More Evidence of Global Climate Change

My first post on climate change, The Corporate Rush to Global Climate Change, was inspired in part by the exceptional work of James Balog.  If you are a first time visitor to this blog, I urge you to invest the time to read that post and, more importantly, watch the Balog film Chasing Ice.

Today's post is also inspired by a filmmaker.  The New York Times' Sunday Review highlights still photography, video clips and commentary by Michael Benson, in a piece entitled Gorgeous Glimpses of Calamity.  The caption for the piece is,

"Man-made perils to the universe's garden of life are evident from space."  

Benson notes that in the early days of space travel there was little evidence of the man-made damage future flights would reveal.  As he says, 

"Sure, Los Angeles was visibly smoggy. And irrigated cropland could sometimes be discerned...But these were exceptions.  Under a startlingly thin layer of atmosphere, vast expanses of desert ceded to forests that gave way to the oceans that make up 70 percent of the Earth's surface.  The planet seemed largely untouched." 

Back then, the world's population was half of today's growing total. The current picture is "deeply unsettling",

"While our world remains ravishingly beautiful, it increasingly shows symptoms of distress.  Many of these indicators are the direct result of human activity.  Others are the indirect consequence of using our atmosphere as a dumping ground for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases."

In his commentary Benson repeats a theme you will recall from my previous two posts; namely, that we are approaching atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide not seen since the mid-Pliocene, some three million years ago.  And again, to state the obvious, we have no place else to go when temperatures rise past the 2 degree maximum that was established in 2009 at the Copenhagen climate conference.

Benson also refers (a little naively, imho) to a recent speech by President Obama that promised action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  He goes on to suggest that,

"President Obama should invite world leaders to an emergency conclave in Washington as early as possible and challenge China, India, Brazil, Indonesia and other major greenhouse-gas emitters to equal or exceed the percentage reductions he seeks for the United States.  He should also try to rally the nation and globe in support of an international Manhattan Project, in which the best scientific minds would devise carbon-sequestration technologies that could clean the air of the heating elements we've put there - rather than simply seeking to limit the damage."

I have read the transcript of Obama's speech, and long before this I was seriously ambivalent (at best) to the solemn pronouncements of Mr. Hope & Change.  While it is important and valuable that he raises this critical issue, his comments come off as too little too late, and more than just a little self-serving for a president looking to substantiate his legacy.  And his comments stand in stark contrast to the failure of Copenhagen - a failure in which his administration was highly complicit - and his complete absence from the recent Rio+ conference.  So, too, his failure to support the modest but ground-breaking Yasuni-ITT initiative, on which I last posted.

The reality of American politics - a world of lobbyists and corporate personhood and Citizens United - makes Obama's newfound passion for our future world just a little disingenuous.  And if he were to make global climate change the signature issue of his presidency, there are enormous obstacles to overcome - not just the general level of misinformation amongst the great unwashed, but the blindly willful ignorance so proudly displayed by many members of the US Congress.  It is truly sobering to read the comments of the many climate deniers who populate the US House and Senate. 

While I think that Mr. Benson is rather too hopeful in what Obama can, should and will do, here's where I do concur with him - Benson is absolutely correct when he says that,

"A sense of emergency is what is urgently needed."

But that sense of urgency needs to come from the masses. Politicians are not the answer.  This is a world increasingly run by and for the elite, a world in which politicians are fully complicit, a world of economic neo-liberalism, corporate control and an ever-widening gulf between those who matter and those who don't.

By David.

-----------

Your musical accompaniment for the day: Tom Saywer, by Rush. "No his mind is not for rent, by any god or government."  Enjoy.

Ecuador Latest Victim of Gobal Climate Change

Ecuador has fallen to the forces driving global climate change.  

In the news today we learn that President Rafael Correa has announced he will dissolve Ecuador's highly imaginative Yasuni-ITT trust fund.  His action opens up this most sensitive biological area to the ravages of oil drilling.  A Reuters report notes,

"...a single hectare (2.47 acres) of the Yasuni national park contains more tree species than in all of North America."

And a report from Earth First News makes the point for biological diversity even more forcefully,

"...eastern Ecuador (the location of Yasuni) and northeastern Peru have the highest number of species in the hemisphere based on data on birds, mammals, amphibians and plants...this estimate, if proven true, is the highest per unit area in the world for any taxa, plant or animal."

The announcement by Correa is a devastating blow to those of us concerned for the environment, as you will readily understand from a quick google search on the subject.  For example, a blog posted on the National Geographic site on December of last year, is a must read.  The commentary by the author, Kelly Swing, sadly anticipates today's announcement by Correa,

"Historical fact #1: If there's oil around, someone, sooner or later, will come for it.  Historical fact #2: No matter where in the world, places that underwent oil extraction before widespread environmental awareness and the implementation of modern technologies have suffered indelible consequences."

Swing contrasts the existing, pristine conditions in Yasuni with an area just to the north which has been ravaged by fossil-fuel extractors;

"An area once equally diverse...has been converted horizon-to-horizon into a cut-over land of oil wells, dusty gravel roads, scattered bamboo huts, open pastures full of introduced elephant grass and practically devoid of its original copious dose of biota."

Before we delve any deeper into the environmental riches of Yasuni (you really must read about this incredible area), and the impending devastation that will surely be visited upon it by the fossil-fuel industry, lets return to Correa and the cancellation of the trust fund that, until now, protected it.

The Yasuni-ITT trust fund was launched in 2007 by the Correa administration, and was administered by the United Nations Development Programme.  In creating the fund, the government of Ecuador voluntarily chose to forego the extraction of 846 million barrels of oil, equating to more than US$ 7.2 billion in income; this action also eliminated the release of 407 million metric tons of CO2 to the environment and a further 800 million tons of CO2 that would otherwise have occurred due to deforestation.   

As the UN website notes, the fund was established

"...for the receipt of contributions from Ecuador's historical decision to permanently forego the extraction of the Yasuni ITT oil fields.  The contributions will finance renewable energy and sustainable development initiatives such as the avoidance of deforestation and conservation of ecosystems.  Through this unique initiative, Ecuador is addressing the challenges of climate change and sustainable development and gradually change its energy matrix from fossil fuel to renewable energy sources."  

And so with Yasuni-ITT, dear reader, you see concrete action taken in response to the desperate need to keep the carbon in the ground as a critical step in combatting the worst outcomes of global climate change (as I noted in my last post).  You will recall from that post that the window to the consensus maximum of a 2 degree rise in global temperature is fast closing, and that we recently reached a milestone of 400 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere, a level not seen in nearly 3 million years.  

The government of Ecuador made the historic commitment to keep the carbon in the ground - an unprecedented step by one of the smallest and poorest oil producers in the world.  But the Correa government has now backed away from this bold and visionary initiative because - wait for it - the world community has failed to support it.

In creating the fund, Correa sought $3.6 billion in funding - half the value of the Yasuni reserves - in exchange for permanently foregoing all extraction in the area.  As he said in his announcement,

"The world has failed us.  It was not charity that we sought from the international community, but co-responsibility in the face of climate change."    

To date, the plan is said to have raised only $13 million in actual donations and another $116 million in pledges, mainly from European institutions and private donors. 

Let's put the Yasuni funding into context - that is, the $3.6 billion Correa's government was seeking to keep the carbon in the ground (remember, this is 50% of the actual value of the resources).   The United States provides roughly that very amount to the state of Israel each and every year, and it donates a further $1.5 billion to Egypt each year and every year to ensure it plays nice with Israel; and also, as is well known, the US distributes each year economic and military aid around the world that totals approximately $50 billion.  And to put the modest Yasuni funding more fully into context, the cost of the US actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan has recently been estimated at $4 trillion (!), not including future interest on the cost of borrowing.  

This is certainly not to suggest that America should be on the hook for the Ecuadoran initiative, but the point to be made is that there are available funds to be found in most every country you might wish to consider - Canada, too, has a role to play, although Mr. Harper has frozen our foreign aid budget at roughly $5 billion, with further reductions pending.

The Ecuadoran initiative was bold, imaginative and visionary. President Correa showed himself to be a world leader on the issue of climate change.  The collapse of the Yasuni-ITT trust fund is a low point in a struggle that is itself already dangerously close to collapse.

In the grand scheme of things, the failure of Yasuni-ITT is immaterial, really.  The Ecuadoran fields represent a very small percentage of the total known reserves upon which the $27 trillion valuation for fossil-fuels is based (see my previous post).  And it represents an equally small fraction of the 2,795 gigatons of CO2 that the fossil-fuel industry will release into our atmosphere with such profound affect.

The real importance of Yasuni-ITT is that even such a grand and noble gesture can be thwarted by the unrelenting machinations of industry, and by the crippling indifference of elected government.  

By David.

-----------

Your musical accompaniment for the day: La cathedrale engloutie, Claude Debussey.  Enjoy and reflect.

The Corporate Rush to Global Climate Change

From James Balog's Documentary "Chasing Ice"

We live on a lovely little rock, one that circles a rather ordinary star, located in a remote corner of a rather typical galaxy. Not a startling revelation, I know, since such turns of phrase have been employed many times before.  Still, when you think about it, our existence on this lovely little rock is nothing short of miraculous.

Even on a planet so perfectly oriented to its star as is ours, it is our incredible good fortune that life could endure, could indeed flourish, through so many fantastic iterations since its first stirrings some 3.5 billion years ago. Fast forward, and here we stand today, you and I, heir to the many thousands upon thousands of life altering and life sustaining events that have propelled we humans to this pinnacle of evolutionary development.

And yet, we seem hell-bent as a species to cast this miracle aside. Despite the well-established and growing mountain of evidence related to climate change, we stand transfixed and immobilized in the face of calamity.  We know the Earth's climate is changing, just as we know that our actions are the cause.  And increasingly, we have come to suspect (and increasingly, know) that the implications will be catastrophic.  The human brain - that most magnificent miracle of evolution - is at once both capable of knowing the truth and of then ignoring it utterly.

There are voices of reason and sanity, however, and they are begging us to pay attention.  Hundreds of books, articles, scientific studies and film documentaries point to the severity of our predicament. And if, dear reader, you were inclined to consider only two of these, you must acquaint yourself with Bill McKibben's recent article "Global Warming's Terrifying New Math" and with James Balog's exceptional documentary "Chasing Ice".

Exhibit 1.  McKibben's piece presents some startling facts.  Begin with these: this last May was the warmest month on record for the Northern Hemisphere; it was the 327th consecutive month in which the entire globe exceeded the 20th century average; and the month of June broke or tied 3,215 high-temperature records across the US. The likelihood of these events cannot be attributed to simple chance since, as McKibben notes,

"...the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe."

While the historical trends he identifies are certainly cause for alarm, what McKibben has to say about the future is truly frightening.  It is unfathomable to me that a thinking person would remain unmoved by the danger revealed in his "three simple numbers".

The First Number: 2 Degrees Celsius.  While the Coppenhagen climate conference of 2009 is universally derided as a spectacular failure of public policy and political will, its non-binding communique did identify one important number (though it failed to specify any means of achieving the goal).  The accord formally recognized

"...the scientific view that the increase in global temperature should be below two degrees Celsius."

According to scientific consensus, we have already raised the average global temperature by 0.8 degrees, so we are well on the way.  And even as we approach the halfway point to the consensus maximum, the damage already perpetrated is substantial,

"A third of the summer sea ice in the Arctic is gone, the oceans are 30 percent more acidic, and since warm air holds more water vapor than cold, the atmosphere over the oceans is a shocking 5 percent wetter, loading the dice for devastating floods." 

Given the damage we're seeing at 0.8, the effects of a 2 degree rise in global temperature will be catastrophic.  And still, politics trumps science.  At Copenhagen, neither the US or China were prepared to offer any meaningful concessions on carbon emissions, even though they together account for 40 percent of the world's total.  Few of the signatories to Copenhagen acquitted themselves admirably, and that certainly includes the Canadian delegation, led by our own steward of the environment, Prime Minister Steven Harper.  Most recently, the Rio+20 Earth Summit continued our global leaders' miserable record of failure.  

And the news continues to worsen, just as the worst trends continue to manifest.  Another long-awaited climate milestone was reported in May - the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has now been recorded at 400 parts per million, a level not likely seen in 3 million years.  As noted in a recent National Geographic report,

"Many scientists argue that the CO2 concentration must be stabilized at 450 ppm to avoid the worst impacts of climate change...And even if we could stop that rise tomorrow, the planet's temperature would still climb for centuries."     

The trend to 400 ppm and beyond will seemingly continue unabated. In fact, the average annual rate of increase, decade over decade, is accelerating. A rise in global temperature greater than 2 degrees celsius is now a virtual certainty.  And McKibben's other "simple numbers" demonstrate just how certain it is that we'll exceed the scientific consensus.

The Second Number: 565 Gigatons.  Scientists estimate that our atmosphere can "tolerate" the release of an additional 565 gigatons of CO2 through to the middle of this century (though there seems to be little discussion of anything past that date), while still supporting the reasonable expectation that temperatures will remain below the 2 degree consensus.  You will recall, however, that we've already reached 0.8 degrees of the that acceptable increase, and that global temperatures are expected to rise a further 0.8 degrees in response to the recently added volumes of CO2.  You might be thinking that the margin for error in this reasonable estimate grows increasingly thin, and you'd be correct.

Pause for a moment to consider the enormity of this unit of measure. A gigaton is a billion metric tons - repeat, one billion metric tons. A metric ton (2,200 lbs.) is the weight of a cubic meter of water, and so one billion metric tons is the weight of one cubic kilometer (one billion cubic meters).  And scientists estimate it is reasonably safe to release another 565 gigatons (!) of CO2 into the atmosphere.  

As a theoretical exercise, the scientific community may certainly be correct.  (Disclosure, I am not a scientist.)  But here's the problem, dear reader - policy makers and the corporate interests that control them (read: oil companies, among others) will take a mile if you give 'em an inch.  Oil companies will treat the 2 degree temperature maximum and the 565 gigaton limit for CO2 as mere estimates, that they and their policy puppets will then relentlessly expand at their will, even as they question the basic science upon which the estimates are based.

And, of course, this is precisely what is happening.  The McKibben article notes that last year there was a 31.6 gigaton increase in CO2 released to the atmosphere over the previous year's total.  As the International Energy Agency reports, this is a 3.2 percent increase. The IEA's chief economist, Fatih Birol, states

"The new data provide further evidence that the door to a two-degree trajectory is about to close.  When I look at this data, the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of about six degrees."    

We cannot fully comprehend a world six degrees warmer.  And, how could we, since we've yet to even acknowledge 2 degrees?  At the projected 3 percent annual rate of increase in CO2 emissions we will blow through the 565 gigaton threshold by 2016.

The Third Number: 2,795 Gigatons.  McKibben says that this is the scariest number of all (though you should be plenty scared by now). Through the efforts of the Carbon Tracker Initiative, we know the proven reserves of the fossil-fuel companies equates to something like 2,795 gigatons of carbon dioxide - that number, the amount of CO2 that the world economy is planning to release, is five times (!) higher than the amount scientists have estimated as safe (and we've already determined that 565 will almost certainly lead to calamity). But, McKibben says, the fossil-fuel companies remain undeterred;

"Yes, this coal and gas and oil is still technically in the soil.  But it's already economically aboveground - it's figured into share prices, companies are borrowing money against it, nations are basing their budgets on the presumed returns from their patrimony.  It explains why the big fossil-fuel companies have fought so hard to prevent the regulation of carbon dioxide - those reserves are their primary asset, the holding that gives their companies their value."  

The economic value of 2,795 gigatons of carbon emissions has been estimated at $27 trillion.  Little surprise, then, that our dominant economic and political institutions will continue to value the health of our planet and the viability of life on Earth as secondary issues when measured against the enormity of this revenue stream.  No surprise, too, that policy makers have upheld industry's vehement opposition to the regulation of carbon dioxide emissions - governments have every incentive to protect the cash cow that is fossil fuels.  And as McKibben says,

"Alone among businesses, the fossil-fuel industry is allowed to dump its main waste, carbon dioxide, for free. Nobody else gets this break...But the fossil-fuel industry is different, and for sound historical reasons: Until a quarter-century ago, almost no one knew that CO2 was dangerous.  But now that we understand that carbon is heating up the planet and acidifying the oceans, its price becomes the central issue."

So it is clear that the pricing model for fossil-fuels must be radically altered if the reserves are to remain in the ground.  The price must reflect their true costs.  To prevent the release of 2,795 gigatons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, as a minimum first step, some form of carbon tax is now mandatory.  Achieving even this modest outcome will require tremendous struggle, since it means overcoming the the entrenched interests of the world's dominant economic and political hierarchy.

Environmental groups have failed to achieve substantive progress regarding the regulation and taxation of CO2, and green initiatives have become little more than vehicles for corporate marketing campaigns, all because there's so much damn money to be made in hydrocarbons.  By the very nature of the artificial construct we call "the corporation" [more on this in future posts], it is clear that we are all captive in this headlong corporate rush to climate change.

The duality of government and the fossil-fuel industry only reinforces this headlong rush.  McKibben sites two recent examples.

"In early June, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled on a Norwegian research trawler to see firsthand the growing damage from climate change. 'Many of the predictions about global warming in the Arctic are being surpassed by the actual data' she said, describing the sight as 'sobering'.  But the discussions she traveled to Scandinavia to have with other foreign ministers were mostly about how to make sure Western nations get their share of the estimated $9 trillion in oil (that's more than the 90 billion barrels, or 37 gigatons of carbon) that will become accessable as the Arctic ice melts."  

"Almost every government with deposits of hydrocarbons straddles the same divide.  Canada, for instance, is a liberal democracy [not really, any more] renowned for its internationalism - no wonder, then, that it signed on to the Kyoto treaty, promising to cut its carbon emissions substantially by 2012.  But the rising price of oil suddenly made the tar sands of Alberta attractive - and since, as NASA climatologist James Hansen pointed out in May, they contain as much as 240 gigatons of carbon (or almost half of the available space if we take the 565 limit seriously), that meant Canada's commitment to Kyoto was nonsense.  In December, the Canadian government withdrew from the treaty before it faced fines for failing to meet its commitments."

The stakes are enormous.  Climate change will alter our planet in ways we cannot possibly comprehend.  And still we stand, transfixed and immobilized in the face of impending calamity.  Nothing short of a complete overhaul of the systems of human organization - political, economic and social - can alter our current trajectory.  Such dramatic and unprecedented change in human society can only be driven from within; it will require a grassroots mobilization in opposition to the status quo - improbable, I'll grant you, but some tentative step to action is needed now, because time is fast slipping away.

McKibben notes correctly that the enormous power of the fossil-fuel industry has successfully thwarted every attempt at the regulation of carbon dioxide emissions.  The challenges to creating and sustaining a movement that can successfully confront the fossil-fuel industry (and the governments it controls) seem insurmountable. However daunting the task, failure to take action is not an option.  Given the clearly established effects of climate change we have already seen, it is madness to contemplate the release of another 2,795 gigatons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. 
         

Exhibit 2.  As a companion piece to the McKibben article, James Balog's extraordinary documentary Chasing Ice is perhaps more accessible and, perhaps then, more immediately understood.  While the math and verbiage of the McKibben piece can overwhelm, the immediacy of the images in Balog's film provide compelling visual proof of the substantial toll already exacted upon our world by climate change.

The stunning visuals in Balag's film are your reward for working through the numbers and statistics of the McKibben article.  Balog himself was trained as an earth scientist but wasn't interested in being a scientist; as he says, "statistics and computer modeling just wasn't me".  Rather, he thought that the most powerful issue of our time was the interaction of humans and nature, and set out to record this through his camera.

In the early stage of his career as a nature photographer he was not focussed on climate change.  As he says himself,

"About 20 years ago I was a sceptic about climate change.  I thought it was based on computer models, I thought maybe there was a lot hyperbole that was turning this thing into an activist cause.  But most importantly, I didn't think that humans were capable of changing the physics and chemistry of this entire huge planet.  It didn't seem probable.  It didn't seem possible."

Balog did come to change his views.  His photo essay for National Geographic, The Big Thaw, in 2007 set him on a course of discovery. In providing the pictures for this highly successful article, he came to realize that there was a bigger story, and so he created the Extreme Ice Survey.  EIS set out to capture the effects of global warming on the glaciers of the northern hemisphere by taking time lapse pictures of the ice sheets in Greenland, Iceland and Alaska.  He realized that ice was the key,

"Glaciers are the canary in the global coal mine."

He learned about the history of our ancient climate as preserved in the ice cores of the Greenland ice sheet.  The data from these ice cores show that CO2 and temperature vary together over time; over the last 800,000 years carbon dioxide has never been higher than 280 parts per million.  The man-made rate of change in CO2 levels in the last centuries is hundreds of times greater than was found to be naturally occurring.  And as we now know, we are at 400 ppm and climbing rapidly.

The decline in glacial area and mass that Balog captured over the three year EIS project is nothing short of astonishing.  I'll not even attempt to describe the magnificent imagery in this wonderful film - you must watch it for yourself to gain a true appreciation of his work. But I will highlight some of the key commentary in the film.  As Balog says,

"We are living through one of those moments of epochal geologic change, and we humans are causing it."

In a perfectly ludicrous counterpoint to his commentary, it is stunning to hear the foolish drivel of empty-headed opinion leaders who know nothing of the science of climate change;

"The so-called climate scientists are hoodwinking the entire world community." - Sean Hannity, Fox TV windbag and conservative talking head.

"There is no consensus.  This (climate change) is a myth." - Brian Sussman, conservative talk radio host and serial denier of climate change.

"The notion that man-made gasses...CO2 cause global warming is probably the greatest hoax perpetrated on the American people." - US Senator James Inhofe, author of The Greatest Hoax, and a politician burrowed deep into the pockets of Koch Industries, Murray Energy, Devon Energy and OGE Energy, among many others.

To be kind, we have, as Balog says, a perception problem,

"We have a problem of perception, because not enough people really get it yet.  We are nearly on the edge of a crisis.  But we still have an opportunity to face the greatest challenge of our generation - in fact, of our century."

In the film, the video of a particular calving event at the Ilulissat Glacier in Western Greenland provides an astonishing exclamation point on the subject of climate change, and on all the science described in both the film and the McKibben article.  The calving face of Ilulissat, equal in size to the area of lower Manhattan, dramatically sheared off into the sea over a period of 75 minutes; it was the largest such event ever witnessed, and it captures perfectly the core issues of climate change.
  

Postscript.  As I said at the beginning of this piece, we live on a lovely little rock, and it is nothing short of miraculous.  But you will now hopefully understand that our Earth is in real peril, as are we. So its worthwhile to remind you what's at stake - reflect for just a moment on the wonder that is our beautiful "Blue Marble".

Climate change is the existential threat of our time, the ultimate weapon of mass destruction.  Climate change is a crime against humanity, against nature, against the Earth. It is a crime that is knowingly perpetrated, and with seeming indifference, by the policy makers we elect and the multi-national corporations to which we grant charter.

We are way past the trivial concerns of investors for share price and dividends and quarterly statements, and we've got no time for the petty partisan politics that effectively masks the real issues facing humanity.  So consider this dear reader: corporations and governments are simply creations of the human mind - since we created them, we can certainly recreate them, and in a way that better serves the common good. 

The science is beyond any question, the visual proof beyond dispute.  Only those who are blithely ignorant or blatantly corrupt will choose to ignore the existential crisis we now face.

Into which category do you fall?

By David.

-----------

Your musical accompaniment for the day:  The Galaxy Song, from Monty Python's Meaning of Life.  Enjoy, and pay attention to the lyrics!

Hello Boys! I'm Back!

In the iconic words of Randy Quaid's Russell Casse in Independence Day, I have returned. Its nice to be with you once again.

And no, I was not abducted by aliens, and I wasn't locked away in prison - thankfully, too, since both are so often associated with anal probing.  Anyway, I'm glad to be back, and I've much to say.

And there is so much to say because so much has (sadly) remained the same, and so much has worsened. My last post of over a year ago was about the Mittster, Mitt Romney. Barack won that little tussle, of course, but we aren't so much the better for it, are we?  But before we get on to the current sad state of affairs, let us close out the commentary on Mitt.

One of my favorite commentators is Rolling Stone Magazine's Matt Taibbi, who has written much on the banksters and felons of Wall Street - thus making Mitt Romney a central character in his ongoing narrative.  Of the many excellent such pieces, one of my favorites is "Greed and Debt" in which Taibbi describes the strategies that made Mitt rich, while simultaneously impoverishing millions of workers and ultimately killing scores of companies.

"Everyone knows that he is fantastically rich, having scored great success, the legend goes, as a "turnaround specialist", a shrewd financial operator who revived moribund companies as a high-priced consultant for a storied Wall Street private equity firm.  But what most voters don't know is the way Mitt Romney actually made his fortune; by borrowing vast sums of money that other people were forced to pay back.  This is the plain, stark reality that has somehow eluded America's top political journalists for two consecutive presidential campaigns: Mitt Ronmey is one of the greatest and most irresponsible debt creators of all time.  In the past few decades, in fact, Mitt Romney has piles more debt onto more unsuspecting companies, written more gigantic checks that other people have to cover, than perhaps all but a handful of people on planet Earth."

Read more on this story here. And read some of the many companion pieces in Rolling Stone here, and here, and here, and here.

For my return to the blog, I'm hammering away on Mitt Romney as a unrepentant representative of the monied class and a "make nothing, take everything, screw everyone ethos", as Taibbi so aptly phrased it.

And so upon my return, I'm repeating the central theme of Corporate Complaint Constraint - that Corporations (of the type embodied by Romney and Wall Street) have become the most dominant economic and political force the world has known; their actions bring ever greater threat to our survival. That such a man as Mitt Romney could run for president - twice! - and escape any significant public scrutiny for his actions demonstrates just how completely the main stream press has been co-opted.

By David.

----------

Your musical accompaniment for the day: 6 String Theory, Lee Ritenour, on the Concord Music Group label. Enjoy!  

Mitt Romney in South Carolina

(And, like any good politician, he'll lie to you.)

The lies that politicians of every stripe and nationality utter on the stump are generally ignored as mere background chatter. They are given so little weight by the great unwashed because every candidate so routinely does it. They'll look you in the eye as they spew a new falsehood or make another meaningless promise, knowing full well that its all garbage, and that they'll never be called to account. Because, in the end, its just about winning, whatever the cost. And, once you're in, no one has ever been recalled for the being the better bullshit artist. (See, Barack Obama)


And now we have the curious case of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital in South Carolina. Serial-candidate Mitt has leveraged his time at Bain to fuel and finance his campaign. He has made gross distortions (a kinder way of saying, "lied") about his grand prowess as a creator of jobs -- as though this was a central focus of his time there (another lie), and not the gutting of companies to service his own rapacious greed -- even as he has misrepresented (lied) and skewed the employment figures under Barack (although, to be fair, it must be said, this has not been the finest hour for Mr. Hope and Change).


But the subject of Bain has also caused Republicans enormous discomfort. Newt Gingrich became so outraged that Romney's supporters would tell the truth about him in the Iowa caucuses that he vowed to destroy the Romney brand through a scorched-earth strategy centered on Bain. And so it is curious now that Newt, who has availed himself of every privilege by doing the bidding of the corporatist class, would shine a negative light on capitalism itself. The Republican establishment is apoplectic over this campaign gift that Newt has so mindless handed the Democrats, and it seems they recently read Newt the riot act, since he has begun to back away from his own worst impulses. 


As they move into South Carolina, Bain will continue to be an issue, even if Republicans coalesce and rally to paper over the specter of "vulture capitalism" that Newt has unleashed. As John Nichols notes in his piece in The Nation, Romney will be the presumptive Republican presidential candidate if he can,

"unite the Obama-despising Republican party against Occupy Gingrich."

But in South Carolina, Romney has another problem; in a NY Times piece today, a Tea Party activist had this to say:

"I don't know a single Tea Party person who does not despise Mitt Romney to the very core of their being."

But if Nichols is correct, and Mitt survives the worst of both Newt and the TPers in South Carolina, then we can get past the divisional round, and settle in for the big game, the Superbowl of Mendacity -- the ultimate showdown of lies and liars -- between the best bullshitters each side can muster.


Update. Today Robert Scheer posted at Truthdig the astonishingly obvious thought that the Republicans (Mitt Romney) are likely to sound eerily like the Democrats (Barack Obama) as the presidential race unfolds. In other words, Scheer is suggesting that there's not a dime's bit difference between the two. As he says in his article,

"Expect a razor-thin differences between Romney and Obama on the key issues at the heart of our economic crisis."

To which I'm compelled to say, "Really? This surprises you?"


This is, afterall, the norm, not the exception. And especially now as corporate money so openly lubricates both political machines. There is nothing new here. As I said in the main post, if Romney can endure and prevail in South Carolina, we'll be (mercifully) past the preliminaries -- and free of the idiots that posed as contenders -- and we'll watch as the two most accomplished and mendacious politicians from each party portray the interests of the monied class as that of the 99%. And either, or both, will succeed.


Update 2. The Gringrich scorched-earth strategy that I referenced in the main post is centered on a 29-minute video entitled "King of Bain". In today's Washington Post (Friday), you will find an excellent review of it by Fact Checker. And you will see why the Republican establishment is in such a frenzy. As the report states, the video,

"is such an over-the-top assault on former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney that is hard to know where to begin. It uses evocative footage from distraught middle-class Americans who allege that Romney's deal-making is responsible for their woes. It mixes images of closed factories and shuttered shops with video clips of Romney making him look foolish, vain or greedy. And it has a sneering voice-over that seeks to push every anti-Wall Street button possible."

Fact Checker also reveals that this video uses many of the same themes (if not some of the same interviewees) that Ted Kennedy employed in 1994 to derail Romney's then-Senate campaign. None of this suggests that Mitt is squeaky clean, but it does show just how potentially damaging Gingrich may ultimately be to Romney's chances. But still, in the words of Mercutio, for Romney and Obama, a plague on both their houses.    


By David.

Stunning Events in Greece!

Victory -- well, not quite -- in the cradle of democracy! 

I am interested in the utility of protest, and in its potential to redress the failure of electoral politics. It is absolutely clear that democracy as currently practiced in most Western countries is a failure. The electoral process does not work. Representative democracy no longer represents the majority.

In my post on Friday, I described the recent actions of protesters in Greece, and their apparent failure to sway the government from its chosen course of action: 

The recent images of 100,000 Greeks demonstrating in the streets of Athens raises an intriguing question about the utility of protest. And, as it relates to the ever-widening Occupy movement, its worth asking: "how many people will it finally take"? How many people must take to the streets before a government will respond to the will of its citizens? 

In the case of the Greek protests, what is clear is that 100,000 was not nearly enough, because the country's parliamentarians enacted tough new austerity measures despite the vigorous opposition of those who elected them. The government clearly understood the pain it was inflicting on its own people, even as it refused to consider their wishes, and it chose instead to meet the demands of the international banking class. In a democracy, then, how many people must take their dissent to the streets?

The Greek example demonstrates yet again that the almost universal disapproval of a people, and massive displays of public protest, are generally insufficient to sway the course of government. In Greece, a higher authority was at work. Economists tell us that the world-wide catastrophe arising from a Greek default is too terrible to contemplate. They tell us that crushing the lives of ordinary Greeks is a necessary price for the greater good. A fact central to this unfolding drama that receives almost no commentary is that working- and middle-class Greeks played no part in creating the explosion of debt that now puts us all in such jeopardy. Adding insult to injury, those actually culpable for this mess have quietly and safely moved on with their lives.

That post was a snapshot in time, and new events have overtaken us. A series of reports out of Greece today are nothing short of stunning. In a move that has taken the world by surprise, Georgios Papandreau has announced he will give back to the Greek people the final decision on the austerity measures that resulted from the debt crisis and the financial bailout.

This action by Papandreau certainly represents real desperation on his part. His ruling Socialist party has fallen dramatically in opinion polls and, well ahead of new elections in 2013, his government could face a non-confidence vote. This announcement is widely being characterized as an attempt to get out in front of events related to the debt issue in order to save his party.

At the same time, there is no certainty that the Greek people will ever get to vote on the issue -- in fact, there is every likelihood they won't. Already there are reports of major defections by lawmakers, and the government could fall by week's end. But that's not really important; the larger lesson is that ordinary Greeks took their dissent to the streets, outside the normal political process, and achieved a stunning result -- a critical mass of popular participation succeeded in bending the government to the people's will -- even if only for a few days.

I'm not so naive to believe that the Greek people will actually win the day on the referendum because aligned against them are some very powerful entities -- the international banking class and the full weight of the EU, for example. However, it's great to see a glimmer of success resulting from mass dissent and public protest -- better still to see it first in the birthplace of democracy. Very cool.

Lets pause for a moment, though. The specifics of the Greek protests are not necessarily analogous to the Occupy movement. Certainly the broad issue of social justice is present in both cases. But the people of Greece were railing against the imposition of unjust and draconian austerity measures demanded by the international banking class. In this rather unique set of circumstances, the Greek protesters were confronting not only their own government, but also the full weight and enormous power of the European Union. They managed to shake the resolve of Georgis Papandreau (an amazing result), but not that of the faceless EU bureaucrats that now control him.

Despite the inevitable setbacks and reversals that will soon unfold, the mass protests in Greece have had a profound affect. We have affirmed the utility of protest. Public protest and mass participation can indeed cause a government to bend to the popular will.

And not all observers are blind to the righteousness of the protests. The NY Times editorial for November 2nd said this,

"Europe's leaders should have paid more attention to the distress of ordinary Greeks and less to the distress of well-heeled European bankers."

We need next to imagine how this might inform the growing Occupy movement in the US and around the world.


Update. This morning there were reports that Greek Prime Minister Papandreau would resign after his cabinet broke with his plan to hold a referendum on the bailout plan and the accompanying austerity measures. Now the Post is reporting that he has scrapped plans for the referendum. Another defeat for the people and democracy. The scoreboard continues to read like a rout.

The central question in my previous post was: how many people must take to the streets before a government will bend to the will of its citizens? In that post I pointed to 100,000 in Greece, 500,000 in the Israeli protests, and millions in the streets of Egypt. The excitement over the Greek referendum seemed to suggest that it was possible to bend a government's will. But the cold glare of reality has returned.

In the end, this bit of theater in the Aegean again proves (at least for the moment) my point -- that to bring about any meaningful change will require that millions take to the streets. Under no circumstances will the state ever alter its course without a massive display of public dissent by the people.

And what does this mean for the Occupy movement? I'll not make many friends by saying that the campers on the commons have no hope -- I mean, zero -- of affecting any meaningful change unless their movement takes to the streets in numbers that dwarf anything ever seen in the protests against the Vietnam war. That was the last true example of a government bending to the will of its people.

Update Two. It is now Sunday November 6, and the sad end to the political career of Georgis Papandreau is finally upon us.

First, the Greek Premier plunged the EU, and by extension the world, into a tailspin with his promise to return to the citizens of Greece their franchise through a referendum on the debt issue. Next he was taken to the woodshed by Sarkozy and Merkel, and obediently backed down, rescinding the vote and calling for a national unity government that would toe the line on EU membership. He survived a non-confidence vote, brokered a new ruling coalition, and has now been shown the door, as reported by every credible source.

So the Greek state will remain in the EU, and it will get the next tranche of needed cash. And the people who created this disaster will remain happily and profitably at large, and the ordinary Greek citizen will endure enormous hardship and brutal austerity, as more and more of the Greek commonwealth is purchased by wealthy speculators at bargain basement prices.

And the scoreboard continues to read like a rout, and governments continue to disregard the will and best interests of its citizens -- all because they can.

By David.

-----------

Your musical accompaniment for the day:  La Cathedrale Engloutie, Claude Debussy, Livres de preludes 1. Enjoy. 

How Many Will It Take?

How many people must take to the streets?

The recent images of 100,000 Greeks demonstrating in the streets of Athens raises an intriguing question about the utility of protest. And, as it relates to the ever-widening Occupy movement, its worth asking: "how many people will it finally take"?

How many people must take to the streets before a government will respond to the will of its citizens? There's no ready answer. There's no absolute number. And just posing so fundamental a question itself unleashes a torrent of new ones.

In the case of the Greek protests, what is clear is that 100,000 was not nearly enough, because the country's parliamentarians enacted tough new austerity measures despite the vigorous opposition of those who elected them. The government clearly understood the pain it was inflicting on its own people, even as it refused to consider their wishes, and it chose instead to meet the demands of the international banking class. In a democracy, then, how many people must take their dissent to the streets?

The Greek example demonstrates yet again that the almost universal disapproval of a people, and massive displays of public protest, are generally insufficient to sway the course of government. In Greece, a higher authority was at work. Economists tell us that the world-wide catastrophe arising from a Greek default is too terrible to contemplate. They tell us that crushing the lives of ordinary Greeks is a necessary price for the greater good. A fact central to this unfolding drama that receives almost no commentary is that working- and middle-class Greeks played no part in creating the explosion of debt that now puts us all in such jeopardy. Adding insult to injury, those actually culpable for this mess have quietly and safely moved on with their lives, even as the austerity measures,

"are being imposed by the very people whom most Greeks blame for misgoverning the country and benefiting from pervasive corruption. Nobody has been arrested. Ex-ministers live lavishly in Athens' most luxurious properties. Everybody speaks furiously of the immunity of the political elite."

Still, there must be a number. At some point, a critical mass of citizen participation and dissent would have swung the balance in the Greek protests. So what exactly was that number? Let's look to other recent examples for a possible answer. 

Like OWS, the J14 movement in Israel was borne of a tent city and a growing dissent over the issues of social justice. A mood of palpable disaffection spread across the country this past summer, culminating in street protests that attracted 300,000 people, the largest such demonstrations ever seen in Israel to that point. What began as a protest by young Israelis against the high cost of housing soon turned to broader societal issues, ultimately giving voice to calls for Prime Minister Netanyahu's resignation and the fall of his government.

The J14 movement continued to grow in intensity, and was ultimately capped by the September 3rd Million Person March. While the actual numbers were closer to 500,000, it was nonetheless a truly inspiring example of mass participation and public dissent. However, like the recent events in Greece, it too has amounted to nothing -- Netanyahu expressed the appropriate concern; he formed a suitably august and benign commission to investigate the problem; and then he promptly ordered the tent cities forceably dismantled.

We can be certain that the J14 protesters anxiously await the solemn pronouncements of the Trajtenberg Committee on housing reform. But the larger issues of social justice that truly animated the average Israeli's active participation remain unresolved -- it was, and is, an extraordinary opportunity lost. Perhaps the average Israeli citizen is left wondering today just how many more thousands it would have taken to affect a real change.

Tahrir Square -- a million people in the streets.

We continue our search for evidence that a critical mass -- a tipping point of participation -- can bend the actions of the state to the will of its people. And so we turn our attention to the mother of all protests, an event so inspirational that it continues still to inform the Occupy movement in the US and around the world -- Tahrir Square in Egypt.

The popular revolt in Egypt brought millions to the streets of Cairo and other cities around the country. It riveted the world's attention, and it ultimately brought down the government of the dictator Hosni Mubarak. It was not polite, and it was not without bloodshed. But the sheer mass of people in the streets seemed to still the worst of the military's basest reactionary instincts -- this in a country dominated by the military.

The demands of the revolution's organizers and leaders were initially embraced by the ruling military council. In a country so rife with daily corruption and police brutality, there was much to correct. The success in social and political reform made for inspiring reading; the arrest and subsequent trial of Mubarak and his two sons; the dismantling of the hated State Security Investigations Service; the dissolution of parliament and the announcement of new elections; the removal of the SSI-controlled university police; and the dissolution of the singular and authoritarian National Democratic Party.

So, at last (!), a popular will that bent the state to its own service!

Well, no, not quite.

There are new reports of significant reversals by the ruling Egyptian council. In recent clashes with the military, several protesters have been killed. And in an announcement that has stunned the public, the military council has said it expects to retain control of the government even after the elections that have now been postponed till November. Moreover, the continued control by the council will ensure that the 30-year old emergency laws will remain in force, and that the ratification of a new constitution may not conclude till 2013, if at all. And finally, it appears that one dictator will simply be replaced by another.

Perhaps it was much too much to expect that a modern dictatorship could actually be transformed by the popular will of its people. And complicating this particular event, one wonders how much pressure was brought to bear on the Egyptian military by its major benefactor, the United States, in negating the gains of the people's revolution.

----------

In the end, is it really possible? Are there no examples of government actually acceding to the popular will of its people? From the protests of the Indignados in Mexico and Spain to the labor wars in Wisconsin, the recent history of public dissent around the world is sadly bereft of success. Indeed, the scoreboard reads like a rout.

But before we give up, before we fold our tents and quietly go home, lets first consider the nature of our opponent -- the opponent that is our own government, and the representatives charged with upholding our will and best interests. Because that's just it, they don't. Instead, they represent the monied class and their own ideologies, with the backing and full coercive power of the state.

The struggle for social justice and the growing imbalance of the 99% demonstrate that, once safely in power, our representatives imagine themselves to be unassailable -- they are validated by a manufactured "democratic process" that is carefully scripted, choreographed and managed to ensure the "correct" result. George W. Bush was more forthcoming than he perhaps intended when he boasted of spending the political capital he had "won". Bush offered a rare glimpse of how today's ruling class views its own sovereignty; it is a view that holds the rest of us in barely concealed contempt. We are, at best, tolerated for the vote we provide and the vote they must have. The ruling class use democratic election cycles like a bludgeon, saying in affect, "you get your chance every four years, and you've had your say, so now sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up".

And that's precisely why we must stand up, and speak up, loud and clear. That's exactly why mass protest and public dissent have now become our last possible route to meaningful change. It explains why, in democratic societies that so righteously espouse liberty and the right of free assembly (unless, of course, you live in Oakland), the political class and their enablers and courtiers bristle at all forms of populist participation. And it explains why, in the final analysis, there are so few examples of a government actually heeding the will of the people it so earnestly purports to represent.

Governments routinely shirk their most important responsibility to us by relying on their most reliable weapon -- time. The state knows it has time on its side. It will stall and placate its activists (as in Israel), it will outlast its activists (as in Egypt), and it will ignore its activists (as in Greece), because by doing so it knows it will diffuse and exhaust their energy. In moving forward, our activists for social justice must gain a more complete understanding of these strategies to better aid in counteracting them.

----------

What does all this mean for the nascent Occupy movement? Well, for a start, and in answer to our original question: how many will it take?, if we accept the lessons offered up by Greece, Israel and Egypt, it will take millions. And those millions must offer more than just supportive chatter around office water-coolers, or give solidarity through on-line opinion polls; they must demonstrate their commitment to our shared values through direct action and mass participation. At the same time, we must recognize the state's desire for certainty and the status quo, and in combating it's strategy to placate, outlast and ignore, we must hold firm to our right of free assembly, even as the state will embrace every opportunity to subvert it.

Compared to the Greek protests, the J14 movement, Tahrir Square and the Indignados, the Occupy movement remains embryonic and fragile. To be sure, it has accomplished much -- it has changed the nature of public discourse, and it has thrust the issue of social justice to the very top of our political agenda, something that all the pundits and bloggers in the world have been unable to do for all their years of trying. But this brave and dedicated vanguard camped out on the commons cannot themselves affect the necessary outcomes. They must be joined by many more, both in the tent communities and out on the streets, so that the Occupy movement will become more fully legitimized in the public mind, an important step in building a critical mass of participation that our politicos and their corporate masters cannot possibly ignore.

It is not our job to take power, but rather to hold our representatives accountable to us. The sheer weight of our numbers makes this goal possible, but only through the active participation of millions in the coming months can it become truly attainable.

Postscript. The situation in Egypt is not good. In a story published October 30, we learn more about the post-Mubarek era. And as I had suggested in the main post, it is almost impossible to resurrect and mobilize the passion and participation of the critical mass once it has been diffused. The state understands this fact, and uses it to its own advantage as part of its response to public dissent.

Also related to my piece is a newly posted column by Chris Hedges in Truthdig. This man is a well-respected chronicler of social and political trends and events in America. And I greatly admire his writing. But his last several pieces are difficult for me to embrace. There is a lot of poetic romanticism of revolutions past; too many fond recollections of anarchists and revolutionaries that have no bearing on the issues now at play in the 21st century. We're faced with a situation that is unlike anything we've ever seen, in that the financial control now exercised by the monied class is unprecedented. And to be brutally frank about it, Hedges has lavished much too much enthusiasm on a 27 year-old self-taught anarchist.

And when ever I need a little positive affirmation to shore up my own poor scribbles, I can always rely on Bill Moyers. And there he was, this morning, on the pages of CommonDreams. In a keynote address at Public Citizen's 40th Anniversary Gala, he quoted Lawrence Goodwin, who said there was,

"a mass resignation of people who believe the dogma of democracy on a superficial level, but who no longer believe it privately, [and who saw] a decline of individual self-respect on the part of millions of people."

Moyers understands perfectly well why this is so,

"We hold elections knowing they are unlikely to produce the policies favored by a majority of Americans. We speak. We write. We advocate. And those in power -- Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives -- turn deaf ears and blind eyes to our deepest aspirations."

These comments speak to my post, and the politicians who tolerate us for our vote, and then tell us to shut up and sit in the corner till next election day. Our democratic election cycles are truly used against us like a bludgeon. So I ask again, how many people must take to the streets before a government will respond to the will of its citizens?

By David.

----------

Your musical accompaniment for the day: Pack My Jack, by J.J. Cale, from the album Shades. A great blues feel for a Friday afternoon. Enjoy.