life on earth.
This is the speech he gave to the UN on April 22nd, 2016. I'd like to think he wrote it himself:
Thank you, Mr. Secretary General, for the honor to address this body once more. And thanks to the distinguished climate leaders assembled here today who are ready to take action.
President Abraham Lincoln was also thinking of bold action 150 years ago when he said:
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. As our case is new so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country."
He was speaking before the US Congress to confront the defining issue of his time – slavery.
Everyone knew it had to end but no one had the political will to stop it. Remarkably, his words ring as true today when applied to the defining crisis of our time – Climate Change.
As a UN Messenger of Peace, I have been travelling all over the world for the last two years documenting how this crisis is changing the natural balance of our planet. I have seen cities like Beijing choked by industrial pollution. Ancient Boreal forests in Canada that have been clear cut and rainforests in Indonesia that have been incinerated. In India I met farmers whose crops have literally been washed away by historic flooding. In America I have witnessed unprecedented droughts in California and sea level rise flooding the streets of Miami. In Greenland and in the Arctic I was astonished to see that ancient glaciers are rapidly disappearing well ahead of scientific predictions. All that I have seen and learned on this journey has terrified me.
There is no doubt in the world's scientific community that this a direct result of human activity and that the effects of climate change will become astronomically worse in the future.
I do not need to throw statistics at you. You know them better than I do, and more importantly, you know what will happen if this scourge is left unchecked. You know that climate change is happening faster than even the most pessimistic of scientists warned us decades ago. It has become a runaway freight train bringing with it an impending disaster for all living things.
Now think about the shame that each of us will carry when our children and grandchildren look back and realize that we had the means of stopping this devastation, but simply lacked the political will to do so.
Yes, we have achieved the Paris Agreement. More countries have come together to sign this agreement today than for any other cause in the history of humankind – and that is a reason for hope – but unfortunately the evidence shows us that it will not be enough.
Our planet cannot be saved unless we leave fossil fuels in the ground where they belong. An upheaval and massive change is required, now. One that leads to a new collective consciousness. A new collective evolution of the human race, inspired and enabled by a sense of urgency from all of you.
We all know that reversing the course of climate change will not be easy, but the tools are in our hands – if we apply them before it is too late.
Renewable energy, clean fuels, and putting a price on carbon pollution are beginning to turn the tide. This transition is not only the right thing for our world, but it also makes clear economic sense, and is possible within our lifetime.
But it is now upon you to do what great leaders have always done: to lead, inspire, and empower as President Lincoln did in his time.
We can congratulate each other today, but it will mean nothing if you return to your countries and fail to push beyond the promises of this historic agreement. Now is the time for bold unprecedented action.
My friends, look at the delegates around you. It is time to ask each other – which side of history will you be on?
As a citizen of our planet who has witnessed so much on this journey I thank you for all you have done to lay the foundation of a solution to this crisis, but after 21 years of debates and conferences it is time to declare no more talk. No more excuses. No more ten-year studies. No more allowing the fossil fuel companies to manipulate and dictate the science and policies that effect our future. This is the only body that can do what is needed. You, sitting in this very hall.
The world is now watching. You will either be lauded by future generations, or vilified by them.
Lincoln's words still resonate to all of us here today:
"We will be remembered in spite of ourselves. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the last generation… We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth."
That is our charge now – you are the last best hope of Earth. We ask you to protect it. Or we – and all living things we cherish – are history.
Water, capitalism and catastrophism
Filed under: Counterpunch,Film,fracking,Global Warming — louisproyect @ 2:47 pm
COUNTERPUNCH WEEKEND EDITION APRIL 17-19, 2015
Living Under the Shadow of a Sixth Extinction
by LOUIS PROYECT
Two films concerned with water and environmental activism arrive in New York this week. "Groundswell Rising", which premieres at the Maysles Theater in Harlem today, is about the struggle to safeguard lakes and rivers from fracking while "Revolution", which opens at the Cinema Village next Wednesday, documents the impact of global warming on the oceans. Taking the holistic view, one can understand how some of the most basic conditions of life are threatened by a basic contradiction. Civilization, the quintessential expression of Enlightenment values that relies on ever-expanding energy, threatens to reduce humanity to barbarism if not extinction through exactly such energy production.
This challenge not only faces those of us now living under capitalism but our descendants who will be living under a more rational system. No matter the way in which goods and services are produced, for profit or on the basis of human need, humanity is faced with ecological constraints that must be overcome otherwise we will be subject to a Sixth Extinction. Under capitalism, Sixth Extinction is guaranteed. Under socialism, survival is possible but only as a result of a radical transformation of how society is organized, something that Marx alluded to in the Communist Manifesto when he called for a "gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country."
Naomi Klein, Jodi Dean and the debate over "Green Keynesianism"
Filed under: economics,Global Warming,Green Party,revolutionary organizing — louisproyect @ 6:40 pm
Despite its obvious intention to challenge the corporate-dominated status quo, some Marxists fault Naomi Klein's "This Changes Everything" for supposedly straddling two
Despite its obvious intention to challenge the corporate-dominated status quo, some Marxists fault Naomi Klein's "This Changes Everything" for supposedly straddling two opposing and mutually exclusive systems: capitalism and socialism. For every criticism, there has been a defense of "This Changes Everything" from other Marxists, including those who have had long-standing affinities with the critics–thus demonstrating that deep divisions do not have to stand in the way of a unified movement. As such, the debate is a reminder that as long as our primary focus is on challenging capitalist rule, there is no reason why we cannot air out our differences in the public arena without the schisms that have harmed out movement in the past.
In a December 30, 2014 Jacobin article (https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/12/naomi-klein-capitalism/), Sam Gindin praises Klein for attacking capitalism as the source of climate change but faults her for leaving too much "wriggle room" for capitalist reform. By hammering away at "villains" such as the Koch brothers et al, the left can effectively let the system off the hook. While Gindin does not identify her as a Keynesian—the term that is widely identified with the leftwing policy studies base of the Democratic Party—he leaves the impression that she is not much different than Bill McKibben. When he writes that "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 clearly a warning that Klein's agenda is one of capitalist reform.
The final paragraph of Gindin's article is particularly intriguing:
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."
As you might know, Sam Gindin's writing partner is Leo Panitch who has become one of Syriza's most prominent defenders just as Jacobin has tended to stake out a position as a left critic of its supposed Keynesian weaknesses. Although Gindin has never written about Syriza, one might reasonably conclude that the critique he has mounted against Naomi Klein would apply equally to the Syriza leadership, especially the finance minister who has generated controversy on the left for stating that "saving capitalism from itself" is the number one task of Marxism.
In a defense (http://systemchangenotclimatechange.org/article/view-burnaby-mountain-naomi-klein%E2%80%99s-changes-everything) of "This Changes Everything", Canadian ecosocialist Brad Hornick takes up the question of "wriggle room", a term for evading the need for socialism. Hornick points out that there is a certain necessity imposed on Klein as the head of a mass movement who has to adopt a somewhat ambivalent stance in order to engage people who have not made up their mind about socialism, even if this populist writing style is guilty of "conceptual slippage or ideological 'wiggle room,'"as Sam Gindin puts it. That just might be the price that must be paid for avoiding the "ideological closure that more rigorous and precise Marxist or eco-socialist categories may engender for 'untrained audiences'", something that is more geared to Historical Materialism conferences than the mass movement.
Richard Smith, an environmentalist and Marxist scholar, has faulted Naomi Klein along the same lines in a Truthout article dated November 12, 2014. (http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/27226-climate-crisis-the-deindustrialization-imperative-and-the-jobs-vs-environment-dilemma) He claims that in her vision of the future, "corporations will still run the world's economies and capitalist governments will still run politics" and adds that by failing to articulate a clear-cut socialist vision she runs the risk of failing in the same way that the Occupy movement failed:
When New York bankers replied to the Occupy movement in 2011, "Don't like capitalism? What's your alternative?" for all its audacity and militancy, Occupy had no alternative to offer. We can't build much of a movement without something to fight for, not just against.
There is, of course, an opposite interpretation of Occupy's legacy, namely that its power derived partially from its refusal to elaborate a socialist program—something that might have undermined it more than any billy club.
While acknowledging that "This Changes Everything" is by no means perfect, Monthly Review editor John Bellamy Foster defends her (http://monthlyreview.org/2015/02/01/crossing-the-river-of-fire/) against the "wiggle room" criticisms and particularly against Richard Smith. For Foster, her failure to call for socialism is a pardonable offense since her real mission is to make the case for System Change Not Climate Change, even if all the i's are not dotted and the t's uncrossed.
It might be apparent at this point that the comradely debate around "This Changes Everything" goes to the heart of questions of reform versus revolution that have dogged the left since the days of Karl Marx. Since Green politics globally has been susceptible—at least in the eyes of some Marxists—to cooptation of the sort that worries Sam Gindin, Richard Smith and by extension those keeping a watchful eye on Syriza, it would be useful to turn to Jodi Dean's article that was crossposted to North Star on March 27th, which has the merit of drawing sharp distinctions between her own perspective on divergent roads we face today on Green politics and social change as a whole. Her sharp elbows have a way of crystallizing the differences.
Dean characterizes Klein's program as one that advocates "dispersed activities combined within a diffuse policy framework oriented toward long-term planning and inspired by an essentialist, overly romantic vision of locality, indigeneity, and democracy (that is to say, populism)… She invokes radical politics, but ultimately pulls back into the formula of the alter-globalization movement: in a movement of movements, multiple communities can solve their problems democratically."
If you wonder why Dean recoils from "democracy", admittedly a word that has lost its original meaning (rule of the people) in a world where an Orwellian abuse of language is universal, the answer is that it falls short of drawing sharp class lines. In an excerpt from her book "Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies: Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics" that appears on E-Flux (http://www.e-flux.com/journal/democracy-a-knot-of-hope-and-despair/), she wonders why the left continues to appeal to democracy. "Calling for democracy, leftists fail to emphasize the divisions necessary for politics, divisions that should lead us to organize against the interests of corporations and their stockholders, against the values of fundamentalists and individualists, and on behalf of collectivist arrangements designed to redistribute benefits and opportunities more equitably."
It may be the case that many activists fail to understand the inherently undemocratic nature of capitalist "democracy" but it does not help us get a broader hearing by turning the word into a kind of curse word. As more and more people take part in social struggles, they will learn from experience that the cops and the army attack democratic rights in order to protect corporate power. A movement is necessary that educates people around the idea that genuine democracy requires a defense of civil liberties, the voting rights of African-Americans now under siege, rescinding the Supreme Court's ruling in favor of Citizens United, equal time for third parties such as the Greens and many other demands that will resonate with the average American. When this is combined with a patient explanation of the need for economic democracy, for which socialism will be the culmination, our cause will be strengthened.
Turning now to Dean's critique of Klein's economic policies, it can be described as a defense of "communism" against Green Keynesianism.
Some of the components of Klein's new Green Keynesianism would likely include: a carefully planned economy; basic annual income; big public sector expenditures; higher taxes on the rich; and tougher business regulations. The Green justification for the higher taxes on the rich is that they are the ones who need to curb their consumption. The big expenditures would include better public transit, energy efficient housing, and changes in land use to encourage local agriculture.
If such a program is so limited, you might conclude that the Green Party would not pass muster with Dean, especially since there is not a whisper of "communism" in its policy statements. Since Dean is critical of Klein for opposing the nationalization of energy and advocating instead "the model of democratically run, community-based utilities", you can imagine her disappointment in the Green Party's call for "Decentralized, Bio-Regional Electricity Generation and Distribution" (http://www.gp.org/committees/platform/2010/index.php).
It must be said that for people beginning to question capitalist rule, the call for "nationalization" might not be very inspiring on its own terms. Since this only means state ownership, and was par for the course in many oppressive capitalist societies such as Pakistan and Turkey in the past, it might make more sense to call for "democratically run, community-based utilities" that would probably be more inimical to the interests of the billionaires than nationalization.
If you have been paying close attention to Green politics over the years, you will probably be aware that there is an affinity between environmentalism and indigenous peoples' struggles so much so that Winona LaDuke, an Ojibwa Indian activist, was Ralph Nader vice-presidential candidate in 1996 and 2000. LaDuke was a logical choice since as Executive Director of Honor the Earth, since the group defined its mission as creating "awareness and support for Native environmental issues and to develop needed financial and political resources for the survival of sustainable Native communities."
But Jodi Dean is just as wary of "indigeneity" as she is of localism in general even when local ties are based on tribal bonds where the connection to the land goes back thousands of years. The notion of being tied to a particular place is troubling to her at best and in the eyes of her students who looked at these issues in a seminar possibly "racist" and even "fascist". Indeed, the lack of roots of the sort that a family farmer or an Ojibwa Indian has to his or her land "echoes with descriptions of cosmopolitan Jews, intellectuals, and communists. Some are always foreign elements threatening our way of life."
This seems distinctly at odds with the living struggles taking place now against fracking in which native peoples and farmers have joined together to protect the natural habitat. It would appear unlikely that such people have any incentive to conduct pogroms against "rootless cosmopolitans" or undocumented workers working in slaughterhouses in the Midwest. If anything, they would be natural allies.
Close to the end of her article, Dean quotes Klein on a matter very close to the mission of North Star:
And let's take it for granted that we want to do these radical things democratically and without a bloodbath, so violent, vanguardist revolutions don't have much to offer in the way of roadmaps.
While Dean does not quite come out and say that she is for "violent, vanguardist revolutions", it does make one wonder why she is so insistent on using the term "communism" that for most people summons up images of North Korea rather than what Karl Marx had in mind, who it should be emphasized used the words "communism" and "socialism" interchangeably.
Fortunately, you can read an excerpt from "This Changes Everything" at the Nation Magazine (http://www.thenation.com/article/181621/climate-change-peoples-shock) where the words were can be found as part of a discussion of the overarching need to oppose climate change that threatens life on earth.
It begins with the passage alluded to above by Sam Gindin where Klein posed the question to Alexis Tsipras: "Someone suggested: 'History knocked on your door—did you answer?'" Klein, who was troubled by Syriza's support for expanded oil and gas exploration even if the proceeds would pay for pensions, subsumes everything under the struggle to preserve the planet and everything living on it.
It is not really the purpose of this article to render a decision on the "extractivism" question except to say that it is worth mentioning that socialists have made convincing cases for backing oil and energy exploration in places like Bolivia where it is the only means to improve the living conditions of those most in need.
However, there are reasons to believe that Syriza will make a decision differently than politicians in Louisiana who were in BP's back pocket. Within Syriza, the decision on gas and oil exploration is likely to be made on the same basis as other decisions that the party has made, namely with respect for the democratic rights of the party members. If there has been any lesson to be taken away from the first couple of months it has been in power, it is that this is a party where open and heated debate can take place without fear of expulsion or ostracism. The Greeks who have forged ahead with this new party against practically insurmountable odds are reminding us of the original meaning of democracy in the Greek language: rule of the people.
A Return to Rockaway
Filed under: Ecology,energy,fracking,Global Warming — louisproyect @ 10:45 pm
This is a video I recorded last weekend in Rockaway, Queens—the epicenter of Hurricane Sandy. It is a follow-up to the video I made in November 2012, shortly after the hurricane had inflicted major damage in Rockaway including the deaths of local residents.
It is a report both on how the peninsula has recovered as well as the threats now posed by a natural gas pipeline being installed underneath Rockaway as part of a nationwide network built by the Williams Company, an outfit that can be described as the BP of natural gas pipelines.
The Koch brothers hedge their bets
Filed under: energy,fracking,Global Warming — louisproyect @ 10:27 pm
Richard and Elizabeth Muller
There must be something wrong with me. Here I am at the age of 68 still getting worked up over some Koch brother's funded op-ed piece in the NY Times. If I had stopped reading newspapers 33 years ago after dropping out of the SWP, maybe I could have launched a career writing fiction. What is it that they recommend for people like me? A chill pill?
The offending piece is titled "China Must Exploit its Shale Gas". My first reaction was to wonder if it was some kind of onion.com spoof. Not a day goes by without a disaster in China attributable to some profit-driven shortcut. Some reminders. The 2008 Sichuan earthquake caused 7000 inadequately constructed schoolhouses to collapse, thus costing the lives of 5000 children and another 15000 injured. As predicted, the Three Gorges Dam has had a terrible environmental impact, producing erosion on 80 percent of the adjacent land. One last instance to dramatize how risky it is for China to "dig deep" for any resource, including coal. Although producing just 35% of the world's coal, China is responsible for 80% of coal miner fatalities. For example, a gas explosion at the Nanshan mine on November 13, 2006 killed 24 people. The mine, like so many, was operating without any safety license.
The op-ed piece written by one Elizabeth Muller encourages Obama's pro-fracking and pro-nuke (what? You were expecting a Green?) Secretary of Energy Ernest J. Moniz to push China to go full blast in hydrocracking (ie., fracking) since this would alleviate global warming. As China's chief energy source right now is coal, this would cut down on greenhouse gases. I guess that makes sense given China's current situation–exchange air pollution and climate change for carcinogenic, flammable water.
At the bottom of the article, Ms. Muller is identified as the co-founder and executive director of Berkeley Earth, a nonprofit research organization focused on climate change. Gosh, as the head of something called Berkeley Earth, you'd expect her least of all to be wearing Birkenstocks and driving a Prius. But more importantly, that branding would ensure her to be Greener than Green, right?
Being an inveterate "cui bono" investigator, I went to the Berkeley Earth website and checked out the donor page, which is divided into three "phases". Guess what? In phase one, they got $150,000 from the Charles G. Koch Foundation, the largest chunk. Bill Gates's Fund for Innovative Climate and Energy Research kicked in another hundred thou. A brief search revealed that Gates's main interest in all this is to promote geoengineering. An opinion piece by Naomi Klein on October 27, 2012 described Gates's stake in this jury-rigged technology:
Bill Gates has funneled millions of dollars into geoengineering research. And he has invested in a company, Intellectual Ventures, that is developing at least two geoengineering tools: the "StratoShield," a 19-mile-long hose suspended by helium balloons that would spew sun-blocking sulfur dioxide particles into the sky and a tool that can supposedly blunt the force of hurricanes.
She adds:
The geopolitical ramifications are chilling. Climate change is already making it hard to know whether events previously understood as "acts of God" (a freak heat wave in March or a Frankenstorm on Halloween) still belong in that category. But if we start tinkering with the earth's thermostat — deliberately turning our oceans murky green to soak up carbon and bleaching the skies hazy white to deflect the sun — we take our influence to a new level. A drought in India will come to be seen — accurately or not — as a result of a conscious decision by engineers on the other side of the planet. What was once bad luck could come to be seen as a malevolent plot or an imperialist attack.
Ms. Muller's husband Richard founded Berkeley Earth and now is the institute's Science Director. Doing a bit of research on him, you discover from Wikipedia that he is the director of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project that Koch funds as well. But interestingly enough, that project confirmed that temperatures were rising despite suspicions that it would fall within the skeptic's camp.
This of course has some bearing on Elizabeth Muller's op-ed piece that accepts the science but proposes a remedy that will likely kill the patient—mother earth. The only conclusion you can be left with is that the Koch Brothers are hedging their bets. If governments move more and more in the direction of eliminating "dirty" greenhouse emitting energy sources like coal, then why not push natural gas and hydrocracking?
Tina Casey of Triplepundit.com ties everything together and puts a red ribbon around it:
The green blogs were buzzing last week with news of a new bombshell report that affirms the role of human activity in global warming. Studies affirming climate science are nothing new to say the least, but this one was produced through the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project (BEST), under the auspices of well known climate skeptic Richard A. Muller. The kicker is that BEST is partly funded by the Koch brothers, who have become notorious for their financial support of the "climate change denial machine."
Hence the bombshell, and with it a lesson in the perils of corporate funding for scientific research. But is it really a bombshell? Take a closer look at some of the Koch brothers' energy investments and pair that with another BEST funder, and it's clear that the new study works in favor of the Koch interests, not against them.
The Koch brothers and natural gas
First off, it's important to note that not all fossil fuels are due for a quick and brutal end once the so-called climate "skeptic" movement is neutralized.
Fossil fuels will continue to feature prominently in the U.S. energy landscape during a transitional period to low-carbon energy, and proponents of natural gas have positioned this particular fuel to play a key role in the transition, based on the idea that it is "cleaner" than other fossil fuels.
It's also worth noting that natural gas is not necessarily deserving of this advantage, at least not when it is obtained through fracking. Fracking is a highly controversial drilling method that involves pumping a toxic chemical brine underground. It has been linked to water contamination, greenhouse gas emissions, and even earthquakes.
Be that as it may, Koch Industries is heavily involved in natural gas, as detailed in an article last spring by Lee Fang in the Republic Report. Its recent activities in the natural gas industry focus on services for fracking operations including pipelines, storage, processing, and supplies.
BEST, Novim and natural gas
That pretty much explains why the new report from BEST is not such bad news for the Koch brothers after all.
In fact, the report is not such bad news for the natural gas industry as a whole, judging by another major funder behind BEST, a non-profit organization called Novim.
According to its website, Novim initiated and sponsored BEST in line with its stated mission, which is "to provide clear scientific options to the most urgent problems facing mankind." Novim's mission also focuses on cost/benefit analyses, and it claims to report its findings "without advocacy or agenda."
That's all well and good, but Novim's news page currently leads off with an Associated Press article asserting that evidence of water contamination and public health impacts from gas drilling is "sketchy and inconclusive."
Other featured articles include a New York Times piece touting increased natural gas production (with a veiled reference to new fracking technology) as a critical factor in carbon emissions management, and a love letter to fracking in the form of a Yale study review published in Forbes.
Aside from BEST, Novim is also involved in at least one other research project with implications for the natural gas industry, an analysis of methane leakage from natural gas drilling. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, and critics argue that the leakage effectively neutralizes the low-carbon advantage that natural gas is supposed to have over other fossil fuels.
He who laughs last, laughs BEST…
As for the methodology behind BEST, some critics are already lining up to shoot it down but according to a recent article in The Guardian, others are having themselves a bit of a chuckle over it. For all the media firestorm surrounding BEST, so far it pretty much confirms conclusions about global warming that had already achieved general acceptance back in the 1990′s.
At any rate, regardless of the science it's a win-win for the Koch brothers. Either the critics are right and BEST contributes little or nothing to the body of climate science, or it is a valid study that happens to support Koch Industries' investments in the natural gas industry.
Who's laughing now?
A trip to post-Hurricane Sandy Rockaways
Filed under: disasters,Global Warming — louisproyect @ 7:45 pm
Help pay for this ad
Filed under: Global Warming,Green Party — louisproyect @ 3:08 pm
The Island President
Filed under: Film,Global Warming — louisproyect @ 7:29 pm
My first inkling that there was something a bit "off" about The Island President, a documentary opening at the Film Forum in NYC on March 28, was when the opening credits revealed that the Ford Foundation was a co-producer. Since the film is a profile of recently deposed Maldives Islands president Mohamed Nasheed's efforts to reverse the global warming that is threatening to turn his country into a new Atlantis, I had to wonder how such mainstream backing would influence the film's editorial content.
The Island President is directed by Jon Shenk, who is best known for Lost Boys of the Sudan, a film that deals with the problems two Sudanese youth have adjusting to American life. This is a deeply moving film that thankfully eschews Nicholas Kristof moralizing about Sudan's civil wars despite the fact that they were fleeing Janjaweed violence.
After seeing some of the obvious mainstream environmentalist bias of The Island President, I did a bit more investigation of Shenk's previous work and was disconcerted but not that surprised to learn that he co-directed Democracy Afghan Style, a documentary shot in 2003-2004that features Larry Sampler, described on Shenk's website as "a logistical expert whose military precision is balanced by a hard-won understanding of how things can go wrong in the field." In fact Sampler is a long-time USAID functionary, part of the killing machine that has made life miserable for the average Afghan.
Notwithstanding all these warning signs, The Island President is a stunning look at what amounts to the canary in the coal mine when it comes to climate change. If there is a rise of three feet in sea level, the Maldives will be completely inundated. You can imagine the impact of a tsunami there, as the one that occurred in 2004. But even more threatening would be a "normal" rise in sea level that would have little impact on, for example, most cities in the imperialist North. But not every city would be immune, as President Nasheed pointed out when he arrived in New York for a speech to the United Nations. The island of Manhattan is at about the same sea level as his nation's capital. Just this week the N.Y. Times reported about the danger that New York and other coastal cities faced:
About 3.7 million Americans live within a few feet of high tide and risk being hit by more frequent coastal flooding in coming decades because of the sea level rise caused by global warming, according to new research.
If the pace of the rise accelerates as much as expected, researchers found, coastal flooding at levels that were once exceedingly rare could become an every-few-years occurrence by the middle of this century.
By far the most vulnerable state is Florida, the new analysis found, with roughly half of the nation's at-risk population living near the coast on the porous, low-lying limestone shelf that constitutes much of that state. But Louisiana, California, New York and New Jersey are also particularly vulnerable, researchers found, and virtually the entire American coastline is at some degree of risk.
"Sea level rise is like an invisible tsunami, building force while we do almost nothing," said Benjamin H. Strauss, an author, with other scientists, of two new papers outlining the research. "We have a closing window of time to prevent the worst by preparing for higher seas."
Mohamed Nasheed was Maldive's Nelson Mandela, leading a 20 year pro-democracy movement against the brutal kleptocracy run by Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. After suffering torture and repeated imprisonments with long periods of solitary confinement, he was elected president in 2008.
Of all the urgent tasks a reform administration was facing, catastrophic flooding was at the top of the list. In a cabinet meeting, he told his appointees that the world had to understand that Maldives was like Vietnam. Global warming was like communism. Unless it was stopped in the Maldives, dominoes would fall everywhere else—a remark that evoked embarrassed laughter from a top official who apparently had a better sense of recent history than the President. When Nasheed drew the same analogy in a speech to the United Nations, one could hardly escape the feeling that his worldview was far too much in line with Cold War mythologies, a weakness that would inevitably shape his approach to Climate Change.
This was confirmed by the role he played at the Copenhagen Conference that amounted to taking sides against India and China for selfishly putting their own development needs above those of the planet. While India and China's rulers have as about as much regard for sustainable development as do the imperialist powers, they rightfully make the point that their nations are not nearly as responsible for greenhouse gases as the U.S. and other advanced countries. In an article titled Rich Countries Sabotaging Climate Talks that appeared in the October 5, 2009 Guardian, John Vidal observed:
The G77 plus China group is incensed that rich countries appear to be seeking to establish a new agreement that would force developing countries to cut emissions, but allow rich countries to do little.
In the talks, the US has said it wants a new approach which would move away from a legally binding world agreement to one where individual countries pledged cuts in their national emissions without binding timetables and targets. It is a change from the top down approach of Kyoto, in which total emissions targets are determined by the science, to one in which individual countries pledge their own emissions cuts.
This is seen as undermining the Kyoto framework, which took many years to build, and has until now been the foundation for committing all countries to cut their emissions. The US team in Bangkok declined to respond to today's criticism.
Developed countries have so far refused to show their hand on what their emission cuts should be. The UN's Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change has estimated that to keep below a 2C rise in temperatures they need to cut their emissions by 25-40% by 2020, compared with 1990 levels. But developing countries are calling for an aggregate cut of at least 40%.
But with fewer than 10 days of formal negotiations left before the Copenhagen talks begin, poor countries are complaining that they are being expected to cut emissions but the US and others are being allowed to get away with minimal cuts.
The film is more urgent than ever in light of the coup that removed Mohamed Nasheed from office on February 7th this year. Although he was replaced by his vice president Mohammed Waheed Hassan, there are suspicions that the military was acting at the behest of the former dictator. Reporting in the N.Y. Times and Washington Post have been singularly useless at pinpointing the exact causes.
In one of the more spurious takes on the coup, the Wall Street Journal blamed Islamists:
This paradise for wealthy tourists has shown a very different face in recent days, where hard-line Islam is an increasing part of the political scene and played a role in overthrowing the democratically elected government.
In the weeks leading up to Tuesday's ouster of President Mohamed Nasheed, his political adversaries fomented opposition among conservative Muslims by claiming Mr. Nasheed's government was trying to undermine their faith.
A group of Islamist organizations organized a rally in December in Male, the capital, which was attended by thousands of people protesting against Mr. Nasheed for failing to defend Quranic law and calling for a ban on spas and liquor parlors catering to foreign tourists.
On Friday, after prayers at Male's central mosque—a donation from Brunei—Ahmed Yusry, an eloquent 22-year-old with a bushy beard who works on a tourist boat, said he had attended the December rally because of fears Mr. Nasheed was pushing a Western secular agenda.
"We are a 100% Muslim county. We should go with all the rules of Islam," he said.
Although the Wall Street Journal had a reputation for maintaining a firewall between its lunatic-right editorial pages and its impeccable reporting, one cannot help but feel that Murdoch's ownership of the paper is eroding that firewall based on this unlikely scenario.
Haruge.com, a Maldives-based website committed to democracy and human rights, makes the case that the coup was orchestrated by some of the nation's superrich hotel owners:
In the series of events that led to the 7 February 2012 coup in the Maldives that ousted the first democratically elected President of the country Mohamed Nasheed, several Maldivian businessmen joined the 200 or so protestors who gathered on the Republican Square, adjacent to Police and Defense Headquarters in Male for close to three weeks. The protest, and the ensuing coup, is believed to be funded by key businessmen in the Maldivian tourism industry as well as by a half brother of former president Gayoom, MP Abdulla Yameen. Both Gasim and Yameen were seen addressing the protesters as well as the Police and Defence officers attending them, offering them to 'join with us in return for taking care of them'.
Meeting with the press yesterday, ousted President Nasheed said "at least four resort owners are heavily involved in this" but he mentioned only Mr Gasim Ibrahim, owner of the Villa Group, "only because he was seen in the protests and has been openly vocal about his support to topple the government", and refused to comment further until an investigation was carried out. Mr. Gasim Ibrahim has been running a hate campaign on Villa TV, a local channel he owns along with several five star hotels in the Maldives, an airline, airport, as well as several other businesses. He fell out with President Nasheed soon after he lost the 2008 Presidential Elections to Nasheed. Although he was an initial coalition partner in the Nasheed Administration, he resigned within weeks into the new government citing dissatisfaction with President Nasheed. Both MPs Gasim and Yameen were also arrested in 2009 for allegedly attempting to 'bribe' Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) parliamentarians.
Not surprisingly, the United States was eager to embrace the undemocratic regime that ousted a popularly elected and widely supported reformer, as Agent Press Francais reported:
The United States on Thursday recognized the new government of Maldives President Mohamed Waheed as legitimate and urged him to fulfill a pledge to form a national unity government.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland also said Robert Blake, the top US diplomat for south Asia, telephoned former president Mohamed Nasheed to tell him Washington backed a "peaceful resolution" of the crisis on the archipelago.
"We do," Nuland told reporters when asked if Washington recognizes the new government as the legitimate government of the Maldives. She called Waheed the president and Nasheed the former president.
Blake, the assistant secretary of state for south Asian affairs, will travel Saturday to the Maldives to meet with both Waheed and Nasheed, who charges he was ousted in a coup, as well as civil society.
"He will be encouraging this national unity conversation," she added.
In other words, another Honduras.
Alexander Cockburn and the Oregon Petition
Filed under: Ecology,Global Warming — louisproyect @ 6:59 pm
Alexander Cockburn, fading fast
Dr. Arthur Robinson: circulated Oregon Petition as well as publishing Dr. Edward Teller
In responding to Alexander Cockburn's atrocious commentary on climate change over the past few years, my tone has been characteristically acerbic. Since Cockburn is one of my major writing influences, it should come as no surprise that I often take the same tone that he does. But all the while when I am responding to him, it is hard for me to suppress a feeling of sadness and worry that his outstanding mind is beginning to fade.
When I first ran into his writing in the Village Voice in the early 1980s, after having resigned from the SWP, I was amazed at his investigative reporting skills. Like a radical version of "Sixty Minutes", he had a way of digging up the dirt on any number of malefactors. That's why I am so dismayed by his seeming inability to check the sources he uses in writing about climate change. Perhaps he is unaccustomed to using search engines on the Internet but when he decided to cite Zbigniew Jaworowski as an expert on climate change, he apparently failed to turn up this character's long standing relationship with the Lyndon Larouche cult, something I was able to do in less than 15 minutes. I fear that he is so into his climate change denialism that he lacks the ability to fact-check his own material. Since he is such a dominating figure, I doubt that his partner Jeff St. Clair has the backbone to take him on even though it is quite likely that he disagrees with him.
But more worrisome is the possibility that Alexander Cockburn has grown intellectually flabby over the years. I imagine that cranking out dozens of articles a year must take a toll on one's mind. I have been programming for 42 years now and I know what it means to be burned out. Of course, I would switch jobs with him in a heartbeat even though I wouldn't wish that disaster on the financial records at Columbia University.
The most recent occasion of Cockburn nuttiness was a January 4 Nation Magazine article titled "From Nicaea to Copenhagen" that is not worth reviewing in any kind of detail since it mostly rehashes old arguments with an aggressiveness buttressed by the British email hacks that were posted on the Internet. The opening sentences sets the blustering tone for the remainder of the article: "The global warming jamboree in Copenhagen was surely the most outlandish foray into intellectual fantasizing since the fourth-century Christian bishops assembled in 325 AD for the Council of Nicaea to debate whether God the Father was supreme or had to share equal status in the pecking order of eternity with his Son and the Holy Ghost."
In the February 8th issues, there are a number of letters attacking this article that Cockburn responds to in his trademark supercilious fashion. One thing in his response did catch my eye: "More than 30,000 scientists have signed the Oregon Petition, which refutes the AGW theory." (Anthropogenic global warming.) My first impulse was to find out more about the Oregon Petition, something apparently that Alexander could not be bothered with.
Perhaps he might have not heard about this very useful online resource called Wikipedia. If he had, he might have found an entry for "Oregon Petition" that reveals the following:
The original article associated with the petition (see below) defined "global warming" as "severe increases in Earth's atmospheric and surface temperatures, with disastrous environmental consequences". This differs from both scientific usage and dictionary definitions, in which "global warming" is an increase in the global mean atmospheric temperature without implying that the increase is "severe" or will have "disastrous environmental consequences."
Well, what the heck. Who cares about scientific usage when you have bigger fish to fry? After all, Cockburn is dead set on establishing a vast conspiracy involving 99 percent of the world's scientists and major corporations bent on developing nuclear power. When you are in the business of uncovering conspiracies, who wants to be bothered by petty details? Like the ability of jet fuel to melt steel?
The article that was attached to the petition also appeared to be damaged goods:
The article followed the identical style and format of a contribution to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a scientific journal, even including a date of publication ("October 26") and volume number ("Vol. 13: 149-164 1999"), but was not actually a publication of the National Academy. Raymond Pierrehumbert, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Chicago, said that the article was "designed to be deceptive by giving people the impression that the article…is a reprint and has passed peer review."
There were also problems with the signatories, some of whom appeared to have little connection with climate science as the Seattle Times reported in 1998:
Several environmental groups questioned some of the names in the petition. For instance: "Perry S. Mason", who was a legitimate scientist who shared the name of a TV character. Similarly, "Michael J. Fox", "Robert C. Byrd", and "John C. Grisham" were signatories with names shared with famous people.
It also seems that Cockburn failed to check what www.sourcewatch.org had to say about the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM), the outfit that circulate the petition. One of its founders is Arthur Robinson, who was a biochemist not a climate scientist. Surprise, surprise. According to its website, it also markets a home-schooling kit for "parents concerned about socialism in the public schools" and publishes books on how to survive nuclear war. Like the Larouchite fellow traveler Zbigniew Jaworowski, the OISM tends to pooh-pooh the danger of nuclear power and nuclear weapons. Just the kind of people Alexander Cockburn would normally have a violent aversion to, unless of course they shared his screwy ideas about climate change. Sourcewatch reports:
It published two books, Nuclear War Survival Skills (foreword by H-bomb inventor Edward Teller), which argues that "the dangers from nuclear weapons have been distorted and exaggerated" into "demoralizing myths." Robinson also co-authored another civil defense book titled Fighting Chance: Ten Feet to Survival, in collaboration with Gary North, who like Robinson is a conservative Christian. North is also a prolific author of doomsday books with titles such as None Dare Call It Witchcraft; Conspiracy: A Biblical View; Rapture Fever; and How You Can Profit From the Coming Price Controls. Following his collaboration with Robinson, North built a web-based marketing empire built around apocalyptic predictions that the Y2K bug would make the dawn of the 21st century "the year the earth stands still.
When I read about the shoddy reality of the Oregon Petition and the group that circulated it, I almost felt a tear coming to my eye as I considered the sheer fecklessness of one of America's most respected radical journalists. How the mighty have fallen.


Vancouver, Canada – Vision Critical today announced that the company has hired Vinod Hariharan as Chief Financial Officer.
Mr. Hariharan joins Vision Critical most recently from Marketo, where he served as Vice President, Corporate Controller, responsible for global financial reporting. Mr. Hariharan is a finance executive with deep expertise in technology, software, and the cloud industry. Prior to joining Marketo, he held senior positions in the finance departments of Bazaarvoice and Salesforce, and spent 11 years in the audit practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he specialized in technology companies listed on US stock exchanges. He holds a CPA designation with the California Board of Accountancy and a CA designation from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario.


I started on the graduate program as Marketing Analyst in Paris (France) and I am now based in Hersham, UK.
Before going to Hersham to do this role, I doubted my ability to be effective as it's a finance and logistics assignment. Now I realise nothing is impossible, I can learn and improve everyday with support from my colleagues, manager and the great atmosphere in the team.
I was once talking with some colleagues in my office we were discussing the graduate programme. A top European manager was behind me and overheard the conversation. At the end of the conversation he introduced himself, I had no idea who he was. He took me for a coffee and spoke about his graduate experience and how he finished up in his role. I found this exceptionally nice to take the time to speak with me and share his experiences. This anecdote is an example of the kind of people you can meet in Air Products.
At the end of my first assignment, my colleagues organised a surprise dinner for me, to say goodbye and to thank me for my work with the team. This touched me as it showed that I had managed to create some really strong relationships and that my work had been recognised.
I'm seeking to improve my competencies and stay here for a long time, working in different roles. Air Products gives me the opportunity to have variety in that I can work abroad in different functions, roles and businesses. I find this mix of security and variety very unique in a company.


text:
Advertisements in The Palm of Our Hands
Back at it again with KaMIST! Your weekly dose of insights into the latest marketing trends. In this week's KaMIST we'll dive into how a brand new–slightly odd–advertising company called FreeWater, uses bottles as their advertising platform.
Quite odd isn't it? How does one distribute free water bottles while still managing to gain profit and have some extras to donate 10 cents of each bottle to charity? To answer that question, let's take a closer look at FreeWater Inc.
FreeWater Inc. is a company that uses water bottles as an advertising platform and distributes the water for free to the consumer, ten cents of each bottle will be donated to charity to build wells for the people in need. They didn't stop there, FreeWater Inc. also requires aluminum bottles and paper cartons instead of plastic bottles as their packaging to achieve the sustainable living and eco-friendly product. What could possibly go wrong? With these amazing offers, it is no doubt that in the future market, FreeWater will be the 'blue-print' of a new, innovative, paradigm-changing, type of advertising platform.
By this point, you may be wondering, how in the world does this work? Well to put it simply, it works the same way as a billboard would, but with a twist, they use bottles as their medium. Advertisers are expected to pay for all of the cost of the production (water, packaging, etc.) in exchange for their ads being printed in the paper cartons or aluminum bottles that later will be distributed for free to the targeted consumer.
As we know packaging functions as the case for the product that aids its transport, handling, delivery, and communicates the brand and product information by making it look attractive. However, with this new function added by FreeWater Inc. packaging can be used as a method to place ads for different businesses or even products. This creates a separately new marketing strategy that can be used by businesses to aid in covering the costs of their operations. In this case, FreeWater utilizes this strategy in order to be able to provide their product of bottled water, which is a basic need, for free.
For FreeWater Inc, not only does this aid in the covering of their costs but also builds their brand image. Consumers now see that there is a business that is providing water to the public without charging anything and will not only be attracted to it due to the fact that it's free, but also to the fact that the business is providing a basic necessity which people usually have to pay for. We could expect to see this strategy being more commonly used in the future, especially by businesses that focus on giving back to the community, namely social enterprises.
For advertisers, their ads are now in the hands of the consumers. As FreeWater Inc. hands out these free bottles of water, people are most likely going to be curious about what's on the bottle. Additionally, as people start to carry these bottles around, even more people will see the advertisements. What do you think? Could this be an even more effective way to advertise?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


SHALL TURKISH AYATOLLAH F. GULEN GANG MAKE HIS TEAM- GALATASARAY CHAMPION USING "PARALLEL COURT JUDGES' WELL HIDDEN ISLAMIC LAWS" OF RIGGING VERDICTS, AND OVER BRIBING AT UEFA/PLATINI BY CARE OF L. ARIBOGAN VIZ.THE SON OF A TURKISH SPY MAHIR KAYNAK AND IF THE REPLY TO THAT QUESTION WOULD BE "YES", THE OLD SPORTIVE SOUL IN THE EUROPE SHALL SOON BE QUITE DEAD IN SPITE OF THE EUROPEAN CIVILISATION! HELP, HELP!
Perhaps next week GALATASARAY will be champion over the international terror/mafia induced attacks to the modern Turkey's-or rather Ataturk's team FENERBAHCE- as you learn below..
6 gün önce - Fenerbahçeli futbolcu Emre Belözoğlu'na, Mudanya feribotunda ... Eğer feribottaki diğer insanlar araya girmese bizi denize atacaklardı.
2 gün önce - The president of Turkish club Genclerbirligi has denied claims that his team was involved in match-fixing after they conceded a soft goal to ..
22 Oca 2013 - Galatasaray ve Türkiye ile ilgili haberleri mi aramıştınız? Galatasaray'dadoping skandalı haberi için hemen tıklayın!
IN THE PAST SECRET ISLAMIC TERROR CHIEF F. GULEN'S GA. SAR. REACHED EUROEAN CUP OVER DOPING!
SECRET ISLAMIC TERROR BOSS FETHULLA GULEN/PENNSYLVANIA HAS GOT 9000-10.000 YOUNG HACKER ALL OVER THE WORLD READY TO ATTACK THE EU, RUSSIA, THE USA, CANADA AND THE LIKE IN A SIBERNETIC WAR!
PROOF: IF YOU MAKE A SEARCH IN INTERNET YOU FOR THE THREAD LINKED TO "FETHULLAH GULEN'S TERROR" SHALL FACE THE PAGE FROM PENNSYILVANIA!
TURKISH AYATOLLAH FETHULLAH GULEN DECREES:"THE GULEN COMMUNITY DIRECTED FROM PENNSYLVANIA NEED MUST SEE ALL CUPS IN THE BLOODY HANDS OF GALATASARAY!
F. GULEN AFTER BRIBING AT PLATINI DECREES THAT MURDER IS LEGITIMATE TO WIN ALL TURKEY FOOTBALL CUPS SHALL TEACH THE WORLD YOUTH-WHO LOVE FOOTBALL GENERALLY-THAT CANNOT BE NEATEN FOR HE IS AS POWERFULL AS ALLAH!
AFTER THE FAIR MATCHES HAS BEEN IN TURKEY FETTHULLAH GULEN IS READY TO CONQEUR THE EUROPE OVER THE BLOOD TO BE SHED BY GALATASARAY FANS.
CAN YOU LEARN TO LIVE IN THE EUROPE WITH BALL TERROR?
1. FIRST OF ALL THE RIVAL TEAM HAS BEEN SHOT IN RIZE!
5 gün önce - Spor Toto Süper Lig'de Çaykur Rizespor ile Galatasaray arasında oynanan son ... Rizesporlu futbolcular, sarı-kırmızılı meslektaşlarını alkışladı.
ONE OF THE KILLER YOU'D SEE BELOW-NAME: RAFIK, THE PARADE HE HAD BEEN TRAINED BY FETHULLAH GULEN'S SECRET TERRORISTS: SIVAS IN ANATOLIA-IS THE INTMATE FRIEND WHO HAD SHOT A BUS ON BEHALF OF THE TURKISH AYATOLLAH'S F.GULEN'S TEAM GALATASARAY! IF THE F. GULEN'S TEAM-GALATASARAY, WILL NOT WIN THE MATCHES IN THE EUROPE INSTEAD OF USING DOPING DRUGS, BRIBING AT PLATINI/UEFA, AND FIXING MATCHES THE EUROPEANS SHALL SEE SECRET ISLAMIC TERROR BOMBS AND GUNS TO TERRORIZE THE STREETS AND FIELDS.
WE PRO-NATO KURDISH AND TURKISH MUSLIMS WARN YOU THAT YOU SHOULD TAKE YOUR GUARD AGAINST TURKISH ILLEGAL, TERRORIST METHOD USER CHAMPION-GALATASARAY OF TURKISH ATYATOLLAH FETHULLAH GULEN!
PLEASE WAKE UP! TURKISH AYATOLLAH FETHULLAH GULEN'S SECRET TERROR BASED FOOTBALL TEAM IS AT HE THRESHOLD OF BEING CHAMPION IN TURKEY OVER SHOOTING RIVAL FOOTBALL PLAYERS IN ANATOLIA AND BRIBING AT PLATINI OF UEFA.
PLEASE WAKE UP! BECAUSE AFTER COMING TO THE EUROPE-WITHIN THE CHAMPIONSHIP LEAGUE-MATCHES-THEIR FANATICS SHALL SET FIRE TRIBUNES, WOUND OR KILL EUROPEANS AFTER USING OVERDOSE DOPING. FOR THEY COULD BUY THE REFEREES THEY SHALL BE ABLE TO ESCAPE FROM PUNISHMENT EASILY. BRIEFLY "GREEN NORTH KOREAN" BALL WILL HIT YOU!
WHY DOES TURKISH AYATOLLAH FETHULLAH GULEN USE FOOTBAL AS AN APPARATUS OF DICTATORIAL POLITICAL AFFAIRS OF HIS? BECAUSE HE IS A CANDIDATE OF GREEN KEMALIST REGIME INSPIRED BY STALIN, SADDAM ETC.
TRY TO READ AND TAKE MEASURE PLEASE!
YESTERDAY NIGHT SECRET ISLAMIC TERRORIS F. GULEN'S FOOTBALL TEAM USED HUGE, DIRTY NATIONALIST AND PROVOCATIVE FIGURES: "TURKEY" AND "CRESCENT WITH STAR" AS GIANT LABELS COVERING EVERYWHERE. UEFA'S BOSS PLATINI-BRIBED AT BY FETHULLAH GULEN'S MAN VIZ. LUTFU ARIBOGAN- WOULDN'T DO ANYTHING AGAINST THE COMING PROVOCATIVE SHOWS IN THE EUROPE AND WE PRO NATO TURKISH AND KURDISH MUSLIMS FEAR THAT YOU SHAN'T PREVENT AFTERMATH HORROR-IF NOT TERROR-IN YOUR FIELDS!
Everybody may be sure that the secret Islamist team GALATASARAY will use doping tonight and even will do everything to win the match tonight. We Pro NATO Turkish and Kurdish Muslims have been informed that he hooligans of GALATASARAY could been assessed as quite worthless Islamist murderers fit only to be in the spectrum of evil from firing lovers and players of BENFICA to threat the referee with assassination in a way everybody could see with the eyes opened with horror. Inasmuch as GALATASARAY had used doping in Bucharest in the year the wicked team reached to The Super European Cup! Hey Europeans, good Jews and innocent Arabs: Think what we can do tonight in Istanbul to save the Sportive Soul of Civilisation?
LOOK OUT! GALATASARAY SHALL COME TO THE EUROPE IN NOVEMBER!
Here you are the-live-proofs of drawing sportive calamity!
SO SECRET ISLAMIST F.GULEN'SGALATASARAY WON OR RATHER COFISGATED THE MATCH YESTERDAY NIGHT!
3-TO SET THE STADIUM ON FIRE BY THEIR-TURKISH-SPORTIVE TERROR AGENTS!
By the way not only the Kurds but all democrat, liberal and humanist people of The Middle-East were observing the bloody ISIS-Islamic terror and its secret patrons in Turkish cabinet-adding to it- the Turkish semi caliph R. T. ERDOGAN that day. Without waiting the future to understand the secret Islamic terror induced football teams of F. GULEN viz. GALATASARAY, BESIKTAS, TRABZONSPOR! In the match the day before yesterday the butcher fanatics of those three football teams belonging to the cynical philosophy of ERDOGAN's enemy-Ayatollah F. GULEN, sworn-hooting and whistling-The Parisians murdered instead of condemning the murderers.
None might feel to be forced to understand the reason why F. GULEN's football teams were to shoot the service bus of the biggest Westernized Club of Turkey-FENERBAHCE and why UEFA's PLATINI-bribed at by F. GULEN condoned that nasty murder attempt, and let the referees to bought by secret Islamic fanatics in Turkey and in the Europe. As the cynical attitudes were to go on with every stadium fanaticism occasion the ISIS like Turkish football fanatics would apparently carry on with swearing the Paris Victims for they were probably all Christians and according-especially to F. GULEN's football team GALATASARAY-having been a Christian would seem something to be punished perfidiously!
STOP BESIKTAS: THE "MURDERER" OF THE"ARMENIAN" WHO HAS BEEN KILLED THE DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY FOR HIS MONEY! STOP BESIKTAS AND RESCUE THE MORAL VALUES OF THE SPORTS OF THE CIVILIZED WORLD!
Amen: for whom or rather for whom that have been put into the coffin semiofficially to make one say B.Q and amen? The first form of life is death for the minorities like Armenians and Jews, and for Kurds of course the second sweeping the murders' files under the carpet semi officially, the third to force the memories benumbed in ignorance, the fourth is the fear of death, the fifth is the kingdom of Turkey Soviet, the sixth is the foolish wisdom of the gang state, the seventh is the wrathful wisdom of both KEMALIST/Maoist and TURCO Islamist Terror. These are the seven powers of wrath Turkey Soviet namely Turkey Vulture. The Vulture's KEMALIST/Maoist butchers drilled the face bones of an old Armenian husband and his wife- 6 Feb. 2016 midnight- after they have bound the old spouses in a way not to breathe unless their faces twitch and let a fatal friction between the chips gushing from their drilled face bones and the floor!
"You non Muslims and Kurds are overcome" was the last words the butchers who has slain him and wounded his wife to death. In the morning all Turkish news papers-both those fake secular ones and TURCO Islamic press organs would give news about the last Hell founded in Istanbul to torture the old Armenians with deep regrets concealing their real statement underlining "And our desire has been ended, and the national ignorance has to be go on over new news." In a dubious mass media Turkey Soviet would sustain releasing false news and articles of sheer hypocrisy to deceive the Europeans world...The murderers were two men: one from the KEMALIST/Maoist clicks having made their nest amongst the TURCO independence fanatics and the other type was from terrorist types feeling themselves near to Al Qaeda all twos saddled with the mission of the apparatus of oblivion or rather forgetting humanism which could be transient in the case of slaughtered old Armenians. But obviously the desire of Turkey Soviet who pay the murderers isn't anything to change from time to time, and yet from this time on it will go on henceforth to attain to the rest of the centuries in and around The Europe over the browbeating of especially Germans and Russians until the end of the tragedy in silence.Now come on! Listen please the last efforts of the old-slain-Armenian not to give his last breath. If we back to the date of murde-5th February 2016-alongside with the place of murder: ŞİŞLİ wherein the hinterland of F. GULEN Gang's murder, black money, and anarchy induced football team BESIKTAS and its terror team take place. Instead of belonging to the same organization namely Turkey Soviet F. GULEN Gang and the party in power warred their most significant field battle against each other. But the BESIKTAS and its CARSI Group are not only the sworn enemy of Turkey's laughable Turkish caliph T. ERDOGAN but of the NATO and its greatest ally-The USA. Yes the bloody rival of ERDOGAN namely F. GULEN can be accepted the most fanatic leader after absolute independency of Turkey so that he wouldn't blink his eye when he mesmerized-over his psychotic sermons-the killers attacking to American Schools...After having said this, let's not fall silent, since it was to this point that-for the sake of the Savior-one should speak. If anybody shall ask why F. GULEN Gang's professional murderers must have committed with that crime the answer will be like this: "Because BESIKTAS Football team is in need of money, and the family at the target is a Judeo-Christian family and they are abiding in a place preferred most of the rich families of the minorities in Istanbul! Eventually "the lives of minorities and Kurds are less important than their money" says F. GULEN and in the last case the murderers carried the moneys of the old Armenian couple to the secret accounts of F.GULEN's second football team and his executioner having drilled-holes by means of electric gimlet-on the victims' faces sent the message to the brethren of the man died of wounds drilled near to his temporal lobe, "say what you wish to say about what we have done. We the right and left hands-The KEMALIST/Maoist killers and TURCO Islamist murderers-of Turkey Soviet do not believe-at least-that the Human Rights are worth of being believed in. The Savior-whom the Europeans love and Turkish and Kurdish Muslims long for his descending according to their custom to the earth for building absolute peace. The gunmen of Turkey Soviet used to reiterate their objection: "Certainly the peaceful teachings of the Savior are strange ideas.Actually one could speak concerning some things significant and dangerous:1) BESIKTAS Football Team's administration and BESIKTAS CARSI Group-The Fanatics of the club should be questioned about the last murder fulfilled the day before yesterday i.e. through torturing them-both spouses drilling holes on their faces by means of a gimlet-and leaving the husband dead after confiscating-because this is a semi official Turkey Soviet murder directed by F.GULEN in Pennsylvania/USA) the huge money of the slain Armenian to the blood smeared cash of BESIKTAS or rather the number two football team of FETHULLAH GULEN! 2-Why the servile horde-the football referees-of F.GULEN are to be paid F. GULEN's three mafia type football teams regularly for instance to make that anarchy induced BESIKTAS Champion this year? If there will be no Savior to help European Sportive life to protect themselves from the football teams of F. GULEN-BESIKTAS providing Marxist Leninist GEZI Anarchy as file of Turkey's Courts could show in a parallel way GALATASARAY and TRABZONSPOR-both of them-having nourished TURCO Islamic ideals while F GULEN follower player would make Islamic prayer in green fields and blood shedding similar to killing priest SANTORO in Trabzon...3- Why that BESIKTAS could use doping freely and buy referees in every match? Do BESIKTAS football team really make football tricks in Turkey, privately in Turkish Premier or make general preparation to degenerate football in The Europe even all over the world? While it's an open danger aren't you-Especially the Germans, Americans, and Russians-to turn about and all listen to the moaning of old slain Armenian murdered in a way semi officially by BESIKTAS CARSI GROUP? Did the fate prefer him to The Europeans that they should correct the football morality left rotten by PLATINI of UEFA bribed at by FETHULLAH GULEN?
You and being a success as a TURCO-Islamist swindler is all you ever had any devotion to in Europeans-including Russians-whole life! That's the truth.... I don't know why, but it is! Turkey Soviet lived with mendacity! Why can't it live without lie? Hell, modernist, fake secularist, deep nationalist, Turkish racist, Maoist, Islamic terrorist branches of Turkey Soviet got to live with it, there's nothing else to live with except mendacity, is there? F.GULEN: Yes, sir. Yes, sir, there is nothing else that we can live with! Only mendacity induced crimes, using doping in football matches-or at least buying referees-killing babies in war, making ethnic cleansing and err...SOLZHENITSOF's Daddy: What? Turkish Ayatollah (lifting his eyebrows): Nothing save crime, swindling, terror, horror, plunder...For instance tonight we shall be rigging the match between BESIKTAS and Dynamo Kiev in Istanbul / 25th Sept. 2016! SOLZHENITSO's Daddy: That's not living, that's dodging away from the morality of sportive spirits of civilisation makers namely Egyptians, good Gulf Arabs, innocent Jews, and European stock nations.
Last edited by mesolzhenitsy; Today at 07:03 AM.
SPORTIVE GAMES MORALITY UNDER THE THREAT OF BESIKTAS-ONE OF THE TEAMS OF TURKISH AYATOLLAH GULEN'S FOOT GANGS! BESIKTAS IS GOING TO BEAT NAPOLI TONIGHT IN THE VERY IMPORTANT FOOTBALL MATCH! HELP NAPOLI! BESIKTAS WILL BEAT IT OVER USING EVERY DIRTY MEANS: RIGGING MATCH, BUYING REFEREES, USING DOPING!
EUROPEANS, GOOD GULF ARABS, INNOCENT JEWS: HELP NAPOLI AND OTHER FOOTBALL TEAMS AGAINST BESIKTAS' WELL PLANNED CRIMES IN THE FIELDS, AND SAVE YOUR CLEAN FOOTBALL!
Last edited by mesolzhenitsy; Today at 07:22 AM.
(The members of SOLZHENITSOF Family and the woman alongside the maiden could not give the reader a quick, hard poke to decipher the chats after Turkish Ayatollah GULEN took to heels clandestinely. The reason why everybody would start to glare at each other face fiercely as the circle of their shadows begin to flicker because of the dusty winds coming towards the side of theirs from Mosul that might be seen as a burlesque ballerina before the very eyes of the World's liberals. In that medium one might see everybody would begin to raise the skinny arms over each other head exclaiming): A snow storm we need for after the team of Turkish Ayatollah's second rate team should win the match they play against Napoli the heat would be to a level none of the football fans could endure! Young SOLZH: I think the night NAPOLI versus BESIKTAS could be evaluated as one of the most dramatic time slices of The Mankind loving sports and morality to be tasted side by side and yet none would come to help the cries of humans suffering from being only onlookers while the doping free teams-BESIKTAS AND GALATASARAY-of Turkish Ayatollah GULEN could use the super power of doping to overwhelm the big European Clubs like Napoli. (Did the Europeans all know that the scandalous doping day in the foot season 2015-16 when the doping examination group of health service experts captured-before they have been dismissed from their jobs- the BESIKTAS players red hand, and know the night in Bucharest in the year of 2000 needed to live to make GULEN's foot gang the super-champion in UEFA Cup? After living such scorching incidents must not we put air-conditioning units in the churches to feel a bit of coolness necessary for refreshing?General conversation has resumed; everybody is chatting so that the place they stand still sounds like a big backstage of a circus.) Young SOLZH's Dad: Too bad nobody cools our church off for us. I bet we sweat before the pulpit coming the sultry Sunday, for whom the Turkish Ayatollah GULEN's spending billions on his wicked, black propaganda apparatus, I Mean BESIKTAS and GALATASARAY, end even the team of TURCO Islamic racist foot team TRABZONSPOR all of which GULEN might appreciate to make secret TURCO-Islamic propaganda over sportive games. The Maiden: Yes, my lingerie is to be drenched for the maidens detest lying and liars.
Last edited by mesolzhenitsy; Today at 05:52 AM.
SOLZHENITSOF WARNS EVERYBODY OF THE PERIL INDUCED TONIGHT'S WEIRD PROBABILITIES IN ISTANBUL TO BE RENDERED BY FREE DOPING, MATCH RIGGING AND BOTH FOOTBALL AND STREET TERROR DIRECTING BESIKTAS-THE SECOND RATE TEAM OF BLOODY TURKISH AYATOLLAH-GULEN!
SOLZHENITSOF WRITES: YESTERDAY NIGHT OF FREE DOPING BESIKTAS WON OR RATHER REACHED THE DRTY VICTORY!
Turkey Soviet's new-in charge of teasing SOLZHENITSOF above-agent Demented***_ideals-in Mini Statistics Join Date11-22-2016 Last Activity Yesterday 10:51 PM...He/She is there and is to be entering the "Who Said That Box" to cut in on words against Islamic Terror!
Last edited by mesolzhenitsy; Today at 04:12 AM.
WHY AND WHAT WILL I WRITE?
Last edited by mesolzhenitsy; Today at 04:57 AM.
When Santiago told agents at an FBI field office his paranoid thoughts in November, he was evaluated for four days, then released without any follow-up medication or therapy."The FBI failed there," Bryan Santiago said."We're not talking about someone who emerged from anonymity to do something like this."All the more Turkey Soviet could use three main apparatuses: Turkish Maoist/KEMALIST red nationalist wing's Anti American and Anti European action, Turkey's Caliph/President and his big TURCO Islamic terror and Turkish Ayatollah GULEN's secret or well hidden or rather subluminal Islamic horrific terror! Briefly one of the wings of evil-Turkish Ayatollah GULEN-administrated by Turkey Soviet has compelled the murderer through mesmerism like Islamic preaching of GULEN/Pennsylvania-The USA!After so many odious events created by Turkey Soviet has she gone to bed, dear reader before weeping for both Judeo Christian and Kurdish babies? NOP! After the gross offensives of Islamic Terror backed by it she would rather has gone out to walk around idly, sad, and dismayed. At the beginning of perceiving the change between her "green horn infantry" and "expert warrior" period behaviours both commanders and comrades of hers wandered what the cause should be to hinder her beautiful, green eyes even in the way of forty winks. So the heroine Kurdish lady warrior ought to reply the question of the physician of the battalion about her insomnia... She (replying to the question regarding to her sleepless nights): Yes, time to time, I couldn't go to bed because of one unique reason! Question: What's that reason: Reply: Because I know that the source of every evil in the world! Q.-What's that that says? R.-That says it's New Ottoman State namely Turkey Soviet that is the cocktail of various bloody gangs: Gray Wolf Turkish racists )MHP) and their most intimate friends viz. TURCO Islamic terrorists (AKP), Maoist Twin Brothers (PKK/HDP and CHP), Turkish Generals (The terriers of F. GULEN and the hounds of MAOIST / KEMALIST stately paid and esteemed mafia type gunmen, fake secular Turkish people working at the offices of nearly all embassies in Ankara, and ISIS cells hiding under the armpits of the members of Turkish Cabinet, F.GULEN's football teams-GALATASARAY, BESIKTAS, and TRABZONSPOR charged with the mission of spoiling The European Sportive ethics! And all green/Islamist and dirty red, jet black academics making endless Anti-American/Anti East and West European, even Anti Semitic (including Hebrews, Egyptians Kuwaitis etcetera)... Why? After such reliable information who can call the Red Alarms that'd be sent to you the false things shouted by the 'liars'?