GETTING THE MESSAGE? [and] GOD'S WILL

GETTING THE MESSAGE?

Every so often, a movie comes out of Hollywood that breaks new ground, technically, and sends a message that needs to be heard. Some good examples of this are Ghandi (1983), Dances With Wolves (1990), Amistad (1998), Ali (2002), and this year, Avatar.

What is it, and what is it saying?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(2009_film)

"Avatar is a 2009 American science fiction epic film written and directed by James Cameron and starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez and Stephen Lang. The film is set in the year 2154 on Pandora, a moon in the Alpha Centauri star system.[5] Humans are engaged in mining Pandora's reserves of a precious mineral, while the Na'vi—a race of indigenous humanoids—resist the colonists' expansion, which threatens the continued existence of the Na'vi and the Pandoran ecosystem. The film's title refers to the genetically engineered bodies used by the film's characters to interact with the Na'vi.

Avatar had been in development since 1994 by Cameron, who wrote an 80-page scriptment for the film.[7] Filming was supposed to take place after the completion of Titanic, and the film would have been released in 1999, but according to Cameron, "technology needed to catch up" with his vision of the film.[8][9] In early 2006, Cameron developed the script, as well as the language[10] and culture of the Na'vi. He said sequels would be possible if Avatar was successful,[11] and in response to the film's success, confirmed that there will be another.[12]

The film was released in traditional 2-D, as well as 3-D and IMAX 3D formats. Avatar is officially budgeted at $237 million;[2] other estimates put the cost at $280–310 million to produce and $150 million for marketing.[13][14][15] The film is being touted as a breakthrough in terms of filmmaking technology, for its development of 3D viewing and stereoscopic filmmaking with cameras that were specially designed for the film's production.[16]

Avatar opened on December 18, 2009 to critical acclaim and commercial success. It grossed $27 million on its opening day in the United States and Canada.[17] On its opening weekend, it grossed $77 million in the United States and Canada[18] and $232 million worldwide.[19] Within three weeks of its release, with a worldwide gross of over $1 billion, the film became one of the highest-grossing films of all time worldwide, exceeded only by Cameron's previous film, Titanic."

When your lead author saw it on the big screen a few days ago, I was stunned. Not just from the dazzling 3-D action, stunning scenery and amazing technical effects, but from the overt message it sends. Which is this:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/12-4

Avatar and the Genocides We Will Not See

Cameron's blockbuster half-tells a story we would all prefer to forget

by George Monbiot

Avatar, James Cameron's blockbusting 3-D film, is both profoundly silly and profound. It's profound because, like most films about aliens, it is a metaphor for contact between different human cultures. But in this case the metaphor is conscious and precise: this is the story of European engagement with the native peoples of the Americas. It's profoundly silly because engineering a happy ending demands a plot so stupid and predictable that it rips the heart out of the film. The fate of the native Americans is much closer to the story told in another new film, The Road, in which a remnant population flees in terror as it is hunted to extinction.

But this is a story no one wants to hear, because of the challenge it presents to the way we choose to see ourselves. Europe was massively enriched by the genocides in the Americas; the American nations were founded on them. This is a history we cannot accept.

In his book American Holocaust, the US scholar David Stannard documents the greatest acts of genocide the world has ever experienced(1). In 1492, some 100m native peoples lived in the Americas. By the end of the 19th Century almost all of them had been exterminated. Many died as a result of disease. But the mass extinction was also engineered.

When the Spanish arrived in the Americas, they described a world which could scarcely have been more different from their own. Europe was ravaged by war, oppression, slavery, fanaticism, disease and starvation. The populations they encountered were healthy, well-nourished and mostly (with exceptions like the Aztecs and Incas) peacable, democratic and egalitarian. Throughout the Americas the earliest explorers, including Columbus, remarked on the natives' extraordinary hospitality. The conquistadores marvelled at the amazing roads, canals, buildings and art they found, which in some cases outstripped anything they had seen at home. None of this stopped them from destroying everything and everyone they encountered.

The butchery began with Columbus. He slaughtered the native people of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic) by unimaginably brutal means. His soldiers tore babies from their mothers and dashed their heads against rocks. They fed their dogs on living children. On one occasion they hung 13 Indians in honour of Christ and the 12 disciples, on a gibbet just low enough for their toes to touch the ground, then disembowelled them and burnt them alive. Columbus ordered all the native people to deliver a certain amount of gold every three months; anyone who failed had his hands cut off. By 1535 the native population of Hispaniola had fallen from 8m to zero: partly as a result of disease, partly as a result of murder, overwork and starvation.

The conquistadores spread this civilising mission across central and south America. When they failed to reveal where their mythical treasures were hidden, the indigenous people were flogged, hanged, drowned, dismembered, ripped apart by dogs, buried alive or burnt. The soldiers cut off women's breasts, sent people back to their villages with their severed hands and noses hung round their necks and hunted Indians with their dogs for sport. But most were killed by enslavement and disease. The Spanish discovered that it was cheaper to work Indians to death and replace them than to keep them alive: the life expectancy in their mines and plantations was three to four months. Within a century of their arrival, around 95% of the population of South and Central America had been destroyed. 

In California during the 18th Century the Spanish systematised this extermination. A Franciscan missionary called Junipero Serra set up a series of "missions": in reality concentration camps using slave labour. The native people were herded in under force of arms and made to work in the fields on one fifth of the calories fed to African-American slaves in the 19th century. They died from overwork, starvation and disease at astonishing rates, and were continually replaced, wiping out the indigenous populations. Junipero Serra, the Eichmann of California, was beatified by the Vatican in 1988. He now requires one more miracle to be pronounced a saint(2).

While the Spanish were mostly driven by the lust for gold, the British who colonised North America wanted land. In New England they surrounded the villages of the native Americans and murdered them as they slept. As genocide spread westwards, it was endorsed at the highest levels. George Washington ordered the total destruction of the homes and land of the Iroquois. Thomas Jefferson declared that his nation's wars with the Indians should be pursued until each tribe "is exterminated or is driven beyond the Mississippi". During the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, troops in Colorado slaughtered unarmed people gathered under a flag of peace, killing children and babies, mutilating all the corpses and keeping their victims' genitals to use as tobacco pouches or to wear on their hats. Theodore Roosevelt called this event "as rightful and beneficial a deed as ever took place on the frontier."

The butchery hasn't yet ended: last month the Guardian reported that Brazilian ranchers in the western Amazon, having slaughtered all the rest, tried to kill the last surviving member of a forest tribe(3). Yet the greatest acts of genocide in history scarcely ruffle our collective conscience. Perhaps this is what would have happened had the Nazis won the second world war: the Holocaust would have been denied, excused or minimised in the same way, even as it continued. The people of the nations responsible - Spain, Britain, the US and others - will tolerate no comparisons, but the final solutions pursued in the Americas were far more successful. Those who commissioned or endorsed them remain national or religious heroes. Those who seek to prompt our memories are ignored or condemned.

This is why the right hates Avatar. In the neocon Weekly Standard, John Podhoretz complains that the film resembles a "revisionist western" in which "the Indians became the good guys and the Americans the bad guys."(4) He says it asks the audience "to root for the defeat of American soldiers at the hands of an insurgency." Insurgency is an interesting word for an attempt to resist invasion: insurgent, like savage, is what you call someone who has something you want. L'Osservatore Romano, the official newspaper of the Vatican, condemned the film as "just ... an anti-imperialistic, anti-militaristic parable"(5).

But at least the right knows what it is attacking. In the New York Times the liberal critic Adam Cohen praises Avatar for championing the need to see clearly(6). It reveals, he says, "a well-known principle of totalitarianism and genocide - that it is easiest to oppress those we cannot see". But in a marvellous unconscious irony, he bypasses the crashingly obvious metaphor and talks instead about the light it casts on Nazi and Soviet atrocities. We have all become skilled in the art of not seeing. 

I agree with its rightwing critics that Avatar is crass, mawkish and cliched. But it speaks of a truth more important - and more dangerous - than those contained in a thousand arthouse movies."

Avatar also sends a very strong anti-militaristic message, with strong parallels to the current illegal and immoral invasion and occupation of the sovereign nation of Iraq, which posed no threat to the U.S., or any other country. It was quite interesting when one of the hardened ex-soldiers working for the RDA Corporation, mentions that he had just had seen actions in wars in Venezuela and Nigeria. Two of course very oil-rich nations, which could very well be next on the Imperial radar of the U.S. Especially Venezuela, since it's current freely and fairly elected government has the audacity to use some of it's oil wealth to benefit the poorest people in it, with the aid of a nationalised oil industry. 

Of interest also is the plot line whereby the main character, Jake Sully, a former marine working for the RDA corporation, is hired to serve as a controller of one of the genetically created Avatar bodies, used to interact with the indigenous inhabitants of the planet. He then interacts with this culture, which is very much like all the indigenous cultures on Earth, learns to respect, and eventually love it, and a woman in it. Very much like what occurred in Dances With Wolves. Many instances of this have occurred since the Western Hemispheric genocide began 500 years ago, when soldiers and colonists went over to the indigenous peoples, joined their culture, and even fought to remain in it. Because they recognised it as a healthier alternative to the culture from whence they came.

There are some things about Avatar we at A.P.R. found disagreement with. The most important was that this movie was set in the year 2154, with scientific achievements like human hibernation, and near-light speed space travel to adjacent star systems (which still took several years). Yet the attitudes of the soldiers and members of the RDA Corporation were very much like what you would see in conservative military and corporate personnel in today's U.S.A.

It is our contention at A.P.R., that this is impossible. Humanity will not make it to 2154 with any kind of scientific/technical culture, as long as the bulk of people, and politicians, in the U.S. (and other countries) continues with this kind of mindset. To offset this, James Cameron wrote in his screenplay, that the Earth was ruined, and hence resources from other worlds on other star systems were needed. We don't think humanity will escape massive die-offs from global resource depletion/overpopulation, and catastrophic climate change though, unless massive changes occur in the basic outlooks and political/economic systems of the "developed" nations within 20 years, at most. Incorporating the indigenous cultures basic world-view of the sacredness and inter-relatedness of all the parts of the Earth, and its ecosystems.

The ending of the movie, whereby the indigenous Na'vi, with the aid of a few sympathetic humans, are able to fight off and send packing back into space the corporation and soldiers, was outrageously unrealistic. A large starship, bristling with nuclear missiles and lasers would instead have come to the humans aid, and destroyed the Na'vi. Just as all resistance from the indigenous cultures in the Western Hemisphere was met and destroyed by the sheer numbers and destructive weaponry of the Europeans, our ancestors.

Nevertheless, we highly recommend you see this movie. Because it has an important message, and should remind you of how our countries came to be, in North and South America. And to remind you of the cultures that were almost destroyed (and still are being so, in South America, and Africa).  Cultures that must be protected, and embraced, if humanity is to have any kind of healthy future on this planet.

GOD'S WILL

The heartbreaking earthquake yesterday in Haiti, which may have killed 100,000 or more people, is indeed a cruel event, to this poor country, beset by so many tragedies, political unrest, and massive poverty, in the last several decades.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2010/jan/13/haiti-earthquake

But this is not the entire story. Why did a magnitude 7.0 earthquake, which has occurred across many areas of the globe, cause so many casualties, and why is Haiti the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere? For a good explanation why, we have this:

What You're Not Hearing about Haiti (But Should Be)

by Carl Lindskoog

In the hours following Haiti's devastating earthquake, CNN, the New York Times and other major news sources adopted a common interpretation for the severe destruction: the 7.0 earthquake was so devastating because it struck an urban area that was extremely over-populated and extremely poor. Houses "built on top of each other" and constructed by the poor people themselves made for a fragile city. And the country's many years of underdevelopment and political turmoil made the Haitian government ill-prepared to respond to such a disaster.

True enough. But that's not the whole story. What's missing is any explanation of why there are so many Haitians living in and around Port-au-Prince and why so many of them are forced to survive on so little. Indeed, even when an explanation is ventured, it is often outrageously false such as a former U.S. diplomat's testimony on CNN that Port-au-Prince's overpopulation was due to the fact that Haitians, like most Third World people, know nothing of birth control.

It may startle news-hungry Americans to learn that these conditions the American media correctly attributes to magnifying the impact of this tremendous disaster were largely the product of American policies and an American-led development model.

From 1957-1971 Haitians lived under the dark shadow of "Papa Doc" Duvalier, a brutal dictator who enjoyed U.S. backing because he was seen by Americans as a reliable anti-Communist. After his death, Duvalier's son, Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" became President-for-life at the age of 19 and he ruled Haiti until he was finally overthrown in 1986. It was in the 1970s and 1980s that Baby Doc and the United States government and business community worked together to put Haiti and Haiti's capitol city on track to become what it was on January 12, 2010.

After the coronation of Baby Doc, American planners inside and outside the U.S. government initiated their plan to transform Haiti into the "Taiwan of the Caribbean." This small, poor country situated conveniently close to the United States was instructed to abandon its agricultural past and develop a robust, export-oriented manufacturing sector. This, Duvalier and his allies were told, was the way toward modernization and economic development.

From the standpoint of the World Bank and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Haiti was the perfect candidate for this neoliberal facelift. The entrenched poverty of the Haitian masses could be used to force them into low-paying jobs sewing baseballs and assembling other products.

But USAID had plans for the countryside too. Not only were Haiti's cities to become exporting bases but so was the countryside, with Haitian agriculture also reshaped along the lines of export-oriented, market-based production. To accomplish this USAID, along with urban industrialists and large landholders, worked to create agro-processing facilities, even while they increased their practice of dumping surplus agricultural products from the U.S. on the Haitian people.

This "aid" from the Americans, along with the structural changes in the countryside predictably forced Haitian peasants who could no longer survive to migrate to the cities, especially Port-au-Prince where the new manufacturing jobs were supposed to be. However, when they got there they found there weren't nearly enough manufacturing jobs go around. The city became more and more crowded. Slum areas expanded. And to meet the housing needs of the displaced peasants, quickly and cheaply constructed housing was put up, sometimes placing houses right "on top of each other."

Before too long, however, American planners and Haitian elites decided that perhaps their development model didn't work so well in Haiti and they abandoned it. The consequences of these American-led changes remain, however.

When on the afternoon and evening of January 12, 2010 Haiti experienced that horrible earthquake and round after round of aftershock the destruction was, no doubt, greatly worsened by the very real over-crowding and poverty of Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas. But shocked Americans can do more than shake their heads and, with pity, make a donation. They can confront their own country's responsibility for the conditions in Port-au-Prince that magnified the earthquake's impact, and they can acknowledge America's role in keeping Haiti from achieving meaningful development. To accept the incomplete story of Haiti offered by CNN and the New York Times is to blame Haitians for being the victims of a scheme that was not of their own making. As John Milton wrote, "they who have put out the people's eyes, reproach them of their blindness."

We encourage everyone to donate funds, supplies, or even aid, if you are able to get there, to help in their search, recovery, and rebuilding efforts.

Finally, one of America's leading right-wing luminaries has put this tragedy in perspective, and offered some unique and incisive commentary on it for our edification:   http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/01/13-14

PFAW Condemns Pat Robertson’s Comments on Haiti Earthquake

Religious Right Leader says Haiti “swore a pact to the devil”

WASHINGTON - January 13 - People For the American Way President Michael B. Keegan today condemned a statement made by Religious Right leader Pat Robertson (VIDEO), who said that the nation of Haiti has been cursed ever since it “swore a pact to the Devil.”

In discussing the earthquake, which the UN says has killed thousands of people, Robertson said:

"And you know Kristi, something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, uh you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True Story. And so the Devil said "OK, it's a deal." And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor. That island is Hispaniola is one island. It's cut down the middle. On one side is Haiti, on the other side is the Dominican republic. Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc.. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. Uh, they need to have, and we need to pray for them, a great turning to God and out of this tragedy. I'm optimistic something good may come."

Michael B. Keegan, president of People For the American Way, issued the following statement:

“Pat Robertson’s comments about the victims of this earthquake are reprehensible. Unfortunately, they fit right in with his history of mean spirited attacks accusing his opponents of causing natural disasters and terrorism. To blame the victims of this disaster for what they’ve been through is appalling. Regrettably, Pat Robertson can’t be written off as an eccentric aberration of the right-wing—he’s still a leading figure in the conservative movement."

“At a time when our attention should be focused on helping the victims of this disaster, Robertson’s comments are beyond the pale.”

###

People For the American Way is dedicated to making the promise of America real for every American: Equality. Freedom of speech. Freedom of religion. The right to seek justice in a court of law. The right to cast a vote that counts. The American Way. Our vision is a vibrantly diverse democratic society in which everyone is treated equally under the law, given the freedom and opportunity to pursue their dreams, and encouraged to participate in our nation’s civic and political life. Our America respects diversity, nurtures creativity and combats hatred and bigotry.  Cheers.

WRANGELLMANIA [and] WHAT DO WE CALL THIS?

WRANGELLMANIA

Your lead editor had a four day break starting New Year's eve, last week. We decided there would be no better way to spend it than to go spend time skiing and exploring with the best friend of the Alaska Progressive Review, Erik, who joins us in some of our outings.

He has a nice little cabin on a 10 acre plot, off the Old Edgarton Highway, near Copper Center. It sits on a bluff above the Copper River, with an incredible view of the river valley, giving way to the volcanoes of the Wrangell Mountains, which are protected in Wrangell/St. Elias National Park.

We had grandiose plans of flying around in Erik's Super Cub, but the weather turned unfavourable. It was too cold, below about -24C (-10F), the fabric covering the plane can crack.  On all three days we were there, the temperature stayed below that, so we were shut out from flying.

Oh well, it's such a beautiful area, we weren't too unhappy. 

This is the view looking north from the bluff to the Copper River below. 3661 metre Mt. Drum, an active volcano, would be visible further back, but for the low clouds. We were glad they were there, as without them, instead of about the -29C temperatures we were getting, it could easily have dropped to -40 to -45C. Which makes a big difference in the amount of face protection, and layering needed to be comfortable and safe, moving for hours out in that. 

Once it does warm up, the Super Cub will be up and flying. These amazing little planes can land and take off in very short distances, enabling access to places not possible with larger float or ski planes.

Erik's cabin has a nice outhouse. You might notice that there is no door.

That's because it has the nicest view I've ever seen from one. It was hard not to want to stay and enjoy the view whilst answering the call. But since it was around -29C or about -20F, there was some incentive to make it quick.

We spent New Year's Eve at the Tonsina Lodge, a nice bar/restaurant owned by a Russian couple. But frequented by locals, a few of whom know Erik. We played pool, then at midnight, got to light off some fireworks given out by the bartender. Unfortunately, poor old Homer is not too crazy about them. He and Mattie had to stay in my car, and after the fireworks were over, all 37 kg of him was wrapped up in a tight ball by the gas pedal and clutch.

One of our aims for the weekend was to ski straight from the cabin, down to the Copper River, and toward the Dadina River. Erik had seen a cabin up that flying around once, and we wanted to see how accessible and far that might be.  

So, friday morning, we lit out from the cabin. It was about -27C when we left. We had to stay on the rim of the bluff for about 6 km or so. 

This is because there is a snowmachine trail that drops down a ravine in the bluff to the Copper River. Otherwise, it's just too steep to go straight down the bluff, and there's no path to the river, bushwhacking to it through the Taiga would be a chore.  This is Erik on the way back up, you can see that it is too steep and narrow for skiing on, unless we put climbing skins on our skis. Which we did not have. So, we just took off our skis for the trip down, and back up. 

 It took about 90 minutes to ski the 6-8 km along the bluff, then drop down the ravine, and get onto the river. I was a little uneasy about the river ice. The Copper flows fast here in summer. And this winter hasn't been real cold. But we listened for the sound of running water, and couldn't hear any. Thus, we reckoned that the ice was at least 25 cm thick, and that there were no snow-covered leads lying in wait on our route. Of course, Mattie and Homer went ahead of us too. So, we made it across just fine. When we got to near the Dadina River comes in, it was time for a food/water break. So, we took a short break on the other side of this jumbled mass of ice. It was then we realized, it's quite a bit colder on the river, than in the woods adjacent, and certainly than higher up on the bluff. Homer and Mattie both were hopping a bit, their feet were cold. And, our hands and feet were getting cold too. We think it was probably about -33C (-28F) down on the river. One thing always to keep in mind during winter traveling in Alaska is that cold air always drains down rivers, just like water. In the absence of any opposing winds from weather systems, there will always be at least a light down-river drainage wind. And, if the general wind flow is aligned with this, it will be much stronger. At temperatures of minus 20C and colder, this can be a serious safety issue. We were all getting cold at our food/water stop, and the day was getting along. It was after 1400 hours by the time we were refueled. Time to start heading back. It was a nice five hour/30 KM day. Which was pretty slow, since we had to walk part of it, up and down the ravine, and break trail, on the river.

On the agenda for the next day, Saturday, was a drive to the little town of McCarthy, which lies at the end of a 120 km road from Kenny Lake, the nearest "town" to Erik's cabin. The part of this road from Chitina, to McCarthy, used to be the bed for the railroad that delivered copper ore from the mines of Kennecott, out to the world. Thus it is very narrow. The plan was to park near McCarthy, then ski up the 13 km to the "ghost" town of Kennecott, where the old mines and town, which were abandoned in 1938, are. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennecott,_Alaska. 48 km from McCarthy, we were warned that there was "overflow" on the road. This is when groundwater seeps up and constantly freezes, building up a large mass of ice. Blocking trails often, leading to cursing and groaning sometimes when backcountry skiing.

This big mass was at least 15-20cm thick over the road, but slightly spongy. So, Erik gunned the A.P.R.'s trusty 4WD Ford Escape, and just as we neared it, let off the gas. We just glided right across. A bit of a relief, as the ice sloped down toward a drop-off on the south side of the road there. There were very few people to be found in McCarthy for the winter, it is mostly a summer tourist destination. But Erik had a pilot friend to visit briefly there. We put our skis on, and started up the trail around 1400 hours, a little later than we wanted. Since by 1600, it is almost dark. 

The trail up from McCarthy was a nice, fairly wide one, packed down by snowmachine traffic. Ideal for a fast trip. Kennecott lies near the mountains in the far distance. It was a steady, but not real steep 10 km ascent up. 

By the time we got up to the mines and buildings,  it was almost dark. There are actually private residences mixed in, just before the mines, and a few of them had smoke coming out their chimneys. So a few hardy people must overwinter there. It was about -28C (-18F) for our ski, so I got iced up pretty good, working hard on our fast ascent.

We didn't spend too much time exploring in Kennecott, since it was almost dark. But it was very beautiful and peaceful there, and the old wood-fired powerplant and mine buildings were interesting. Sometime in February or March, when the days or longer, and it's warmer, we'll go back, and into the back-country behind, and around there. Some beautiful routes around glaciers and through canyons are accesible by ski from Kennecott.

It was a shame having to leave sunday, after having such good times skiing and exploring the area. But we decided to at least get a short 10 km run in on the bluff that day, before heading back to the World. It stayed cloudy, and about -28C, so we couldn't see the Wrangell volcanoes, but were not too sorry, since we'd rather run in -28C than -40C any day. That area is truly beautiful, and we will be doing some real, multi-day back-country ski trips around it later this winter, when we have longer days.

WHAT DO WE CALL THIS?

I found this article the other day, describing the Senate's version of the health-care "reform" legislation. Give it a read, and we'll offer our commentary on it.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/04-14

Federal Enforcement To Be Used Against You, But Not To Protect You From The Insurance Companies

by Jon Walker

There is no better proof that the Senate bill is a massive giveaway to the health care industry than the radically different enforcement mechanism for the individual mandate and the new insurance regulations. This Senate bill will force you to buy insurance from only private insurance companies. It will use the power of the federal government in the form of the IRS to make sure you buy private health insurance.

While the Senate bill will technically put some new regulations on the books, it will not use the power of the federal government to make sure the health insurance companies are following them. Enforcement of new regulations is left completely up to the states, which, for the most part, have an extremely poor track record at this function.

This Senate bill will use the power of the federal government to force you to buy a very expensive product, but it refuses to use the power of the federal government to ensure this product meets even minimum standards of quality. It uses the sledge hammer of federal power to force middle class families to hand their money over to private insurance corporations, but handles the extremely powerful insurance companies with the soft kid gloves by leaving regulation enforcement up to the states. The imbalance of power between middle class consumers and insurance companies produced by this bill is shocking.

The House bill uses the power of the federal government in three ways to hold the insurance companies honest. It creates a national exchange with a national insurance regulation enforcement mechanism. It creates a national public health insurance option to serve as a check and benchmark for the private insurance companies. And, finally, it repeals the health insurance companies’ anti-trust exemption. These tools help put regular Americans on a more even footing against the private insurance companies.


It is both immoral and financially reckless to do what the Senate bill does. It uses the power of the federal government to force people to buy private insurance and gives the private insurance companies hundreds of billions in federal funds. Yet it does not use the power of the federal government to police the insurance companies to make sure they are not wasting the billions in federal funds they receive, or abusing their millions of federally mandated customers.

No one left, right, or center should accept this system which puts regular people in such a weak position compared to the private corporations with which they are force to do business. Attempts to justify the individual mandate by comparing it to Swiss, Dutch, or Belgian health care ignores the reality of those systems. Not other country forces people into such a powerless, subservient position compared to private companies. The Senate bill does not create social contract guaranteeing quality, affordable health care for everyone in exchange for mandating the buying of health insurance. It just forces people to buy a poor-quality product from an extremely wasteful, predatory, and poorly regulated industry.

© 2010 FireDogLake

OK, having read the above article, now take a look at these commonly agreed upon:

Early Warning Signs of Fascism



Powerful and Continuing Nationalism


Disdain For Human Rights


Identification of Enemies as a unifying cause


Supremacy of the military


Rampant Sexism


Controlled Mass Media


Obsession With National Security


Religion and Government Intertwined


Corporate Power Protected


Labor Power Suppressed


Disdain For Intellectuals & and the Arts


Obsession With Crime & Punishment


Rampant Cronyism & Corruption


Fraudulent Elections

Remember, Benito Mussolini defined fascism as the marriage of corporate interests with the state, held by force, against any opposition. Where do you think the U.S. lies now, according to these signs and definitions. Are you alarmed? WE ARE.  Cheers.

WHAT SEEMS LIKELY BASED ON WHAT WE'VE SEEN

Once again, the power of the U.S. corporate media to hide the truth, and control the discourse on their terms, is illustrated by the following article, published by a more left-leaning U.K. newspaper. But seen nowhere in the mainstream media in this country, unfortunately, since it is highly important.

Published on Monday, November 23, 2009 by The Independent/UK

Antarctic Ice Loss Vaster, Faster Than Thought: Study

The East Antarctic icesheet, once seen as largely unaffected by global warming, has lost billions of tonnes of ice since 2006 and could boost sea levels in the future, according to a new study.

Scientists believe that Antarctica could lose more ice than Greenland within a few years. (Photograph: Momatiuk-Eastcott/Corbis)Published Sunday in Nature Geoscience, the same study shows that the smaller but less stable West Antarctic icesheet is also shedding significant mass.

Scientists worry that rising global temperatures could trigger a rapid disintegration of West Antarctica, which holds enough frozen water to push up the global ocean watermark by about five metres (16 feet).

In 2007 the UN Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) predicted sea levels would rise 18 to 59 centimetres (7.2 to 23.2 inches) by 2100, but this estimate did not factor in the potential impact of crumbling icesheets in Greenland and Antarctica.

Today many of the same scientist say that even if heat-trapping CO2 emissions are curtailed, the ocean watermark is more likely to go up by nearly a metre, enough to render several small island nations unlivable and damage fertile deltas home to hundreds of millions.

More than 190 nations gather in Copenhagen next month to hammer out a global climate deal to curb greenhouse gases and help poor countries cope with its consequences.

University of Texas professor Jianli Chen and colleagues analysed nearly seven years of data on ocean-icesheet interaction in Antarctica.

Covering the period up January 2009, the data was collected by the twin GRACE satellites, which detect mass flows in the ocean and polar regions by measuring changes in Earth's gravity field.

Consistent with earlier findings based on different methods, they found that West Antarctica dumped, on average, about 132 billion tonnes of ice into the sea each year, give or take 26 billion tonnes.
They also found for the first time that East Antarctica - on the Eastern Hemisphere side of the continent - is likewise losing mass, mostly in coastal regions, at a rate of about 57 billion tonnes annually.
The margin or error, they cautioned, is almost as large as the estimate, meaning ice loss could be a little as a few billion tonnes or more than 100.

Up to now, scientists had thought that East Antarctica was in "balance," meaning that it accumulated as much mass and it gave off, perhaps a bit more.

"Acceleration of ice loss in recent years over the entire continent is thus indicated," the authors conclude. "Antarctica may soon be contributing significantly more to global sea level rise."

Another study published last week in the journal Nature reported an upwardly-revised figure for Antarctic temperatures during prior "interglacials", warm periods such as our own that have occurred roughly every 100,000 years.

During the last interglacial which peaked some 128,000 years ago, called the Eemian Period, temperatures in the region were probably six degree Celsius (10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than today, which is about 3 C (5.4 C) above previous estimates, the study said.

The findings suggest that the region may be more sensitive than scientists thought to greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere that were roughly equivalent to present day levels.  [due to volcanism then, it is thought, eds.].

During the Eemian, sea levels were five-to-seven metres higher than today [Higher than most of Florida!, eds].

© 2009 The Independent

 

Ok, folks, let's look at this. What this research is saying, is that the last time the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was 390 ppm, which is what it is today (up from 280 ppm 60 years ago), 128,000 years ago, sea levels were 18 to 25 feet (5 to 7 metres) higher than they are today. This was due to naturally occurring volcanism, it is thought, and it is unknown how rapidly they rose to this level. But what would this mean, a sea level, that much higher? If it were to occur relatively quickly, say within 20-30 years (or even 10), could humanity adapt? Because all the major seaports and their infrastructure would be underwater, which is where and how the bulk of the global food and energy is distributed. Would all the different countries be able to rebuild all the transport and distribution facilities on higher ground that quickly? If not, shortages of food and energy would cause great hardship, and could lead to societal collapse, in many areas. It's not inconceivable that this rapid of a sea-level rise could occur. Research is also showing that the Greenland Ice Cap is shrinking rapidly, especially on the coastal margins. And that large areas of it could collapse quite quickly, within a matter of a few years, which could raise sea levels on it's own, by a few metres. Which would quickly drown many areas like Bangladesh, and low-elevation island countries in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

So far, all the global climate models have been too slow in predicting things like the decreasing Arctic summer sea ice, changes are occurring more rapidly.

Here are some things your lead editor has seen in my 23 years of experience as a professional meteorologist, tracking the day to day weather, and studying the climate of North America, and the rest of the World.

1. Summers are longer, warmer, and drier, throughout the Western U.S., Western Canada, and Alaska. Leading to increasing trends in wildfire acreages in all these areas. Sensitive high-elevation tree species like Subalpine Fir and Lodgepole Pine have been decimated by bug infestations and diseases, caused by drought and warmer winters. Lower elevation tree species like Douglas Fir, are moving up in elevation. Increasing wildfire acreages are in themselves, a positive feedback to the climate system, since more CO2 is released.

2. Winters are slightly shorter, but have much greater swings in temperature in the higher latitudes, than even just 30-40 years ago. More frequent southerly flow/high pressure ridging episodes occur between cold spells now, raising average temperatures. Since less of the deep cold air forms here, less is transported south into southern Canada, and the U.S. Leading to warmer winters there, and skimpier mountain snowpacks in the West. Which in turn aggravate drought conditions, since they melt off earlier, weakening the more sensitive forest species, and leaving them more vulnerable to bugs and diseases.

3. More frequent droughts, and floods. Long-term warming manifests in the short-term of daily and weekly weather as stronger, and more persistent high pressure ridging. Exactly like our first-ever near-rainless July this year here in Fairbanks. If a high pressure ridge parks over an area for a month, as it did over interior Alaska this past July, you have warm, dry conditions. To either side of a stationary high pressure ridge, there are low pressure troughs. Containing cool, wet weather. If these persist long enough over an area, there can be heavy rains and flooding. Think of the climate patterns we had 20 years ago, as moving north, and more rapidly now, in the coming decades. The climate of Southern California 20 years from now will likely be similar to what is seen in central Baja California. The climate of Northern California and Southern Oregon, then, will be more like what is now seen in Southern California. The climate of Idaho and Montana, will become more like that seen in southern Nevada, and Northern Arizona/Southern Utah. Don't even ask what southern Arizona will become like! These are the trends that are occurring, and which will amplify, since we will see an increase to 500-550 ppm CO2 now in just 25 years or so.

The tragic fires in Australia last February, documented in our article:

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/03/warning-lights-are-flashing-australia.html

serve as a stark warning of what will become more the norm, in a few decades. An unprecedented heat wave there, combined with strong winds to create fire behaviour not ever likely seen by humans for many thousands of years. Fire plumes burning through their thick, volatile Eucalypt forests reached into the stratosphere, 18 KM, generating lightning, which started more fires. Temperatures were 38-48C (100-116F, with relative humidities of 2-6%), combined with winds of 40-80 km/hr. Fire Danger ratings of 50-80, which is considered extreme, soared to unprecedented levels of 200-300, causing their Bureau of Meteorology to have to change the scale, incorporating a "Catastrophic" category now, for ratings above 100. These kind of conditions there will become much more frequent in the next few decades.

 

Here in North America, similar trends are occurring. We've burnt 6.4 million hectares (16 million acres) from wildfires in Alaska since 2004. 11 million in 2004 and 2005 alone. During the extremely large fire season of 2007 in Idaho/Montana, 35 days occurred in Missoula, where the temperature reached or exceeded 95F (35C), and 11 days, where 100F (38C) was reached or exceeded. In the 8 years I lived there, from 1990-98, I saw it reach 100F, just once! The average July and August high temperature in Missoula is 29C (84F).

 

So we will be seeing conditions like this increasing in frequency, and duration, over the next few decades. That's the reality folks. Since the climate conferences in Copenhagen produced very little of substance, guaranteeing at least a 3C rise in global average temperature by mid-Century:

Copenhagen: Just a Cop Out?

Despite its disappointments, the climate summit in Copenhagen marks a turning point—the end of denial. What's next is recognizing that our climate problem is really a justice problem.

by Tom Athanasiou

Copenhagen was obviously a failure—if you judge it by "the numbers," the formal emission targets and financial commitments that are needed to support a fair, effective, emergency global climate mobilization. If you judge it, that is, by what is necessary.

The more pressing question, though, is whether Copenhagen was a failure when judged against what was possible. This is a much more difficult question, and has far more to do with judgment than with calculation. And much more to do with the immediate future of climate politics.

The good news is that the truth is coming out, and that people all over the world are seeing it. Everyone, and I imagine this includes Barack Obama, knows a hell of a lot more about the climate crisis, and its politics, than they did a year ago. Not, to be sure, that we didn't already know that climatic destabilization is triggering a planetary emergency. This has been obvious for years. The difference now is rather that—thanks to the 350 movement, and here I mean not only the folks at 350.org, but also Mohamed Nasheed, the President of Tuvalu and a whole lot of terrified scientists—we know that we know it. And that we know it with appalling, quantitative confidence.

The bad news is that after Copenhagen, we also know that the elites are at their limits. That what is needed, as the Copenhagen street had it, is "system change not climate change," and that lacking system change, our governments are quite incapable of organizing a decisive response to the climate crisis. The bad news, more particularly, is that if we in "civil society" are to do better than our putative leaders, if indeed we are to help the elites break their own chains of powerlessness, we're going to have to actually dare to assign a bit of responsibility for the Copenhagen fiasco. The bulk of which, alas, will have to go to the wealthy world.

The NGOs grouped into CAN, the Climate Action Network International tried to come to Copenhagen prepared. They even had a scenario analysis close at hand, one that categorized the possible outcomes with names like Breakthrough, Foundation, Greenwash, and Collapse. It was a useful exercise, but the power of the Copenhagen drama, as it finally played itself out, defeated all attempts at easy characterization. I suppose that if you had to pin it down, the outcome would have to be placed somewhere between Greenwash and Collapse. Or, to put a finer gloss on it, in the "not done yet" territory, which is how CAN decided to frame the result.

Looking at the generalities of the Copenhagen Accord and the 2010 negotiating schedule, this may be fair enough. Obama himself took the same line, in a late-night press conference that was actually pretty badly received, calling the accord a "meaningful agreement", but adding that "This progress is not enough," and "We have come a long way, but we have much further to go." Which is a fairly obvious point, given that the accord, such as it is, seems (see for example the Climate Scorecard) to condemn us to about 3.9 degrees Celsius of warming. This is the "Four Degree World" scenario, and it's a fairly magnificent understatement to say that we want to avoid it at almost all costs.

But of course Copenhagen is not the end of the game. The negotiations will continue, as will the organizing, and with the next major climate conference scheduled for Mexico City in November of 2010, they are quite certain to have a major impact on the United States. And if, in the meanwhile, we in America can manage to pass halfway decent climate and energy legislation, we may yet discover that the Obama strategy—which John Holdren, his chief science adviser, characterized during Copenhagen as, simply, "getting started"—offers a plausible way forward, one that can make real progress even in a nation overtaken by insane right-wing ideologues.

The difficulty here is that understanding can too easily degenerate into accommodation. Yes, we are paralyzed by our right wing, and yes this constrains our choices, but the fact remains that, by not paying our way, by refusing to accept anything like our proper share of the responsibility for the crisis now threatening to overcome us, we make the dithering and dysfunction inevitable. Which of course brings us to the equity side of the story, and here there are several key points to report.

One is that, in a signal development, several self-defined vulnerable country blocs emerged in Copenhagen to play extremely significant roles, and managed to do so while protecting not only their local interests, but the interests of the developing countries as a whole. The first of these vulnerable blocs, of course, was AOSIS, the Association of Small Island States, which face rising seas and, in extreme cases like Tuvalu, actual short-term inundation. But Africa, which has discovered the extent of its own vulnerability, also played a critical role, and by so doing helped to protect the South as a whole from being blamed for Copenhagen's failure to deliver.

Not that the right-wing press won't blame it anyway, but at this point I doubt that the gambit has real legs. For while the African people are among the world's most innocent, in terms of their historical contributions to the climate crisis, they will also be among the most brutally impacted, and this is an injustice too obvious to easily set aside. Witness the open letter that Desmond Tutu sent to all heads of state during Copenhagen, a letter that noted that:

"If temperatures are not kept down then Africa faces a range of devastating threats such as crop yield reductions in places of as much 50 percent in some countries by 2020; Increased pressure on water supplies for 70-250 million people by 2020 and 350-600 million by 2050; The cost of adaptation to sea level rises of at least 5-10 percent of gross domestic product."

With these sorts of prospects at hand, it's difficult to be too sympathetic to the North's domestic political problems. Which is why—and this might perhaps just be wishful thinking—I believe that the rich world will fail to effectively evade responsibility for Copenhagen. There are counter-arguments, of course, and gross media distortions by the score, but so far the failure to reach a better deal is not being blamed wholly on the South. And given that the large "emerging economies" signed onto the accord, it's unlikely that it will be.

Indeed, given the wealthy world's failure to adopt strong domestic emission reduction targets, and its equally egregious failure to put a decent mitigation or adaptation support package onto the table, the Copenhagen endgame—in which the emerging economies agreed to the Accord while the weaker and more vulnerable states balked-may well have been the best possible outcome. (Watch the final, 3:10 a.m. plenary here; you won't regret it!)

In this regard, it may not be absurd to hope that, as Copenhagen passes into history, the overall framework by which we understand rich-world commitments will shift in significant ways. For one thing, and despite a clear desire to do so (it inconveniently requires them to "act first" to significantly reduce their emissions) the rich countries did not succeed in setting the Kyoto Protocol aside. But while Copenhagen laid out a two-track negotiating process, including a "Convention track" in which both the US and China can, perhaps, both be eventually coaxed into accepting their fair shares of the global effort, the "Kyoto track" has also been extended. This gives us a clear mandate—to continue the battle to force the wealthy countries to make commitments on the scale demanded by the science, and by their own historical responsibility and capacity to pay—and just as importantly it gives us a context within which to do so.

The road ahead is clear enough. The next big date is February 1, 2010, by which time countries of all kinds are expected to pledge their emissions reductions. When they do, the battles will predictably, and quite properly, flare up all over again.

For the moment, let me add only that Copenhagen, for all its disappointments, marked a turning point. The need for a global emergency mobilization is obvious, and with it, a set of social and political challenges that can no longer be denied. These challenges will get clearer in the days and years ahead, but the essential situation is already before us, ready to be discovered—with the atmosphere's ability to absorb carbon now critically limited, we face the greatest resource-sharing problem of all time.

The climate problem, in other words, was and remains a justice problem. If we fail to solve it, it will be in large part because we refuse to see it as such.

Tom Athanasiou wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Tom is the author of Divided Planet: The Ecology of Rich and Poor, and co-author (with Paul Baer) of Dead Heat: Global Justice and Global Warming. He is the executive director of EcoEquity, a core member of the Greenhouse Development Rights team, and a coauthor of The Greenhouse Development Rights Framework: The right to development in a climate constrained world.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License

Is all hope lost? Are we doomed to see 3-5C or greater temperature increases globally, with sea levels rising 5 or 10 metres, or more, in several decades (and all the ensuing problems resulting from that)? There are some good ideas out there, like Dr. James Hansen's proposal, outlined here, again in the British media, but not in the U.S.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/27-2

As long as Corporate-dominated media continues to distort reality, and as long the bulk of the population in this, and other countries, gets their information from it, it will be very difficult to force politicians to regulate capitalism and sponsor renewable energy development and implementation. All the countries, cultures, and religions of the World are going to have to trust each other, and work together, to prevent the worst effects from occurring, and soon, within ten years. If not, this is what we'll see. This is an amazing bit of science fiction, written in 1973 by Ursula K. Leguin, in a book called The Dispossessed.  About a planet in the Tau Ceti star system, 11 light years from Earth, which has an Earth-like planet named Urras, and a barely-inhabitable moon about it, called Annarres, which was settled by radical socialist/anarchists. In this passage, the main character, from the Anarchist moon, on the run from the Urran authorities, talks with the Terran Ambassador, hundreds of years in our future, who explains what happened on her (our) planet, in her (our) past:

"Now, you man from a world I cannot even imagine, you who see my paradise (Urras) as hell, will you ask what my world must be like?"

"My world (Earth), is a ruin. A planet spoiled by the human species. We multiplied and gobbled and fought until there was nothing left, and then we died. We controlled neither appetite nor violence; we did not adapt. We destroyed ourselves. But we destroyed the World first. There are no forests left on my world, Earth. The air is grey, it is always hot. It is habitable, it is still habitable, but not as this world is. This is a living world, a harmony. Mine is a discord. You Odonians (on Annares) chose a desert; we Terrans made a desert.... We survive there, as you do. People are tough! There are nearly a half billion of us now. Once there were nine billion. You can see the old cities still everywhere. The bones and bricks go to dust, but the little pieces of plastic never do-they never adapt either. We failed as a species, as a social species. We are here now, dealing as equals with other human societies on other worlds, only because of the charity of the Hainish. They came; they brought us help. They built ships and gave them to us, so we could leave our ruined world."

This is what our future holds, unless we all decide to do something about it. Cheers.