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By LaRouche Irish Brigade

27 November, 2013

@ LaRouche Irish Brigade

In his first major writing as Pope, released today, Pope Francis is unequivocal:

“Just as the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills.”

“How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?….

In his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis calls upon financial experts and political leaders from around the world to bring about a financial reform which defends the common good, and replaces the tyranny of a “survival of the fittest [economy], where the powerful feed upon the powerless,” where the ancient golden calf is worshipped, and where human beings are “considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded.” He admonishes that “it is the responsibility of the State to safeguard and promote the common good of society.”

Wall Street and the City of London will not be pleased, as Pope Francis’s spirited message of “No to the new idolatry of money, “No to a financial system which rules rather than serves,” available in six languages on the Vatican website, cracks through their media control worldwide.

Pope Francis writes:

“The worship of the ancient golden calf (cf. Ex 32:1-25) has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose….

“This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation. Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control. A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules….

“A financial reform open to such ethical considerations would require a vigorous change of approach on the part of political leaders. I urge them to face this challenge with determination and an eye to the future… Money must serve, not rule!”

Pope Francis specifies that welfare measures, while needed, are not sufficient to end exclusion and inequality which breed violence which no surveillance systems can ultimately control; changes must be structural. “Just as goodness tends to spread, the toleration of evil, which is injustice, tends to expand its baneful influence… an evil embedded in the structures of a society has a constant potential for disintegration and death. It is evil crystallized in unjust social structures, which cannot be the basis of hope for a better future….

“As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation, and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems, or, for that matter, to any problems. Inequality is the root of social ills.

“The dignity of each human person and the pursuit of the common good are concerns which ought to shape all economic policies….

The Pope’s discussion of economics is a central concept in a writing which is 224 pages long (in English), dedicated to exhorting Catholics at all levels to adopt a missionary outlook premised on mercy as the greatest of virtues. The Pope called on Catholics to break out of complacency with habits, rules, and structures which lead to a “tomb psychology [which] transforms Christians into mummies in a museum,” and instead get their hands dirty in changing a system which sees God “as even dangerous, since he calls human beings to their full realization and to freedom from all forms of enslavement.”

By Nile Bowie

30 November, 2013

Washington’s move to fly nuclear-capable bombers over China’s eastern air defense zone as a forceful endorsement of Japan’s claims over disputed islands is both needlessly confrontational and totally counterproductive.

The territorial dispute over an uninhabited chain of islands in the East China Sea – referred to as the Senkaku Islands by Japan and the Diaoyu Islands by China – has been a highly contentious issue in Sino-Japanese relations for decades, and the issue has resurfaced in recent times as both sides assert their sovereignty over the area. Mass protests were seen in China targeting Japan’s embassy and Japanese products, shops and restaurants when Tokyo’s far-right former governor, Shintaro Ishihara, called on Japan to use public money to buy the islands from private Japanese owners in 2012. The issue stirs passions in Chinese society because Tokyo’s claims are seen as an extension of the brutal legacy of the Japanese occupation and a direct challenge to strong historical evidence that legitimizes Chinese sovereignty over the area since ancient times. Moreover, the official stance of the government in Beijing is that Japan’s invalid claims over the islands were facilitated and legitimized by a backdoor-deal between Tokyo and Washington that directly challenges international law and post-World War II international treaties.

The right-wing government of Shinzo Abe in Japan has abandoned the passive approach to the issue taken by previous governments and has played on nationalist sentiments by asserting Tokyo’s firm positions over the islands, which are internationally administered by Japan. Chinese and Korean societies see Abe’s administration as whitewashing Japan’s history as a ruthless occupier and imperial power, and have lodged angry protests over Abe’s calls to revise Japan’s 1995 war apology and amend Article 9 of its pacifist constitution, which forbids Japan from having a standing army. China’s recent moves to introduce an air defense zone over the disputed islands have come as a response to months of aggressive Japanese military exercises in the area. Beijing has denounced the presence of the Japanese navy in the region and Japan’s numerous threats to fire warning shots against Chinese planes that violate Japan’s air defense zone, which defiantly stretches only 130 kilometers from China’s mainland and includes the disputed islands. In addition to claims by Taiwan, both China and Japan have strengthened their rights over the islands due to significant oil and mineral resources that have yet to be exploited there.

Let history be the judge

Given legacies of both China and Japan as neighboring civilizations that morphed in modern nation-states, ancient history is sewn into conflicts like the Senkaku-Diaoyu dispute. The earliest historical records of the island being under China’s maritime jurisdiction date back to 1403 in texts prepared by imperial envoys of the Ming dynasty; during the Qing dynasty, the islands were placed under the jurisdiction of the local government of Taiwan province. Maps published throughout the 1800s in France, Britain, and the United States all recognize the Diaoyu islands as a territory of China. Japan eventually defeated the Qing dynasty in the late 1800s during its expansionary campaigns in the region and strong-armed China into signing the humiliating Treaty of Shimonoseki that officially ceded Taiwan and surrounding islands, including the Diaoyu, which the Japanese renamed to ‘Senkaku Islands’ in 1900. Following the defeat and surrender of Japan in World War II, international treaties such as the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation legally returned all territories stolen by Japan to pre-revolutionary China.

Beijing accuses US forces in post-war Japan of unilaterally and arbitrarily expanding its jurisdiction to include the Diaoyu Islands shortly after the Chinese revolution in the early 1950s, which were ‘returned’ to Japan in the 1970s in the Okinawa Reversion Agreement, a move condemned by China and the US-allied Taiwan authorities. Japan has argued since the 1970s that the Diaoyu was not part of the affiliated islands that were ceded to Japan by the Qing dynasty (despite strong evidence to the contrary), and that the islands were placed under the administration of the United States following World War II and ‘returned’ to Japan. The view from Beijing, and especially from within the Xi Jinping administration, is that this case constitutes an illegal occupation of Chinese territory that seriously violates the obligations Japan should undertake according to international law. Tokyo’s position on the issue really doesn’t hold water considering that 19th century Japanese government documents available for viewing in Japan’s National Archives suggest that Japan clearly knew and recognized the Diaoyu Islands as Chinese territory.

Washington’s B-52 diplomacy

Beijing’s announcement of an air defense zone over the Diaoyu Islands would naturally be seen as controversial due to the dispute with Japan, and because Washington implicitly backs Tokyo’s claims, the US administration has taken to framing the issue so as to portray China as the hostile actor and principle belligerent. China has defended its air defense declaration as an extension of its entitlement to uphold its national sovereignty and territorial integrity; Beijing has also pointed out how the US and Japan have established their own zones decades ago, which extend to the frontline borders of other countries in some cases. Beijing’s air defense declaration essentially asserts the right to identify, monitor and possibly take military action against any aircraft that enters the area, and despite the US backing Japan’s right to uphold a similar zone, the White House declared China’s moves as “unnecessarily inflammatory.”

Just days after the Chinese government issued its defense declaration, the US military deployed two unarmed (nuclear-capable) B-52 bombers from its airbase in Guam that embarked on a 1500-mile flight into the Chinese air defense umbrella before turning back. The symbolic but forceful display by Washington is essentially the equivalent of the Pentagon giving the middle finger to the Chinese government. The maneuver was apparently part of a ‘long-planned’ exercise, but the timing and the message sent a clearly hostile, and deeply arrogant message to Beijing. China claims that it monitored the US bombers in the zone and took no action, and as Beijing exercises restraint, Tokyo and Washington’s openly stoke tensions and practice hypocritical double standards. The United States and Japan both operate vast unilateral air defense zones, and yet Washington has the cheek to childishly reject the legitimate defensive claims of others.

To quote Xinhua columnist Wu Liming’s characterization of US-Japan policy, “Their logic is simple: they can do it while China can not, which could be described with a Chinese saying, ‘the magistrates are free to burn down houses while the common people are forbidden even to light lamps.’” The message derived from Washington’s actions perfectly illustrates the nature of the so-called ‘Pivot to Asia,’ that even though America’s political representatives cannot be relied on to fulfill their long-planned appointments to visit the region, the Pentagon can always be relied on to deliver reminders that the US seeks hegemony in Asia.

The truth is that China and Japan have too much to lose as the second and third largest economies in the world to allow this issue to slide into a military confrontation, and cooler heads will likely prevent the latter scenario. Given the contention around this dispute and the destabilizing effects it could have on the global economy if the situation deteriorated into a military conflict, it would be fundamental for the US to instead remain neutral and promote a peaceful compromise and settlement to this issue. Beijing and Tokyo should both take their claims to the UN to settle this issue if a mutual compromise to jointly develop the disputed region cannot be agreed upon.

By Ralph Nade

27 November 13

@ Reuters

It’s not just the NSA that has been caught spying on Americans. Some of our nation’s largest corporations have been conducting espionage as well, against civic groups.

For these big companies with pliable ethics, if they don’t win political conflicts with campaign donations or lobbying power, then they play dirty. Very dirty.

That’s the lesson of a new report on corporate espionage against nonprofit organizations, by my colleagues at Essential Information. The title of the report is Spooky Business, and it is apt.

Spooky Business is like a Canterbury Tales of corporate snoopery. The spy narratives in the report are lurid and gripping. Hiring investigators to pose as volunteers and journalists. Hacking. Wiretapping. Information warfare. Physical intrusion. Investigating the private lives of nonprofit leaders. Dumpster diving using an active duty police officer to gain access to trash receptacles. Electronic surveillance. On and on. What won’t corporations do in service of profit and power?

Many different types of nonprofit civic organizations have been targeted by corporate spies: environmental, public interest, consumer, food safety, animal rights, pesticide reform, nursing home reform, gun control and social justice.

A diverse constellation of corporations has planned or executed corporate espionage against these nonprofit civic organizations. Food companies like Kraft, Coca-Cola, Burger King, McDonald’s and Monsanto. Oil companies like Shell, BP and Chevron. Chemical companies like Dow and Sasol. Also involved are the retailers (Wal-Mart), banks (Bank of America), and, of course, the nation’s most powerful trade association: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Plenty of mercenary spooks have joined up to abet them, including former officials at the FBI, CIA, NSA, Secret Service and U.S. military. Sometimes even government contractors are part of the snooping.

In effect, big corporations have been able to hire portions of the national security apparatus, and train their tools of spycraft on the citizens groups of our nation.

This does not bode well for our democracy.

Our democracy is only as strong as the civic groups that work to preserve and protect it every day. To function effectively, these groups must be able to keep their inner workings secure from the prying eyes and snooping noses of the spies-for-hire.

Corporate espionage is a threat to individual privacy, too. As citizens, we do not relinquish our rights to privacy when we disagree with the ideas or actions of a corporation. It is especially galling that corporations should employ such unethical or illegal tactics to deprive Americans of their fundamental rights.

This is a subject with which I have some familiarity. In 1966, when I was working on auto safety, an enterprising young journalist at the New Republic wrote a story about private investigators tasked by General Motors to find “dirt” using false pretenses to interview my friends and teachers and by following me around the country. A Senate Committee, chaired by Senator Abraham Ribicoff, conducted a celebrated hearing confirming in detail General Motors’ unsavory tactics to try to silence my criticisms of unsafely designed automobiles. The uproar helped to pass the auto and highway safety laws in 1966.

The journalist’s name is James Ridgeway, and he kept at it. More than forty years later, he broke another important story – this time for Mother Jones – about Dow Chemical’s massive corporate espionage operation against Greenpeace, and other espionage activities by a private investigation firm called Beckett Brown International.

Ridgeway’s more recent articles, and the work of other journalists, make it clear that the self-regulation of private investigative and intelligence firms is a complete failure.

It’s time for law enforcement to focus some attention on such corporate spies and their flagrant invasion of privacy.

Where is the Justice Department? In France, when Électricité de France was caught spying on Greenpeace, there was an investigation and prosecutions. In Britain, Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World newspaper was ensnared in a telephone hacking scandal involving British public officials and celebrities. The Guardian newspaper excavated the story relentlessly, government investigations followed, with prosecutions ongoing. Here in the United States, the Justice Department has been silent.

How about Congress? Corporate espionage against nonprofits is an obvious topic for a congressional investigation and hearings. But, alas, Congress too has been somnolent.

How much corporate espionage against nonprofits is taking place? Without investigations, subpoenas and hearings, no one really knows. But it is likely that there is more corporate espionage than we know about, because the snooping corporations and their private investigators toil mightily to hide their dirty tricks – which are designed to intimidate and deter people from speaking out and standing up against corporate crimes, frauds and abuses. Is the little we know merely the tip of the iceberg?

By Prof. James Petras

26 November, 2013

@ Global Research

The world political economy is a mosaic of cross currents: Domestic decay and elite enrichment, new sources for greater profits and deepening political disenchantment, declining living standards for many and extravagant luxury for a few, military losses in some regions with imperial recovery in others. There are claims of a unipolar, a multi-polar and even a non-polar configuration of world power. Where, when, to what extent and under what contingencies do these claims have validity?

Bubbles and busts come and go – but let us talk of ‘beneficiaries’: Those who cause crashes, reap the greatest rewards while their victims have no say. The swindle economy and the criminal state prosper by promoting the perversion of culture and literacy. ‘Investigatory journalism’, or peephole reportage, is all the rage. The world of power spins out of control: As they decline, the leading powers declare “it’s our rule or everyone’s ruin!”

Global Configurations of Power

Power is a relationship between classes, states and military and ideological institutions. Any configuration of power is contingent on past and present struggles reflecting shifting correlations of forces. Structures and physical resources, concentrations of wealth, arms and the media matter greatly; they set the framework in which the principle power wielders are embedded. But strategies for retaining or gaining power depend on securing alliances, engaging in wars and negotiating peace. Above all, world power depends on the strength of domestic foundations. This requires a dynamic productive economy, an independent state free from prejudicial foreign entanglements and a leading class capable of harnessing global resources to ‘buy off’ domestic consent of the majority.

To examine the position of the United States in the global configuration of power it is necessary to analyze its changing economic and political relations on two levels: by region and by sphere of power. History does not move in a linear pattern or according to recurring cycles: military and political defeats in some regions may be accompanied by significant victories in others. Economic decline in some spheres and regions may be compensated by sharp advances in other economic sectors and regions.

In the final analysis, the question is not ‘keeping a scorecard’ or adding wins and subtracting losses, but translating regional and sectorial outcomes into an understanding of the direction and emerging structures of the global power configuration. We start by examining the legacy of recent wars on the global economic, military and political power of the United States .

Sustaining the US Empire: Defeats, Retreat, Advances and Victories

The dominant view of most critical analysts is that over the past decade US empire-building has suffered a series of military defeats, experienced economic decline, and now faces severe competition and the prospect of further military losses. The evidence cited is impressive: The US was forced to withdraw troops from Iraq , after an extremely costly decade-long military occupation, leaving in place a regime more closely allied to Iran , the US ’ regional adversary. The Iraq war depleted the economy, deprived American corporations of oil wealth, greatly enlarged Washington ’s budget and trade deficits and reduced the living standards of US citizens. The Afghanistan war had a similar outcome, with high external costs, military retreat, fragile clients, domestic disaffection and no short or medium term transfers of wealth (imperial pillage) to the US Treasury or private corporations. The Libyan war led to the total destruction of a modern, oil-rich economy in North Africa, the total dissolution of state and civil society and the emergence of armed tribal, fundamentalist militias opposed to US and EU client regimes in North and sub-Sahara Africa and beyond. Instead of continuing to profit from lucrative oil and gas agreements with the conciliatory Gadhafi regime, Washington decided on ‘regime change’, engaging in a war which ruined Libya and destroyed any viable central state. The current Syrian “proxy war” has strengthened radical Islamist warlords, destroyed Damascus ’ economy and added massive refugee pressure to the already uprooted millions from wars in Iraq and Libya . US imperial wars have resulted in economic losses, regional political instability and military gains for Islamist adversaries.

Latin America has overwhelmingly rejected US efforts to overthrow the Venezuelan government. The entire world– minus Israel and Washington- – rejects the blockade of Cuba . Regional integration organizations, which exclude the US , have proliferated. US trade shares have declined, as Asia is replacing the US in the Latin American market.

In Asia, China deepens and extends its economic links with all the key countries, while the US ‘pivot’ is mostly an effort at military base encirclement involving Japan , Australia and the Philippines . In other words, China is more important than the US for Asian economic expansion, while Chinese financing of US trade imbalances props up the US economy.

In Africa , US military command operations mainly promote armed conflicts and lead to greater instability. Meanwhile Asian capitalists, deeply invested in strategic African countries, are reaping the benefits of its commodity boom, expanding markets and the outflow of profits.

The exposure of the US National Security Agency’s global spy network has seriously undermined global intelligence and clandestine operations. While it may have helped privileged private corporations, the massive US investment in cyber-imperialism appears to have generated negative diplomatic and operational returns for the imperial state.

In sum, the current global overview paints a picture of severe military and diplomatic setbacks in imperial policies, substantial losses to the US Treasury and the erosion of public support. Nevertheless this perspective has serious flaws, especially with regard to other regions, relations and spheres of economic activity. The fundamental structures of empire remain intact.

NATO, the major military alliance headed by the US Pentagon, is expanding its membership and escalating its field of operations. The Baltic States, especially Estonia , are the site of huge military exercises held just minutes from the principle Russian cities. Central and Eastern Europe provide missile sites all aimed at Russia . Until very recently, the Ukraine had been moving toward membership in the European Union and a step toward NATO membership.

The US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership has expanded membership among the Andean countries, Chile , Peru and Colombia . It serves as a springboard to weaken regional trading blocs like MERCOSUR and ALBA, which exclude Washington . Meanwhile, the CIA, the State Department and their NGO conduits are engaged in an all-out economic sabotage and political destabilization campaign to weaken Venezuela ’s nationalist government. US-backed bankers and capitalists have worked to sabotage the economy, provoking inflation (50%), shortages of essential items of consumption and rolling power blackouts. Their control over most of Venezuela ’s mass media has allowed them to exploit popular discontent by blaming the economic dislocation on ‘government inefficiency’.

Overall, the US offensive in Latin America has focused on a military coup in Honduras , ongoing economic sabotage in Venezuela , electoral and media campaigns in Argentina , and cyber warfare in Brazil , while developing closer ties with recently elected compliant neo-liberal regimes in Mexico , Colombia , Chile , Panama , Guatemala and the Dominican Republic . While Washington lost influence in Latin America during the first decade of the 21st century, it has since partially recovered its clients and partners. The relative recovery of US influence illustrates the fact that ‘regime changes’ and a decline in market shares, have not lessened the financial and corporate ties linking even the progressive countries to powerful US interests. The continued presence of powerful political allies –even those ‘out of government’ – provides a trampoline for regaining US influence. Nationalist policies and emerging regional integration projects remain vulnerable to US counter-attacks.

While the US has lost influence among some oil producing countries, it lessened its dependence on oil and gas imports as a result of a vast increase in domestic energy production via ‘fracking’ and other intense extractive technologies. Greater local self-sufficiency means lower energy costs for domestic producers and increases their competitiveness in world markets, raising the possibility that the US could regain market shares for its exports.

The seeming decline of US imperial influence in the Arab world following the popular ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings has halted and even been reversed. The military coup in Egypt and the installation and consolidation of the military dictatorship in Cairo suppressed the mass national-popular mobilizations. Egypt is back in the US-Israel orbit. In Algeria , Morocco and Tunisia the old and new rulers are clamping down on any anti-imperial protests. In Libya , the US-NATO air force destroyed the nationalist-populist Gadhafi regime, eliminating an alternative welfare model to neo-colonial pillage – but has so far failed to consolidate a neo-liberal client regime in Tripoli . Instead rival armed Islamist gangs, monarchists and ethnic thugs pillage and ravage the country. Destroying an anti-imperialist regime has not produced a pro-imperialist client.

In the Middle East, Israel continues to dispossess the Palestinians of their land and water. The US continues to escalate military maneuvers and impose more economic sanctions against Iran – weakening Teheran but also decreasing US wealth and influence due to the loss of the lucrative Iranian market. Likewise in Syria , the US and its NATO allies have destroyed Syria ’s economy and shredded its complex society, but they will not be the main beneficiaries. Islamist mercenaries have gained bases of operations while Hezbollah has consolidated its position as a significant regional actor. Current negotiations with Iran open possibilities for the US to cut its losses and reduce the regional threat of a costly new war but these talks are being blocked by an ‘alliance’ of Zionist-militarist Israel, monarchist Saudi Arabia and ‘Socialist’ France.

Washington has lost economic influence in Asia to China but it is mounting a regional counter-offensive, based on its network of military bases in Japan , the Philippines and Australia . It is promoting a new Pan Pacific economic agreement that excludes China . This demonstrates the US capacity to intervene and project imperial interests. However announcing new policies and organizations is not the same as implementing and providing them with dynamic content. Washington ’s military encirclement of China is off-set by the US Treasury’s multi-trillion dollar debt to Beijing . An aggressive US military encirclement of China could result in a massive Chinese sell-off of US Treasury notes and five hundred leading US multi-nationals finding their investments in jeopardy!

Power-sharing between an emerging and established global power, such as China and the US , cannot be ‘negotiated’ via US military superiority. Threats, bluster and diplomatic chicanery score mere propaganda victories but only long-term economic advances can create the domestic Trojan Horses need to erode China ’s dynamic growth. Even today, the Chinese elite spend hefty sums to educate their children in “prestigious” US and British universities where free market economic doctrines and imperial-centered narratives are taught. For the past decade, leading Chinese politicians and the corporate rich have sent tens of billions of dollars in licit and illicit funds to overseas bank accounts, investing in high end real estate in North America and Europe and dispatching billions to money laundering havens. Today, there is a powerful faction of economists and elite financial advisers in China pushing for greater ‘financial liberalization’, i.e. penetration by the leading Wall Street and City of London speculative houses. While Chinese industries may be winning the competition for overseas markets, the US has gained and is gaining powerful levers over China ’s financial structure.

The US share of Latin American trade may be declining, but the absolute dollar worth of trade has increased several-fold over the past decade.

The US may have lost right-wing regime clients in Latin America, but the new center-left regimes are actively collaborating with most of the major US and Canadian mining and agro-business corporations and commodity trading houses. The Pentagon has not been able to engineer military coups, with the pathetic exception of Honduras, but it still retains its close working relations with the Latin American military in the form of (1) its regional policing of ‘terrorism’, ‘narcotics’ and ‘migration’, (2) providing technical training and political indoctrination via overseas military ‘educational’ programs and (3) engaging in joint military exercises.

In sum, the structures of the US empire, corporate, financial, military and political-cultural, all remain in place and ready to regain dominance if and when political opportunities arise. For example, a sharp decline in commodity prices would likely provoke a deep crisis and intensify class conflicts among center-left regimes, which are dependent on agro-mining exports to fund their social programs. In any ensuing confrontation, the US would work with and through its agents among the economic and military elite to oust the incumbent regime and re-impose pliant neo-liberal clients. The current phase of post-neo-liberal policies and power configurations are vulnerable. The relative ‘decline of US influence and power’ can be reversed even if it is not returned to its former configuration. The theoretical point is that while imperialist structures remain in place and while their collaborator counterparts abroad retain strategic positions, the US can re-establish its primacy in the global configuration of power.

Imperial ‘roll-back’ does not require the ‘same old faces’. New political figures, especially with progressive credentials and faint overtones of a ‘social inclusionary’ ideology are already playing a major role in the new imperial-centered trade networks. In Chile , newly elected “Socialist” President Michelle Bachelet and the Peruvian ex-nationalist, President Ollanta Humala, are major proponents of Washington ’s Tran-Pacific Partnership, a trading bloc which competes with the nationalist MERCOSUR and ALBA, and excludes China .

In Mexico, US client President Enrique Peña Nieto is privatizing the ‘jewel’ of the Mexican economy, PEMEX, the giant public oil company – strengthening the Washington’s hold over regional energy resources and increasing US independence from Mid-East oil. Colombian President Santos, the ‘peace president’, is actively negotiating an end to guerrilla warfare in order to expand multinational exploitation of mineral and energy resources located in guerrilla-contested regions, a prospect which will primarily benefit US oil companies. In Argentina , the state oil company, Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales (YPF) has signed a joint venture agreement with the oil giant, Chevron, to exploit an enormous gas and oil field, known as Vaca Muerte (Dead Cow). This will expand the US presence in Argentina in energy production alongside the major inroads made by Monsanto in the powerful agro-business sector.

No doubt Latin America has diversified its trade and the US share has relatively declined. Latin American rulers no longer eagerly seek ‘certification’ from the US Ambassador before announcing their political candidacy. The US is totally alone in its boycott of Cuba . The Organization of American States is no longer a US haven. But there are counter-tendencies, reflected in new pacts like the TPP. New sites of economic exploitation, which are not exclusively US controlled, now serve as springboards to greater imperial power.

Conclusion

The US economy is stagnant and has failed to re-gain momentum because of its pursuit of ‘serial’ imperial wars. But in the Middle East, the US decline, relative to its past, has not been accompanied by the ascent of its old rivals. Europe is in deeper crisis, with a vast army of unemployed, chronic negative growth and few signs of recovery for the visible future. Even China , the new emerging global power, is slowing down with its growth falling from over 11% to 7% in the current decade. Beijing faces growing domestic discontent. India , as well as China , are liberalizing their financial systems, opening them up to penetration and influence by US finance capital.

The main anti-imperialist forces in Asia and Africa are not composed of progressive, secular, democratic and socialist movements. Instead, the empire is confronted by religious, ethnic, misogynist and authoritarian movements with irredentist tendencies. The old secular, socialist voices have lost their bearings, and provide perverse ‘justifications’ for the imperialist wars of aggression in Libya , Mali and Syria . The French Socialists, who had opposed the Iraq war in 2003, now find their President Francoise Hollande parroting the brutal militarism of the Israeli warlord, Netanyahu.

The point is that the thesis of the ‘decline of the US empire’ and its corollary, the ‘crises of the US ’ are overstated, time bound and lack specificity. In reality, there is no alternative imperial or modern anti-imperial tendency on the immediate horizon. While it is true that Western capitalism is in crisis, the recently ascending Asian capitalism of China and India face a different crisis resulting from their savage class exploitation and murderous caste relations. If objective conditions are ‘ripe for socialism’, the socialists – at least those retaining any political presence- are comfortably embedded with their respective imperial regimes. The Marxists and Socialists in Egypt joined with the military to overthrow an elected conservative Islamist regime, leading to the restoration of imperialist clientelism in Cairo . The French and English ‘Marxists’ have supported NATO’s destruction of Libya and Syria . Numerous progressives and socialists, in Europe and North America, support Israel ’s warlords and/or remain silent in the face of domestic Zionist power in the executive branches and legislatures.

if imperialism is declining, so is anti-imperialism. If capitalism is in crisis, the existing anti-capitalists are in retreat. If capitalists look for new faces and ideologues to revive their fortunes, isn’t it time the anti-imperialists and anti-capitalists did likewise?

James Petras is the author of more than 62 books published in 29 languages, and over 600 articles in professional journals, including the American Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology, Social Research, and Journal of Peasant Studies. He has published over 2000 articles in nonprofessional journals such as the New York Times, the Guardian, the Nation, Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy, New Left Review, Partisan Review, TempsModerne, Le Monde Diplomatique, and his commentary is widely carried on the internet. His publishers have included Random House, John Wiley, Westview, Routledge, Macmillan, Verso, Zed Books and Pluto Books. He is winner of the Career of Distinguished Service Award from the American Sociological Association’s Marxist Sociology Section, the Robert Kenny Award for Best Book, 2002, and the Best Dissertation, Western Political Science Association in 1968. His most recent titles include Unmasking Globalization: Imperialism of the Twenty-First Century (2001); co-author The Dynamics of Social Change in Latin America (2000), System in Crisis (2003), co-author Social Movements and State Power (2003), co-author Empire With Imperialism (2005), co-author)Multinationals on Trial (2006).

By Robert J. Burrowes

26November, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

The pre-eminent problem confronting humankind is human violence. It is our own violence, in its various guises, including the ongoing possibility of nuclear war and the ongoing devastation of the natural environment, that threaten to consign us to the fossil record within decades, if not sooner. And yet we devote virtually no effort to trying to understand human violence and to developing strategies to end it. Why?

The short and highly unpalatable answer is this: because most of us want to use violence when it suits us and to ‘get away with it’ when we do. This is why most of us find ways to inflict our violence in socially legitimized ways or we do it in relative secrecy. Apart from inflicting violence on our own children and the natural environment, society has created whole sectors of activity in which ‘legitimized violence’ can be inflicted.

The most obvious example of socially endorsed violence is that allowed during military service but another sector that absorbs many perpetrators of violence is the police, legal and prison system. Many police, judges, magistrates, prosecutors and prison officers use their socially legitimized role to inflict their violence (whether directly in the form of assaults or institutional in the form of imprisonment and capital punishment) on those individuals snared in the legal system. There is no evidence that violence (even when labeled ‘punishment’) and the fear that it causes can restore functionality. However, modern societies have devoted vast quantities of resources to the military, police, legal and prison systems rather than financing research efforts to understand why human beings are violent and then developing comprehensive strategies to eliminate this violence based on an understanding of its cause.

This failure to understand violence means that a vast and ever-increasing quantity of resources must be devoted to maintaining both military forces that are sent to kill all over the world and an endlessly expanding system of highly dysfunctional ‘law enforcement’ in which individuals are no longer considered important once they are defined as ‘criminal’.

Why do governments devote resources to the military, police, legal and prison systems? In brief, this occurs because members of governments want to perpetuate violence in the delusional belief that it gives them ‘control’ and one socially endorsed way of participating in this violence is to perpetuate an institutional framework that defines ‘enemies’ and ‘criminals’ as legitimized victims. This happens because people who feel powerless to control what is important (particularly the violence they suffered at the hands of their own parents) seek control of other people and things (including trivia) to avoid the feeling of powerlessness.

The social investment in violence at all levels is staggering: if it was not, as noted above, there would be substantial research funds devoted to understanding the origins of violence so that it could be reduced and eventually eliminated. But there is no budget allocation anywhere to fund research to understand this most pervasive and phenomenally destructive problem, although humans spend approximately $2billion each day on military violence and a staggering, but unknown to me, amount on the world’s police, legal and prison systems. Who benefits? It includes individuals working in government and the military forces, those corporations that make the weapons and build the military and prison infrastructure, and those individuals (including police, lawyers and judges) who gain employment within legal institutions.

However, the victims of military violence, ‘criminals’ and particularly ‘the public’ (that is, the vast majority of the world’s population) do not benefit because violence is perpetuated rather than progressively cut back. How do governments, legal institutions, corporations and the individuals who work within them actually benefit? At the superficial level it is about things like status and money: taxes, profits, income from jobs. But the deeper, psychological reason is that it helps these individuals to suppress awareness of the terror, self-hatred and powerlessness that has destroyed their Self-hood and that drives their use of violence in the delusional belief that they will regain ‘control’.

So what can we do? Despite the lack of social effort to understand human violence, there is a comprehensive explanation available. According to this research, all violence is an outcome of the visible, ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence inflicted by adults on children. See ‘Why Violence?’ http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence Once the child has been damaged, it will inflict violence on itself, the people around it, as well as non-human species and the natural environment; it will also play a part in maintaining structures of violence and exploitation, such as the education and legal systems.

If you wish to join the worldwide movement to end all violence, you can sign online ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’ http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com

Human beings will end violence or

Violence will end human beings

Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence His email address is flametree@riseup.net and his website is at http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com

By Popular Resistance

24 November, 2013

@ Popularresistance.org

Outrageous US bullying by US Trade Representative Stan McCoy on intellectual property and health. McCoy puts profits of pharmaceuticals ahead of the lives of people. “The world should stand up to the United States. US corporations are not more important than people’s lives.”

A key dispute in the TPP negotiations is the patents on pharmaceutical drugs and medical procedures. Long patents inflate the profits of the pharmaceutical industry by not allowing less expensive generic drugs on the market. This means that people around the world will not be able to afford critical, often life-saving, drugs and medical procedures. It also means that countries like Japan, Australia and New Zealand that have national health care systems will see the cost of healthcare rise to a breaking point, undermining some of the best health systems in the world.

In order for the US to get its way,Stan McCoy, Assistant US Trade Representative for Intellectual Property and Innovation, is chairing the meetings on intellectual properties and medicines. He has been using bullying tactics to force countries to agree to positions that will harm people in the countries negotiating the TPP, including the US.

“The US has adopted a strategy of exhaustion in its bullying of negotiators on the crucial intellectual property chapter to force countries to trade away health in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement negotiations in Salt Lake City,” according to Professor Jane Kelsey from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, who is monitoring the negotiations. ”The US has stepped up its aggression as they move towards their ‘end point’ of the TPP ministerial meeting in Singapore from 7 to 10 December.”

Margaret Flowers, MD a health policy expert from the US says “The Office of the US Trade Representative is putting the interests of trans-national health corporations before the needs of people. If the US position is forced through, the TPP will extend patents for medications, medical devices and even procedures for exorbitant lengths of times. This will inflate prices, keeping treatments out of reach for those who need them. This will cause unnecessary suffering and death, especially for the most vulnerable populations, and will undermine health systems around the world and at home.”

“This is a loaded game,” Professor Kelsey said. “McCoy sets the agenda and timetable. Negotiators are working from morning until late at night and preparing to work all night, if necessary. ”This is a crucial period for New Zealand and a number of other countries,” Kelsey observed. The text published by Wikileaks last week shows they have tabled an alternative to the US proposed text that has been repeatedly rejected.”

“New Zealand’s trade minister Tim Groser and his counterparts from the other ten countries must tell the US to stop this behaviour now,” Kelsey said. Flowers added: “Countries negotiating with the United States should not allow themselves to be bullied but should stand up to the United States. It is looking very unlikely that President Obama will be able to get TPP through the Congress. Why would any country negotiate against the interests of their people?”

The US has around twenty people in Salt Lake City for the intellectual property chapter, who can rotate. Some countries have only one delegate for crucial talks on intellectual property on medicines. Their negotiations on medicines have been extended beyond the dates that were scheduled before negotiators came. They have continued despite the fact that some health negotiators, especially from poor countries, could not extend their stay.

This follows a pattern of abuse over recent rounds reported in Inside US Trade and other media, where McCoy has acted as a gatekeeper, deciding what proposals from other countries are allowed into the text and what are not.

“This is an early warning of the extreme bullying that can be expected in when the trade ministers seek to close the deal off in December,” Professor Kelsey warned.

Contact: Prof Kelsey is in Salt Lake City she can be contacted through text messages at +64 21 765 055. Margaret Flowers can be contacted at 410-591-0892

@KBZeese

Shift Wealth: Economic Democracy

Its Our Economy

(www.ItsOurEconomy.US)

Build power and resistance

Popular Resistance

(www.PopularResistance.org)

Democratize the Media

Clearing the FOG (Forces of Greed)

Radio (http://www.ClearingTheFOGRadio.org)

Video (http://www.ustream.tv/itsoureconomy)

By Russia Today

24 November, 2013

@ RT.com

The P5+1 world powers and Iran have struck a historic deal on Tehran’s nuclear program at talks in Geneva on Sunday. Ministers overcame the last remaining hurdles to reach agreement, despite strong pressure from Israel and lobby groups.

Under the interim agreement, Tehran will be allowed access to $4.2 billion in funds frozen as part of the financial sanctions imposed on Iran over suspicions that its nuclear program is aimed at producing an atomic bomb.

As part of the deal Iran has committed to:

– Halt uranium enrichment to above 5 per cent.

– Dismantle equipment required to enrich above 5 per cent.

– Refrain from further enrichment of its 3.5 per cent stockpile.

– Dilute its store of 20 per cent-enriched uranium.

– Limit the use and installation of its centrifuges.

– Cease construction on the Arak nuclear reactor.

– Provide IAEA inspectors with daily access to the Natanz and Fordo sites.

Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, called the deal a “major success” and said Tehran would expand its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

While Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced that the deal reached in Geneva shows that world powers have recognized Tehran’s “nuclear rights.”

“Constructive engagement [and] tireless efforts by negotiating teams are to open new horizons,” Rouhani said on Twitter shortly after the announcement.

Foreign ministers from the US, Russia, UK, France, China, Germany and the EU hailed the deal as a step toward a “comprehensive solution” to the nuclear standoff between Tehran and the West. The interim deal was reached early Sunday morning in Geneva after some 18 hours of negotiation.

“While today’s announcement is just a first step, it achieves a great deal,” US President Barack Obama said in a statement at the White House. “For the first time in nearly a decade, we have halted the progress of the Iranian nuclear program, and key parts of the program will be rolled back.”

However, Obama said that if Iran fails to keep to its commitments over the next six months, the US will “ratchet up” sanctions. US Secretary of State John Kerry, a key participant in the Geneva talks, said that Iran still had to prove it is not seeking to develop atomic weapons.

Tehran has repeatedly denied that it is developing atomic weapons, however, and maintains that its nuclear program is purely for civilian purposes.

Uranium enrichment

As part of the agreement, the international community has accepted Tehran’s right to a peaceful nuclear program. But after the deal was struck, participants in the Geneva talks put different interpretations on the issue of Iran’s right to enrich uranium.

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi wrote on Twitter that the right to enrichment had been recognized in negotiations, and after the deal was clinched Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the deal accepted Tehran’s right to enrich uranium.

“This deal means that we agree with the need to recognize Iran’s right for peaceful nuclear energy, including the right for enrichment, with an understanding that those questions about the [Iranian nuclear program] that still remain, and the program itself, will be placed under the strictest IAEA control,” Lavrov told journalists.

John Kerry had a different spin on the deal, however, telling the media that it did not recognize Tehran’s right to enrich nuclear fuel.

“The first step, let me be clear, does not say that Iran has a right to enrich uranium,” Kerry said.

Israel has already voiced its opposition to the deal with Iran, claiming it is based on “Iranian deception and self-delusion.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the agreement as a “historic mistake” and said the world had become a more dangerous place.

© Autonomous Nonprofit Organization “TV-Novosti”, 2005–2013.

By Mike Ghouse

24 November, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

I am concerned about the segregated seating arrangements in colleges and Universities for seminars and other educational activities organized by Muslim Students Associations in the United Kingdom.

Unlike the Students Association in the United States, where both men and women manage and participate, the MSA’s in UK seem to be run over by the boys. These boys become instantaneously Sanctimonious Muslims when they have a responsibility to manage a Muslim loaded event. The more they “control” women to go sit elsewhere, the greater the Muslim they become! What a phony Muslimness!

It’s not only the boys, some of the Imams who come around to give Sermons at special events, invariably make a comment to women sitting somewhere in the darkness in the back to quit gossiping! Darn it, when your lecture is so idiotic, men do the same, either gossip or go to their i-phones and Samsungs.  I am glad I don’t go to these events, but when I do, I will tear them apart for such an abusive and disrespectful comment towards women. Remember, our silence gives them permission to continue doing the wrong. Speak up; the other goats will jump in later.

Steering women and men to different sitting areas in the name of Islam needs to go. A man or a woman should have the freedom to choose, where he or she is comfortable to sit, nothing should be forced on. There should be no compulsion.

Do they teach that Islam is about regulating your own behavior to be a kind, gentle, truthful, trustworthy and caring and just individual,  the Amin, as the Prophet was called. Indeed, that should be the first foundational Sunnah for Muslims to follow. Islam is not about controlling others personal behavior.  Islam is about freedom – you are individually rewarded or deprived with the grace of God for your acts, neither the Muslim Students Association nor the Mufti of your town is even remotely accountable for your acts.  Even Prophet Muhammad, let alone your parents, spouse, siblings, or your Imam will not come to your rescue in your reflective solitude or the Day of Judgment. Prophet Muhammad did not assign the responsibility to teach Quran to anyone either.

The Hijab or segregation is a cultural product of predominantly Muslim nations, there is no sanction for it in Islam. The very first and foremost place of worship does not have segregation, even to this day.  Men and women perform Hajj together, God wants all of us together without distinction.

Muslims living in UK, US, France, Canada or elsewhere have their own culture, or modified culture without any reluctance. Unlike Saudi Arabia, where women are taken care of, the women living in other nations have to learn to live on their own, earn their own and support their kids if they have to, and their culture should be based on their needs and not the needs of Saudi Arabia.

Shame on those parents who make their daughters dependent on men, and when that man dies, or runs off – it puts the woman in a difficult situation. Is that how the parents care for their daughters?  She should be free and able to handle her own affairs. The prophet had said to Fatima, you will not get a free ticket to paradise just because you are my daughter; you have to earn it like everyone else.

If a woman is trained to live in segregation how would she handle in situations when her father, brother, husband or son is not around. Love is not making a dependent out of the loved ones. If we love, yes, if we love our loved ones, we make them independent, free and able to stand on their own in contingencies with the least suffering.

By the way the stories are similar with Sikhs, Hindus, Jains,  Christians and others from Asia.

Mike Ghouse is a speaker , thinker and a writer on pluralism , politics , peace, Islam , Israel , India , interfaith , and cohesion at work place. He is committed to building a Cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day at www.TheGhousediary.com . He believes in Standing up for others and has done that throughout his life as an activist. Mike has a presence on national and local TV, Radio and Print Media. He is a frequent guest on Sean Hannity show on Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he contributes weekly to the Texas Faith Column at Dallas Morning News ; fortnightly at Huffington post; and several other periodicals across the world. His personal site www.MikeGhouse.net indexes all his work through many links.

By Chris Hedges

25 November, 2013

@ TruthDig.com

With the folly of the human race—and perhaps its unconscious lust for self-annihilation—on display at the U.N. Climate Talks in Warsaw, it is easy to succumb to despair. The world’s elite, it is painfully clear, will do little to halt the accelerating destruction of the ecosystem and eventually the human species. We have, through our ingenuity and hubris, unleashed the next great mass extinction on the planet. And I suspect the reason we have never discovered signs of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe is because extraterrestrial societies that achieved similar levels of technological development also destroyed themselves. There are probably more wreckages of advanced civilizations, cursed by poisoned ecosystems, floating through the universe than we imagine.

The death spiral we face means that resistance will increasingly break down along two lines—those who have children and those who do not. It is one thing to sacrifice one’s self. It is another to sacrifice one’s children. No matter how grim and apocalyptic the world becomes, a parent is compelled to protect his or her child. One cannot totally give up hope. When resistance becomes an act of almost certain futility and suicide, and this is what is fast approaching, violent confrontation will mean the extermination of your children. And that is too much to ask of a parent. Parents—and I am one—do not make great revolutionaries. We have to go home to put a child to bed. Those who do not have children more easily rise up. Most parents, for this reason, are able to embrace only nonviolent protest. And nonviolent mass protest offers, as long as we remain in a period of relative stability, our best hope. Resorting to violence would, right now, make things worse. But as societies unravel, as desperation becomes worldwide, both nonviolence and violence will do little to alter our impending self-destruction. In the coming struggle against the global corporate elite there will be two sets of priorities—those of parents and those of fighters. These differing priorities will have to be respected if we are to build a cohesive movement. There are some things a mother or a father cannot, and perhaps should not, do.

The dichotomy between the role of parents and the role of fighters in times of extremity was delineated in Hanna Krall’s remarkable book “Shielding the Flame,” a narrative that drew on the experience of Dr. Marek Edelman, who when he died in 2009 was the last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Edelman, 23 years old when he helped lead the April 1943 uprising, refused to hold up his actions as more moral than those who walked with their children to the gas chambers. After all, he said, by the time of the uprising he and the other resistance fighters knew that “it was only a choice as to the manner of dying.”

The uprising lasted three weeks, ending when the Germans razed the Warsaw Ghetto. Edelman was the only commander of the uprising to come out alive. He escaped through the sewers and was carried away from the ghetto on a stretcher by some of the few remaining members of the underground, posing as members of the Polish Red Cross. A sign reading “Typhus” was placed on his body, and the terror of that disease among the German soldiers ensured his passage through checkpoints. One of the women carrying the stretcher, Dr. Alina Margolis, later became Edelman’s wife. During part of the 1979-1992 war in El Salvador, Margolis lived in my house in San Salvador. She was working in a refugee camp for Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders, an organization she helped found. She and Edelman were fierce anti-Zionists, publicly denounced Israel’s occupation and repression of the Palestinians, and defended the right of Palestinian people to resist that occupation, even through violence. They saw in the Palestinian struggle their own fight against German occupation during World War II. I deeply respected them.

“… [T]o die in a gas chamber is by no means worse than to die in battle, and … the only undignified death is when one attempts to survive at the expense of somebody else,” Edelman told Krall. He said of parents and children who were deported to the death camps: “Those people went quietly and with dignity. It is a horrendous thing, when one is going so quietly to one’s death. It is infinitely more difficult than to go out shooting. After all, it is much easier to die firing—for us it was much easier to die than it was for someone who first boarded a train car, then rode the train, then dug a hole, then undressed naked. …”

And yet, at the same time, Edelman noted that everyone, even the young ghetto fighters, needed “somebody to act for, somebody to be the center of his life.” To be totally alone was to be drained of purpose and meaning. This was true even for those who faced certain death. “To be with someone was the only way to survive in the Ghetto,” he told Krall. “One would secret oneself somewhere with the other person—in a bed, in a basement, anywhere—and until the next action one was not alone anymore. One person had had his mother taken away, somebody else’s father had been shot and killed, or a sister taken away in a shipment. So if someone, somehow, by some miracle escaped and was still alive, he had to stick to some other living human being. People were drawn to one another as never before, as never in moral life. During the last liquidation action they would run to the Jewish Council in search of a rabbi or anybody who could marry them, and then they would go to the Umschlagplatz [where Jews were forced to gather for transportation to the death camps] as a married couple.”

“When one knows death so well, one has more responsibility for life,” he said. “Any, even the smallest chance for life becomes extremely important. A chance for death was there all the while. The important thing was to make a chance for life.”

Edelman noted the collective self-delusion that prohibited the Jews in the ghetto—as it prohibits us—from facing their fate, even as the transports were taking thousands daily to the Nazi death camp Treblinka. The Germans handed out oblong, brown loaves of rye bread to those lining up outside the trains. Those clutching the loaves, desperately hungry and overjoyed with receiving the food, willingly climbed into the railway carriages. In 1942 the underground sent a spy to follow the trains. He returned to the ghetto and reported, in the words of Krall’s book, that “every day a freight train with people would pass that way [to Treblinka] and return empty, but food supplies were never sent there.” His account was written up in the underground ghetto newspaper, but, as Edelman remarked, “nobody believed it.” “ ‘Have you gone insane?’ people would say when we were trying to convince them that they were not being taken to work,” Edelman remembered. “ ‘Would they be sending us to death with bread? So much bread would be wasted!’ ”

Edelman castigated the head of the Jewish Council, Adam Czerniaków, for committing suicide. The official killed himself by swallowing cyanide on July 23, 1942, the day after the mass deportation of the Jews to Treblinka began. “There was only one man who could have declared the truth out loud: Czerniaków,” Edelman said. “They would have believed him. But he had committed suicide. That wasn’t right: one should die with a bang. At that time this bang was most needed—one should die only after having called other people into the struggle.” Edelman went on to say that Czerniaków’s suicide was the “only thing we reproach him for.”

“We?” Krall asked.

“Me and my friends,” Edelman said. “The dead ones. We reproach him for having made his death his own private business. We were convinced that it was necessary to die publically, under the world’s eyes.”

Traditional concepts of right and wrong, Edelman pointed out, collapse in moments of extremity. Edelman spoke to Krall about a woman doctor in the ghetto hospital who poisoned the sick children on her ward as the Germans entered the building. “She saved children from the gas chamber,” Edelman said. “People thought she was a hero. So what, then, in that world turned upside down, was heroism? Or honor? Or dignity? And where was God?”

Edelman answered his own question. God, he said, was on the side of the persecutors. A malicious God. And Edelman said that as a heart surgeon in Poland after the war he felt he was always battling against this malevolent deity who sought to extinguish life. “God is trying to blow out the candle and I’m quickly trying to shield the flame, taking advantage of His brief inattention.”

“He is not terribly just. It can also be very satisfying because whenever something does work out, it means you have, after all, fooled Him.”

The forces of life, including the ecosystem, are being transformed into forces of death. The monster Typhoon Haiyan is only one of the first tragedies. Nature and global elites seeking to exploit the planet’s last drops of blood and its repressed masses are joining to make the days of descent squalid and terrifying. And in this extremity we will have to find our place. There will come a time, if there is no radical change, when we too will be forced to choose how we will die, whom we will cling to, what we will risk. There will be no moral hierarchy to resistance. We will be pulled one way or another by fate and love. And these different routes of resistance will all be legitimate as long as we do not, as Edelman said, attempt “to survive at the expense of somebody else.”

Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com. Hedges graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He is the author of many books, including: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, What Every Person Should Know About War, and American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. His most recent book is Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.

© 2013 TruthDig.com