Is the Occupy movement being hijacked?

After a quiet winter and with a rival group – 99% Spring – emerging, we examine the development of the Occupy movement

After a quiet winter, Occupy Wall Street is gearing up again for a summer of protest. Four months after they were evicted from bases across the country, protesters are emerging once more to camp out in New York’s financial hub.

“I believe the way to change the system is to change it from within as well as on the exterior. We need to bring this to all fronts not just on the outside with our demonstrations … we as [the] American people need to occupy the legislative body.” - Walid Hakim, an Occupy protester running as Democrat, South Carolina

It is a movement that, at its peak, brought hundreds of thousands onto the streets of the US – united by a common anger at the excesses of the financial industry, and a dismay at government unwillingness to rein it in. 

There is a day of mass protest and a general strike planned for May 1. The renewed demonstrations will undoubtedly be accompanied by renewed questions about the movement itself – some say is too unfocused in its objectives.

The Occupy movement tapped into a sense of discontent at the global economic situation and there were many similar demonstrations across the world that preceded it. But the first protest under the ‘Occupy’ banner took place in New York on September 17, 2011.

“Here you have an individual who’s going off and pursuing his own course of action, not in the name of Occupy but in his own name, and again he is an individual and not someone who has powerful connections, resources etc. I also hope that folks in South Carolina and the Occupy movement don’t end up becoming simple campaigners.” - Mike King, an East Bay activist from the University of California, Santa Cruz

By October 2011, the movement had spread across the US with protests in Washington DC, Oakland in California and Cleveland in Ohio, among other places.

At the same time the Occupy protests went global. By mid-October, protests were taking place in hundreds of cities around the world. 

But now a rival group has emerged – called the 99% Spring – which says it wants to train protesters for a campaign of peaceful protest.

Critics have denounced the group as a Democratic Party attempt to galvanise support for President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign. Nonetheless, some former Occupy protesters are now advocating that change should come from within the government itself. 

So with a rival action group emerging, how is the Occupy Wall Street movement developing? Is the movement’s message in danger of getting hijacked by Obama’s re-election campaign?

Inside Story Americas discusses with guests: Nathan Schneider, a writer with The Nation and The New York Times; Karunga Gashusha, a former Wall Street analyst turned Occupy protester; and Mike King, an East Bay activist from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

“This is a real resistance movement and not simply a PR campaign and by this I mean the movement itself. It’s got to go beyond talking about message, it’s got to go beyond changing the conversation. It has to disrupt power, it has to create structures that can challenge the structures of power that are currently in place. And co-option is always a two-way street or it can be. I think this is a case of co-option. These are groups, many of whom are sympathetic to what the Occupy movement has done and now they want to get in on the game. They are never going to be able to do it in a way that is as radical as the [Occupy] movement on their own.”  

Nathan Schneider, a writer with The Nation and The New York Times 

 

FACTS: THE 99% SPRING MOVEMENT

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• It seeks to train people in methods of direct action
• It is sponsored by unions and mainstream democratic groups
• The movement has organised hundreds of training groups between April 9 and April 15
• It intends to target annual shareholders meetings
• It provided pre-made training material for groups
• The group calls for higher taxes on the wealthy in the US and for more rights for workers
• It is supported by dozens of groups including trade unions and organisations like Moveon.org and Greenpeace
• Organisers say it does not seek to co-opt the Occupy movement

Will This Be The Year of an ” AMERICAN” SPRING?? Lessons From the Arab Spring.

The revolution begins at home

The 400 richest Americans amass more than the poorest 180 million Americans

What is occurring on Wall Street right now is truly remarkable. For more than two weeks, in the sanctum of the great cathedral of global capitalism, the dispossessed have liberated territory from the financial overlords and their police army.

They have created a unique opportunity to shift the tides of history in the tradition of other great peaceful occupations from the sit-down strikes of the 1930s to the lunch-counter sit-ins of the 1960s to the democratic uprisings across the Arab world and Europe today.

While the Wall Street occupation is growing, it needs an all-out commitment from everyone who cheered the Egyptians in Tahrir Square, said “We are all Wisconsin”, and stood in solidarity with the Greeks and Spaniards. This is a movement for anyone who lacks a job, housing or healthcare, or thinks they have no future.

Our system is broken at every level. More than 25 million Americans are unemployed. More than 50 million live without health insurance. And perhaps 100 million Americans are mired in poverty, using realistic measures. Yet the fat cats continue to get tax breaks and reap billions while politicians compete to turn the austerity screws on all of us.

Real potential

At some point the number of people occupying Wall Street – whether that’s five thousand, ten thousand or fifty thousand – will force the powers that be to offer concessions. No one can say how many people it will take or even how things will change exactly, but there is a real potential for bypassing a corrupt political process and to begin realising a society based on human needs not hedge fund profits.

In-depth coverage of the global movement

After all, who would have imagined a year ago that Tunisians and Egyptians would oust their dictators?

At Liberty Park, the nerve centre of the occupation, more than a thousand people gather every day to debate, discuss and organise what to do about our failed system that has allowed the400 richest Americans at the top to amass more wealth than the 180 million Americans at the bottom.

It’s astonishing that this self-organised festival of democracy has sprouted on the turf of the masters of the universe, the men who play the tune that both political parties and the media dance to. The New York Police Department, which has deployed hundreds of officers at a time to surround and intimidate protesters, is capable of arresting everyone and clearing Liberty Plaza in minutes. But they haven’t, which is also astonishing.

Growing attention

That’s because assaulting peaceful crowds in a public square demanding real democracy – economic and not just political – would remind the world of the brittle autocrats who brutalised their people demanding justice before they were swept away by the Arab Spring. And the state violence has already backfired. After police attacked a Saturday afternoon march that started from Liberty Park the crowds only got bigger and media interest grew. 

The Wall Street occupation has already succeeded in revealing the bankruptcy of the dominant powers – the economic, the political, media and security forces. They have nothing positive to offer humanity, not that they ever did for the Global South, but now their quest for endless profits means deepening the misery with a thousand austerity cuts.

Even their solutions are cruel jokes. They tell us that the “Buffett Rule” would spread the pain by asking the penthouse set to sacrifice a tin of caviar, which is what the proposed tax increase would amount to. Meanwhile, the rest of us will have to sacrifice healthcare, food, education, housing, jobs and perhaps our lives to sate the ferocious appetite of capital.

That’s why more and more people are joining the Wall Street occupation. They can tell you about their homes being foreclosed upon, months of grinding unemployment or minimum-wage dead-end jobs, staggering student debt loads, or trying to live without decent healthcare. It’s a whole generation of Americans with no prospects, but who are told to believe in a system that can only offer them Dancing With The Stars and pepper spray to the face.

Yet against every description of a generation derided as narcissistic, apathetic and hopeless they are staking a claim to a better future for all of us.

That’s why we all need to join in. Not just by liking it on Facebook, signing a petition at change.org or retweeting protest photos, but by going down to the occupation itself.

There is great potential here. Sure, it’s a far cry from Tahrir Square or even Wisconsin. But there is the nucleus of a revolt that could shake America’s power structure as much as the Arab world has been upended.

Instead of one to two thousand people a day joining in the occupation there needs to be tens of thousands of people protesting the fat cats driving Bentleys and drinking thousand-dollar bottles of champagne with money they looted from the financial crisis and then from the bailouts while Americans literally die on the streets.

To be fair, the scene in Liberty Plaza seems messy and chaotic. But it’s also a laboratory of possibility, and that’s the beauty of democracy. As opposed to our monoculture world, where political life is flipping a lever every four years, social life is being a consumer and economic life is being a timid cog, the Wall Street occupation is creating a polyculture of ideas, expression and art.

Yet while many people support the occupation, they hesitate to fully join in and are quick to offer criticism. It’s clear that the biggest obstacles to building a powerful movement are not the police or capital – it’s our own cynicism and despair.

‘Pantomime progressivism’

Perhaps their views were coloured by the New York Times article deriding protestors for wishing to “pantomime progressivism” and “Gunning for Wall Street with faulty aim”. Many of the criticisms boil down to “a lack of clear messaging.”

But what’s wrong with that? A fully formed movement is not going to spring from the ground. It has to be created. And who can say what exactly needs to be done? We are not talking about ousting a dictator; though some say we want to oust the dictatorship of capital.

There are plenty of sophisticated ideas out there: end corporate personhood; institute a “Tobin Tax” on stock purchases and currency trading; nationalise banks; socialise medicine; fully fund government jobs and genuine Keynesian stimulus; lift restrictions on labour organising; allow cities to turn foreclosed homes into public housing; build a green energy infrastructure.

But how can we get broad agreement on any of these? If the protesters came into the square with a pre-determined set of demands it would have only limited their potential. They would have either been dismissed as pie in the sky – such as socialised medicine or nationalising banks – or if they went for weak demands such as the Buffett Rule, their efforts would immediately be absorbed by a failed political system, thus undermining the movement.

That’s why the building of the movement has to go hand in hand with common struggle, debate and radical democracy. It’s how we will create genuine solutions that have legitimacy. And that is what is occurring down at Wall Street.

Now, there are endless objections one can make. But if we focus on the possibilities, and shed our despair, our hesitancy and our cynicism, and collectively come to Wall Street with critical thinking, ideas and solidarity, we can change the world.

How many times in your life do you get a chance to watch history unfold, to actively participate in building a better society, to come together with thousands of people where genuine democracy is the reality and not a fantasy?

For too long our minds have been chained by fear, by division, by impotence. The one thing the elite fear most is a great awakening. That day is here. Together we can seize it.

The US Facing another Economic “Titanic” Failure

Are we on the deck of another Titanic?

The US housing bubble is what caused the global economic meltdown, but politicians are still dawdling.

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s TARP legislation reportedly helped just 30,000 people

 

New York, NY - Are we in a countdown to an economic collapse?

 

The other day, I was in a restroom papered over with pages of the New York Times from the Great Depression. It was very eerie – some of the stories sounded very contemporary.

 

Every day we seem to be reading about new waves of layoffs and cutbacks, when we hoped to be reading about new jobs and recovery.

 

Sony just announced it will “shed” ten thousand jobs worldwide (is that like a sheep shedding wool?). That’s six per cent of its staff. Yahoo has also announced thousands of layoffs. Maybe, Facebook will offer us one its pricey new infographics showing where all the jobs are going.

 

Last week, world stock markets were in the toilet, with European markets leading the descent. Corporate profits are said to be way down.

 

Not surprisingly, writing in the Financial Times, billionaire moneyman George Soros now sounds like a very worried man:

 

“Far from abating, the euro crisis has recently taken a turn for the worse. The European Central Bank relieved an incipient credit crunch through its longer-term refinancing operations. The resulting rally in financial markets hid an underlying deterioration; but that is unlikely to last much longer.

“The fundamental problems have not been resolved; indeed, the gap between creditor and debtor countries continues to widen. The crisis has entered what may be a less volatile but more lethal phase.”

 

That’s another term to worry about - ”lethal”.

 

In the US, the Republicans are about to dump $200 million dollars into partisan TV commercials to blame Obama for the whole crisis, as if one politician can press a button and order the intricate global capitalist system to rise and fall.

 

At the same time, their failure to pass any legislation that can ameliorate the crisis has been motivated by kamikaze politics driven by the desire to bring Obama down, no matter the cost to the public.

 

The only new economic initiative they and the Democrats have agreed to is a so-called JOBS act that many experts fear will neutralise financial regulations and lead to a new wave of financial crime.

 

That doesn’t mean that Obama doesn’t share responsibility by what he’s done, or failed to do.

 

For example: The total failure of Obama and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to help homeowners in distress. TheTARP bill, allegedly, was not just for bank bailouts, but for mortgage relief. Thanks to incompetence, only 30,000 people were helped over two years – despite the millions in, or facing, foreclosure. That is a disgrace.

 

The International Monetary Fund, aware that it was the US housing disaster that was behind the international financial meltdown, is appealing to Washington to provide mortgage relief as a global economic priority.

 

Reports the Washington Post: “Ahead of the IMF’s spring meetings next week, agency analysts have been warning that household debt - in particular, mortgages that are in default or that exceed the value of the borrower’s home – is dragging down growth in developed countries at a time when the global economy is struggling to revive.”

 

But, even if anyone in Washington is listening, there’s no evidence that they have had the capacity or commitment to act after all these years. They were too busy on the campaign trail recently, focused on the so-called Buffett Rule reforms that don’t go far enough – and were rejected by the Senate anyway.

 

Romney is even more of a joke. His cowboy capitalist antics in the private equity markets diverted millions into his own pocket. And now he backs the Ryan budget which proposes taking an axe to all government programmes with no new jobs or revenue in sight.

 

Both parties may have been complicit in creating this mess, but it is that corporate party with no logo that is to blame, whatever accusations the politicians bandy about.

 

I asked the Canadian economist Leo Panitch about how this unnamed corporate “party” operates, and he assured me it’s a system thing, not just a matter of decisions made by a conspiratorial elite.

 

“Globalisation is not a matter of markets escaping states,” he told me. He continued:

 

“It’s states that make markets, that free markets, that organise markets, and that when a crisis happens, as they inevitably do, take the responsibility not for preventing those crises which they can do, but containing them.

“I don’t think there’s an external force controlling the American state. The American state is capitalist to its core in the very way it’s organised. If you put Danny Schechter on top of the Federal Reserve, the Federal Reserve would keep on doing what it’s doing, right? We need a very differently organised Federal Reserve.

“So we need to restructure the capitalist state so that it functions in a way that doesn’t reproduce capitalism and capitalist-socialist relations. It doesn’t do it because there’s too much influence from Wall Street. It does it because it is structurally embedded with Wall Street … the state is structured to be reproducing their power and authority in the society.”

 

At the same time, the so-called free market state is more involved in backing capitalism than protecting the people a democratic state should be protecting, and that is irrespective of political party.

 

What’s pathetic is that the media rarely explains why we are in the situation we are in – that is how the ruling forces in our so-called “free enterprise” system encourage policies that transfer wealth away from the working class and the middle class in the US, and into their own pockets.

 

At the same time, Occupy Wall Street seems to be banking on a general strike it hopes to pull off on May Day. Not a few political observers worry that calling for a massive shut down at this point is premature – and not the same as having the organisational network to pull it off. 

 

Rhetoric and reality may be at odds here.

 

The movement still seems a bit lost after it lost its base camps in parks across the country. It is hard to be an Occupy Movement with nothing being occupied – and no strategy for mobilising the mainstream of the 99 per cent.

 

As activists take to sleeping on sidewalks on Wall Street, some of their boosters at the Canadian magazineAdbusters are calling for a “fight to the finish”, not against the upholders of the status quo in the one per cent, but against those who don’t subscribe fully enough to their anarchist principles and theories of “horizontalism”. This litmus test is a prescription for a serious schism.

 

With the only opposition focused on economic inequality about to be divided, and politicians focused on power games, the real problems of the “lethal” future that George Soros fears may be drawing near.

 

Like the Titanic that sank a hundred years ago this week, the western economy is facing icebergs it doesn’t want to see or navigate around.

China, Africa, Sudan but the West Has No Strategic Plan For Any of Them

China: A force for peace in Sudan?

Beijing has invested billions in the oil-rich country and may now have to step up to ensure stability prevails.

While southern leaders want political independence from the north, economic realities may keep them tied to the north[Reuters]

As the world anxiously watches the southern Sudanese vote on whether to secede, one country has more to lose than most if civil war returns to Sudan.

With an estimated 24,000 of its citizens living there and billions of dollars worth of investments in the country, China is the key foreign player in Khartoum.

When the US oil giant Chevron pulled out of Sudan – beginning in 1984 when three of its employees were killed and culminating in 1992 when it finally sold all of its Sudanese interests – the state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) stepped in.

It now has controlling stakes in the biggest energy consortiums operating in Sudan, giving China an estimated 60 per cent share of the 490,000 barrels of crude oil produced daily.

It also constructed the 1,500km pipeline that connects the oil fields of the south with Port Sudan in the north – from where the oil is exported.

But with oil accounting for more than 90 per cent of government revenues in the south, compared to just over 40 per cent in the north, there is a possibility that Khartoum could close the pipeline should the south vote for independence.

This decision would not only be devastating for the underdeveloped and oil revenue-dependent south, but would also disrupt China’s oil supply.

Friends in the south

To secure access to south Sudan’s resources, China has started building closer ties with Juba

To counter this and to secure access to the south’s resources after secession, China has started to build closer ties with the south.

Beijing, to the chagrin of the West, has supported the right of African nations to run their domestic affairs without outside interference, which partly explains the booming trade between the continent and the Asian power.

But by communicating with the government of South Sudan while it is not an official sovereign entity, it is partially abandoning its ‘non-interference policy’ and its traditional reluctance to engage with separatist movements – motivated in part by its own experiences in Tibet and Taiwan.

Richard Dowden, the director of the Royal African Society, says this is because the “Chinese priority is oil”.

“They openly opposed the independence option to start with, but then realised that it would happen and now say they are neutral,” Dowden explains.

“They are beginning to realise that a strict ‘non-interference’ policy is political and diplomatic nonsense. The very relationship between China and an African state is a political act that has implications. The relationship creates a political dynamic that implies support for the ruling group.

“The Chinese are beginning to realise that since so much of African politics is driven by groups or individuals below the official state level they will have to understand and engage with these dynamics. That means meeting leaders of the opposition, negotiating with local chiefs and kings in areas where the Chinese operate even though they have no status at official national level.”

A Chinese consulate was established in Juba, the southern capital, in September 2008. In November 2010, it was upgraded to ambassadorial level, and Li Zhiguo, China’s former envoy to Bahrain, was appointed consul general in Juba.

In October 2010, a delegation of Chinese government leaders visited Juba, where they met with the secretariat of the south’s ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). Salva Kiir, the leader of the SPLM, and other southern Sudanese government ministers, have also visited Beijing and multiple projects have progressed in the region.

Chasing Chinese investment

Ian Taylor, a professor of international relations at the University of St. Andrews’ School of International relations and author of China’s New Role in Africa, says: “China has implemented various projects in the south and plans more, like building universities, hospitals … and water projects.”

After years of neglect, the underdeveloped south is in desperate need of investment and, according to He Wenping, the director of the African Studies section at the Institute of West Asian & African Studies (IWAAS) at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, understands that “oil cooperation between the north and south is the key for their future development”.

“China’s involvement in the field, including post-referendum economic construction in many other fields, is also important,” He added.

But many southerners have complained about the refineries that have been built on their land and the resulting environmental problems, like water contamination and sprawling lakes of toxic waste, and say that they have seen little of the wealth generated by oil production.

The Chinese are allegedly involved in negotiations over a new 1,400km pipeline, which would link South Sudan to the Kenyan port of Lamu, where it also intends to develop infrastructure. Once completed, the pipeline could serve as an alternative route for the land-locked south.

This development would see about 80 per cent of oil revenue shift from Khartoum to Juba. And despite the assurances of Liu Guijin, China’s special envoy to Darfur, that “China wishes to cooperate with the north and the south,” some suspect that Chinese investments will shift along with the revenue.

But while Beijing’s approach towards Juba is pragmatic, with securing the oil flow the central goal, China has invested an estimated $15bn in the north and is likely to want to maintain its relationship with Khartoum.

Furthermore, Khartoum has proved itself to be a reliable trade partner and ally, while a new government in the south will be an unknown figure in China’s calculations.

So, while CNPC is setting up a branch in Juba, the company remains headquartered in Khartoum.

“It [the secession of the south] wouldn’t have [a] big influence on the current China-Sudan relations,” He says. “While maintaining the traditional good relations with the north, China will also establish good relations with the south.”

From bilateral to trilateral

The Chinese-built Merowe Dam provides Sudan with a stable power grid and revenues from energy sales [EPA]

But with both the north and south rearming, Beijing is keen to ensure that the referendum does not result in renewed instability, which could threaten its multi-billion dollar investments and potentially impact its growing interests in neighbouring countries like Ethiopia, Chad and Libya.

“Beijing is a supremely pragmatic actor. It is in China’s best interests that the vote goes smoothly and the probable secession by South Sudan is permitted to go ahead peacefully,” Taylor says.

China has sent a delegation to the south to observe the referendum and a foreign ministry spokesman has stressed Beijing’s hopes that the vote will be held in a “fair, free, transparent and peaceful atmosphere and that all parties involved should be committed to peace and stability”.

In turn, the government of South Sudan has assured China that its investments will be protected if the south secedes from the north.

“We have given assurances to the Chinese leadership delegation to protect the Chinese investments in southern Sudan, and are desirous to see more investment in the future,” Pagan Amum, the secretary general of the SPLM, reportedly said.

But despite China’s growing ties with the south and the south’s need for investment, southerners may not have entirely forgotten Beijing’s traditional support for Khartoum. And as US sanctions will only apply to the north should the south secede, the new country could potentially be open to new investors from the West.

Beijing’s efforts to turn its bilateral ties into trilateral relations may just pay off, however, and the repercussions of this could stretch far beyond oil production.

He says China has already played a key role in ”consolidating the smooth implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement [the 2005 agreement that brought the civil war to an end and which included the provision of a referendum on independence for the south]“.

Dowden suggests that China could be just as critical to ensuring that peace is maintained after the referendum as, should the south vote to secede, the two sides enter a six-month transition period during which thorny issues such as border demarcation and oil revenue sharing will be negotiated.

“They could be a force for peace if they play their cards right and understand what is going on,” Dowden says. “One of their most important pools of oil lies under the border so they will be desperate to make sure a war does not break out.”

Liberals have forgotten how to make the religious case for liberal causes

Liberals should fight back against conservative dogma by fighting fire with fire, but seem to have forgotten how.

The contraception mandate of the Affordable Care Act has sparked controversy among conservatives

New Haven, CT - Every four years, the United States spasms with all sorts of manufactured outrage in the run-up to the election. 2012 is no exception. The latest in fake politics is being called “Rosengate”, named after a Democratic strategist who said Mitt Romney’s wife has never worked a day in her life.

She was right. Ann Romney, a mother of five married to a quarter-billionaire, is indeed unqualified to speak to the economic concerns of the average working American woman. But Romney had been polling badly with women and this was a chance to turn the tables. Now it was President Barack Obama who was being anti-mother! Mothers work, too, you know! Yes, but that’s not the point. No matter. The right-wing media echo chamber has been ringing since. 

Republicans aren’t entirely to blame. The Democrats are partly responsible for this spun-from-thin-air controversy, because of a decision they made during a genuine controversy over the so-called contraception mandate.

First, a refresher: The contraception mandate is part of the historic health care reform law called the Affordable Care Act. It requires that all employers cover birth control in their insurance plans. This applies even to employers affiliated with churches. That’s where the heart of the dispute lies. Forcing church-affiliated employers like colleges and hospitals who believe in birth control is a sin to pay for birth control could be a violation of their constitutional rights. Prominent Catholics, not just conservative ones, rejected the rule. In response,Obama modified the rule so insurance companies bear the burden, not the church-affiliated employers.

Republicans, taking a cue from Cardinal Timothy Dolan, head of the United States Conference of Catholics Bishops, saw an opening. They started to hammer Obama for his appearing to attack the freedom of religion. They did this even after Obama modified the rule. Democrats never bothered to take up the fight on religious grounds. Instead, they chose, with good reason, to denounce the GOP’s “war on women”.

This was a rare instance in which being right yielded political dividends. The GOP and its conservative media allies, ie, talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh, revealed themselves to be unreconstructed champions of bald-faced chauvinism. Romney has suffered from an enormous gender gap. Women still prefer Obama.

But now, with this fake outrage over the fake slander of working mothers, Republicans now enjoy the appearance of a balanced counterweight to the liberal charge of being anti-woman. Not only that, Republicans have, because Democrats gave it to them, the moral high ground. The Democrats are anti-mother as well as anti-religion.

A liberal killed the Christian liberal star

It didn’t have to be this way. Democrats could have argued in the name of the Sermon on the Mount, an unimpeachable source of biblical authority in keeping with the egalitarian spirit of Obama’s health care legislation that may have gained wide appeal among women voters who already express more concern about health care than they do balanced budgets.

But they didn’t. Why?

Part of the reason is obvious. Conservatives are so much better at using religion as a rhetorical weapon. But that isn’t a natural outcome of party affiliation or innate ideology. Liberal Democrats gave up on religion a long time ago.

The Republican Party used to be widely viewed as the party most willing to drive the humanity out of working-class Americans by using the bloodless forces of laissez-fairecapitalism. William Jennings Bryan, the three-time Democratic presidential candidate, fought against that. He was the champion of the common man, a populist philosopher and the chief spokesman of a nearly extinct strain of ideology:Christian liberalism. Bryan’s worldview went on to become central to the building of the New Deal.

1925 might be the year in which Christian liberalism died, and, as is typical in the history of American liberalism, American liberalism is a prime suspect in the crime.

That was the year in which Darwin’s theory of evolution stood trial in Dayton, a small town in rural Tennessee. Bryan in effect defended revealed religion while arguing against the teaching of evolution in public schools while famed civil libertarian Clarence Darrow argued for evolution.

In what will forever be remembered in the annals of bad legal manoeuvers, Bryan allowed himself to be cross-examined. The whole wild affair was famously preserved by HL Mencken, who wrote in a July 21 dispatch for theNew York Times:

“Darrow drew from Bryan that he knew little of comparative religion, very little of geology, nothing of physiology, and hardly anything that would interest a man seeking light on the vast questions of evolution and religion on which he had written for years. He took refuge again and again in his faith in the written word of the Bible. If what science he had learned did not agree with that, he did not believe it and did not want to know.”

So a liberal killed the Christian liberal star, and since 1925, it has been unfashionable, to say the least, for liberal commentators to sound preachy. To the contrary, liberals are supposed to be the voice of reason, pragmatism and enlightenment; they oppose ignorance, prejudice and the madness of the masses. Liberalism, as the late Daniel Bell suggested, is the ideology of no ideology. It is the practical application of technical knowledge to situations in need of repair. Which is damn hard to get excited about.

Obama’s new health care law, especially, one could argue, in providing equitable access to birth control to the poorest among us, keeps watch over the sick, the meek and the mild. It’s the kind of law most beloved of the God of the New Testament, the God of mercy, compassion and peace. It’s hard to imagine a more ideal time to make the religious case for liberal causes, but I worry that liberal Democrats have forgotten how to do that.

RACHEL MADDOW… MY MODERN DAY DON QUIXOTE…

Least you misunderstand my printing of this article… I am a staunch admirer of Rachael Maddow… She is factual and thorough and on point.. albeit it a bit to didactic sometimes… yet I fear this article may be spot on… She may me the  modern day defender of what is right and going to battle with the windmills.. but  unknowingly missing that the real problem is the system itself…

What ever you take away from this article know that  there are few people like Rachel anymore who use fact to argue…. and she is worth of praise for your approach to issues.. you may not like her.. or her politics.. but you should respect the journalist and her integrity.

That being said.. here is the article as it appeared in Al Jazeera

Rachel Maddow and conservatism, the new liberalism

The ‘prominent liberal’ misses the point that it is not politicians, but the system itself, which is corrupt.

TV presenter Maddow’s latest book speaks out against war, but not the system which makes wars inevitable

Washington, DC - Once upon a time – say, three years ago – your average Democrat appeared to care about issues of war and peace. When the man dropping the bombs spoke with an affected Texas twang, the moral and fiscal costs of empire were the subject of numerous protests and earnest panel discussions, the issue not just a banal matter of policy upon which reasonable people could disagree, but a matter of the nation’s very soul.

Then the guy in the White House changed.

Now, if the Democratic rank and file haven’t necessarily learned to love the bomb – though many certainly have - they have at least learned to stop worrying about it. Barack Obama may have dramatically expanded the war in Afghanistan, launched twice as many drone strikes in Pakistan as his predecessor and dropped women-and-children killing cluster bombs in Yemen, but peruse a liberal magazine or blog and you’re more likely to find a strongly worded denunciation of Rush Limbaugh than the president. War isn’t over, but one could be forgiven for thinking that it is.

Given the lamentable state of liberal affairs, Drift, a new book from MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, is refreshing. Most left-of-centre pundits long ago relegated the issue of killing poor foreigners in unjustifiable wars of aggression to the status of a niche concern, somewhere between Mitt Romney’s family dog and the search results for “Santorum” in terms of national importance. So in that sense, it’s nice to see a prominent progressive at least trying to grapple with the evils of militarism and rise of the US empire. It’s just a shame the book isn’t very good.

For one, Maddow, a self-described “national security liberal” who is “all about counterterrorism”, writes more like a politician seeking to flatter her US audience than a teller of tough, uncomfortable truths. While at times briefly alluding to its war-filled past, Maddow repeatedly paints a picture of the US as, at heart, a peaceful nation, one with a government structured by its noble founding founders with a “deliberate peaceable bias”. It is only recently, she maintains – post-World War II, but especially since Ronald Reagan – that war and a gargantuan military-industrial complex have been deemed “normal”.

“Jeffersonian prudence held sway in this country for a century and a half,” Maddow claims. When politicians did start wars, they did so after a thorough public debate and with the explicit approval of Congress. One person, the president, couldn’t just cite their “inherent” but unstated constitutional power to start a war and kill people with military force. Or so the story goes.

Anti-unilateralism, not anti-war

Though many might perceive it as an anti-war work, Maddow’s overriding concern seems to be not so much the wars themselves – certainly not the non-American victims of them, who are never once mentioned – but the modern, unilateral way in which we go about fighting them. Reagan, for example, invaded Grenada without first seeking approval from Congress and armed and funded right-wing insurgents in Nicaragua despite a congressional prohibition, facts she holds responsible for the creation of all that “‘imperial presidency’ malarkey”.

It wasn’t always this way, we’re told. Even as recently as the early 1990s presidents occasionally felt compelled to acknowledge Congress’ constitutional war powers. Before launching the first Gulf War, Maddow notes, President George HW Bush first sought the consent of the Senate, which – as it is wont to do – gave it. Sure, the bombs dropped just the same and thousands of people died, but before that happened we talked in public about doing it and let a group of mostly old male millionaires vote on it.

“Agree or disagree with this outcome,” Maddow writes, “the system had worked. Our Congress had its clangorous and open debate and then took sides. We decided to go to war, as a country.” The problem today, she laments, is “there isn’t enough debate, there isn’t enough chivalry toward the virtues of the old system we’re killing for efficiency’s sake”.

But if the system was working as late as 1991, albeit in fits, that raises a pretty big question: is it really worth saving? The history of the US is characterised by near-constant military action and threats of war, including during the first century and a half when all those constitutional checks and balances were purportedly operating at full capacity. With “Jeffersonian prudence” holding sway, the US government fought major wars with Britain, Mexico and Spain. It militarily occupied Haiti, Nicaragua and the Philippines. Long before Reagan purportedly created the imperial presidency, US presidents were authorising the killing of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, Cambodians and Koreans. And then there’s the whole matter of the people who lived here first: The United States didn’t exactly expand from 13 colonies to a continent by asking politely.

These are hardly aberrations, mere pock marks on the country’s greatness that only a Frenchman or a blame-America-first professor would dwell on. These are defining episodes reflective of the institutions this country’s fawned-over founders built. Perhaps there was more debate a few decades back over whether to kill this group of poor people or that one, but the debate then, as now, was a faux one, based on official falsehoods – “Remember the Maine, to hell with Spain!” – and involving the input only of moneyed interests and their elected representatives.

But Maddow doesn’t tell her readers any of that. Nor does she advocate a radical break from the system of hierarchical power that allows a few people in Washington – one if you’re a unilateralist, 535 if you’re not – to have the literal power to destroy the world. Rather: “The good news is we don’t need a radical new vision of post-Cold War American power,” she says. “We just need a ‘small c‘ conservative return to our constitutional roots, a course correction.”

That’s a comforting thought; flattering even. We were good before and we can be good again. But it relies on a whitewashing of American history. It depends on bizarre assertions like the claim that, “in 1895, the US had enjoyed peace for more than a generation”, which ignores more than a century of war against North America’s indigenous population, including the murder of more than 150 members of the Lakota Sioux – men, women and children – by US troops during the Wounded Knee Massacre, in 1890.

A militaristic bias

To be fair, America was indeed once a more peaceful place, the idea of permanent war once as foreign as the European colonisers who landed there. But that was before the time of Christopher Columbus, not Ronald Reagan. Yet, cheerfully whistling past the real history of America – and revising it to mostly cast Democrats as reluctant imperialists, ignoring Harry Truman’s never-declared war in Korea while dwelling on Reagan’s comparatively less bloody invasion of a Caribbean island – is crucial to Maddow’s Bad (Mostly Republican) Presidents theory of American history. It’s not the system, it’s Dick Cheney.

As Maddow puts it, in order to get back on the peaceful path bequeathed to US citizens by their country’s slave-holding, indigenous-peoples-killing founders, we just need to “vote people into Congress who are determined to … assert the legislature’s constitutional prerogatives on war and peace”. Rinse and repeat every two to four years.

If the country is to break its addiction to war, however, electing more and better politicians to the same system that’s brought us to where we are today doesn’t seem up to the task. Whether the constitution authorised the permanent war national security state or not, this much is true: it sure didn’t stop it.

What’s needed is not the same old tried-and-failed remedy of electoral politics but, as Martin Luther King Jr remarked during a speech on the war in Vietnam, a “genuine revolution of values”. That means not returning to our “constitutional roots”, but striking at the root of our problem: the country’s penchant for violence, particularly when waged against the foreign “Other”. What’s needed, in other words, is a social revolution, not political reformism. War will end the day the average US citizen learns to love the Afghan people more than they love their iPads - and is willing to do more than sign an online petition or vote for a promise-filled politician when their government murders them.

“Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism,” King told that audience at New York City’s Riverside Church back in 1967. “All over the globe, men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born.”

Defending the system, ceding the debate

But Maddow, representing the far left of acceptable televised opinion in the US, is explicit that she does not want a new system. She doesn’t even want a particularly liberal one. Embracing “small-c conservatism”, she’s loyal to the system she thinks we’re losing. And like a lot of her fellow progressives, she’s unwilling to so much as challenge the assumptions made by the national security establishment she decries, preferring instead to regurgitate them with a liberal veneer.

After all, writes Maddow, the hawks are right when they say non-America is terrifying. “We can cede their point that the world is a threatening place,” she writes. “We can cede their point that the US military is a remarkable and worthy fighting force.” Indeed, says Maddow, “We all have an interest in America having an outstanding military.” The only thing she isn’t willing to cede is that using that outstanding military is always “the best way to make threats go away”. A stirring anti-war manifesto Drift is not.

In fact, Maddow’s book contributes to the very culture of militarism that makes war possible, elevating the soldier to the status of the Ideal Citizen, never mind their role in making unjust wars of aggression possible. Instead of tragic figures, members of the military are cast as heroic. “There are no Americans more impressive or more capable than the post-9/11 generation of Iraq and Afghanistan soldiers and veterans,” she writes. Indeed, “they are a huge part of why I’m bullish on America’s capacity to adapt, lead, and succeed in the the twenty-first century”.

Let’s hope no impressionable young people read that. They may be left with the idea that there’s something honourable in serving the US empire, that helping invade and occupy places such as Iraq and Afghanistan is something to be proud about, not something for which to seek forgiveness.

Maddow is right to bemoan the influence of the national security establishment in Washington. She makes a strong case that stockpiling thousands of nuclear weapons is not just costly and dangerous, but really kind of insane. But her liberal faith in the essential goodness and “peaceable bias” of the institutions of US power, including the military itself, leads her to overlook the root problem causing all the wars she at times decries: not a few bad presidents and misguided policies, but the system of state power – and the violence-worshipping culture – that enables presidents and their policies to decide who lives and who dies.

Charles Davis is an activist and writer who splits his time between Washington, DC, and Nicaragua. He is a contributor to the newswire Inter Press Service and his work has aired on public radio stations across the United States. To read more of his work, visit his website.

Follow him on Twitter: @charlesdavis84

Are America And European Countries Ignoring Their Own Perilous Future??

Why Do Nations Fail??

A new book highlights the role of politics in prosperity – a point that Europeans and Americans ignore at their peril.

Protests in Egypt last year toppled a regime which provided little for its people

London, United Kingdom - In their recent book, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson set out to do away with some of the myths that still bedevil development economics. In a wide-ranging historical account, they do their best to do away with explanations for poverty that rest on geography, culture or “incorrect policies or strategies in the past”. The key to general prosperity, they argue, is political.

In this, as they note, they are in agreement with the protesters in Tahrir Square last year, who had no doubt that a regime that made multibillionaires of a few could spare only scraps for the many. As the authors put it: “Egypt is poor precisely because it has been ruled by a narrow elite that have organised society for their own benefit at the expense of the vast mass of people.”

Their argument won’t come as a shocking revelation to many with firsthand experience of the wealth and poverty of nations. Nevertheless, it is heartening that a broadly sensible book has had some impact. Star economists have lined up to praise it. Steven Levitt called it “truly awesome” and Gary Becker described it as “a study of great vitality on one of the crucial questions in economics and political economy”. Meanwhile, Niall Ferguson found it “compelling and highly readable”.

It is always tempting to find fault with a book that Niall Ferguson calls “compelling”. And there are some problems withWhy Nations Fail. The authors place enormous emphasis on property rights, for example. But property, too, is fundamentally a political matter. The aristocrats who seized common land in 18th century England did so because they controlled parliament. They violated centuries of custom and practice because they could. The settlers who created a society of independent farmers in the American colonies did so because those very same English aristocrats were too far away to stop them. The violation of property rights in North America promoted widespread prosperity because it shifted economic opportunity from the few to the many. Property must be considered in the context of political economy as a whole.

Most strikingly, Why Nations Fail has very little to say about the politics of international trade and investment. I remember asking a British diplomat who spent much of his time in Africa why so many countries in the region were poor, while countries such as South Korea, which had once been poor, had successfully raised general incomes. He thought for a while and gave a two-word answer. “Political weakness,” he said.

The Koreans were strong enough politically to protect their native industries from foreign competition until they were able to compete. And rather than allowing domestic producers to enjoy easy profits behind tariff barriers, Korea’s political elite drove them to modernise and export. All rich industrial countries have followed a similar path. In countries where the majority are poor, on the other hand, foreign interests often work with local elites in an arrangement that suits them both – but is a disaster for everyone else. Industry is strangled at birth and vast mineral and oil wealth finds its way offshore. It is odd that the authors don’t feel able to set this out in plain terms.

But the book is correct on the key point: Economic development is determined by political factors. We should all be relieved that the economics establishment is finally willing to acknowledge the fact.

From the point of view of the majority, the US and Britain are in trouble, and have been for some time. From the point of view of the people who wield power, things are working out pretty well.

And of course the point has implications for countries that have achieved general prosperity. In Europe and North America inequality has been growing for the past generation or so. In the United States, median hourly earnings have scarcely increased in real terms since 1972. Stock markets and executive pay, on the other hand, have boomed. More widely, in the rich, industrialised world, the percentage of GDP captured by all workers in the form of wages fell from 75 per cent in the mid-1970s to 66 per cent in the first decade of this century. For a generation now, the owners and controllers of capital – the financial sector in particular – have secured the lion’s share of the new wealth.

This steepening inequality is not inevitable; it is a political achievement. Like their ancestors in 18th century England, successive governments have crafted legislation and distributed state patronage in the interests of the wealthy and the well connected. The unions have been stripped of bargaining power and large companies have shifted both production and profits offshore. The state has paid for technology and then given it to private corporations. This new technology has reduced the need for unemployment and boosted profits. Meanwhile, the tax levied on large companies and rich individuals has fallen, and the rest of us have had to make up the shortfall through increases in sales taxes and cuts in public services.

From the point of view of the majority, the US and Britain are in trouble, and have been for some time. From the point of view of the people who wield power, things are working out pretty well. They are reaping the rewards of policies that condemn everyone else to unemployment, underemployment or chronic insecurity. We still have formal democracy in Britain and the United States. But it is not yet clear if we can make our democratic institutions serve the interests of the majority. If we can’t, I am afraid that we will find ourselves joining the ranks of Acemoglu and Robinson’s nations that fail.

Israel Has No Intentions of Fostering Peace With Palestine Anytime Soon

Has time run out for a two-state solution? The Israeli architect of the Oslo Accords has called on the Palestinian president to declare the ‘peace process’ dead.

As the Middle East Quartet prepares to meet in Washington, the Israeli architect of the Oslo Accords has called on the Palestinian president to declare the so-called peace process dead. We ask: Is it time to move beyond a two-state solution?

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, is expected to send a letter to Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, in the coming days laying out the conditions for a return to direct negotiations. Such negotiations have been frozen since September 2010.

“You’ve seen greater Palestinian economic activity; you’ve seen good growth in the West Bank’s economy. Is it sufficient? No. Is it enough without a political horizon? No. But I don’t think we should dismiss the work that has been led by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad under the Palestinian Authority in getting the Palestinians ready for statehood.” - Matthew Doyle, the former spokesman for Tony Blair

Abbas had been expected to include a paragraph threatening to dissolve the Palestinian Authority (PA) in protest against the deadlock. This move would force Israel to take back control of the West Bank and Gaza and render the so-called peace process dead.

But according to press reports, Abbas removed the paragraph under pressure from Barack Obama, the US president, who called the Palestinian president last month to “reaffirm America’s commitment to Middle East peace”.

Last week, the Israeli architect of the 1993 Oslo Accords, Yossi Beilin, published an open letter to Abbas. He called on him not to give in to Obama’s request and instead to dissolve the Palestinian Authority.

Inside Story Americas spoke to Beilin, a former Israeli justice minister, and asked him why he believed the time had come to, in his words, “end this farce”. This is some of what Beilin had to say:

“The opponents of the Oslo Agreement on both sides made out of our corridor a kind of living room. They are quite happy, because in the meantime Israel continues to build settlements. The extremists on the Palestinian side are not there to divide the land; they are waiting for perhaps the Islamic republic or the Islamic empire or whatever. And those that wanted peace, who created the Oslo process, became kind of hostages to this process. I think that it is time to say ‘enough is enough’. The Oslo process has ended and now what we have to do is to go towards a permanent solution if possible. If not, let us dissolve the institutions which were built and which perpetuate actually the interim agreement forever ….

“Whether we want to say the peace process is dead or merely comatose, there is no doubt that it has failed and that continuing the way we’ve proceeded so far, there’s no logical reason to believe that it will succeed …. The first step is recognising failure of the past and then … thinking what are the strategies for the future?” - Robert Malley, the former special assistant to Bill Clinton

“Today there is no leverage. The Americans are doing nothing because of the elections. The Europeans are busy with their economic situation. The Quartet is actually dead. I mean they are going to have a meeting on Wednesday, which is a joke in my view. They cannot move anything. The only ones who can move things are us: the Palestinians and the Israelis, those of us who really want to move things towards peace ….

“The Quartet was wrong from the beginning. I cannot understand how come the UN became part of a club of three other states or state organisations. I don’t understand why it was established. It did nothing …. The meetings are worthless …. It just keeps a fig leaf of meetings and resolutions and they call upon the parties to sit together and to talk about the permanent agreement. There is no chance in the world, not if they meet in Jordan, not if they meet in Washington or elsewhere. Today, there is no chance to have a permanent agreement because, on the one hand, the Israeli government is not ready to pay the price for peace, and the Palestinian side is also not united ….”

So, has time run out for a two-state solution and should Abbas ignore US pressure and dissolve the PA?

Joining Inside Story Americas with Shihab Rattansi to discuss this are: Matthew Doyle, the former spokesman for the Quartet representative Tony Blair; Diana Buttu, a former legal adviser to President Abbas and the Palestinian negotiating team; and Robert Malley, the Middle East and North Africa programme director at the International Crisis Group and former special assistant to President Bill Clinton for Arab-Israeli affairs.

“One of the problems with the Quartet and one of the problems with the advocates of the Quartet is that they view this problem as being a symmetrical one. There is a huge asymmetry of power with Israel being the occupier and the Palestinians being the occupied. And unless we begin to recognise that and move forward by making demands of the occupier, we’re never going to be able to get anywhere.”

Fighters in Timbuktu Announce Islamic State

Mali has long had an uneasy relationship with its Tuareg population, given a history of ‘governance by southern agriculturalists’ who marginalised the nomadic pastoral group

Gaborone, Botswana - On April 6, Tuareg rebels in the West African city of Timbuktu unilaterally declared their independence from Mali and announced the birth of a new nation called Azawad. The declaration was widely ignored or condemned by neighbouring African states and the international community.

However, considering the arbitrary nature of many national borders in Africa which date to the colonial era, and the likelihood of protracted strife in a hunger prone area if rebel claims are simply dismissed, the international community ought to think carefully about how best to engage with this potential new African country known as Azawad.

The history of contemporary African borders is problematic to say the least. The European colonial powers carved up Africa, and capriciously set territorial borders, at the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 at which no Africans were present. These borders, which largely continued to exist long after independence, often split tribes, lumped incompatible ethnic groups together, or created countries which struggled economically because they were too big, too small, or landlocked. Given the problematic way in which African borders were originally set, it is not surprising that we see struggles to redefine national boundaries in the contemporary era.

As such, countries created with an ethnic rationale typically result in the majority group being privileged over others. These states may also have limited financial viability as they tend to be smaller and less economically diverse.On the surface, the solution to the “African border problem” may appear simple. That is, as opportunities arise, one should always seek to create more ethnically homogeneous states. The problem is that ethnic territories have never really existed in much of Africa. Rather, the African landscape is often wonderfully diverse with different groups pursuing distinct, and often complementary, livelihood strategies: farmers, herders and fishers to name a few.

Azawad, while not a new idea, is the latest ethnic-territorial state to seek recognition. The Tuareg are a lighter skinned nomadic peoples, historically dependent on animal husbandry, that are spread across the drylands of West Africa between Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Algeria and Libya.

The Tuareg have long aspired to have an independent state, as they were often marginalised by governments in the region that favoured more sedentary agriculturalists. The one exception to this was in Libya, where the former dictator Muammar Gaddafi actively recruited immigrant Tuareg and trained them to be part of his personal defence force.   

Problematic birth

Whither, then, this newly proclaimed African state? Four inter-linked phenomenon simultaneously gave rise to the new Tuareg state and also undermine its longer term viability.

The first problem is that Mali has had an uneasy relationship with its Tuareg population, given a history of governance by southern agriculturalists who marginalised the nomadic pastoral group. Particularly, notable rebellions occurred in the early 1960s and early 1990s, followed by a substantial reconciliation during a series of negotiations in the late 1990s. 

As a result, the Malian government promised larger amounts of aid for the northern regions, a new province (known as Kidal) was created to give the Tuareg greater representation, and several Tuareg ministers were appointed. While all was not perfect, the situation remained relatively calm until heavily armed Tuareg fighters returned to Mali late in 2011, following the death of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.

The second problem is that Azawad emerged by force, not a referendum, just as its parent state, the Republic of Mali, nearly imploded. Gaddafi’s former fighters re-emboldened the secular Malian Tuareg resistance group, known as the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (or MNLA).

The MNLA then began to successfully attack Malian military installations in the north of the country. These military defeats, along with widespread government corruption, led to the toppling of the democratically elected government of Mali on March 22 by a young and disorganised military junta, only a few months away from the next election.

The resulting power vacuum in the South of the country allowed the MNLA to take a series of important northern towns and to declare independence on April 6. The secular MNLA has been accused of potential ties to the al-Qaeda organisation in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and to conservative Muslim groups such as Ansar Dine, but has continued to distinguish its cause from that of these organisations. 

Due to successful economic sanctions imposed by the regional trading block known as ECOWAS, the military junta which temporarily took control in the southern part of the country has now stepped down and handed governance back to civilian leaders. With an internationally recognised government now back in control of the southern part of the country, and neighbouring countries who are fearful of an independent Azawad, one potential scenario is that the Malian military, with the support of troops from ECOWAS, will fight with a vengeance to reclaim its northern territories. 

The third problem is that it is not at all clear if the majority of peoples within the proposed state of Azawad support its existence. Mali’s northern provinces include many non-Tuareg, most notably the Songhay and Fulani, who likely have little interest in joining a new state that is strongly affiliated with one ethnic group.

Furthermore, the borders of Azawad are disputed, with some configurations, including areas where the Tuareg are a clear minority. Finally, even some Tuareg people residing within the proposed country of Azawad may be fearful of a more fundamentalist Islam – or realise that the desert nation has a problematic economic future when it is not connected to a wealthier southern region which produces surpluses of food and exports gold and cotton. 

The fourth problem is that the region in dispute is also on the brink of famine, due to sequential drought years and instability – which has interrupted normal household coping strategies. As such, attempts to resolve the situation militarily will likely make an unfolding humanitarian crisis even worse, and do little to address underlying tensions.

Dialogue over force

A better approach would be for the South (and the international community) to engage with the MNLA in dialogue. The South continues to need to better understand the history of marginalisation of the Tuareg peoples. Furthermore, the South must also consider how important it is to hold on to the North at all costs. The truth of the matter is that many people in the south of the country may not believe it is worth waging an all-out war to retain a desolate, sparsely populated area of the country.

As for the Azawad coalition, the MNLA needs to understand that separation must be decided by a referendum and not military force (and that they might even lose such a vote). Whether or not Azawad becomes an independent state or a more autonomous region, all of these issues could be discussed if the international community chooses to engage with MNLA in dialogue rather than an a priori refusal to recognise any incipient nation. The use of military force should only be contemplated after the MNLA refuses to consider a democratic process of new state creation.

If You Are Working Class… The Republican Party Really Does Not Represent You

Rick Santorum is not from the working class…… Conservatives don’t want to admit that the GOP is the party of capital, so they invent a candidate like Santorum…. The REAL Republican Party DOES NOT represent the working class of america… basically the majority of America is  ignored by the Republican party in favor of only Wealth generation. .

New Haven, CT - Since the GOP nomination began, political commentators have been scratching their heads wondering why Republicans aren’t rallying around Mitt Romney, the one candidate who isn’t a prissy religious fanatic, a bigoted neo-Confederate, or a world-historical liar and fraud. I mean, Romney has issues, but he’s conspicuously not Rick Santorum, Ron Paul or Newt Gingrich. Right away, he’s ahead of the game.

In its quest for answers, the commentariat alighted on a two-part theory. One, Santorum won big in early February (and half of Michigan), so he’s clearly a bona fide conservative alternative to Moderate Mitt. Two, Santorum won those delegates because of a class war between factors of the Grand Old Party. White working-class Republicans are revolting against an establishment indifferent to its needs. Santorum won because he appeals to that key voting bloc.

Let’s set aside the knee-slapping hilarity that is the grossly distorted view of class warfare among Republicans and take it at face value. The idea here, as far as I can tell, is that Romney can’t connect with the working class because he’s rich. Santorum can, because his personal history as the son of an Italian immigrant and grandson of a coal miner warms the cockles of hard-working red-state Americans.

David Brooks, the conservative columnist, is probably responsible for this. In a January 2 column in The New York Times, he wrote that Santorum satisfied the criteria of a working-class candidate: He’s patriotic, anti-elitist, family-oriented, openly religious and a balanced-budget conservative. (Brooks can’t help but note that in 2006, his last year as a US Senator, Santorum campaigned around coal-mining country in a beat-up pick-up truck.) In short, Santorum has that “working-class vibe”. He could win “by a landslide”, Brooks said, because working-class voters are tired of Washington elites ordering them around and they are ready to support one of their own. Since January, newspapers everywhere have uncritically reported or implied that Santorum is a working-class candidate.

Unlike other leftist writers, I don’t think David Brooks is a moron. I just think he doesn’t know what he’s talking about when it comes to class. He’s in good company; most media people don’t and that’s to be expected. It’s been a long time since American journalism completed its transformation from a gritty, inky, smokey and seedy avocation to a credentialed, highly-trained and highly compensated profession. It used to be a job for hacks scrambling for scratch. Now it’s the preserve of the college-educated middle and upper-middle classes. So I don’t fault Brooks for not understanding class. Only for pretending to.

Gauging class

Brooks tends to confuse class with demographics, status, values, sentiments and taste. Recall that “working-class vibe”, as if being working class were a image to cultivate, as if being working class were an option, like choosing what kind of car to drive or shoes to wear. I suspect that class, to conservatives like Brooks, isn’t a social reality at all. Instead it’s an abstraction, like a language. With this language they can paint a picture of the kind of Republican they want to see in the campaign, one whose authentic conservative values overwhelm fealty to Big Business. Sadly, there is no such thing. The Republican Party has always been the party of capital. So they imagine this creature into being, and the more they do, the more class seems to be a figment of the imagination.

Class is real of course and though there are many ways to indicate it (education tends to be the most popular) the surest is power. Yes, income tells us a lot about class, but too little is said about the role of power. If you have no capital, then you have nothing with which to survive in a free-market economy other than selling your labour for money. From the beginning, you are at a disadvantage. Part of the price of this fundamental exchange is that you partly surrender control over your time, energy and even your body. If you have a boss – a real boss – you’re working class. If your dad or mom has a real boss, more so.

I’m annoyed for having to point out the obvious, but I suppose I must, because Americans live in a society in which our media does not understand class. So here it goes: Santorum’s dad was a clinical psychologist. Mom was a nurse administrator. Santorum himself holds three advanced degrees, including a juris doctor. After losing his Senate seat in 2006, Santorum cashed in as a lobbyist. His net income is $3 million. He never had a working-class job, a working-class wage or a working-class boss. Gimme a break, Santorum grew up in the suburbs! Santorum is no more working class than Romney.

The candidate they deserve

A curious aspect of the conservative mind, at least as evidenced by Brooks, is that when faced with facts, it retreats into a mushy hard-to-define sphere of values and status. That’s why, I think, Brooks is comfortable talking about class as long as class is a “vibe” and not something concrete like socio-economic power. And just as conservatives tend to imagine into being political creatures whose conservative principals cannot be swayed by Big Business, they tend to imagine into being a working-class voter who is not reminded every day of his disadvantage to capital every time he sells his labour for money. Sadly for conservatives of this mind, there is no such thing.

In fact, it’s unclear whom Santorum is appealing to. In Michigan last week, Romney and Santorum virtually split ballots cast by voters with incomes under $75,000, which tells you they had other things on their minds. In general elections, voters tend to chose based on class (defined by income). According to Dorothy Sue Cobble in the newest issue of Dissent, voters in 2008 broke at $50,000, with those earning less voting Democratic and those earning more voting Republican. The conventional wisdom is that nonwhite working-class voters go Democrat, but that’s also the case among white working-class voters, Cobble said. If you separate working-class whites in the South from counterparts nationally, you see only a 1 per cent decline for Democrats since 1950. Republican gains since then have mostly been from the middle- and upper-middle classes with the exception of white voters from all classes in the Land of Dixie.

In a way, the question of why Republicans don’t like Romney is itself a product of the conservative imagination. After all, he’s still the frontrunner and still the candidate most feared by the White House. Perhaps doubting Romney’s electability is a way to mitigate the pain of knowing the true nature of the GOP – as the party of capital. Capital knows no loyalty, no community, no morality. In its wake, all that is solid melts into the air. Romney is exactly the candidate the party deserves. If he couldn’t win in November, that wouldn’t be entirely his fault, and conservatives shouldn’t imagine that it’s otherwise.

Did Santorum shift Republicans to the right? Is America Doomed to Failure?

As Rick Santorum quits the Republican nomination race, we examine the legacy of his candidacy on the party.

Mitt Romney’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination is now all but assured following Rick Santorum’s abrupt departure from the race on Tuesday.
 
Romney still faces challenges from Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul, but neither are considered serious challengers. Gingrich is running on a shoestring budget and is in debt. And although Ron Paul still draws large crowds to town hall meetings, he is not picking up many delegates.

“I think Rick Santorum struck a nerve with the American people, not just [with] conservatives.” - Adolfo Franco, a former adviser to John McCain

It was Rick Santorum’s candidacy that ignited the Republican primary race and made the contest particularly brutal. He became the voice of social conservatives, by focusing on a number of their pet issues. 
 
He moved the debate about economic policy further to the right. Santorum campaigned to cut taxes dramatically and, although already campaigning for reductions in taxes, in February Romney followed suit and advocated far more severe cuts.

On social issues, Santorum kept the spotlight on women’s rights and the possibility that some religious organisations will be forced to provide reproductive health care coverage for employees. He also firmly opposes gay rights.
 
And in foreign policy, his hardline agenda helped shift the discussion further to the right. He led the Republican pack in wanting to bomb Iran, and vowed to “beat” China.

Declaring his departure from the race, Santorum said: “While this presidential race for us is over for me … we are not done fighting. We are going to continue to fight for those voices; we are going to continue to fight for the Americans who stood up and gave us that air under our wings that allowed us to accomplish things that no political expert would have ever expected.”

Few people know Santorum as well as John Brabender. He advised him on all five of his congressional races and was the top adviser to his White House campaign. Inside Story: US 2012 asked him if Santorum was in the race simply to use his influence to shift the party to the right. Here is some of what he had to say:

“The problem with Mr Romney is that he has demonstrated over the years that he has no fundamental core. He’s reversed himself on issues that are very significant issues that define one’s political core. And unlike etcher-sketch where you shake it up and it disappears, we have thousands of hours of Mr Romney on video contradicting himself back and forth, back and forth.” - Mark Siegel, a Democratic strategist

“Not only did [Santorum] win 11 states, he won more counties in the different states than all the other candidates combined, which means that he had strong support in the cities, in the rural areas, in the agricultural areas, small towns. So this really was about winning; this was not just a cause ….

“I’m not sure this is the last time you’ve heard from Rick Santorum. He’s 53 years of age. There are many elections ahead. I think what’s a great American story for us is that somebody could do as well as he did on as little money as he did against a lot of other candidates. Rick Santorum was the only one left standing against Romney and I think he is actually a great story for people to understand that you don’t always have to be the establishment and you don’t always have to be a millionaire in this country.”

So what has been the impact of Rick Santorum’s candidacy on Republican politics?

To discuss this, Inside Story: US 2012 with Shihab Rattansi is joined by: Adolfo Franco, an adviser to John McCain when he was running for the presidency in 2008; Rick Perlstein, a journalist and author of Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America; and Mark Siegel, a Democratic strategist who served under President Jimmy Carter and is an expert on delegate selection procedures in the US.

“I think he’d be a perfectly fine talk radio host, but let’s mention something very, very blunt that can’t be ignored. The fact is in 2006 he lost his senate race with the biggest drubbing that any incoming senator had received since 1980. So the real reason the Republican establishment probably doesn’t want to have anything to do with him is not necessarily his positions, although those are embarrassing too, but that he’s a loser ….

Why Will The Political Process  Forever be unrepresentative of the MAJORITY of the Public … because The majority of Americans are to damn apathetic to care enough to even make sure a candidate that represents them will be on a general election ballot.

“The problem with the Republican primary process is that it rewards that sort of zealotry, that sort of peoples’ ability to so believe that their candidate or their position is one that is going to save civilisation itself, that they are willing to out-organise the competition. Moderates are the people who don’t knock on doors on election day.”

The cost of the ‘war on drugs’

From the farmers to the traders, the cartels to the consumers, we assess the economics of the ‘war on drugs’.

For decades the ‘war on drugs’ has been claiming lives and leaving countries riven with violence and corruption. A look at the figures shows that the stakes are incredibly high; UN estimates state that at retail level the illegal drugs trade is worth $332bn, making it one of the biggest commodity markets in the world.

Up to 272 million people used illicit substances in 2010 and in turn governments across the globe annually spend $100bn in fighting the ‘war on drugs’.

The scale of the human cost is equally high. Central and South America have respectively the second and third-highest homicide rates in world, the Mexican government claims its war on drugs has claimed the lives of almost 50,000 people.

In this special edition of Counting the Cost we ask whether those fighting the ‘war on drugs’ are seeing any benefit from their investment. With demand and consumption as high as they are, we question if this ‘war on drugs’ has actually been worth it – or at the least if it has been working.

We speak to Otto Peres Molina, the Guatemalan president, who has broken rank by calling for the legalisation of drugs, saying: “we have spent billions over the last 40 years in a drug war that has solved nothing”.

Molina told us that he is proposing, “a debate, dialogue, where we have statistics, studies and serious analysis of the subject. Based on the results we must come up with alternatives rather than keep doing the same things we’ve been doing that have clearly shown that we are not winning the war against drugs.”
 
The desire for fresh debate is one which is currently not shared by the US. So much so that it is currently illegal to pay for research into legalisation.

The “Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 1998″ states that the director of the ONDCP “shall ensure that no federal funds appropriated to the Office of National Drug Control Policy shall be expended for any study or contract relating to the legalisation (for a medical use or any other use) of a substance… listed in schedule I of section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act…”
 
We speak to those on both sides of the debate, including Dr. Kevin Sabet who advises the state department on drugs policy, and Danny Kushlick, the founder of the Transform Drug Policy Foundation. We look at Peru’s coca farmers and the poverty that keeps them in the drugs trade; and looking at Mexico’s drug cartels, we ask: How are the billions integrated back into the Mexican economy?

Armando Santacruz of the Mexican NGO, Mexico United Against Crime, describes the effect of the drug cartels on the Mexican economy: “A lot of drug money has entered the economy and the competition is totally unfair, it is not a level playing field. Certain business endeavors are suffering while the associates of the drug cartels are doing a brisk business in the cleaning and laundering of money.”

You can watch the Program on Al Jazeera TV

Counting the Cost can be seen each week at the following times GMT: Friday: 2230; Saturday: 0930; Sunday: 0330; Monday: 1630.

Click here for more on Counting the Cost.

Guatemala proposes legalisation of drugs

Guatemala President says war on drugs has failed and region must look at ways to regulate production, transit and consumption.

In 2012 alone, Guatemala has confiscated more than 1,000 kilos of cocaine valued at roughly $10,000 per kilo 

Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina has said the war on drugs in Latin America has failed, and has set out a raft of proposals to look at the possibility of decriminalising narcotics or establishing a regional court to try traffickers.

“The proposal is decriminalisation,” Perez said at a Central American summit on Saturday to address security throughout the region.

“It’s important this is on the discussion table as an alternative to what we’ve been doing for 40 years without getting the desired results.” - Otto Perez Molina, Guatemala President

“We are talking about creating a legal framework to regulate the production, transit and consumption of drugs.”

Perez Molina called the meeting to consider decriminalisation as a way of reducing drug-related violence.

But the presidents of Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras all cancelled their attendance at short notice.

Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Mauricio Funes of El Salvador and Porfirio Lobo of El Salvador decided not to attend.

Change of strategy

The discussion reflects growing concern in Central America about the cost of the war on drugs, which is prompting leaders to take an increasingly independent line from the United States, where officials have repeatedly rejected legalising drugs.

“We have seen that the strategy that has been pursued in the fight against drug trafficking over the last 40 years has failed,” Perez Molina said. ”We have to look for new alternatives. We must end the myths, the taboos, and tell people you have to discuss it.” 

Perez Molina caused widespread surprise when he announced in January that he thought it was time to consider decriminalising the consumption, production and trafficking of drugs.

But he shifted from his hard-line message shortly after taking office in January, calling for a more open debate on drug policy.A retired general, Perez Molina won an election in November 2011 promising to crack down on organised crime.

“It’s important this is on the discussion table as an alternative to what we’ve been doing for 40 years without getting the desired results,” said Perez Molina, noting that decriminalisation would erode drug cartels’ profits.

The president added that Central American leaders were considering asking the US, the biggest consumer of South American cocaine, to pay the region for drug raids.

“We’re talking about economic compensation for every seizure undertaken and also the destruction of marijuana and cocaine plantations,” said Perez Molina.

Regional leaders in countries affected by drug violence have called for more open debate on other solutions to the problem.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon, to whom Perez has turned for advice on confronting the cartels, has called on Washington to take more responsibility for reducing demand for drugs, and has said he is open to debates about legalisation.

The subject is also likely to be discussed at the Summit of the Americas in Colombia on 14-15 April.

Is it time to end America’s ‘war on drugs’?

With demand for drugs increasing and drug-related violence worsening, we ask if it is time to reassess drug policies.

Over the past four decades, the US has spent billions of dollars promoting and supporting a military battle against drug cartels across Latin America.

“We’re looking at a change in the way that these leaders approach this issue …. Probably the most important [reason] is that they’re more independent economically. They do more trade amongst their neighbours than they did before, they’ve less dependence on United States’ economies and they’re more independent from a financial aid perspective … so given that they’ve greater independence, they’re saying we need to take this on independently as well.” - Steven Dudley, the co-director of Insight Crime

But global demand for illicit drugs has increased and the violence related to the drug trade has worsened. More than 50,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in the last five years in Mexico alone. And the influence of drug cartels has grown across Central America.

Now a demand for alternative policies to the ‘war on drugs’ has come from unlikely sources, including Guatemala’s President Otto Perez Molina, a former general, and Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos, a former defence minister.

When the leaders brought up the issue for debate during the Summit of the Americas on Saturday, Barack Obama, the US president, said Americans understand the toll of narco-trafficking on Central and South America and the Carribean. But he insisted legalisation is not the answer.

He also announced that the US would provide more than $130m to Central American countries to “support the regional security strategy”.

Despite resistance by the US to legalisation, Saturday’s debate in Colombia is still seen as a step forward.

“I think this is a step forward, but this is not sufficient, this is not enough. We have to move forward, faster.” - Laura Gil, a columnist for El Tiempo

So are leaders in the Americas ready for an honest debate about drug policies? Are there alternatives to the ‘war on drugs’? And should Latin America legalise drugs?

Inside Story Americas discusses with guests: Laura Gil, a columnist for the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, and a former consultant to the Organisation of the American States; Steven Dudley, the co-director of Insight Crime, a think tank which focuses on crime and security in the Americas; and Jose Cardenas, a former official under President George W Bush.

“Drug addiction in the vast majority of countries is a very serious public health problem. Drug trafficking continues to be the principle financier of violence and terrorism. Colombia and many other countries in the region believe it is necessary to begin a discussion, an analysis of this issue, without judgment and without dogmas, and look at the different scenarios and the possible alternatives to confronting this challenge with the greatest effectiveness.”

Juan Manuel Santos, the Colombian president

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FACTS: THE WAR ON DRUGS:

• Latin American leaders are increasingly critical of US drugs policy
• The Guatemalan president, Otto Perez Molina, has called for decriminalisation
• The Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, is calling for a major strategy overhaul
• Colombia is the world’s top producer of cocaine despite eradication efforts
• Colombia, Peru and Bolivia are the three biggest producers of cocaine
• Mexico blames narcotics-related violence on US drugs consumption
• Drug consumption rates in Latin America are low compared to the US
• Mexico’s battle against traffickers has led to a huge rise in violence
• According to the US justice department, Mexican cartels earn $39bn per year from the US
• Zogby survey: 75% of Americans think that the ‘war on drugs’ has failed

There are More Candidates For The Presidency of France than Sarkosy

Where do France’s election candidates stand? Learn the French presidential candidates’ stances on everything from economy and migration to foreign policy and the EU.

The candidates for France’s presidential election from top left: Sarkozy, Hollande, Mélenchon, Le Pen, Bayrou, Cheminade, Joly, Arthaud, Dupont-Aignan, Poutou

France will hold the first round of its presidential elections on April 22. A runoff is set for May 6, in the likely event that no candidate wins an outright majority.

The grid below shows where France’s array of presidential candidates stand on a range of issues, from foreign policy to the economy and the future of the European Union.

You can see a short summary of their views; hover over any cell in the grid for more detailed information.

	Economy	Foreign Policy	Taxation	Immigration	EU	Education
Nicolas Sarkozy Union for Popular Movement	End the 35-hour work week; reduce cost of labour.	First term far more interventionist than predecessors.	Higher value-added tax but no income tax changes.	Reduce immigration by nearly 50 per cent.	Wants tighter controls on intra-EU movement; a “Buy European” act.	Apprenticeships for students and multidisciplinary degrees.
François Hollande Socialist Party	Tighter controls on banks; reduce public debt.	Withdraw from Afghanistan; enlarge UN Security Council.	75 per cent tax rate on high earners.	Argues that his opponents are exaggerating the problem.	Wants ECB to favor job creation instead of austerity.	60,000 new teaching jobs within five years.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon Left Front	“No austerity” and a retirement age of 60.	Withdraw from Afghanistan and quit NATO.	100 per cent taxes for earnings above $473,000.	Looser laws; repeal recent immigration laws.	Wants to renegotiate several major EU agreements.	More teaching jobs; public education from age two.
Marine Le Pen National Front	A “buy French” law and a public deficit at zero.	Withdraw from Afghanistan.	Fight tax havens; tax benefits for small businesses.	Reduce the number of immigrants by 95 per cent.	Withdraw from the eurozone.	More teachers; more discipline in schools.
François Bayrou Democratic Movement	Benefits for small businesses; a “made in France” label.	Reform the UN Security Council; withdraw from Afghanistan.	Increase income tax on high earners, and value-added tax.	Moderate: Supports residency for some illegal migrants.	Wants a more “democratic and transparent” EU.	Smaller class sizes, more independence for schools.
Eva Joly The Green Party	Employees would have more of a voice in their companies.	Withdraw from Afghanistan, shut foreign military bases, recognise Palestine.	Higher taxes on high earners; tax financial transactions.	Residency for long-term undocumented migrants.	New EU constitution based on a federal model.	20,000 new teaching staff; merge primary, secondary schools.
Nathalie Arthaud Workers’ Struggle	Increase minimum wage and social welfare benefits.	Close all foreign military bases; recognise Palestine.	Eliminate all tax exemptions for big business.	Residency and right to vote for all foreign workers.	Wants the EU to become a “socialist federation.”	More teachers, smaller class sizes.
Jacques Cheminade Solidarity and Progress	Separate savings and credit banks; higher minimum wage.	Immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan; quit NATO.	Progressive: Lower taxes on the poor, raise them for the rich.	Promote integration with language courses and other lessons.	Drop single currency; end ECB’s control over monetary policy.	Recruit more teachers; public childcare from age two.
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan Arise the Republic	Nationalise the energy industry; salary cap in state firms.	Withdraw from NATO, develop French schools abroad.	Increase the tax rate on capital; slash exemptions.	Reduce the number of migrants by 50 per cent.	Believes all EU treaties signed since 2005 illegitimate.	More time spent teaching French; recruit 30,000 new teachers.
Philippe Poutou New Anticapitalist Party	Raise minimum wage to $1,700/month; ban layoffs.	Withdraw from Afghanistan, quit NATO, shrink arms industry.	End tax exemptions; 100 per cent tax rate on earnings above $340,000.	Abolish “anti-immigration” laws and grant residency to migrants.	Wants a socialist EU.	All education would be free and public; secular schools.

For an interactive view of this Please go to:

 http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2012/04/20124127484266151.html

Freedoms Lost: UK becoming an Authoritarian State Without Liberties

The UK government’s war on internet freedom… Censorship and surveillance proposals would put the UK’s approach to internet freedom on par with authoritarian regimes. David Cameron’s government is considering a series of laws that would dramatically restrict online privacy 

San Francisco, CA - Last summer in the wake of the London riots, British Prime Minister David Cameron insisted that the government should have the power to censor social media and “stop [alleged rioters] from communicating via these websites”. But after Cameron’s plan was widely compared to the tactics of former Egypt President Hosni Mubarak – not to mention the same social media services were instrumental in helping organise post-riot cleanup – the proposal never materialised.

Unfortunately, Cameron’s declaration that the “free flow of information” can sometimes be a problem, then an aberration, seems to have turned into a pillar of the UK government’s 2012 agenda. Despite declaring early on in his term that internet freedom should be respected “in Tahrir Square as much as Trafalgar Square”, his government is now considering a series of laws that would dramatically restrict online privacy and freedom of speech.

Mass surveillance plan

The most controversial plan, strongly defended by Cameron last week, would allow the government to monitor every email, text message and phone call flowing throughout the country. Internet service providers (ISPs) would be forced to install hardware that would give law enforcement real time, on-demand access to every internet user’s IP address, email address books, when and to whom emails are sent and how frequently – as well as the same type of data for phone calls and text messages.

Cameron said his proposal was meant “to keep our country safe from serious and organised crime and also from terrorist threats that… that we still face in this country”. But as Privacy International explained: ”In a terrorism investigation, the police will already have access to all the data they could want. This is about other investigations.” The information gathered in this new program would be available to local law enforcement for use in any investigation and would be available without any judicial oversight.Because many popular services – like Google and Facebook – encrypt the transmission of user data, the government also would force social media sites and other online service providers to comply with any data request. Currently,according to their most recent Transparency Report, Google refused to comply with 37 per cent of user data requests they received from UK authorities in the first six months of 2011, because they didn’t comport with “the spirit or letter of the law”, likely indicating overly broad requests or that the authorities provided no reasonable suspicion of a crime occurred. Under the new proposal, Google could not refuse any requests – regardless of their validity – and would be forced to hand over all data.

Censorship

Parliament has also targeted Google and Facebook on the censorship front in recent weeks. As the Guardian reported, “A cross-party committee of MPs and peers has urged the government to consider introducing legislation that would force Google to censor its search results to block material that a court has found to be in breach of someone’s privacy.” By “privacy”, the committee meant so-called “super-injunctions” – censorship orders, usually taken out by celebrities or wealthy individuals, which ban a publisher from mentioning a topic or even the injunction.

In the last year, users on Twitter and Google have broken several super-injunctions. For example, a Scottish oil company obtained a super-injunction against Greenpeace to keep photographs of the environmental group’s protest off social media sites. Within hours, unaffiliated users posted hundreds of the pictures, effectively nullifying the order. If the recommendation by the MPs were followed, Google, Facebook and Twitter would have to proactively monitor and remove such results from their webpages.  

Another bill, known as the Online Safety Act, would force ISPs and mobile network providers to automatically block porn by default. As the Daily Tech reported, “In order to gain access to pornographic material, a user that is over 18 years of age must call their provider and ask for it directly.” And if the site doesn’t build in its own age verification policy, users over 18 could still be denied access even if they’ve opted in.

The Prime Minister is also reportedly considering rules requiring websites playing music videos to install age verification systems, because some music videos produced by popular artists like Rihanna, Beyoncé and Madonna are allegedly “highly suggestive”.

And if the government gets its way with its new copyright proposal, the only music video sites users would able to access at all would be those sanctioned by record-companies. Despite the enormous backlash over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the US, the UK government is reportedly trying to broker a backroom deal between ISPs and content companies in which search engines would start “voluntarily” censoring sites accused of copyright infringement. The deal would force search engines to blacklist entire websites from search results merely upon an allegation of infringement, and artificially promote “approved” websites.

Existing laws

Unfortunately, laws already on the books in the UK are notorious for restricting free speech as well. Their strict libel laws attract “libel tourism”, where citizens from other countries go to sue for libel with cases they could never sue for in their home country. Just recently, one man was forced to pay 90,000 pounds (plus costs) because of two tweets that were seen by an estimated 65 people in England and Wales.
A UK judge recently sentenced a 21-year-old college student to 56 days in jail for a series of “racially offensive comments” written in series of tweets referring to a popular football player. The judge in the case noted, the comments were “vile and abhorrent”, but “In my view, there is no alternative to an immediate prison sentence.” The case, which made national and international headlines surely gave the racist remarks a far higher audience than if they had been ignored. Libel cases in the UK cost an average of 140 times of those in the rest of Europe, according to a Cambridge University study, so people often settle out of fear of extraordinary cost of defence, even if innocent. The UN Committee on Human Rights warned that the current system “served to discourage critical media reporting on matters of serious public interest, adversely affecting the ability of scholars and journalists to publish their work”. Thankfully, the government has indicated they wish to reform the law and The Hindu reported that a Defamation Bill may be announced this year.

Beyond the domestic free speech issues, Britain is home to many of the companies exporting high tech surveillance equipment to authoritarian countries in the Middle East, where it is used to track journalists and democratic activists. The technology, which can be used to monitor a country’s emails and phone calls, is similar to what the UK government will have to install to implement its own mass surveillance programme.

The British government claims it is “actively looking at this issue” and “working within the EU to introduce new controls on surveillance”, but given its domestic censorship and surveillance proposals, maybe they should also exert some control at home as well.

Guatemala’s president recently suggested decriminalising illegal drugs.

Decriminalizing drugs in the Western hemisphere

In a break with his past positions, Guatemala’s president recently suggested decriminalizing illegal drugs.

Scranton, PA - United States Vice President Joseph Biden recently travelled to Mexico and Honduras in the midst of growing frustration with the US war on drugs. In Mexico, Biden met with current President Felipe Calderón as well as several contenders in the country’s presidential election this July.

From there, Biden flew to Honduras for a meeting of the Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI) during which he met with the presidents of Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and El Salvador, and Panama, and others. While Biden’s Central America visit was initially designed to discuss regional security more broadly, debate mainly revolved around Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina’s suggestion that the region consider decriminalizing the use and transportation of drugs.

Central America and Mexico are situated between the major drug-producing nations of South America (Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia) and the world’s largest consumer of illegal drugs, the United States. Ninety per cent of the cocaine destined for the US passes through the region. While the US has moved to restrict the flow of drugs moving into the country via the Caribbean and air routes, violence in Mexico and Central America has increased as rival drug trafficking organisations fight over access to the lucrative drug market in the United States.

The Northern Triangle of Central America is now composed of three of the most violent countries in the world in terms of homicides per 100,000 people. Honduras (86 homicides per 100,000) and El Salvador (70) had the two highest homicide rates in the world in 2011 and Guatemala (39), while far behind, still ranked among the most violent. Homicide rates in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Mexico have also seen sharp increases over the last few years. While there are no solid numbers as to what percentage of homicides have been caused by drug trafficking, it is clear to all parties that the drug trade is fuelling, in one way or another, much of the region’s violence.

President Otto Perez Molina’s call to discuss decriminalizing drugs was welcomed by many, but it is still unclear why he suggested that the region consider decriminalizing illegal drug use and transportation at this moment in time. It is quite possible that Perez has come to the same conclusion that many others have – that the US-directed war on drugs has failed. For all the billions of dollars spent and lives lost in the war on drugs, there’s very little positive to show for it. The only way for the region to reduce the violence associated with drug trafficking between its South American source and North American destination is to decriminalize its production, transportation, and consumption.

This is not an unreasonable position. Former presidents of Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia have criticised US drug policy and have called for some level of decriminalizing illegal drugs.

I understand that Perez’ justification for his policy reversal isn’t the primary concern for those who seek a fundamental change in the region’s drug policy, but it is an important question, and the Guatemalan people should know better how President Perez came to this decision. Before his victory in a November runoff, Perez had been campaigning for president ever since he founded the Patriotic Party in 2001. He ran on a mano dura (“strong fist”) platform that he insisted was necessary to tackle rising crime before losing to Alvaro Colom in the 2007 presidential election. In 2011, Perez was again the mano dura candidate. His campaign rhetoric also addressed social and economic issues in greater detail compared to 2007.

Policy shift

However, in his 10 years of campaigning for the country’s highest office, not once did he suggest decriminalizing drugs as a potential solution to the country’s security situation. His first public utterance on the subject occurred in January 2012. Did Perez come to this important policy shift between his November election and January inauguration? If not, why didn’t he consider the issue important enough to share with the Guatemalan voters?

These questions are especially important following recent improvements in Guatemala’s security situation under Perez’s predecessor. On the one hand, former President Alvaro Colom oversaw four of the most violent years in the country’s history outside of the 1960-1996 civil war. Between 2008 and 2011, approximately 25,000 people were killed in Guatemala, a country of over fourteen million people.

However, after increasing for all but one year between 2001 and 2009, the country’s murder rate has decreased two years in a row. After peaking at 46 per 100,000 in 2009, it fell to 41 in 2010 and to 39 in 2011. While still high, the homicide rate is now at its lowest level since 2004. The last administration also arrested 14 of the country’s most-wanted drug traffickers, declared states of siege in two departments – bringing temporary relief to the people living there – and seized seven times more drugs, drug money and goods than the two previous administrations combined.

The justice system has also improved, in part due to the joint work of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) and Guatemalan law enforcement officials. Now those arrested will be replaced by new most wanted traffickers. Part of the explanation for the increased drug interdiction is that more drugs now pass through Guatemala, but I would like to know why the president does not believe that it is possible to continue to reduce violence without decriminalizing drugs.

What explains, then, the low number of murders carried out in January and February 2012, the first two months of his administration? Is this just the best that Guatemala can do and that any further reduction requires decriminalization? Or is he interested in something else from the US government?

Initially, I speculated that Perez might not believe that decriminalization was a viable option, but that he was simply using this suggestion in order to get the United States to alter its policies towards Guatemala. The United States has maintained a ban on weapons sales to Guatemala since 1978, which limits the US military’s ability to cooperate with their Guatemalan counterparts.

Perez might also be looking for the US to contribute more financial resources to battle drug trafficking, something that his predecessors have argued for as well. If so, then his proposal was just the opening round of negotiations, and now the US will have to deal or call his bluff. Had the lifting of the ban and more resources been his ultimate goals, decriminalizing all drug use, production, and transportation seems to have been too extreme a position to get the US to act. Perez would have been more likely to get a more positive US government response had he tapped into the growing support to decriminalize marijuana in California, Colorado, Washington and other US states.  

Finally, the United States needs to have a more satisfactory explanation for why it will support discussions surrounding the issue of decriminalization but won’t consider decriminalization at all. According to the New York Times, Biden “said that he sympathised with Latin American leaders frustrated over violence tied to the drug trade and with the consumption habits in its biggest market, the United States. But the few potential benefits from legalisation, like a smaller prison population, would be offset by problems, including a costly bureaucracy to regulate the drugs and new addicts.” There are very few people who wouldn’t trade less violence and fewer prisons for having to shift resources to support a larger bureaucracy in order to regulate the production, distribution, and use of illegal drugs.

Shortly after Perez voiced his initial concern, the US embassy in Guatemala argued that

“If the trafficking and use of illegal drugs were decriminalised tomorrow in Central America, transnational criminal organisations and gangs would continue to engage in illicit activity, including trafficking in persons and illegal arms, extortion and kidnapping, bank robbery, theft of intellectual property, and money laundering. Corruption and homicides in Central America are certainly exacerbated by the transit of illegal drugs, but with increased cultivation and consumption of decriminalised drugs, crime in Central America could well increase as the drug cartels shift their focus to these other forms of illicit activities.”

From what I can tell, no one is arguing that all of Central America and Mexico’s problems would disappear if drugs were to be made legal. A major policy change would not eliminate all the region’s problems, but it is disingenuous to dismiss out of hand the potential benefits of reduced corruption, violence, and militarised public security that would likely accompany legalisation. A better allocation of scarce resources towards education and health care, rather than incarceration, would also be welcome.

For the most part, President Perez’s suggestion has been warmly received throughout the region, earning praise from both the left and the right for calling for an approach based upon decriminalization. While I am sympathetic, I am afraid that President Perez’s suggestion might have set back efforts to achieve a smarter regional drug policy. Perez must have known that the United States would come out forcefully against his suggestion to legalize the production, transportation, and consumption of all drugs.Finally, there’s a good chance that the region’s economies would improve, as several studies have noted the negative impact that drug-related violence has had on the region’s development. I’m sure that legalizing drugs will lead to new problems, but there’s a good chance that those problems will be less deadly than those that will disappear with decriminalization.  

Had Perez suggested that the region discuss decriminalizing only marijuana, it would have been more difficult for the US to have fought back as forcefully against the notion. There have already been efforts in the United States, Mexico, Argentina, and other countries to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana. There does not appear to be much of an appetite to extend the same reform to cocaine or other drugs, as was shown by the US’s response to Bolivian President Evo Morales’s “coca, not cocaine”, policy. While still a long shot, a policy change targeted at marijuana would have been a much more viable goal than a reform involving all illegal drugs.

Perez also did not take into consideration that the United States is in the midst of a presidential campaign where taking a tough stand against external threats, wisely or not, is expected. As University of Miami professor Bruce Bagley said, “The last thing Obama wants is a decriminalization debate in the midst of this campaign”. Remember, Perez did not bring up decriminalization during his campaign for the presidency. It was only after he was elected that he found it opportune to introduce the policy. He should not have expected President Obama and his administration to have responded any differently. I understand that Perez and the other presidents want change now, but they might have just made it more difficult for President Obama to make any reforms.

Needless to say, Perez is determined to bring the issue up once again at a March 24 meeting of Central American presidents in Guatemala, and it is likely to be on the agenda when President Obama attends the Sixth Summit of the Americas in Colombia next month. While we have not heard the last word on the matter, it is unlikely that we will see any major change in US policy, no matter how much it is needed. It is also unclear whether Perez’s decriminalization suggestion will have adverse effects on bilateral issues between the US and Guatemala including immigration, Temporary Protected Status, and trade in his remaining four years in office.

Euro-American misperceptions of the Tunisian Revolution

A social crisis threatens Tunisia as the gap grows between those benefited from the revolution and those who haven’t. The battle for social dignity that brought people into the streets after the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi has not yet been won

Tunis, Tunisia - Spring has come late to the Arab world this year. This can be seen clearly in Tunisia, home to the Revolution of January 14, 2011, an event widely understood to be the great success story of the “Arab Spring”. Whereas war and violence have split countries such as Libya and Syria, and a creeping authoritarianism characterises post-revolutionary life in Egypt, Tunisia enjoyed a relatively smooth passage to freedom. This comforts observers in Europe and the United States, who see “mission accomplished” in Tunisia. But a year after popular demonstrations swept the old regime from power, cracks have emerged in the revolutionary edifice.

What brought these cracks into view is, oddly enough, the weather. This year, Tunisia suffered its worst winter in living memory. In the mountains near the Algerian border, up to 80cm of snow fell in the first week of February. The snowfall cut off electricity, water and gas to thousands, and opened a long and claustrophobic period of dark and cold for ill-equipped towns such as Aïn Draham and Sakiet Sidi Youssef.

But the historian was only giving voice to what rulers across North Africa have long known: their most important constituency is the “rain vote”. In the best years, winter rains replenish reservoirs and irrigate pastures, winter wheat, olive and orange trees. In bad years, the rains come too heavy, too cold, or not at all.Historically, Mediterranean Africa has been dominated by geography and climate, which have marked this region with catastrophic droughts, floods and earthquakes. Such was the importance of these natural forces that the great French historian, Fernand Braudel, made them the main characters for his massive history of the Mediterranean world, a book that famously showed how events could be considered froth on the waves of the deep currents of history.

Thus when the rain vote comes in favourably, it ensures abundance and low prices in the marketplace, and, with them, satisfied consumers who reward their leaders with political quietism, even support.

So a year after Tunisia’s new beginning, it is as if the weather itself had cast a vote against the revolution. The cold had “imposed its dictatorship”, but this dictatorship was felt unevenly. Unlike the political authoritarianism of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, the ill effects of winter have not been shared equally by all Tunisian citizens.

Those who live in the inland rural regions have suffered the most. Like the people of Sidi Bouzid, where the revolution began, their lives are marked by extreme economic precariousness and outright poverty. And their insecurity has increased, as prices for basic foodstuffs soar in a wave of inflation that has swept across the region this spring, hitting the working poor hard. And they are the lucky ones: 800,000 are unemployed in this country of only 10.5 million.

Like the other catastrophes and near misses that have recently marked the world’s economy, the causes behind this rise in prices are complex to the point of mystery. But the rain vote is ready to put a face on the problem and blame those who enrich themselves on the hunger of others, such as profiteers, food traffickers and a government which has little to offer in the way of solutions.

Situation critical

A social crisis threatens Tunisia, as the gap grows between those who have benefited from the revolution and those who have not. The winners are concentrated in the upper and middle urban classes – lawyers, professors, entrepreneurs – who now enjoy economic and political liberty, while the working classes have seen little improvement in their daily lives.

A reliable barometer of this social crisis are the “Harragas” who debark in small fishing boats for Europe. Their name comes from the Arabic word for “burners”, and they “burn” everything – papers, frontiers and their bridges back home. Having little hope that meaningful change will come from the ballot box, they take to the sea.

“Tunisia has no future in Tunisia,” President Moncef Marzouki recently said, in a poorly worded call for regional co-operation which resonated unfavourably with the Harragas. More than 30,000 have fled the country since January 14, 2011, and clandestine Tunisian emigrants are appearing now in Algeria, a country that faces its own acute problems of unemployment and poverty.

Thus winter brought into clear relief a basic social fact of Tunisia’s Arab Spring: the revolution of January 14, made in the name of people seeking dignity in the face of social misery, risks leaving most of them behind.

These debates have spilled out into the street, pitting secularists against those who wish to see the new Tunisia embrace an exclusive Arab-Islamic identity. Thus, we have the images from Manouba University, where the struggle of the“Munaqqabat”, or women who want to wear the full Islamic veil (niqab) to class, recently escalated into a dramatic rooftop battle between student militants under the black flag of the Salafi movement and the red flag of the Tunisian state.It is significant to recall winter’s work, now that the snow is gone and Tunisia moves into year two of its revolution. Since elections last October put the Islamist Ennahda party at the forefront of the provisional government, debates have centred on the relationship between politics and Islam, such as the question whether the new constitution will enshrine Sharia as the ultimate source of the law.

The stakes of these struggles over national identity are high for Tunisia and the Middle East, and the fact that they are unfolding with no small amount of physical violence is a cause of concern. But these issues were not at the origin of the revolution, and they are in many ways a distraction from the sort of deep structural problems Tunisia faces over the long-term. The battle for social dignity that brought people into the streets after the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi has not been won.

Even India Has LONG Range Missiles Now… Who Cares??

We are obsessed with north Korea having the potential for long range missiles for fear one day they may have nuclear capabilities…. but India which already has nuclear Capabilities now also has long range Missile capabilities and america has no interest of concern even wit the strife between Pakistan and India getting worse.

India has test launched its first long-range intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), capable of reaching deep into China and as far as Europe, with a scientist at the launch describing the mission as successful.

“It has met all the mission objectives,” S P Dash, director of the test range, told the Reuters news agency on Thursday. “It hit the target with very good accuracy.”

It took the missile about 20 minutes to hit its target somewhere near Indonesia in the Indian Ocean.

The launch of the Agni V, which can carry nuclear warheads and has a range of 5,000km, thrusts the country into an elite club of nations with intercontinental nuclear capabilities.

Only the UN Security Council permanent members – China, France, Russia, the US and Britain – along with Israel, have such long-range weapons.

“The successful launch of Agni V missile is a tribute to the sophistications and commitment to national causes on the part of India’s scientific technological community,” Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister, said.

Singh said he hoped Indian scientists and technologists would in the future contribute a “lot more to promoting self reliance in defence and other walks of national life”.

‘Confidence boost’

Al Jazeera’s Prerna Suri, reporting from New Delhi, said the launch was “significant because Indian scientists have been working for years to get the programme off the ground”.

“It is the most strategic and ambitious programme this country has undertaken in recent years,” she said.

“What’s important is that this missile has been completely indigenously produced and designed. It’s cost the Indian government over $500m to do that.”

Harsh Pant, a defence expert at King’s College, London, described the launch as a “confidence boost”, adding that the mission “signalled India’s arrival on the global stage [and] that it deserves to be sitting at the high table”.

But Richard Bitzinger, a military specialist at Nanyang Technological University in Hong Kong, told Al Jazeera that India would need to carry out ”several more tests” before it could declare Agni V missile operational.

“It’s not gonna happen overnight,” he said.

The launch came as India nears completion of a nuclear submarine that will increase its ability to launch a counter strike if it were attacked. Delhi insists its nuclear weapons programme is for deterrence only.

One of the fast emerging economies known as the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – India is keen to play a larger role on the global stage and has been clamouring for a permanent seat on the Security Council.

It has in recent years emerged as the world’s top arms importer as it rushes to upgrade equipment for a large but outdated military.

China’s reaction

There was no immediate criticism from world powers over the launch, which was flagged well in advance, but China noted the launch with disapproval.

“The West chooses to overlook India’s disregard of nuclear and missile control treaties,” China’s Global Timesnewspaper said in an editorial published before the launch, which was delayed by a day because of bad weather.

“India should not overestimate its strength,” said the paper, which is owned by the Chinese Communist Party’s main mouthpiece the People’s Daily.

State-owned China Central Television said the missile “does not pose a threat in reality”, enumerating some of its shortcomings, from a problem with guidance systems to its 50-ton-plus weight.

CCTV said the missile would have to be fired from fixed, not mobile positions, making it more vulnerable to attack.

Delhi has not signed the non-proliferation treaty for nuclear nations, but enjoys a de facto legitimacy for its arsenal, boosted by a landmark 2008 deal with the US.

On Wednesday, NATO said it did not consider India a threat while the US state department urged restraint and said India’s non-proliferation record was “solid”.

India lost a brief Himalayan border war with its larger neighbour, China, in 1962 and has since strived to improve its defences. In recent years, the government has fretted over China’s enhanced military presence near the border.

Experts said the launch could trigger a renewed push from within India’s defence establishment to build a fully fledged  ICBM programme capable of reaching the Americas.

“Policy-wise it becomes more complicated from now on, until Agni V, India really has been able to make a case about its strategic objectives, but as it moves into the ICBM frontier there’ll be more questions asked,” said Pant.

Egypt: Soccer/Football Plus Politics Makes Volatile and Bloody and Deadly Mix

Canberra, Australia - Football and politics have always proved a volatile mix. It has caused many diplomatic incidents and even a war. It has been used by regimes as a tool of state control. On February 1, 2012, in the Egyptian city of Port Said, a mix of revolution, football and politics, took it to a whole bloody new level.

What started as a match between al-Ahly, one of the leading Egyptian football teams, and al-Masry, the champions of the city of Port Said at their home stadium, turned into pure carnage. The facts of what transpired that night are still not fully clear. What is known is an intense rivalry exists between the two teams, and no love is lost between the Masry fans and the Ahly Ultras, the most hardcore group of al-Ahly fans, modelled on European Ultra fans.

After al-Masry won the game 2-1, the Masry fans stormed the pitch, chasing the Ahly players. In the stands, they crossed the barriers separating them from the Ultras, where the police force – who normally stand guard between the two groups – had suspiciously withdrawn, the separation barriers lifted. The field was completely open for the Masry fans to brutally charge the Ahly players and Ultras. The result: more than 74 dead.

An Ultras blogger who survived the night wrote: “The people attacking us were armed with batons, knives, rocks, glass, fireworks and all kinds of weapons that would be used in more than football trouble.” The Ultras had been cornered by the Masry fans into the narrow alleyway leading to the stadium exit. The stadium gates were shut in front of them, as the Masry fans closed in.

Amid panic and a stampede, many Ultras were crushed to death, while others were beaten and stabbed. At the latest toll, 74 men of various ages had lost their lives. In the aftermath, conspiracy theories abound and the SCAF and politicians were quick to blame the now infamous “hidden hands” as the planner and perpetrators of these attacks. Eye witness accounts collected in the aftermath of the events by the Egyptian Initiative for Human Rights suggest that security forces had allowed this massacre to happen.

Reprisal politics

Football hooliganism is inexcusable, and should be dealt with by the full force of the law. Some have argued that the Port Said bloodshed of February 1 is a manifestation of violent football hooliganism that is a threat to the revolution. The opposite, which could also be argued, is that the Ultras were targeted because they were an integral part of the revolution – the violent events that erupted simply don’t add up as only pure football violence. The fact that riot police were caught on camera standing by as the violence unfolded shows that they were complicit in the massacre.

The Ultras Ahlawy, together with their arch-rivals, the Zamalek Ultras White Knights, have been a thorn in the side of the regime and SCAF since January 25, 2011. As a large and very organised group of aggressive disenfranchised youth bound together by a common love of football and a strong hatred for the authorities, they repeatedly played pivotal roles in many clashes with the regime in 2011; often they were at the frontline of the protests, taking bullets and facing tear gas as they chanted profane and taunting calls against the Security Forces about to attack them. They had a leading role in almost all clashes against the regime, from the 18 days of the uprising to the Israeli embassy protest in September, the clashes on Muhammad Mahmoud Street in November, and finally at the Egyptian parliament in December.

The Ultras are a force to be reckoned with: they have the numbers, the organisation and the outspoken aggressive disdain for the police forces that other, more fragmented protest groups may lack. Once shunned by many as mere football hooligans, they now command respect and solidarity from other activists. In any confrontation with the police, they are busy organising ambulance routes and manning the frontlines, locking arms and calling on others to stand their ground as tear gas canisters are lobbed in their direction. They’re also quite young. The youngest dead Ultra in the Port Said clashes was just 14 years old. The loss of so many young men’s lives at a football match has hit Egypt hard.

Hours after the devastating events, thousands of Ahly and Zamalek fans joined the victims’ families at Cairo’s Ramsis station, putting aside their rivalry to receive the dead and the injured arriving from Port Said. As the train rolled in, the hall thundered with chants of “down with military rule”. The Ultras issued a statement, calling for nothing less than the resignation of the head of SCAF, Field Marshal Tantawi, and holding the SCAF accountable for the avoidable deaths of their 74 contemporaries.

Many Ultras believe that the massacre was an orchestrated retaliation for their continuous anti-SCAF stance and their active role in demonstrations. Several days ago at another match, thousand of Ultras were also chanting ”down, down with military rule”. They continue to be a well-organised foe of the ruling military junta. The Ultras perceived the events as a direct premeditated attack by SCAF, because of their political activities.

After the events, the Egyptian parliament convened for an emergency session and the SCAF announced a three-day period of mourning. PM Ganzouri accepted the resignation of the governor of Port Said and fired its head of police. A parliamentary investigation was launched, with the final report blaming both the Ultras and the police forces, but saying the police “enabled” the massacre.

To reform or not to reform

On February 9, protesters, including many Ultras, marched from al-Ahly Club in Zamalek to the ministry of interior in downtown Cairo, calling for the end of military rule. Given their history with the authorities and their fierce loyalty to their comrades, it was expected that the march would end in clashes with Central Security Forces. And it did.

The Kasr El Nil Bridge – the site of so many significant protest marches in 2011 – rocked gently with the force of thousands of angry youth jumping and chanting as they filed across the bridge, chanting loud and profane taunts against the SCAF, the Port Said fans and the military police. Once in Tahrir, the groups continued to spill into Muhammad Mahmoud Street, where a large wall has stood since the bloody clashes of October 2011. This wall, a pile of concrete blocks on the corner of the AUC campus, was erected by the army to block protesters from reaching the ministry of interior, just two streets away. In fact, all routes to the ministry were been blocked by walls or barbed wire, and as protesters closed in, the sight of rows of armed Central Security Forces in riot gear with their visors down was unmistakable. The CSF were clearly prepared for violence and so were the protesters. Street battles raged for three days around the interior ministry. In Suez, protesters there battled the police. At last count, there were 15 deaths and several hundred injured across the country, as the youth raged against the events which took place at Port Said.

The Egyptian Football Association, seeking to calm the Ultra Ahlawy thirst for revenge, imposed a two year ban on Al Masry. However, since this year’s football season has been suspended, this ban is effectively for one season, further enraging the Ahlawy Ultra fans as too lenient. On the other side, the Masry fans responded to the ban by rioting and attempting to storm the Suez Canal Authority building on March 23, clashing with the army. Emotions continue to run high, as the Ultras Ahlawy continue to ask for justice for their fallen. Until today, the real masterminds behind the massacre remain at large. Many fingers continue to point towards the Egyptian police.

It is clear one of the things Egypt needs most at this stage is police reform on a large scale, similar to what has happened in Georgia, where thousands of Soviet-era police officers were fired in a day, and the whole security apparatus was turned inside out. The mentality of the security forces in Egypt has always been geared to protect the regime, not its people. Since January 25 there have been some cosmetic changes, a few generals forced into early retirement, some investigations into the conduct of officers, and a re-naming of Mubarak’s feared Amn Dawla ["State Security"], Egypt’s Stasi, into the more benign sounding Amn Watani ["National Security"]. Many have cynically dismissed these changes as simple rebranding exercises, with the majority of officers still maintaining a Mubarak-era mentality of “regime first”.

SCAF’s mismanagement of post-Mubarak Egypt continues to reach epic proportions. They find themselves in a classic Catch-22 situation with regards to police reform. If they listen to the aspirations of the people and fully reform the police, they lose a valuable tool of state control. Should reform take place, where would the buck stop? Real reform in state institutions might later have personal ramifications for SCAF itself, as Egyptians are already calling for civilian control over the military, which may lead to investigations of the military junta down the line. On the other hand, should SCAF choose not to fully reform the police, they risk continued clashes with the people, who no longer fear the police – and consider it one of the last remaining bastions of the old regime.

The Port Said massacre provided further impetus for the youth to rally against the military. Bloody incidents, with violent reactions, are likely to continue if the facts of the events in Port Said are not fully and transparently investigated. For now, football in Egypt remains indefinitely suspended, but the deaths of 74 young men continues to weigh heavily on Egyptians and, indeed, the world.

N. Sudan President Bashir Growing Impatient With Division Process

Sudan’s president has said he will ”cut” the hand of aggressors and retake the disputed oil-producing Heglig region as his country continues to clash with its southern neighbour South Sudan.

Omar al-Bashir told a rally in Sudan’s North Kordofan state on Thursday he would not surrender “an inch” of the country and that he would firmly deal with the enemies.

“We will not give them an inch of our country, and whoever extends his hand on Sudan, we will cut it,” Bashir told thousands of people in El-Obeid, North Kordofan’s capital.

“Heglig is in Kordofan,” he said in the speech broadcast on state television, dancing and waving his walking stick. The region accounts for 50 per cent of Sudan’s oil production.

Al Jazeera’s Peter Greste, reporting from Bentiu, South Sudan, said officials in Juba, the country’s capital, had dismissed Bashir’s statements as rhetoric.

“They [Sudanese authorities] never really accepted the cessation of the South”, Barnaba Benjamin, the South Sudanese minister of information, told our correspondent, referring to the referendum that led to South Sudan becoming an independent state.

Benjamin said the South was not interested in war with Sudan and that “all they’re trying to do is defend South Sudan’s territorial integrity”.

Greste said Bashir’s statements had further complicated diplomatic efforts.

“The scaling up of the rhetoric is something that is worrying diplomats,” our correspondent said.

“The challenge for the diplomats is to try to find [a way of] of resolving this dispute … “

‘Insect’ government

Bashir threatened on Wednesday to overthrow the “insect” government in South Sudan following the attack on Heglig, Sudan’s most important oil field, by troops from the south who seized it eight days ago.

“Our main goal is liberation of the southern citizens from the SPLM,” he told members of Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party.

The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) is the ruling party in South Sudan.

“We call it an insect … trying to destroy Sudan, and our main target from today is to eliminate this insect completely,” Bashir said.

“There are two choices: Either we end up in Juba or they end up in Khartoum. The old borders cannot take us both.”

“In a few hours you are going to listen to good news from your brothers in Heglig. Heglig will not be the end. The end will be in Juba.”

Bashir made the remarks as his audience sang songs about jihad, or holy war.

Swift victory forecast

While Bashir forecast a swift victory, a foreign ministry official said Sudan was pursuing both military and diplomatic measures to remove South Sudan from the area.

“Military steps are under way … and they are calculated measures,” Omar Dahab, head of the ministry’s crisis team, said.

At the same time, they are taking into consideration the diplomatic and good offices efforts regarding the ending of the occupation.

“We have to end the occupation by hook or crook, by either way.”

Sudan’s military has released virtually no information about the situation on the ground, but South Sudan has vowed to hold its positions in Heglig, despite air strikes.

Clashes broke out last month in the Heglig area and escalated last week with waves of aerial bombardment hitting the South and South Sudan’s seizure of the oil centre on April 10.

The UN, the US and the European Union have criticised the South’s occupation of the north’s most important oil field, equally denouncing Sudanese air raids against the South. South Sudan claims the raids prompted the invasion of Heglig.

Possible sanctions

There are widespread fears that the fighting, which began with skirmishes in the same area in late March and intensified last week, will spread.

It is already the worst episode since South Sudan won independence in July after a 1983-2005 civil war which killed two million people.

Bashir’s comments follow a UN Security Council meeting which discussed possible sanctions on Tuesday against Sudan and South Sudan in a bid to halt a wider war.

“Council members expressed grave concern over the situation and committed to make every effort to convince the parties to cease hostilities and return to the negotiating table,” Susan Rice, the Security Council president, said.

But Dahab, of Khartoum’s foreign ministry, said penalising both the aggressor and the victim would be wrong.

“It is clear that that is not fair,” he said. “Logically it should be directed to the aggressor.”

Although South Sudan disputes it, Heglig has been internationally recognised as being part of Sudan.

Sudan’s Southern Kordofan: Unfinished Business

A hidden war in the remote state of Southern Kordofan in Sudan.

Sudan, once Africa’s biggest country, has been in conflict for decades. The mainly African south and predominately Arab north fought for almost 40 years over the past six decades over differences in ideology, politics, resources, land and oil.

The most recent war raged from 1983 to 2005, claiming the lives of at least two million people and leaving another four million displaced.

“Once you get there, what you find is a humanitarian disaster unfolding of really quite startling proportions.“ Peter Greste, Al Jazeera correspondent

When South Sudan became independent in July 2011, it was supposed to usher in a new period of peace and stability in the region.

But Sudan is still highly unstable with a continuing humanitarian crisis in Darfur in the west and fighting in oil-rich regions bordering South Sudan together known as the “Three Areas”. The country is also recovering from a conflict in the east.

Southern Kordofan is region that used to be the geographical centre of Sudan, but when the south won independence, it found itself on the southern border.

At its heart is the Nuba Mountains where some 50 black African tribes have lived for thousands of years.

There was heavy fighting in the region during the north-south civil war, but the comprehensive peace agreement that ended the conflict never resolved its status.

In a special show, Al Jazeera investigates a hidden war in the remote state of Southern Kordofan in Sudan where rebels are fighting to defend their people against what they say is “genocide”.

“The situation in South Kordofan is even worse than Darfur…I think hunger is getting worse and worse in the Nuba and we are going to see much serious conditions unfold in coming weeks.“ Mukesh Kapila, a former UN coordinator for Sudan

Al Jazeera’s Peter Greste travelled to the isolated Nuba Mountains where he found entire communities hiding in caves from a bombing campaign that Khartoum says is aimed only at putting down an armed insurrection.

But the conflict has stopped people from tending their fields and food is running out. Aid agencies have been banned from the region, and the UN warns of a looming humanitarian disaster.

What will happen to the civilians in the Nuba Mountains? What does the crisis mean for Sudan? And why is the crisis in Southern Kordofan not getting the world’s attention?

Joining us to discuss the issues behind the crisis in Southern Kordofan are: Mustafa Osman Ismail, a senior adviser to Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president. Ismail was Sudan’s foreign minister from 1998 to 2005; and Mukesh Kapila, a former UN resident and humanitarian coordinator for Sudan from 2003 to 2004.

“War is war and the reason why there is war is because rebels are fighting in South Kordofan, they are refusing the election… If they want democracy, we are ready for democracy. If they want political settlement, we are ready for political settlement. But they are taking civilians as shelter. If you have any humanitarian support and you want to send it to the needy people in the Nuba Mountains… we are ready to take it to them now.”

 

Mustafa Osman Ismail, a senior adviser to Omar al-Bashir

 

Things About Israel Americans are NOT Being Shown or Exposed to

New York, NY - On Wednesday, April 4, 2012, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung published Nobel laureate Günter Grass’ poem (the German original) that has created quite a stir not only in Germany, Israel and Iran, but also across the globe. As a result Israeli interior minister Eli Yishai has banned the Nobel laureate from entering Israel.

In this poem, Günter Grass breaks a long standing German taboo and publicly criticises Israel for aggressive warmongering against Iran, identifies the Jewish state as a threat to world peace, accuses “the West” of hypocrisy and denounces his own government for providing nuclear submarines to Israel:

… Because we – as Germans burdened enough -
Could be the suppliers to a crime
That is foreseeable, wherefore our complicity
Could not be redeemed through any of the usual excuses.

The poem drew much appreciation from those opposing yet another pending war in the region by pointing to the big elephant in the room, but also widespread condemnation by Jewish and non-Jewish groups and public figures in Germany, igniting the irritable Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, in effect corroborating Günter Grass’ own assessment that his silence so far had to do with the concern that he would be accused of anti-Semitism. He was accused of anti-Semitism.

In the European and by extension North American birthplace of anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism is either perfectly alive and well, or transformed into Islamophobia, or camouflaged into Evangelical Zionism, or else abused by some Zionists to silence any opposition coming towards Israel – certainly to no avail. But has the charge of anti-Semitism really silenced the critics of Israel – as Günter Grass suggests in this poem? Not really – or perhaps only so in Germany, for obvious reasons, but certainly not around the globe. The only people who are afraid of being called anti-Semites are the anti-Semites. Yes certain segments of pro-Israeli Zionists, by no means all, hurtle that accusation to silence their opponents. But by no stretch of the imagination has that charge silenced anyone but the anti-Semites – and they better remain silent.

To be sure, the condition in Germany is perhaps different – as indeed it should be. But by overcoming that false fear, Günter Grass can no longer be accused of anti-Semitism – and thus the significance of his poem is not in the straw man he constructs to shoot down (perhaps rhetorically, for after all, we are talking about a poem). It is somewhere else. 

Tomorrow may be too late

In the body of the poem itself, titled “What Must Be Said”, Günter Grass, 84, says that he risks the danger of being called an anti-Semite because:

Aged and with my last ink,
That the nuclear power of Israel endangers
The already fragile world peace?
Because it must be said
What even tomorrow may be too late to say…

Remaining silent at these dire circumstances is irresponsible and dangerous:

I am silent no longer
Because I am tired of the hypocrisy
Of the West…

Now that is good enough a reason to break the silence – and you need not invoke fear of being called an anti-Semite. Günter Grass expresses fear of a pending war that “could erase the Iranian people”. He pulls no punches as to the facts that we all know:

Yet why do I forbid myself
To name that other country
In which, for years, even if secretly,
There has been a growing nuclear potential at hand
But beyond control, because no testing is available?

He then points finger at his own country:

Now, though, because in my country
Which from time to time has sought and confronted
The very crime
That is without compare
In turn on a purely commercial basis, if also
With nimble lips calling it a reparation, declares
A further U-boat should be delivered to Israel,
Whose specialty consists of guiding all-destroying warheads to where the existence
Of a single atomic bomb is unproven,
But through fear of what may be conclusive,
I say what must be said.

Setting the dubious fear of being accused of anti-Semitism aside, Günter Grass provides ample reasons – European hypocrisy, German complacency, American barefaced double-standards, Ahmadinejad’s buffoonery and Israeli warmongering – for his poem to assume the global significance that it has. But the importance of the poem is not in stating the obvious – it is in revealing the repressed. 

European colonialism and Jewish Holocaust 

Given the history that culminated in the Jewish Holocaust, Jews around the globe, including Israel, have every right to get agitated with a prominent German public intellectual lecturing them about violence. But Zionism is chiefly responsible for having wasted the moral authority of the Jewish Holocaust – through what Norman Finkelstein has aptly called “the Holocaust Industry” – on establishing a racist apartheid state called “Israel” – a colonial settlement as a haven for the victims of a whole history of European anti-Semitism, on the broken back of a people who had nothing to do with that travesty.

Rabbi Dovid Weiss: Zionism has created ‘rivers of blood’

With a leading German public intellectual openly criticising Israel, pointing to European hypocrisy, and blaming his own country for aiding and abetting in the aggressive militarisation of the Jewish state – a gushing wound is opened that implicates both Europe and the colonial settlement that in more than one sense is its own creation. In two specific terms, both as a haven for the victims of the Jewish Holocaust and as the legacy of European colonialism, Israel reflects back on its European pedigree. It is here that Grass’ poem reveals more than meets the eye.

For over 60 years, Palestinians have paid with their lives, liberties and homeland for a European crime with which they had absolutely nothing to do.

The Zionist project precedes the European Jewish Holocaust -that ghastly crime against humanity following the horrid history of European anti-Semitism expressed and manifested in systematic pogroms over many long and dark centuries. Palestine was colonised by the victims of European anti-Semitism – as a haven against Jewish persecution. That paradox remains at the heart of a Jewish state that cannot forget the truth of its own founding myth.

There is a link between the Jewish Holocaust and the history of European colonialism, of which Zionism (perhaps paradoxically, perhaps not) is a continued contemporary extension.

It was Aimé Césaire who in his Discourse sur le colonialisme/Discourse on Colonialism (1955) argued that the Jewish Holocaust was not an aberration in European history. Rather, Europeans actually perpetrated similar crimes against humanity on the colonised world at large.

With German atrocities during the Holocaust, Europeans tasted a concentrated dose of the structural violence they had perpetrated upon the world at large. Colonialism and the Holocaust were thus the two sides of the same coin: the aggressive transmutation of defenceless human beings into instruments of power – into disposable “things”. Long before the Jewish Holocaust, the world Europeans had conquered and colonised was the testing ground of that barbaric violence they had termed the “civilising mission of the white man”.

European guilt about the Holocaust is absolutely necessary and healthy – it is an ennobling guilt. It makes them better human beings, for them to remember what they did to European Jewry. But, and there is the rub, they are, with a supreme hypocrisy that Günter Grass notes in his poem, spending that guilt (when not redirecting it into Islamophobia) on sustaining a colonial settlement, an extension of their own colonial legacy, in supporting Israeli colonialism in the Arab and Muslim world – as a garrison state that further facilitates their renewed imperial interests in the region. Europeans are turning their legitimate guilt into an illegitimate instrument of their sustained imperial designs on the globe, from whom Americans then take their cues.

European logic of colonialism

Israel is a European colonial settlement, the last astonishingly barefaced remnant of European colonialism in a world that calls itself “postcolonial”.

The same people who are with perfect justification enraged by the foolish Ahmadinejad (when he denies the Holocaust) are evidently entirely undisturbed when their Prime Minister Golda Meir or their favourite presidential candidate Newt Gingrich denies the existence of Palestinians.

The daring imagination of Günter Grass’ poem – a heroically tragic act precisely because the poet is implicated in the moral outrage of his own poem – is significant precisely because it captures this German and by extension European logic/madness of colonial conquest and moral cannibalism. A German intellectual exposing the structural link between Zionism and colonialism marks the even more innate link between the Holocaust and colonialism – precisely at the moment of warning against the regional warmongering of Zionism as the post/colonial extension of European colonialism.

What Prime Minister Netanyahu’s reaction to Günter Grass’ poem, and many others like him, do not recognise is that precisely when they accuse the German poet of anti-Semitism they are in fact acknowledging the colonial provenance of the Jewish state. The harder they object to Günter Grass, the clearer becomes the fact that the Jewish state is the rhetorical articulation of the very logic of European global colonialism, of which the Jewish Holocaust, as Aimé Césaire rightly recognised, was a local overdose.

There is one, and only one, definitive resolution for that paradoxical consistency to come to an end: the one state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian dilemma. It is only in that basic, simple, elegant, humane, non-violent, enduring and just resolution that the paradox of Zionism as colonialism, and the structural link between the Jewish Holocaust and European colonialism, can once and for all be resolved.

The fact and the inevitability of that solution, delivering both Israelis and Palestinians from their mutual (however asymmetrical) sufferings, has been staring the world in the eye from day one – and yet the belligerent politics of despair has caused an intentional blindness that prevents that simple vision. So, yes, Günter Grass is right – and in this revelation he could no longer possibly be an anti-Semite:

Only this way are all, the Israelis and Palestinians,
Even more, all people, that in this
Region occupied by mania
Live cheek by jowl among enemies,
In the end also to help us.

Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York.  His forthcoming book, The Arab Spring:  The End of Postcolonialism (Zed, 2012) is scheduled for publication in May 2012.

BP’s Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Continues to Show Serious Problems

New Orleans, LA - “The fishermen have never seen anything like this,” Dr Jim Cowan told Al Jazeera. “And in my 20 years working on red snapper, looking at somewhere between 20 and 30,000 fish, I’ve never seen anything like this either.”

Dr Cowan, with Louisiana State University’s Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences started hearing about fish with sores and lesions from fishermen in November 2010.

Cowan’s findings replicate those of others living along vast areas of the Gulf Coast that have been impacted by BP’s oil and dispersants.

Gulf of Mexico fishermen, scientists and seafood processors have told Al Jazeera they are finding disturbing numbers of mutated shrimp, crab and fish that they believe are deformed by chemicals released during BP’s 2010 oil disaster.

Along with collapsing fisheries, signs of malignant impact on the regional ecosystem are ominous: horribly mutated shrimp, fish with oozing sores, underdeveloped blue crabs lacking claws, eyeless crabs and shrimp – and interviewees’ fingers point towards BP’s oil pollution disaster as being the cause.

Eyeless shrimp

Tracy Kuhns and her husband Mike Roberts, commercial fishers from Barataria, Louisiana, are finding eyeless shrimp.

“At the height of the last white shrimp season, in September, one of our friends caught 400 pounds of these,” Kuhns told Al Jazeera while showing a sample of the eyeless shrimp.

According to Kuhns, at least 50 per cent of the shrimp caught in that period in Barataria Bay, a popular shrimping area that was heavily impacted by BP’s oil and dispersants, were eyeless. Kuhns added: “Disturbingly, not only do the shrimp lack eyes, they even lack eye sockets.”

Eyeless shrimp, from a catch of 400 pounds of eyeless shrimp, said to be caught September 22, 2011, in Barataria Bay, Louisiana [Erika Blumenfeld/Al Jazeera]

“Some shrimpers are catching these out in the open Gulf [of Mexico],” she added, “They are also catching them in Alabama and Mississippi. We are also finding eyeless crabs, crabs with their shells soft instead of hard, full grown crabs that are one-fifth their normal size, clawless crabs, and crabs with shells that don’t have their usual spikes … they look like they’ve been burned off by chemicals.”

On April 20, 2010, BP’s Deepwater Horizon oilrig exploded, and began the release of at least 4.9 million barrels of oil. BP then used at least 1.9 million gallons of toxic Corexit dispersants to sink the oil.

Keath Ladner, a third generation seafood processor in Hancock County, Mississippi, is also disturbed by what he is seeing.

“I’ve seen the brown shrimp catch drop by two-thirds, and so far the white shrimp have been wiped out,” Ladner told Al Jazeera. “The shrimp are immune compromised. We are finding shrimp with tumors on their heads, and are seeing this everyday.”

While on a shrimp boat in Mobile Bay with Sidney Schwartz, the fourth-generation fisherman said that he had seen shrimp with defects on their gills, and “their shells missing around their gills and head”.

“We’ve fished here all our lives and have never seen anything like this,” he added.

Ladner has also seen crates of blue crabs, all of which were lacking at least one of their claws.

Darla Rooks, a lifelong fisherperson from Port Sulfur, Louisiana, told Al Jazeera she is finding crabs “with holes in their shells, shells with all the points burned off so all the spikes on their shells and claws are gone, misshapen shells, and crabs that are dying from within … they are still alive, but you open them up and they smell like they’ve been dead for a week”.

Rooks is also finding eyeless shrimp, shrimp with abnormal growths, female shrimp with their babies still attached to them, and shrimp with oiled gills.

“We also seeing eyeless fish, and fish lacking even eye-sockets, and fish with lesions, fish without covers over their gills, and others with large pink masses hanging off their eyes and gills.”

Rooks, who grew up fishing with her parents, said she had never seen such things in these waters, and her seafood catch last year was “ten per cent what it normally is”.

“I’ve never seen this,” he said, a statement Al Jazeera heard from every scientist, fisherman, and seafood processor we spoke with about the seafood deformities.

Given that the Gulf of Mexico provides more than 40 per cent of all the seafood caught in the continental US, this phenomenon does not bode well for the region, or the country.

BP’s chemicals?

“The dispersants used in BP’s draconian experiment contain solvents, such as petroleum distillates and 2-butoxyethanol. Solvents dissolve oil, grease, and rubber,” Dr Riki Ott, a toxicologist, marine biologist and Exxon Valdez survivor told Al Jazeera. “It should be no surprise that solvents are also notoriously toxic to people, something the medical community has long known”.

The dispersants are known to be mutagenic, a disturbing fact that could be evidenced in the seafood deformities. Shrimp, for example, have a life-cycle short enough that two to three generations have existed since BP’s disaster began, giving the chemicals time to enter the genome.

Pathways of exposure to the dispersants are inhalation, ingestion, skin, and eye contact. Health impacts can include headaches, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pains, chest pains, respiratory system damage, skin sensitisation, hypertension, central nervous system depression, neurotoxic effects, cardiac arrhythmia and cardiovascular damage. They are also teratogenic – able to disturb the growth and development of an embryo or fetus – and carcinogenic.

Cowan believes chemicals named polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), released from BP’s submerged oil, are likely to blame for what he is finding, due to the fact that the fish with lesions he is finding are from “a wide spatial distribution that is spatially coordinated with oil from the Deepwater Horizon, both surface oil and subsurface oil. A lot of the oil that impacted Louisiana was also in subsurface plumes, and we think there is a lot of it remaining on the seafloor”.

Marine scientist Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia published results of her submarine dives around the source area of BP’s oil disaster in the Nature Geoscience journal.

Her evidence showed massive swathes of oil covering the seafloor, including photos of oil-covered bottom dwelling sea creatures.

While showing slides at an American Association for the Advancement of Science annual conference in Washington, Joye said: “This is Macondo oil on the bottom. These are dead organisms because of oil being deposited on their heads.”

Dr Wilma Subra, a chemist and Macarthur Fellow, has conducted tests on seafood and sediment samples along the Gulf for chemicals present in BP’s crude oil and toxic dispersants.

“Tests have shown significant levels of oil pollution in oysters and crabs along the Louisiana coastline,” Subra told Al Jazeera. “We have also found high levels of hydrocarbons in the soil and vegetation.”

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, PAHs “are a group of semi-volatile organic compounds that are present in crude oil that has spent time in the ocean and eventually reaches shore, and can be formed when oil is burned”.

“The fish are being exposed to PAHs, and I was able to find several references that list the same symptoms in fish after the Exxon Valdez spill, as well as other lab experiments,” explained Cowan. “There was also a paper published by some LSU scientists that PAH exposure has effects on the genome.”

The University of South Florida released the results of a survey whose findings corresponded with Cowan’s: a two to five per cent infection rate in the same oil impact areas, and not just with red snapper, but with more than 20 species of fish with lesions. In many locations, 20 per cent of the fish had lesions, and later sampling expeditions found areas where, alarmingly, 50 per cent of the fish had them.

“I asked a NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] sampler what percentage of fish they find with sores prior to 2010, and it’s one tenth of one percent,” Cowan said. “Which is what we found prior to 2010 as well. But nothing like we’ve seen with these secondary infections and at this high of rate since the spill.”

“What we think is that it’s attributable to chronic exposure to PAHs released in the process of weathering of oil on the seafloor,” Cowan said. “There’s no other thing we can use to explain this phenomenon. We’ve never seen anything like this before.”

Official response

Questions raised by Al Jazeera’s investigation remain largely unanswered.

Al Jazeera contacted the office of Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, who provided a statement that said the state continues to test its waters for oil and dispersants, and that it is testing for PAHs.

“Gulf seafood has consistently tested lower than the safety thresholds established by the FDA for the levels of oil and dispersant contamination that would pose a risk to human health,” the statement reads. “Louisiana seafood continues to go through extensive testing to ensure that seafood is safe for human consumption. More than 3,000 composite samples of seafood, sediment and water have been tested in Louisiana since the start of the spill.”

Signs of the impact on the regional ecosystem are ominous – and scientists and fishermen point fingers towards BP’s oil as being the cause [Keath Ladner]

At the federal government level, the Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency – both federal agencies which have powers in the this area – insisted Al Jazeera talk with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

NOAA won’t comment to the media because its involvement in collecting information for an ongoing lawsuit against BP.

BP refused Al Jazeera’s request to comment on this issue for a television interview, but provided a statement that read:

“Seafood from the Gulf of Mexico is among the most tested in the world, and, according to the FDA and NOAA, it is as safe now as it was before the accident.”

BP claims that fish lesions are common, and that prior to the Deepwater Horizon accident there was documented evidence of lesions in the Gulf of Mexico caused by parasites and other agents.

The oil giant added:

“As part of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment, which is led by state and federal trustees, we are investigating the extent of injury to natural resources due to the accident.

“BP is funding multiple lines of scientific investigation to evaluate potential damage to fish, and these include: extensive seafood testing programs by the Gulf states; fish population monitoring conducted by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, Auburn University and others; habitat and water quality monitoring by NOAA; and toxicity tests on regional species. The state and federal Trustees will complete an injury assessment and the need for environmental restoration will be determined.”

Before and after

But evidence of ongoing contamination continues to mount.

Crustacean biologist Darryl Felder, in the Department of Biology with the University of Louisiana at Lafayette is in a unique position.

Felder has been monitoring the vicinity of BP’s blowout Macondo well both before and after the oil disaster began, because, as he told Al Jazeera, “the National Science Foundation was interested in these areas that are vulnerable due to all the drilling”.

“So we have before and after samples to compare to,” he added. “We have found seafood with lesions, missing appendages, and other abnormalities.”

Felder also has samples of inshore crabs with lesions. “Right here in Grand Isle we see lesions that are eroding down through their shell. We just got these samples last Thursday and are studying them now, because we have no idea what else to link this to as far as a natural event.”

According to Felder, there is an even higher incidence of shell disease with crabs in deeper waters.

“My fear is that these prior incidents of lesions might be traceable to microbes, and my questions are, did we alter microbial populations in the vicinity of the well by introducing this massive amount of petroleum and in so doing cause microbes to attack things other than oil?”

One hypothesis he has is that the waxy coatings around crab shells are being impaired by anthropogenic chemicals or microbes resulting from such chemicals.

“You create a site where a lesion can occur, and microbes attack. We see them with big black lesions, around where their appendages fall off, and all that is left is a big black ring.”

Felder added that his team is continuing to document the incidents: “And from what we can tell, there is a far higher incidence we’re finding after the spill.”

“We are also seeing much lower diversity of crustaceans,” he said. “We don’t have the same number of species as we did before [the spill].”

Felder has tested his samples for oil, but not found many cases where hydrocarbon traces tested positive. Instead, he believes what he is seeing in the deepwater around BP’s well is caused from the “huge amount” of drilling mud used during the effort to stop the gushing well.

“I was collecting deepwater shrimp with lesions on the side of their carapace. Under the lesions, the gills were black. The organ that propels the water through the gills, it too was jet-black. That impairs respiratory ability, and has a negative effect on them. It wasn’t hydrocarbons, but is largely manganese precipitates, which is really odd. There was a tremendous amount of drilling mud pumped out with Macondo, so this could be a link.”

Some drilling mud and oil well cement slurries used on oil extraction rigs contains up to 90 per cent by weight of manganomanganic (manganese) oxide particles.

Felder is also finding “odd staining” of animals that burrow into the mud that cause stain rings, and said: “It is consistently mineral deposits, possibly from microbial populations in [overly] high concentrations.”

A direct link

Dr Andrew Whitehead, an associate professor of biology at Louisiana State University, co-authored the reportGenomic and physiological footprint of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on resident marsh fishes that was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in October 2011.

Whitehead’s work is of critical importance, as it shows a direct link between BP’s oil and the negative impacts on the Gulf’s food web evidenced by studies on killifish before, during and after the oil disaster.

“What we found is a very clear, genome-wide signal, a very clear signal of exposure to the toxic components of oil that coincided with the timing and the locations of the oil,” Whitehead told Al Jazeera during an interview in his lab.

According to Whitehead, the killifish is an important indicator species because they are the most abundant fish in the marshes, and are known to be the most important forage animal in their communities.

“That means that most of the large fish that we like to eat and that these are important fisheries for, actually feed on the killifish,” he explained. “So if there were to be a big impact on those animals, then there would probably be a cascading effect throughout the food web. I can’t think of a worse animal to knock out of the food chain than the killifish.”

But we may well be witnessing the beginnings of this worst-case scenario.

Whitehead is predicting that there could be reproductive impacts on the fish, and since the killifish is a “keystone” species in the food web of the marsh, “Impacts on those species are more than likely going to propagate out and effect other species. What this shows is a very direct link from exposure to DWH oil and a clear biological effect. And a clear biological effect that could translate to population level long-term consequences.”

Back on shore, troubled by what he had been seeing, Keath Ladner met with officials from the US Food and Drug Administration and asked them to promise that the government would protect him from litigation if someone was made sick from eating his seafood.

“They wouldn’t do it,” he said.

“I’m worried about the entire seafood industry of the Gulf being on the way out,” he added grimly.

‘Tar balls in their crab traps’

Ed Cake, a biological oceanographer, as well as a marine and oyster biologist, has “great concern” about the hundreds of dolphin deaths he has seen in the region since BP’s disaster began, which he feels are likely directly related to the BP oil disaster.

“Adult dolphins’ systems are picking up whatever is in the system out there, and we know the oil is out there and working its way up the food chain through the food web – and dolphins are at the top of that food chain.”

Cake explained: “The chemicals then move into their lipids, fat, and then when they are pregnant, their young rely on this fat, and so it’s no wonder dolphins are having developmental issues and still births.”

Cake, who lives in Mississippi, added: “It has been more than 33 years since the 1979 Ixtoc-1 oil disaster in Mexico’s Bay of Campeche, and the oysters, clams, and mangrove forests have still not recovered in their oiled habitats in seaside estuaries of the Yucatan Peninsula. It has been 23 years since the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil disaster in Alaska, and the herring fishery that failed in the wake of that disaster has still not returned.”

Cake believes we are still in the short-term impact stage of BP’s oil disaster.

“I will not be alive to see the Gulf of Mexico recover,” said Cake, who is 72 years old. “Without funding and serious commitment, these things will not come back to pre-April 2010 levels for decades.”

The physical signs of the disaster continue.

“We’re continuing to pull up oil in our nets,” Rooks said. “Think about losing everything that makes you happy, because that is exactly what happens when someone spills oil and sprays dispersants on it. People who live here know better than to swim in or eat what comes out of our waters.”

Khuns and her husband told Al Jazeera that fishermen continue to regularly find tar balls in their crab traps, and hundreds of pounds of tar balls continue to be found on beaches across the region on a daily basis.

Meanwhile Cowan continues his work, and remains concerned about what he is finding.

“We’ve also seen a decrease in biodiversity in fisheries in certain areas. We believe we are now seeing another outbreak of incidence increasing, and this makes sense, since waters are starting to warm again, so bacterial infections are really starting to take off again. We think this is a problem that will persist for as long as the oil is stored on the seafloor.”

Felder wants to continue his studies, but now is up against insufficient funding.

Regarding his funding, Cowan told Al Jazeera: “We are up against social and economic challenges that hamper our ability to get our information out, so the politics have been as daunting as the problem [we are studying] itself. But my funding is not coming from a source that requires me to be quiet.”

Read more about the scientists in this article, and their findings:

Dr Darryl Felder, Department of Biology, University of Louisiana, Lafayette. Runs a research lab that studies the biology of marine crustaceans. Dr Felder has been monitoring the seafloor in the vicinity of BP’s blow-out Macondo oil-well both before and after the oil disaster began. He was studying samples from the seafloor in the Macondo area pre-spill via funding from the National Science Foundation, which provided him a grant to log the effects of all the drilling in the area. His funding now comes from the Gulf Research Initiative (GRI), which is funded by BP. Read his full biography here.

Dr Jim Cowan with Louisiana State University’s Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences has been studying Gulf seafood, specifically red snapper, for more than 20 years. Funding is primarily via LSU, although LSU has also received funding via GRI. Read his full biography here.

Dr Andrew Whitehead, LSU, his lab conducts experiments and studies on Evolutionary and Ecological Genomics. He recently published “Genomic and physiological footprint of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on resident marsh fishes” in the National Academy of Sciences. Much of his funding also comes from the Gulf Research Initiative. Read his full biography here.

Brief summary of scientists’ findings/studies:

Felder: Studies carried out from January 2010 to present in BP’s Macondo well area. Found abnormalities in shrimp post-spill, whereas pre-spill found none.

Cowan: Studies carried out from Nov 2010-present, from west Louisiana to west Florida, from coast to 250km out. Found lesions/sores/infections in 20 species of fish, as many as 50 per cent fish in some samples impacted. Pre spill levels were 1/10 of one per cent of fish.

Whitehead: Species such as the Gulf Killifish, in and around the Gulf of Mexico, will continue to be subject to negative effects of the BP oil spill disaster of 2010. The Killifish, which researchers consider a good indicator of water quality in the Gulf of Mexico, is showing signs that the oil spill is having a negative impact on its health. Tracked killifish for the first four months after spill across oil-impacted areas of Louisiana and Mississippi.