Just ask Noah

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/17-14

Climate Change: Neck Deep in the Big Muddy
by Glenn Scherer
The Mississippi River has risen to levels never seen in U.S. history – lapping levee tops and threatening cities and hamlets from Memphis to the Gulf. Floodwaters cover an area bigger than Connecticut, the result of a record 90 inches of precipitation in the Midwest.

Some would point an accusatory finger at human-caused global warming. But as any climatologist will tell you, no single weather event is attributable to global warming.

Meanwhile, Texas is in flames. It has endured the 7 driest months on record, with drought parching 98 percent of the Lone Star state. No one has ever seen the like of it, with 2.2 million acres already scorched black by wildfires.

Of course, as any Obama administration official will gladly testify, no one weather event can be traced back to climate change.

Out West, record snowpack, a staggering 200 percent above normal, has brought severe flood risks to Utah, Wyoming, and Montana. While eastern Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona are enduring drought and gearing up for an equally severe fire season.

Of course, as any freshman Tea Party Congressman will insist, no one weather event can ever be said to be created by human-caused climate change.

And who can forget last month, when 312 tornadoes smashed the Southeast, with a record-setting 228 twisters spawned in a single day? Some of those killer funnel clouds were a mile wide and stayed on the ground across several states.

Of course, as any Exxon or Koch brothers-funded climate change skeptic will scold you, no one weather event can ever be seen to be the result of human-caused climate change.

Go out in your backyard, stick a thumb up in the air or look at what's blooming today, and you'll likely know. The times are a changin' –fast. Your community and mine are hotter, dryer or wetter, with nastier storms than you or your grandparents ever saw.

But… as any Fox News anchor will assert, no single weather event can ever be seen as being the product of human-caused climate change.

But, how about thousands of weather events? Shattered heat records. Drought records. Deluge records. Winters grown milder and shorter. Summers grown longer and brutally hot. Icecaps melting, ice shelves collapsing, glaciers in galloping retreat. It's exactly what climate modelers began forecasting two decades ago.

Except, the scientists told us then these sorts of catastrophes wouldn't hammer us until 2050 or later. Hell, Greenland wasn't supposed to melt significantly until after 2100, but it is melting significantly now. Global coral reefs are dying now, global food harvests are in decline now, and food prices are breaking records now due to changing climate.

Still, we're a nation with its head in the sand. Worse, like a drug addict whose connection just got popped, we're sniffing out fossil fuel under every rock; raping the Canadian tar sands; readying drilling platforms in Arctic seas and Gulf deepwater; and turning vast swathes of rural America into a pincushion of drilling rigs fracked for natural gas.

This spring, President Obama even called for an enormous expansion of the dirtiest, most polluting industry of all. Under his plan, new coal mines will increase U.S. climate change emissions by over fifty percent beyond what we're producing currently.

Damn the risks. We need our energy fix!

Meantime, the Mississippi rolls on. "We've never seen anything like this. I was scared not knowing what's going to happen or where we can go from here," said flood victim Tamara Jenkins of Frayser, Tennessee, talking to CNN.

Well, Ms. Jenkins, you may be neck deep in the Big Muddy and not know what's going to happen next. But the fossil fuel industry, our president and congress do. They have complete confidence in our business as usual energy policy, and say we should push on.

After all, Ms. Jenkins, every damn fool knows that no single flood of biblical proportions can be attributed to human-caused climate change. Just ask Noah

Glenn Scherer is senior editor of Blue Ridge Press. You can comment at scherer@blueridgepress.com.

LSE hosts human rights abuser

URIBE VÉLEZ
WANTED FOR MURDER
CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY,
CORRUPTION, HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS

SE BUSCA URIBE VÉLEZ CRIMINAL POR CRIMENES DE LESA HUMANIDAD, CORRUPCIÓN Y GRAVES VIOLACIONES DE DERECHOS HUMANOS

Pickets / Plantones :
4pm-7pm Saturday 21 May
27 Sussex Place, Regent's Park, NW1
Nearest tube: Baker Street
5pm-8pm Monday 23 May
LSE Campus, Houghton Street, WC2
Nearest tubes: Covent Garden, Holborn, Temple

Convened by / convocados por Colombia Solidarity Campaign y Polo Democartico UK con el respaldo de ASLOPOEDA, Bolivia Solidarity Campaign, Hands Off Venezuela, Latin American Workers Association, Movimientos Ecuador en el Reino Unido, Quinto Suyo Nacionalista UK, Rock Around the Blockade, Voces Todas y mas organismos.
Version Espanol
URIBE: INVESTOR’S FRIEND, PEOPLE’S NIGHTMARE!

With the smugness of a petty tyrant, Uribe self-congratulates his eight years in government, claiming his success was based on three pillars – ‘security’, ‘social cohesion’ and ‘investor trust’. Let us see …

‘Security’ ? State terror and crimes against humanity; corruption
Two thousand bodies were found in a common grave next to the army camp at La Macarena after school children detected a sour taste in the water from local stream. The army said that the bodies are of guerrillas killed in combat, but this is the normal cover story for their massacres; known as ‘false positives’ where they dress up the cadavers of civilians in combat fatigues. There were over three thousand extra-judicial killings by the official state ‘security forces’ known of under Uribe – clearly an executive strategy. Uribe frequently stigmatised his critics, laying them open to assassination, as happened many times. Heads of the DAS secret police reporting to Uribe were caught mounting extensive phone tapping of journalists, politicians, high court judges and supplying lists of trade unionists to be assassinated. The Colombian political system was even more corrupted by Uribe, with a hundred congress seats occupied by paramilitary front men, the majority Uribe supporters. 90% of the demobilized paramilitaroes were granted amnesty, in spite of their responsibility for human rights violations. Uribe’s family and close associates have been involved in a series of scandals which in a functioning democracy would have obliged his resignation. Uribe leaves a sour taste indeed.

‘Social cohesion’ ? Displacement and poverty; yet more violence
Uribe’s regime has polarised the gap between the rich and poor, especially through the forced displacement of poor farmers, indigenous and Afro-colombians from rural areas. The evictions have resulted in hyper-concentration of land ownership, 63% of the land is owned by just 0.37% of the proprietors. 2.65 million Colombians were displaced in the eight years of Uribe’s rule, almost all now destitute. Official agencies only recognise a third of these people who are left utterly abandoned by the state, except when the riot police descend at night to evict them again, from their cardboard shacks on the fringes of the big cities. In the city it is the displaced and working class youth who are targeted for assassination.

‘Investor trust’ ? Record profits, corporate complicity
Multinationals have made huge profits, especially in the extractive industries. Coal corporations made $1.7 billion, and oil and gas corporations made $6.1 billion profits in 2008 alone. Under Uribe there was a more than ninefold increase in outgoing profits. His strategy was to encourage a huge land grab - mineral claims rocketed from 1.13 to 8.53 million hectares. Mining on this scale will devastate the environment. The mining zones are overrun by the military, working with paramilitaries. Corporations like BP have benefitted from ‘disappearances’ to deter community and trade union organisation.
Big business toasts Uribe, but no amount of public relations gloss can cover up his strategy of state terror and misery for the majority of Colombians. Uribe craves international status to protect him from the inevitable, growing and justified demands for his trial. By offering Uribe a platform, the London Business School and LSE are legitimizing state terror and giving impunity to a criminal. Shame on you.

P&p Colombia Solidarity Campaign, PO Box 8446, London N17 6NZ
email: info@colombiasolidarity.org.uk Web www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk

Jenny Jones opposes Met resources for Madeleine McCann

My thoughts too, well done Jenny.

Met Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson announced last week that his officers would undertake an evaluation of Madeleine McCann case, following a request by home secretary Theresa May. Madeleine McCann vanished during a family holiday on the Algarve in 2007.

Jenny Jones, Green member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, and Green candidate for Mayor of London, said:

"As a mother and a grandmother, I feel for Kate and Gerry McCann, and of course, they are desperate to help locate Maddy. However, as a member of the MPA, I have to look at how resources are responsibly used.

"There are many serious crimes in London, and it is the job of the Met Police to investigate crimes on a fair and impartial basis. Tying up vast amounts of police time and resources on one case does not instill confidence that each crime will be investigated on its own merits.

"For example, the forensic service unit has been closed, and many will wonder exactly what the Prime Minister's motives were, and whether he understands how difficult policing it in this economic climate.

"It is my belief that the Prime Minister was wrong to allocate Met Police resources to this new investigation. He appears to have been swayed by the Sun newspaper, and it is wholly wrong to capitalise in this way and try to win popular support for what is fundamentally a Portuguese investigation."

For more information on Jenny Jones's campaign for London Mayor in 2012, please see: http://www.jennyforlondon.org/

Going Where the Grass is Greener - Why I'm Leaving Labour

Josiah Mortimer
http://marchthefury.wordpress.com

It's been an tough decision to make, but I have decided to join the Green Party. For the past year I've been in the Labour party, and met some fantastic people - principled people, including many on the left. MPs such as Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell have consistently acted upon their socialist beliefs, and been dedicated to fighting for social justice and egalitarianism. The election of Ed Miliband provided some hope for people like me, that is, Young Socialists (sadly just 'Young Labour' now) by offering a split from New Labour. But I have decided to change party for a lot of reasons, which I'll try and explain.

Firstly, the old cliche, which I've just realised to be true. Though there are some socialists in the Labour party, it is fundamentally, and unfortunately, not a left-wing party. That is not to say this won't change in the future (social democratic parties have been wiped out in Europe after the '90s) - but the Labour party doesn't represent all that many progressive views. Cuts are being supported by Labour. Just at a slightly slower rate - not really encouraging for people about to lose their job or having their disability support slashed. And in education, Labour still supports a view of education that sees it as a mere commodity to be sold to students, or 'customers' as we are increasingly called. Education is a public good, a gift from one generation to another. It pays for itself in extra tax revenue from higher earning graduates. It creates well-rounded individuals. And ability to pay shouldn't come into the public sector - whatever part of the public sector that is. On Trident, the war in Afghanistan, on Gaza and NATO, the Green Party is on the side of progressivism when frankly Labour isn't.

I voted for Ed Miliband. He appeared to support a future for Britain that is centre-left on the side of equality. But now he seems keen on reducing the role of trade unions within the party and is cozying up to 'Blue Labour' - effectively a continuation of New Labour but with slightly less free-market obsession and slightly more racism and xenophobia. Again, not all that inspiring.

I come back to the point of socialists in the Labour party. John McDonnell, the beacon of hope within the party, couldn't even get on the ballot for the leadership election. He had to drop out to boost Dianne Abbott's chances of getting on there. And she sent her kids to private school. Caroline Lucas MP is to the left of Abbott - and leads the Greens. I want to be part of a party that not only has strong left element, but that is actually led by the left.

Of course, there are flaws with the Greens. They don't have trade unions at their heart. But unlike Labour, the Green's stand on a platform of removing anti-trade union laws. Something Labour didn't do in their 13 years of power. And the Greens perhaps have a presentation problem of being seen as a bourgeois humus-eating elitist clique. However, all the Green Party members I know are rooted in realism and the working class. Are they a single issue party If so, which single issue Wishing to clamp down on tax dodging Seeking a fairer tax system to stop the cuts. Through their 131 councillors, their MP and MEPs, they have shown that they most definitely are not a single-issue party. Nonetheless, if they were it would be preferable to a party that has no firm beliefs anymore at all.

The Greens are growing. Membership is going up. Their democratic representation is increasing all the time - even under First Past the Post (which, unlike Labour, the Greens oppose) - as they now control Brighton council and have councillors across the country. Their stature and credibility as a party is growing. It took a long time for me to be convinced of that, but it's true.

I don't want, or need, to list what I think the Labour party did wrong over the past thirteen years. Because many good things happened. Sure Start, investment in the NHS, the minimum wage, devolution and so on. And I am filled with a certain sense of guilt for leaving a party that declares on our membership cards it is a 'democratic socialist party'. But then I remember this was only put in as a concession after the tragic removal of the radical Clause 4 in the '90s.

Again, I have to stress, I fully support the left within the Labour party. The Labour Representation Committee has played a fantastic role in keeping it alive within the movement, and I will sorely miss not being able to retain my LRC membership. Even of those not on the left there are some fantastic people locally who I respect and wish all the best. And were the Labour Party to ever (as unlikely as it may seem) shift back to the left, I will be one of the first to rejoin. But this is looking increasingly remote the more disillusioned I become with Ed Miliband and the rest of the leadership.

So. All the best to all the Labour comrades I have met over the past year and hope to remain friends with - and solidarity with all the trade unionists and socialists still sticking with the party. I'm going to make a firm pledge now that if I ever stand as a Green candidate it will never be against a dedicated left-wing Labour member.

And neither am I going to ask anyone to follow suit. I don't want to be a human billboard for ditching the Labour party. But as the saying goes - the Labour party left us, not the other way round.

My meeting with Rene Ramirez

Very impressed with Rene Ramirez, Minister of Planning and Development for Ecuador, spooky talking to an economics minister who speaks Ostrom, indigienity, Marx, very serious guy, real sign of an alternative to capitalist productivist economics winning battle in Ecuador....absolutely the real deal!

We have to fight and win the battle here and everywhere against the work, consume, throwaway extractivist economy.

Too much green is pale green!

Too much socialism is just capitalism!

Too much politics is trivia!

We have a sucidal economic and social system, very encouraging to meet some one else with an idea of an alternative.

Do go and listen to Rene Ramirez, speaking on wednesday, 6.30pm LSE!

We have got to fight and win on this, nothing else matters when you think about it.

Lib Dem councilllor defects to Greens

Cllr Howard Allen joins Green Party****Green Party now has 4 seats on Solihull Council*
Shirley West Councillor, Howard Allen, has switched to the Green Party [1]having been a Liberal Democrat or Independent Liberal Democrat Councillor since 2003. Councillor Allen joins three other Green Party Councillors in Solihull to form a “gang of four”. Councillor Allen’s decision follows a string of defections and changes in allegiance by Councillors in Shirley West in the past year. Shirley West ward is now represented by one Green Party Councillor, one Labour Councillor and one Conservative. All three seats were in the hands of the LiberalDemocrats in May 2010.

The Green Party group on Solihull Council plans to work to hold the new Conservative Council to account, especially over regeneration andpreservation of green space across the Borough, key reasons for Councillor Allen’s decision to join the Green Party.

Sanctions now against King Al Khalifa's tyranny

just had this from Peter, thanks Peter!

Halt crimes against humanity, protect civilians


UN, EU, US & UK must withdraw support from Bahraini regime

London - 16 May 2011

Speaking at a pro-democracy rally outside the Bahraini Embassy in London on 14 May 2011, organised by Justice for Bahrain, Peter Tatchell, Director of the human rights organisation, the Peter Tatchell Foundation, said:

"We are here in solidarity with the people of Bahrain who are struggling for democratic reforms, human rights and social justice. The state of emergency must be lifted immediately, all political prisoners freed and Saudi Arabian and UAE troops withdrawn. The people of Bahrain should be free to determine their own future by the exercise of their democratic rights, without external interference.

"The international community has failed in its duty to protect the civilian population from arrest, detention without trial, torture and murder by the regime of King Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa.

"If the duty to protect civilians applies in Libya, why not in Bahrain?

"The UN, EU, US, UK and Arab League should work together to: halt all arms sales to Bahrain, cease military cooperation, suspend the operation of the US naval base, institute a travel ban and assets-freeze on top regime officials, prohibit the export to Bahrain of luxury items for the rich ruling elite, refer Bahrain's leaders to the International Criminal Court and the UN Human Rights Council on charges of torture and crimes against humanity, and report Saudi Arabia and the UAE to the UN Security Council for their interference in the internal affairs of Bahrain and the role of their troops in the violent suppression of the democracy protests," said Mr Tatchell.

Speaking after the protest, Mr Tatchell added:

"The protesters in Bahrain are demanding democracy and human rights, especially for the Shia Muslim majority who comprises more than 60% of the population. Shias are excluded from political power by the pro-Sunni monarchy and government. They suffer sustained discrimination, especially in housing and jobs.

"Human rights activists in Bahrain report that at least 30 civilians have been killed, including four people who have died in custody after beatings and torture. Around 400 democracy protesters have been injured. Doctors and nurses who treated the wounded and spoke publicly about their injuries have been arrested, beaten and tortured. Forty-seven of them are being put on trial.

"Already four protesters have been sentenced to death, following military trials held behind closed doors.

"Close to 1,000 Bahrainis have been arrested since the start of protests in February, although about 300 of these have since been released. Twenty-one opposition activists and human rights defenders are being prosecuted on trumped up charges. An estimated 1,000 professionals have been sacked from their jobs, accused of pro-democracy and pro-Shia sympathies. The country's only opposition newspaper has been closed down. The editors of Al-Wasat are being put on trial on bogus charges of misreporting the protests and the government's crackdown. Twenty-seven Shia mosques, meeting houses and shrines have been destroyed or damaged.

"A total of 1,500 Saudi and UAE soldiers entered Bahrain in March and are helping with this systematic repression," Mr Tatchell added.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, has condemned the brutal tactics of the Bahraini regime as "shocking and illegal conduct."

See these reports in The Independent:
http://tiny.cc/hpzoa and http://tiny.cc/7gh3y and http://tiny.cc/s0d57

See also Justice for Bahrain: www.justiceforbahrain.com

Even before the current wave of repression, Bahrain had a poor human rights record; having been criticised by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Amnesty International report:
http://tiny.cc/0lhbp

Human Rights Watch report:
http://tiny.cc/cgtfm