Impossible joy, Reflections of Fidel column, Fidel Castro Ruz, July 4, 2010

I promised that I would be the “happiest man in the world if I was wrong” but, unfortunately, my happiness was short-lived.

The World Cup has still not ended. There are six days left to go before the final.

What an exceptional opportunity the yanki empire and the fascist state of Israel might miss for keeping the minds of the vast majority of the inhabitants of the planet off their basic problems!

Who would have noticed the disastrous plans of the empire in relation to Iran and its crude pretexts for attacking it?

At the same time I ask myself: what are Israeli warships doing for the first time in the waters of the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s maritime areas?

Is it possible to imagine that the yanki nuclear aircraft carriers and the Israeli warships will leave their with their tails between their legs if the requisites contained in Resolution 1929 passed by the United Nations Security Council on June 9, 2010 – which authorizes the inspection of Iranian ships and aircraft, with the possibility of making those inspections within the territory of any state and which, this time around, authorizes doing so on the high sea – are met?

The resolution also establishes that the inspection of Iranian ships should not be undertaken without Iran’s consent. In that case, its refusal would be the subject of analysis.

Another added element is the possibility of seizing what has been inspected, if it can be confirmed that it does not comply with the terms of the resolution.

A disarmed Iran was the victim of that cruel war with Iraq in which the masses of the Revolutionary Guards cleared the minefields by advancing across them.

This is not the case today. I explained in earlier Reflections that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was chief of the Revolutionary Guards in West Iran who bore the central brunt of that war.

Years later, an emboldened Iraqi government dispatched the bulk of its Republican Guard and annexed the oil rich Arab Emirate of Kuwait, an easy prey.

The government of Iraq maintained a close relationship with Cuba, which has provided it with significant health services since the times when it was not at war. Our country tried to persuade it to abandon Kuwait and put an end to the war that it had provoked based on erroneous points of view.

It is now known that a mediocre yanki ambassador, who maintained excellent relations with the government of Iraq, induced it to the error committed.

Bush Senior attacked his former friend, leading a powerful coalition with a strong Arab Sunni Muslim composition from countries that supply oil to a large part of the industrialized and rich nations, which advanced from the south of Iraq to cut off the retreat of the Republican Guard, which was withdrawing toward Baghdad and which, given the prudence of the United States Marines and Armed Forces – under the leadership of Colin Powell, a prestigious general and subsequently Secretary of State of George W. Bush – escaped toward the capital of Iraq.

Out of pure revenge, they utilized missiles contaminated with depleted uranium against the Republican Guard, with which, for the first time, they experienced the damage that these could inflict on enemy soldiers.

The Iran which, at this moment, is threatening with its air, land and sea armies of the Muslim-Shiite religion, is nothing like the Republican Guard that they attacked with impunity in Iraq.

The empire is at the point of committing an inestimable error without anybody being able to prevent it. It is advancing inexorably toward a disastrous fate.

The only thing that can be stated is that the quarter finals of the World Cup took place. In that way, we football fans were able to enjoy the emotional games in which we saw incredible things. It has been affirmed that, for 36 years, the Holland team has never lost World Cup matches on a Friday. Only thanks to computers could that calculation be made.

It is a fact that Brazil was eliminated in the quarter finals of the Cup. A referee left Brazil out of them. At least that was the impression that an excellent commentator on Cuban television insistently repeated. Afterward, the FIFA declared that the referee’s decision was correct.

Later on, the same referee left Brazil with 10 players at a decisive moment, when more than half of the second time of the game remained. That was definitely never the referee’s intention.

Yesterday, Argentina was eliminated. In the first minutes, the German team, via midfielder Müller, caught by surprise the confident Argentine defense and goalkeeper and succeeded in scoring a goal.

Later, the Argentine forwards just could not score a goal on no less than 10 occasions, for one to the German team.

On the contrary, the German team notched up another three and even Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, applauded wildly.

So, once again, one of the favorite teams lost, leaving 90% of football fans in Cuba stunned.

The vast majority of lovers of that sport do not even know on which continent Uruguay is to be found. A final between European countries would be the most lackluster and anti-historic since that sport came into the world.

On the other hand, events took place in the international sphere that have nothing to do with games of chance but everything to do with the elemental logic that rules the destinies of the empire.

A series of events saw the light of day on July 1st, 2nd and 3rd.

All of them revolve around one fact: the big powers represented on the United Nations Security Council with a right to the veto, plus Germany, urged the government of Iran on July 2 make “a prompt response” to the invitation extended to it to return to negotiations on its nuclear program.

The day before, President Barack Obama signed a bill extending existing measures against Iran’s energy and banking sectors, and which could penalize companies doing business with the Tehran government. In other words, the rigorous blockade and the strangulation of Iran.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad affirmed that his country would return to talks at the end of August and emphasized the necessary participation of countries such as Brazil and Turkey, the only two members of the Security Council who opposed the sanctions on June 9.

A high-ranking official of the European Union contemptuously stated that neither Brazil nor Turkey would be invited to participate in the talks.

Nothing more is needed to come to the pertinent conclusions.

Neither of the two parties will give in: one, due to the pride of the powerful, and the other, out of resistance to the yoke and the capacity to fight, as has occurred so many times in the history of humanity.

Without any doubt whatsoever, the people of Iran, a national of millenary traditions, will defend themselves against the aggressors. It is incomprehensible that Obama can seriously believe that they would bow down to his demands.

The president of that country and its religious leaders, inspired by the Islamic Revolution of Ruhollah Khomeini, creator of the Revolutionary Guards, the modern Armed Forces and the new state of Iran, will resist.

For us, the poor nations of the world, who are not in the least to blame for the colossal mess created by imperialism, located in this hemisphere to the south of the United States, others located in the West, Center and South of Africa, and others that are able to remain unharmed by nuclear war in the rest of the planet, there is no alternative other than to confront the consequences of the catastrophic nuclear war which will erupt in a very short time.

Unfortunately, I have nothing to rectify and I take full responsibility for what is written in my latest Reflections.

Fidel Castro Ruz
July 4, 2010
5:36 p.m.

Translated by Granma International

Cochin India Port Union Boycotts Israeli Ships and Cargo, People's Democracy (Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)

Vol. XXXIV, No. 27, July 04, 2010

http://pd.cpim.org/2010/0704_pd/07042010_7.html

THE trade unions in Cochin Port have reached an understanding amongst themselves to boycott Israeli ships and cargo arriving at Cochin Port in protest against the siege of Gaza by Israeli forces. The boycott began on June 17 on receipt of information that cargo unloaded at Colombo Port from Israeli ship m/v Zim Livorno 16 was bound to arrive at Cochin Port in a feeder vessel. Similar consignments unloaded at Colombo from Israeli ships were set to arrive in feeder vessels.

On June 23, trade unions held a joint protest rally in Cochin Port near the office of Zim Integrated Shipping Services (India) Pvt Ltd – the Israeli shipping line. Addressing the rally B Hamza, general secretary of Cochin Port Labour Union (CITU) condemned the massacre of nine peace activists of flotilla that was carrying humanitarian supplies to the people of Gaza on May 31. He expressed the solidarity of workers of Cochin Port to the people of Palestine. Representatives of various unions participating in the boycott also addressed the rally and declared that the workers of Cochin Port stood united with world-wide boycott by workers of Sweden, Great Britain, South Africa and other countries.

The trade union leaders who addressed the protest rally included Ashique, general secretary, Cochin Thuramugha Thozhilalai Union (HMS), Jamal Kunju, general secretary, Cochin Port Thozhilali Union (INTUC), C D Nandakumar, general secretary, Cochin Port Employees Organisation (CITU), Raghu Raj of Cochin Port Employees Sangh (BMS) and Charles of UTUC.

K V A Iyer, vice president of the Water Transport Workers Federation of India presided over the rally.

How Goldman gambled on Starvation, Johann Hari, The Independent, Friday, 2 July 2010

http://fwd4.me/VeJ

Speculators set up a casino where the chips were the stomachs of millions. What does it say about our system that we can so casually inflict so much pain?
If we don't re-regulate, it is only a matter of time before this all happens again. How many people would it kill next time?


By now, you probably think your opinion of Goldman Sachs and its swarm of Wall Street allies has rock-bottomed at raw loathing. You're wrong. There's more. It turns out that the most destructive of all their recent acts has barely been discussed at all. Here's the rest. This is the story of how some of the richest people in the world – Goldman, Deutsche Bank, the traders at Merrill Lynch, and more – have caused the starvation of some of the poorest people in the world.

It starts with an apparent mystery. At the end of 2006, food prices across the world started to rise, suddenly and stratospherically. Within a year, the price of wheat had shot up by 80 per cent, maize by 90 per cent, rice by 320 per cent. In a global jolt of hunger, 200 million people – mostly children – couldn't afford to get food any more, and sank into malnutrition or starvation. There were riots in more than 30 countries, and at least one government was violently overthrown. Then, in spring 2008, prices just as mysteriously fell back to their previous level. Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, calls it "a silent mass murder", entirely due to "man-made actions."


Earlier this year I was in Ethiopia, one of the worst-hit countries, and people there remember the food crisis as if they had been struck by a tsunami. "My children stopped growing," a woman my age called Abiba Getaneh, told me. "I felt like battery acid had been poured into my stomach as I starved. I took my two daughters out of school and got into debt. If it had gone on much longer, I think my baby would have died."

Most of the explanations we were given at the time have turned out to be false. It didn't happen because supply fell: the International Grain Council says global production of wheat actually increased during that period, for example. It isn't because demand grew either: as Professor Jayati Ghosh of the Centre for Economic Studies in New Delhi has shown, demand actually fell by 3 per cent. Other factors – like the rise of biofuels, and the spike in the oil price – made a contribution, but they aren't enough on their own to explain such a violent shift.

To understand the biggest cause, you have to plough through some concepts that will make your head ache – but not half as much as they made the poor world's stomachs ache.

For over a century, farmers in wealthy countries have been able to engage in a process where they protect themselves against risk. Farmer Giles can agree in January to sell his crop to a trader in August at a fixed price. If he has a great summer, he'll lose some cash, but if there's a lousy summer or the global price collapses, he'll do well from the deal. When this process was tightly regulated and only companies with a direct interest in the field could get involved, it worked.

Then, through the 1990s, Goldman Sachs and others lobbied hard and the regulations were abolished. Suddenly, these contracts were turned into "derivatives" that could be bought and sold among traders who had nothing to do with agriculture. A market in "food speculation" was born.

So Farmer Giles still agrees to sell his crop in advance to a trader for £10,000. But now, that contract can be sold on to speculators, who treat the contract itself as an object of potential wealth. Goldman Sachs can buy it and sell it on for £20,000 to Deutsche Bank, who sell it on for £30,000 to Merrill Lynch – and on and on until it seems to bear almost no relationship to Farmer Giles's crop at all.

If this seems mystifying, it is. John Lanchester, in his superb guide to the world of finance, Whoops! Why Everybody Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay, explains: "Finance, like other forms of human behaviour, underwent a change in the 20th century, a shift equivalent to the emergence of modernism in the arts – a break with common sense, a turn towards self-referentiality and abstraction and notions that couldn't be explained in workaday English." Poetry found its break with realism when T S Eliot wrote "The Wasteland". Finance found its Wasteland moment in the 1970s, when it began to be dominated by complex financial instruments that even the people selling them didn't fully understand.

So what has this got to do with the bread on Abiba's plate? Until deregulation, the price for food was set by the forces of supply and demand for food itself. (This was already deeply imperfect: it left a billion people hungry.) But after deregulation, it was no longer just a market in food. It became, at the same time, a market in food contracts based on theoretical future crops – and the speculators drove the price through the roof.

Here's how it happened. In 2006, financial speculators like Goldmans pulled out of the collapsing US real estate market. They reckoned food prices would stay steady or rise while the rest of the economy tanked, so they switched their funds there. Suddenly, the world's frightened investors stampeded on to this ground.

So while the supply and demand of food stayed pretty much the same, the supply and demand for derivatives based on food massively rose – which meant the all-rolled-into-one price shot up, and the starvation began. The bubble only burst in March 2008 when the situation got so bad in the US that the speculators had to slash their spending to cover their losses back home.

When I asked Merrill Lynch's spokesman to comment on the charge of causing mass hunger, he said: "Huh. I didn't know about that." He later emailed to say: "I am going to decline comment." Deutsche Bank also refused to comment. Goldman Sachs were more detailed, saying they sold their index in early 2007 and pointing out that "serious analyses ... have concluded index funds did not cause a bubble in commodity futures prices", offering as evidence a statement by the OECD.

How do we know this is wrong? As Professor Ghosh points out, some vital crops are not traded on the futures markets, including millet, cassava, and potatoes. Their price rose a little during this period – but only a fraction as much as the ones affected by speculation. Her research shows that speculation was "the main cause" of the rise.

So it has come to this. The world's wealthiest speculators set up a casino where the chips were the stomachs of hundreds of millions of innocent people. They gambled on increasing starvation, and won. Their Wasteland moment created a real wasteland. What does it say about our political and economic system that we can so casually inflict so much pain?

If we don't re-regulate, it is only a matter of time before this all happens again. How many people would it kill next time? The moves to restore the pre-1990s rules on commodities trading have been stunningly sluggish. In the US, the House has passed some regulation, but there are fears that the Senate – drenched in speculator-donations – may dilute it into meaninglessness. The EU is lagging far behind even this, while in Britain, where most of this "trade" takes place, advocacy groups are worried that David Cameron's government will block reform entirely to please his own friends and donors in the City.

Only one force can stop another speculation-starvation-bubble. The decent people in developed countries need to shout louder than the lobbyists from Goldman Sachs. The World Development Movement is launching a week of pressure this summer as crucial decisions on this are taken: text WDM to 82055 to find out what you can do.

The last time I spoke to her, Abiba said: "We can't go through that another time. Please – make sure they never, never do that to us again."

j.hari@independent.co.uk

Canadian Labour Congress Statement on G20 Summit Police Actions Posted: Wednesday, 30 June 2010

http://www.canadianlabour.ca/news-room/statements/statement-g20-summit-police-actions

The Canadian Labour Congress supports the call of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and other organizations for an independent inquiry into the actions of the police during the G8 and G20 summits.

The G20 summit in Toronto on June 26 and 27 was an opportunity for us to tell our politicians that the needs of workers, of citizens, and the environment must take precedence over the greed of global finance and global corporations.

Our People First Rally on June 26 brought over 30,000 people to Toronto, to the official demonstration area at Queen's Park, and along a parade route negotiated with security officials. By all accounts – including the police – labour's rally was a peaceful demonstration with hundreds of volunteer marshals from the labour movement ensuring we had a successful event.

Unfortunately our successful and peaceful demonstration was overshadowed by the actions of small numbers of individuals unrelated to our event, who committed serious acts of vandalism.

The Canadian Labour Congress quickly and publicly deplored those actions, which undermined the efforts of labour and civil society to ensure our voices were heard.

Reports of peaceful demonstrators, exercising their democratic rights of expression and free assembly, being rounded up and detained in mass arrests are cause for concern. We are further disturbed by the revelations that the Ontario government passed in secret an amendment of the Public Works Protection Act that did not meet Canadian constitutional standards and resulted in inappropriate use of police powers to arrest and detain individuals for recognized legal activities.

It is the responsibility of our governments to ensure Canadians know exactly what transpired during this security operation, and that police will be held accountable if mistakes were made. We call on the federal and provincial governments to conduct an independent inquiry into security during the 2010 G8 and G20 summits.

Peace? With friends like these? Solomon Hughes, in Morning Star Thursday 01 July 2010

Former Spanish president Jose Aznar saw Israeli commandos shooting dead protesters on the Mavi Marmara and decided that the world needed more friendship. Specifically, he founded a new Friends of Israel. But reading through Aznar's bizarre declaration makes me think, with friends like these, who needs enemies?

Aznar is the kind of pal who likes to get his mates in a fight. Aznar doesn't seem to wish peace on Israel or hope for a way for Israelis to live with their neighbours.

Instead Aznar says: "Israel is our first line of defence in a turbulent region that is constantly at risk of descending into chaos; a region vital to our energy security owing to our overdependence on Middle Eastern oil; a region that forms the front line in the fight against extremism."

The Spaniard is saying he wants Israel to act like an armed camp in enemy territory. He seems to want his friend to guard his own oil, which is inconveniently under someone else's sand. So Aznar's hand of friendship is busy pushing his pal into a punch-up.

Even when he tries to come up with kind words for Israel, Aznar seems to know little about his "friend." According to Aznar, "owing to its roots, history and values, Israel is a fully fledged Western nation." Defending Israel is all about defending "Western values."

Aznar says that people who don't understand this are suffering from "masochistic self-doubt over our own identity," the "multiculturalism that forces us to our knees before others" and general national "decline."

He seems to have forgotten that Israel was founded in response to a massive failure of "Western values." The Holocaust, the industrial murder of millions of Jews that acted as a spur to the foundation of Israel, didn't come from the "East." Israel wasn't founded because the nazis were too friendly to "Eastern" values, or Hitler's enthusiasm for "multiculturalism" or his relaxed attitude to "decline."

Indeed Aznar's whole statement, which is filled with enthusiasm for Israel's role in a "war" against "extremists," doesn't mention the Holocaust once.

It's not surprising that Aznar wants to forget Israel was born in response to Western fascism. In his teenage years Aznar was in fact a supporter of the Falange, Franco's fascist party.

Aznar's Friends of Israel looks a bit like a revival tour for the people behind the Iraq war. Aznar himself claimed to have evidence for Saddam's WMD and pushed hard for the 2003 invasion. Iraq war hawk John Bolton is also on board.

The "friendship" seems to stem from the same urge - not an urge to find a durable settlement for the people of Israel and Palestine, but an urge to find another weapon to wave around a strategically important oil-rich region. It's the same urge which gives rise to the idea that the best way to "aid" Israel is to pump up its military might.

Aznar's friendship is a creepy offer to hold his pal's coat while nudging him into a brawl.

Sadly, over the years, more and more Israeli politicians seem happy to play up to this "friendship." The US has sent huge cargoes of weapons to Israel, while Israeli politics have drifted further to the right, with the Likud leading and Kadima being seen as a "centrist" party.

Just one more note. Aznar's declaration opens with a description of the Mavi Marmara and other boats as "a flotilla whose sole purpose was to create an impossible situation for Israel: making it choose between giving up its security policy and the naval blockade, or risking the wrath of the world." So Aznar has already decided that the passengers on the flotilla were responsible for getting themselves shot.

Tory peer and former unionist leader David Trimble also joined Aznar's group. The same David Trimble is supposed to be an "independent" member of Israel's commission investigating the shootings. Trimble's role was welcomed by Foreign Secretary William Hague, which makes clear that, rattled as they were over the Mavi Marmara shootings, the Tories will still settle for a whitewash.

General McChrystal is gone, Petraeus is back, but will Nato change its Afghan war plan?

The two generals are very different men, but with very similar approaches to war. First, we are still fighting Afghanistan on one meal a day.

Weirdly, both generals only chow down once a day. This unhealthy diet made General Petraeus faint during Congressional hearings.

It's some kind of warrior-monk thing. If you viewed the generals in terms of Jedi Knights - and I very much fear they do - McChrystal is Luke Skywalker, the once rowdy youngster, while Petraeus is the wise old hand. Yoda is now running the Afghan war.

Both men are what the US has nicknamed COINdinistas - they are counterinsurgency (or COIN) enthusiasts. They think the Vietnam war shows how to win.

Petraeus wrote the book on counterinsurgency - literally. His army manual says Nato should follow murderous strategies.

Petraeus's plan is for "armed social work." Soldiers should not only kill the enemy, they should also control the Afghan populace to separate them from the insurgents. This means "isolating the area to cut off external support and to kill or capture escaping insurgents."

Petraeus's solution is army "control over the area and populace" in Afghanistan. Building up local militias is central to both the killing and the control.

In fact the general thinks the US only lost the Vietnam war because it lost the will to fight, so he would like to commit Nato to a long and vicious Afghan conflict.

General McChrystal was sacked after his Animal House fratboy insults against the Obama administration were exposed by Rolling Stone magazine. But that's not the only thing that was exposed.

The same article quoted his adviser Major General Bill Mayville as saying that Afghanistan is "not going to look like a win, smell like a win or taste like a win."

So we can either stick with the bloody war for an ambiguous victory, saving US honour with Afghan lives, or we can sue for peace now.

Barack Obama: Are we moving from the Slave to the Nuclear Holocaust? Bylined to: Dr. Franz J. T. Lee, Vheadline.com, July 02, 2010

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=93906

How many hundred millions of precious lives will World War III devour in its Oil Moloch?

VHeadline commentarist, University of Los Andes (ULA) political sciences professor, Dr. Franz J. T. Lee writes: In Venezuela we are seriously studying and discussing the latest reflections and warnings of Fidel Castro. We are asking whether we are now moving from the catastrophic oil leaks in the Gulf of Mexico and in Nigeria to the nuclear broil, to the Nuclear Holocaust in the Middle East, to the next World War.

In all these capitalist developments, Karl Marx had the first theoretical word, will the world proletariat have the last praxical word? At last, are the global workers wakening up from their consumer slumber?

Independent of the cognitive barriers of his age, of which all of us are transhistoric victims, beyond doubt, for half a century, it was Karl Marx who scientifically and philosophically has studied the economic exploitative, the political dominating, the social discriminating, the military genocidal and the ideological alienating quintessence of capital, of capital accumulation and of capitalism. Phenomenologically, in appearance forms, tremendously capitalism has changed over the last century, however, it has not lost a single tendential law of development as is described in Marx's Capital. (1)

In fact, even before studying these inherent laws, Marx and Friedrich Engels in their 'Manifesto of the Communist Party' (1848) actually predicted the current globalization; they formulated the first theory of globalization.

Now, with regard to the origin of the current, globalized, belligerent, brutal and barbarous essence of capital, of corporate capitalism, in 1867 already, how did Marx define its birth?

According to him, in a footnote of his monumental work, 'Capital,' Volume I, Part VIII, Chapter 31, "If money, according to Augier, 'comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek,' capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt." 2)

Marx' idealist teacher of dialectics, Hegel, taught Marx that anything that is born logically must perish. Capitalism is not immune to this universal law. Among the tendential economic laws of the inexorable terrestrial passing away of capitalism, inter alia, Marx foresaw:

(a) the progressive, merciless, competition, concentration and monopolization of capital,

(b) the immense socialization of world production,

(c) in spite of gigantic extra profits, on the average the steady fall of the rate of profits on a global scale;

(d) the rapid growth of the organic composition of capital, that is, of the diminishing of living physical labor force which only produces surplus value and its replacing by means of machines (nowadays with computers, robots or nanobots) which do not consume, do not realize capital;

(e) these bring about over-production and anarchy in the capitalist process, increased periodic economic crises and political turmoil, depression, recession, class struggles and fascist wars;

(f) and the geometric explosion of progressive pauperization of workers, the middle classes, social outcasts and unemployed on a global scale.

A simple study of he current global situation, of 'failed states,' 'post-modernity,' 'transition' and the 'new world order' (NWO) could easily verify the above tendency and latency of global capitalism. The above can only disappear, become obsolete, with the annihilation of capitalism itself.

Let us look at some statistics of the current situation which corroborate the geometric explosion of the pauperization of humanity and the concentration of power, of elitist, ruling class megalomania.

*

Ab ovo, the capitalist mode of production is corrupt, alienating, is murder, is theft. If we have not comprehended this by now, well, then we have a serious psychological problem with veritas, with the truth.

The birth of capitalism in the ancient Greek city-states, and of its corresponding bellicose superstructure, of 'false flag operations,' already Aeschylus informed us that 'in war, truth is the first casualty". (The current world news about the US wars on terror verifies this sufficiently.3a)

In the current global wars launched by he United States of America, under the slogan 'full spectrum dominance,' it becomes clear that not only the dominant ideas, morality, ideology and religion are those of the respective ruling classes or elites, also the reigning truth is the truth of 'Big Brother,' who does not accept, does not permit any other truth. Hence, in 'democracy, the truth, freedom of thought, is a myth, is not as Rosa Luxemburg stressed: 'Freedom is the freedom of dissenters"; in the NWO a dissenter is a 'terrorist, an 'extremist.' The Achilles Heel of corporate capitalism is precisely the truth; nothing the ruling classes fear more than the 'political awakening' of the workers of the world.

The ex-President of the USA, George W. Bush, Sr. expressed this fear as follows: "If the American people knew what we have done, they would string us up from the lamp posts." (3)

What the Bush family and their corporate, military associates were doing and are still doing we witness in "9/11". the Mideast wars, in Gaza, in the planned attacks on Iran and North Korea, the coming metropolitan police states, global fascism and a one world government. The international mass media, controlled by corporate imperialism and ideology (very often a pseudonym for ruling class myths, hoaxes and lies) progressively are eclipsing the world truth, Now and then some authentic journalism as exception proves this golden rule.

In his article "The Global Political Awakening and the New World Order", Andrew Gavin Marshall gives us statistics which indicate the truth of what was predicted in Marx's Capital over a century ago: "In regards to poverty and hunger statistics, 'Over 840 million people in the world are malnourished -- 799 million of them are from the developing world. Sadly, more than 153 million of them are under the age of 5 (half the entire US population).'" (4)

Currently we are experiencing not an economic crisis of want but rather a capitalist collapse of over-production, which endangers the realization of corporate imperialist capital. We live in a 'democracy,' in a huge depression, in a world of corrupt, irresponsible bankers and capitalist racketeers down whose gaping throats are being stuffed trillions of US dollars, while in Humania South, in Africa, Asia, America and elsewhere, millions of innocent children die like flies as a result of hunger and pestilence: "Further, 'Every day, 34,000 children under five die of hunger or other hunger-related diseases. This results in 6 million deaths a year.' That amounts to a 'Hunger Holocaust' that takes place every single year. As of 2003, "Of 6.2 billion living today, 1.2 billion live on less than $1 per day. Nearly 3 billion people live on less than $2 a day."[43]" (5)

Capitalism is the progressive accumulation of a series of holocausts against humanity, Inter alia, the Hitler holocaust, the Slave Holocaust, the Mental Holocaust and the Hunger Holocaust. At this very moment, as Fidel Castro warned, against Iran the latest Nuclear Holocaust is already being launched by the USA and their global bloodhounds. In 2006, 2% of adults in the world already possessed 50% of global household wealth. And yet, they want everything. Yes, more precisely, "the top 1% owns 40% of global assets; the top 10% owns 85% of world assets; and the bottom 50% owns 1% of global assets; a sobering figure, indeed. ". (6)

Really, something is rotten in the state of Denmark!

Finally, the capitalist world institutions themselves verify what Marx foresaw long ago: "The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) report stated that in 2009, "an estimated 55 million to 90 million more people will be living in extreme poverty than anticipated before the crisis." Further, "the encouraging trend in the eradication of hunger since the early 1990s was reversed in 2008, largely due to higher food prices." Hunger in developing regions has risen to 17% in 2008, and 'children bear the brunt of the burden.'[45]" (7)

What is in formation, partially already constructed since decades is a totally controlled world authoritarian and totalitarian world state, preferably the USA themselves. To list the whole galaxy of fascist laws, institutions, detention camps, electro-magnetic arms, projects like HAARP, surveillance satellites and cameras, vaccines, pills, chips and personal, identification documents, would detonate the limits of this short commentary, however, much can be found on many serious web sites.

In spite of the 'political awakening' of the international workers, we seem to be drifting more and more away from real class struggle, from true anti-capitalism and authentic pro-socialism, and are entering already the dark age of post-Orwellian barbarism.

Seven years ago, I commented that George Orwell was not warning about Hitler or Stalin fascism, but about a coming world fascism. In his book, "1984", O'Brien, the mouthpiece of 'Big Brother,' explains the concept "Power", i.e., Capital, to Winston Smith as follows: "The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power. " (8)

And then O'Brien let 'Schrödinger's Cat' out of the Pandora Box: "The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. ... Power is not a means, it is an end. ... The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. " (9)

Then O'Brien informed Winston about the future projects of "Big Brother", of the coming global fascism, the One World State: "We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation - anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wished to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. ... We make the laws of nature." (p. 218) (10)

At present we are already living in the post-Orwellian barbarism, in "a world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon ... Never again will we be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity ". (9) It is almost sure that the NATO could attack Iran at any moment, this would launch the most brutal world war that humanity ever would witness: it could even blow capitalism itself into blazes. (11)

To save imperialism the workers had to pay with their lives, 50 millions in World War I, 80 millions in World War II, how many hundred millions of precious lives will World War III devour in its oil Moloch? In the new millennium capitalism has already killed over 10 million people.

After the Mental Holocaust across centuries, Hitler openly stated that to control a people is to control its education. How effective this Mental Holocaust was already can be verified in his famous statement: 'how lucky for rulers that people do not think.'

Yes, it is time to think. to transcend this coming global nuclear conflagration.

Franz J.T. Lee
franzjutta@cantv.net

Mel Zelaya: Honduran Coup Was Planned by U.S. Southern Command, Tue, 06/29/2010, AP

http://quotha.net/node/1053


TEGUCIGALPA – Former Honduran President Mel Zelaya said Monday that the coup that ousted him a year ago was planned by the U.S. Southern Command from the Palmerola military base in Honduras.

“Everything indicates that the coup was planned at the Palmerola military base by the U.S. Southern Command and clumsily executed by incompetent Hondurans,” Zelaya said in an e-mail message sent from the Dominican Republic to the Honduran people to commemorate the first anniversary of the June 28, 2009, putsch.

“Honduran people, I write you these words one year after that fateful morning on which my house, where I lived with my family being president of the republic, was surrounded by special forces of the military,” Zelaya’s missive begins.

It adds that “a year after the military coup d’etat the causes have been cleared up as well as the intellectual authors of the crime, who have kept themselves hidden.”

“The United States was behind the coup d’etat,” he said.

“The intellectual authors of this crime were an illicit association of old Washington hawks and Honduran capitalists with their partners, American affiliates and financial agencies,” the letter said.

The ex-president, who was deposed while promoting a non-binding referendum on convening a constitutional convention, said that the measures he took to free Honduras were “the main reasons why the Americans and their partners went crazy.”

His ouster was the result, the letter said, of adopting measures in 2006 that affected U.S. oil companies, and a plan to convert the U.S.-built Palmerola airbase into a civilian airport.

Another reason for his fall, according to Zelaya, was his rejection of the “recessionary policies of the IMF (International Monetary Fund)” in favor of subsidizing transportation and boosting wages.

Washington also didn’t approve of Honduras’ decision to join Venezuela’s Petrocaribe initiative, under which Caribbean and Central American nations receive Venezuelan oil on generous terms.

“One year after the blow against democracy it has all been confirmed that the exiles are victims of this interference and that the (Porfirio) Lobo government has surrendered to American interests,” Zelaya said, who has been living in the Dominican Republic since Jan. 27.

Lobo became president in January, after winning the election on Nov. 29, 2009, conducted by the de facto regime amid an abstention rate of more than 50 percent.

Zelaya also said that the repression and political persecution in Honduras continues, an accusation echoed by Amnesty International, among others.

To the National Popular Resistance Front that denounced the coup and to his own Liberal Party, Zelaya said “now that you know the truth and know your true adversaries, you must stay united and continue collecting signatures” for a constitutional convention and his return to the country. EFE