The American people and the world must see that corporations have abandoned them

 

 

© 2014

Capitalism simply isn't working and here are the reasons why

Suddenly, there is a new economist making waves – and he is not on the right. At the conference of the Institute of New Economic Thinking in Toronto last week,

Thomas Piketty

Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the Twenty-First Century got at least one mention at every session I attended. You have to go back to the 1970s and Milton Friedman for a single economist to have had such an impact.

Economist Thomas Piketty's message is bleak: the gap between rich and poor threatens to destroy us

Like Friedman, Piketty is a man for the times. For 1970s anxieties about inflation substitute today's concerns about the emergence of the plutocratic rich and their impact on economy and society. Piketty is in no doubt, as he indicates in an interview in today's Observer New Review, that the current level of rising wealth inequality, set to grow still further, now imperils the very future of capitalism. He has proved it.

It is a startling thesis and one extraordinarily unwelcome to those who think capitalism and inequality need each other. Capitalism requires inequality of wealth, runs this right-of-centre argument, to stimulate risk-taking and effort; governments trying to stem it with taxes on wealth, capital, inheritance and property kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Thus Messrs Cameron and Osborne faithfully champion lower inheritance taxes, refuse to reshape the council tax and boast about the business-friendly low capital gains and corporation tax regime.

Piketty deploys 200 years of data to prove them wrong. Capital, he argues, is blind. Once its returns – investing in anything from buy-to-let property to a new car factory – exceed the real growth of wages and output, as historically they always have done (excepting a few periods such as 1910 to 1950), then inevitably the stock of capital will rise disproportionately faster within the overall pattern of output. Wealth inequality rises exponentially.

The process is made worse by inheritance and, in the US and UK, by the rise of extravagantly paid "super managers". High executive pay has nothing to do with real merit, writes Piketty – it is much lower, for example, in mainland Europe and Japan. Rather, it has become an Anglo-Saxon social norm permitted by the ideology of "meritocratic extremism", in essence, self-serving greed to keep up with the other rich. This is an important element in Piketty's thinking: rising inequality of wealth is not immutable. Societies can indulge it or they can challenge it.

Inequality of wealth in Europe and US is broadly twice the inequality of income – the top 10% have between 60% and 70% of all wealth but merely 25% to 35% of all income. But this concentration of wealth is already at pre-First World War levels, and heading back to those of the late 19th century, when the luck of who might expect to inherit what was the dominant element in economic and social life. There is an iterative interaction between wealth and income: ultimately, great wealth adds unearned rentier income to earned income, further ratcheting up the inequality process.

The extravagances and incredible social tensions of Edwardian England, belle epoque France and robber baron America seemed for ever left behind, but Piketty shows how the period between 1910 and 1950, when that inequality was reduced, was aberrant. It took war and depression to arrest the inequality dynamic, along with the need to introduce high taxes on high incomes, especially unearned incomes, to sustain social peace. Now the ineluctable process of blind capital multiplying faster in fewer hands is under way again and on a global scale. The consequences, writes Piketty, are "potentially terrifying". More

 

© 2014

China tortured Tibetan prisoner with pain-inducing injections

The Dharamshala, India based Tibetan rights group says the Chinese police and prison authorities brutally tortured a Tibetan political prisoner in detention, using pain-inducing injections.

Goshul Lobsang

"Goshul Lobsang, who recently died of torture injuries, might have received injections designed to cause and exacerbate his pain while he was being tortured in detention. The use of torture methods to increase pain is consistent with other Chinese torture tactics. For example, the Chinese adopted Soviet torture techniques to inflict pain faster," said Tsering Tsomo, director of the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD).

"Goshul Lobsang was arrested on 29 June 2010[ii] by Machu County Public Security Bureau (PSB) officers. For about 5 months he was subjected to severe torture including pain-inducing injections, and deprived of sleep and food by the interrogation officers in Machu County," the report said, citing with a source who hails from the same village as Goshul Lobsang.

"Chinese officers used sharp-pointed objects such as toothpicks to repeatedly pierce and penetrate into the tops of his finger nails and cuticles of Goshul Lobsang. This stabbing, applied with force and consistency, resulted in severe bleeding, swelling and pain making Goshul Lobsang unable to temporarily use his hands," another source told group.

Normally, the use of techniques to make torture more painful does not result in any further violations of international law. This is because the fundamental question under international law is whether a person was tortured, not how much the victim was tortured. However, in 1974 the UN General Assembly passed a resolution on Principles of Medical Ethics. While not legally binding on its own, the resolution recognized and emphasized a pre-existing rule of international law—that nobody is allowed to participate in torture. The resolution emphasized that medical professionals should not use their unique knowledge or position to facilitate torture.

The use of pain-inducing injections on Golshul Lobsang to facilitate and expedite his torture was not only a violation of international law but also an extreme violation of medical ethics. The widespread and systematic torture in Chinese prisons cannot exist without the active and implied consent of medical professionals. The medical professionals working in Chinese prisons should use Golshul Lobsang's death and the participation of medical professionals in his death as an opportunity to support medical ethics and oppose torture.

The group said they has also obtained a copy of a note written by Goshul Lobsang while he was imprisoned at Ding Xi (??) city in Gansu Province. Goshul Lobsang shared the note which he had written on 28 September 2012 with a select group of friends on 1 March 2014, just weeks before his death. In the note titled "Prisoner of Clear Conscience", Goshul Lobsang clearly challenges the official Chinese propaganda that Tibetan activists are criminals deserving to be imprisoned. Instead he asserts that his conscience is clear and that he has no regrets for defying authoritarian, oppressive policies. Below is a translation of the note:

Prisoner of Clear Conscience

"I have a family. I have siblings. I have a wife and children. For them, I have sincere love and affection, and for the sake of this love and affection, I am determined to sacrifice my life. But for the sake of our own people, even if I lose this love and affection, I will have no regrets. I am an ordinary nomad who loves his people, so I am willing to do anything for my people. I might lose this bony and haggard body that has suffered brutal pain and torture inflicted out of sheer hatred, I still will not have any regrets. I have the desire to follow in the footsteps of martyrs who expressed everything through flaming fire, but I lack courage [to do such a thing].

However, I don't have the desire to bow my head in surrender to an environment, which denies freedom to speak out against lies and to struggle for equality. [Therefore], I fell into such a situation [of torture and suffering], for which I, an ordinary nomad, have no regrets. What I desire is a free world wherein people can enjoy a life of harmony – I don't want an atmosphere of darkness, a society wherein life is subjected to oppression.

I have no regrets, although all of a sudden, I may be compelled to separate from the path of life that [I have been treading along] with my beloved mother, siblings, wife and children. I may have to depart with [feelings] of cold, heavy sadness, but I have no sense of guilt in my heart.

My clear conscience is my only asset in this world. I don't possess anything other than this, and I don't need anything other than this.

[But] my only regret that weighs heavily on my heart is the lack of profound sense of solidarity among our people, because of which we are unable to achieve a strong unified stand.

Fellow countrymen, we must have a far-sighted [political] vision and strong unity. We must have a strong sense of faith in our culture and tradition, and a sense of gratitude to those who have contributed so much to our nation.

Fellow countrymen of the Land of Snows, we must all uphold unity. May this unity be sustained for tens of thousands of years!"

Goshul Lobsang,28 September 2012,Dingxi, Gansu

According to sources in the region, Goshul Lobsang led a difficult life, harassed by the local authorities since his return from India in mid-1990s. He went to India in 1992 to study in a Tibetan school. He was first detained in late 1990s when many leaflets apparently calling for freedom appeared in Machu area. He never accepted the accusations and the Machu County PSB officers had to release him for lack of evidence. However, he continued to be under police surveillance making it difficult for him to lead a normal life. Thereafter, for some time, he left for Lhasa and other areas but later returned to teach English to fellow nomads and neighbourhood children.

During the 2008 uprising, Goshul Lobsang took part in the protests that rocked Machu area for three consecutive days beginning 17 March. He even hoisted a Tibetan flag outside his nomad tent in defiance of the Chinese authorities.

In January 2009, when leaflets calling on Tibetans not to celebrate ostentatious Losar (Tibetan New Year) and the local authorities to stop colluding with human traffickers appeared in Machu, Goshul Lobsang and others shared these incidents on the popular Chinese instant messaging site known as QQ. The authorities had one more reason for target Goshul Lobsang after this incident.

On 10 April 2009, fed up with the authorities' constant harassment of local Tibetans since the 2008 protests in Machu, Goshul Lobsang and some other Tibetans confronted the local officials in an attempt to clarify the matter. Instead of engaging in civil talks, the police officers started beating Goshul Lobsang and another Tibetan, Dakpa. The severe beatings prompted around 400 local Tibetans to directly confront the police, with some locals raising protest slogans and throwing stones. As the matter escalated, the police had no choice but to temporarily let go of Goshul Lobsang and Dakpa.

But the local authorities were firm in their resolve to arrest Goshul Lobsang as soon as possible but they did not want to antagonise the whole community. Therefore, on 12 April 2009, local authorities called a meeting of major village leaders in Bhelpan Township and served them an ultimatum to surrender the five ringleaders of the 2008 protests including Goshul Lobsang. It was around this time that Goshul Lobsang took to the mountains to escape arrest. He spent about a year in wilderness without any access to basic necessities including food and medication.

On 29 June 2010, Goshul Lobsang was arrested by the Machu County PSB who held him for about five months in Machu County. On 26 November 2010, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Kanlho (Ch: Gannan) Intermediate People's Court and imprisoned at Ding Xi, about 100 km from Lanzhou.

He remained in prison for about three years in extreme health condition. By November 2013, the state of his health alarmed the prison officials who decided that Goshul Lobsang should not die in prison. Shortly after, Goshul Lobsang's family members were called to fetch him but on the condition that they signed a letter stating that Goshul Lobsang's medical condition was caused by natural causes. The family had no choice but to sign the letter because they knew Goshul Lobsang wouldn't survive long and they wanted him to spend his last moments at his home. He was released on 29 November 2013.

On 19 March 2014, at around 1 am, Goshul Lobsang died surrounded by his family members. He was cremeted on 26 March 2014. He is survived by his mother Tardon, 73, wife Tarpey, 39, son Sherab, 18, daughter Dolma, 14, and unidentified siblings. More

 

© 2014

Former American officials accuse Israel of breaching international law

For the first time, six former senior American officials issued a statement candidly accusing Israel of breaching international law and undermining peace talks.

Zbigniew Brezinski,

The statement came after a speech by the US secretary of state in Congress, in which he blamed Israel for delaying and meddling with negotiations because of its retreat from the release of the fourth batch of veteran Palestinian prisoners.

Former US national security advisor Zbigniew Brezinski, former US defence minister Frank Carlucci, chairman and ranking member of the house committee on foreign affairs Lee Hamilton, former secretary of housing and urban development Carla Hills, retired US ambassador Thomas Pickering and former national director of the American Jewish Congress Henry Siegman signed the statement.

These former officials called on US Secretary of State John Kerry to stop brokering Palestinian-Israeli peace talks in order to compel Israel to comply with international law.

They also objected to recognising Israel as a Jewish state and stressed the right of the Palestinians to stick to their vision of historical Palestine, as well as calling on the American administration to keep away from this issue.

According to Alarab Alyawm, which reported the news, the high-ranking American figures called for an end to stealing Palestinian land to build Israeli settlements. They also rejected the Israeli security justifications to continue its occupation of the Jordan Valley. More

© 2014

France’s main Jewish group fined for defaming Palestine charity

France’s highest appeal court has ordered the country’s major Jewish organization to pay damages for falsely claiming that a charity supporting Palestinians collected money for Hamas.

The 11 March judgment from the Court of Cassation in the northeastern city of Nancy was first reported by the website Al Kanz this week.

In June 2010, CRIF, the main umbrella group for Jewish organizations in France, published an article by Marc Knobel alleging that the Committee for Charity and Assistance to the Palestinians – known by its French initials CBSP – was actually raising money for Hamas.

The article was published days after Israeli forces stormed the ship Mavi Marmara, which was part of a flotilla to Gaza, in international waters, and murdered nine civilians.

Youcef Benderbal, a CBSP official, was aboard the ship and among hundreds of passengers forcibly taken to the Israeli-controlled port of Ashdod.

In the days before and after the massacre, the Israeli government engaged in intense propaganda efforts to portray the people aboard the flotilla as dangerous extremists and terrorists.

According to its own website, CBSP, founded in 1990, supports initiatives for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan and such projects as constructing water purification equipment for Gaza.

Defamation

Knobel has worked with a number of Jewish communal and pro-Israel organizations in France, including the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and is described by CRIFas its chief researcher.

Knobel has written a number of articles attacking the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement and has called on French authorities to prosecute BDS activists – something the country’s judicial authorities have done vigorously.

The court ruled that the Knobel article’s “accusation that CBSP was collecting money for Hamas is defamatory” because no evidence had been provided to support the allegations, which had also been previously spread by the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

The judgment also found that the article’s claim that CBSP had been defined as a “radical” organization by French authorities was false, and therefore “defamatory.”

The court ordered the CRIF researchers who wrote and published the article to pay CBSP a total of 3,000 euros ($4,200) in damages.

The defamatory article has been removed from CRIF’s website.

CRIF controversy

CRIF has been involved in spreading false allegations on other occasions.

One year ago, CRIF president Richard Prasquier apologized for spreading the “false news” that Israeli film director Yariv Horowitz was “lynched” during a visit to France in what was widely claimed to be an anti-Semitic attack by “Arabs.”

Attack on Palestine groups

The defamatory CRIF article resembles a similar attack, also launched in 2010, against the Palestinian Return Centre (PRC), an advocacy organization in London.

As The Electronic Intifada reported, the Israeli army published claims – without any substantiation – accusing PRC of being a “Hamas affiliate” that was “involved in initiating and organizing radical and violent activity against Israel in Europe.”

As I note in my book, UK authorities said they never received any information from Israel supporting these claims and never took any action against PRC.

That smear campaign was part of Israel’s strategy of “sabotage” and “attack”against the Palestine solidarity movement.

CRIF’s false allegations against CBSP look like they were part of a similar initiative aimed at discrediting civil society groups that keep Israel’s crimes against Palestinians in the public eye. More

 

© 2014

'This Is Not Over': Gulf Life Still Reeling From Toxic BP Spill

Report on four year anniversary of worst oil disaster in US history details fourteen ailing species, and raises the question of

"What should be the legal liability for polluting the Global Commons'?

Nearly four years after BP's Deepwater Horizon oil catastrophe, plants, animals, and fish in the Gulf of Mexico are still reeling from the toxic spill, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Wildlife Federation.

The report, which arrives just ahead of the disaster's anniversary, examined 14 species of wildlife in the Gulf and found ongoing impacts of the disaster that could last for decades.

"Four years later, wildlife in the Gulf are still feeling the impacts of the spill," said Doug Inkley, senior scientist for the National Wildlife Federation. "Bottlenose dolphins in oiled areas are still sick and dying and the evidence is stronger than ever that these deaths are connected to the Deepwater Horizon. The science is telling us that this is not over."

According to the findings, in 2013 dolphins were dying at three times normal rates, with many suffering from "unusual lung damage" and immune system problems.

In addition to the ongoing plight of dolphins in Gulf waters, the researchers found that every year for the past three years roughly five hundred dead sea turtles are found near the spill, "a dramatic increase over normal rates." These sea turtles only recently recovered from near extinction—a recovery that has now been drastically threatened by the spill.

"The Kemp’s ridley sea turtle has long been the poster child for the possibilities of restoration in the Gulf," said Pamela Plotkin, associate research professor of oceanography at Texas A&M University and director of Texas Sea Grant. "Once close to extinction, it has rebounded dramatically over the past thirty years. But four years ago, the numbers of Kemp’s ridley appear to have flat-lined. We need to monitor this species carefully, as the next few years will be critical."

According to the report, sperm whales in the area are showing higher levels of "DNA-damaging metals" than others in other parts of the world—"metals that were present in oil from BP’s well."

In addition, deep sea coral colonies, which "provide a foundation for a diverse assortment of marine life," within seven miles from the site of the spill, were still "heavily impacted."

Other findings, as stated by the group, include:

• Oyster reproduction remained low over large areas of the northern Gulf at least through the fall of 2012.
• A chemical in oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill has been shown to cause irregular heartbeats in bluefin and yellowfin tuna that can lead to heart attacks, or even death.
• Loons that winter on the Louisiana coast have increasing concentrations of toxic oil compounds in their blood.

"Despite what BP would have you believe, the impacts of the disaster are ongoing," said Sara Gonzalez-Rothi, the National Wildlife Federation’s senior policy specialist for Gulf and coastal restoration. "Last year, nearly five million pounds of oiled material from the disaster were removed from Louisiana’s coast. And that’s just what we’ve seen. An unknown amount of oil remains deep in the Gulf."

The Gulf oil disaster—which is the worst in U.S. history—"will likely unfold for years or even decades," NWF writes. "It is essential that careful monitoring of the Gulf ecosystem continue and that mitigation of damages and restoration of degraded and weakened ecosystems begin as soon as possible."

Despite the ongoing travesty the Environmental Protection Agency announced last month that it removed its ban on BP contracts in the U.S. and new drilling leases, including in the Gulf of Mexico.

Shortly after, the oil giant won bids to start new drilling operations in two dozen separate locations, a total pricetag of $54 million.

______________________

Given that the oceans are one continous body of water that encircle the globe, and furthermore that ocean currents will eventually spread the pollutants mentioned above around the world, affecting all inhabitants of the planet, I would argue that all States / countries would be justified in suing BP. Until we can implement Ecocide as the Fifth Crime Against Peace under the Treaty of Rome this may be the only way to stop the destruction of the ecosystem that all living things on Earth are dependant of for their survival. Editor

 

© 2014

Exxon Mobil's response to climate change is consummate arrogance

Monday saw the release of the latest climate report from the planet’s scientists.Predictions of famine, flood, and so on – mostly what we already knew, in even more striking language.

But Monday also saw the release of another document somewhat less expected, and probably at least as important in the ongoing battle over the future of the atmosphere and hence all of us who live in its narrow envelope.

Exxon Mobil said: 'we are confident that none of our hydrocarbon reserves are now or will become ‘stranded''

Here’s the backstory. For 18 months now some of us have been campaigning for colleges, churches, cities and the like to sell their shares in fossil fuel companies, on the grounds that their business plans call for burning far more carbon than scientists believe the planet can safely handle. It’s become the fastest growing divestment movement in history — but some have tried to reach out to the industry and reach a middle ground instead, hoping to reform them instead of simply trying to break their power.

Profound thanks are due, then, to those shareholder activists who urged “constructive engagement” with the oil, gas and coal barons.

Because those organisations, groups like As You Sow, CERES, and the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, managed in very short order to get Exxon Mobil, the leader of the fossil fuel industry, to show its cards. In fact, in a truly historic moment, Exxon Mobil turned over the whole deck — and to its credit it showed it has nothing up its sleeve, no tricky rhetoric or sleight of hand. Just endless amounts of oil and gas.

On Monday the company issued two reports, in formal response to a shareholder resolution that demanded they disclose their carbon risk and talk about how they planned to deal with the fact that they and other oil giants have many times more carbon in their collective reserves than scientists say we can safely burn.

The company said that government restrictions that would force it to keep its reserves in the ground were “highly unlikely,” and that they would not only dig them all up and burn them, but would continue to search for more gas and oil — a search that currently consumes about $100 million of its investors’ money every single day. “Based on this analysis, we are confident that none of our hydrocarbon reserves are now or will become ‘stranded,’” they said.

This is an honest reply. It is as honest as the report that emerged the same day from the world’s climate scientists, which demonstrated that if Exxon Mobil and its ilk keep their promise to dig up their reserves and burn them, then the planet will no longer function effectively.

Some of us, cynically, thought all along that this would be Exxon’s posture. The company, after all, poured millions into denying climate science when that was still possible. That’s why we’ve been calling for divestment.

We’ve never thought that there was a small flaw in their business plan that could be altered by negotiation; we’ve always thought their business plan was to keep pouring carbon into the atmosphere. And indeed Exxon’s statements are easy to translate: “We plan on overheating the planet, we think we have the political muscle to keep doing it, and we dare you to stop it.” And they’re right — unless we build a big and powerful movement, they’ll continue to dominate our political life and keep change from ever taking place.

So now, with that information clearly on the table, it’s time for college boards and foundation heads, church denominations and city mayors to act and act firmly. By divesting — by announcing that they are breaking ties with these companies — they will begin the process of politically bankrupting them. Of taking away the social license that allows them to act with such consummate arrogance, on the very day that the planet’s scientists laid bare the impact of climate change on everything from crop yields to civil wars.

It’s never fun to see one’s cynicism confirmed. But Monday was a day for reality, on the scientific front but also the political, economic, and corporate.

The only open question left is what we’re going to do about it. More

 

© 2014