QUESTON OF LEADERSHIP

We are facing a global existential crisis from the implications and ramifications of global warming, and among the democratic nation states there seems to be a dearth of political leadership.

To make the statement is to beg the question: What are the qualities of leadership?

As in many matters political, we might take a systems approach. That is by considering the political system in terms of inputs, processes and feedback loops and so forth, the outputs are predictable. One of those outputs are those selected for the leadership positions in government.

In its editorial The Sydney Morning Herald takes apart the performance of Prime Minister Rudd:

IS KEVIN RUDD capable of governing Australia in a timely and effective manner?

For some time questions about the Prime Minister’s leadership qualities have been growing. At best, he is seen as a politician constantly seeking political cover for his decisions: national ideas summits, consultative forums, a tax review that excludes politically unpalatable options, and this week a vision of what Labor might do about our inefficient and at times dangerous health system. Less charitable observers discern timidity and prevarication. It is as if Rudd never quite believed the decisive mandate for change that voters handed him in November 2007.

True, the Coalition’s negative and unconstructive approach – together with the incessant opportunism of the minor parties in the Senate – have frustrated significant aspects of the Government’s agenda, most notably on climate change and the tax on alcopops. But there is no excuse for time-wasting. If Rudd had spent as much time turning promises into results as he has clocking up overseas air miles, he would have more to show for almost two years in office.

His failure to make change happen has disappointed those who celebrated his ascent to power. It is not that the opinion polls have turned against him (there has been only a minor erosion of his approval ratings) but that his rudderless style induces a paralysis of hope, a loss of faith in our ability as a nation to resolve complex problems.

Any analysis of the political system is outside the purview of the SMH because it might raise broader questions. And we cannot have that, can we? However, as the editorial goes on to note, the deficiencies observed are not reflected in the opinion polls, which provide the daily test of political providence. They suggest the record of history should be considered. Bush the Younger notoriously argued in the demise of his presidency that history would be his valedictory, or at least would validate his record. It will not, rather it will probably condemn his record with the advantage of hindsight.

Strong leaders can lead in the wrong direction with strong commitments to flawed visions. Leaders need the intelligence to see what is necessary, the courage to follow the course, and the skill to engage the imagination of the people at large. John Curtain among Australian Prime Ministers is probably the outstanding leader of the nation in wartime.

The problem is not to be divisive in the process. Wartime leaders have the advantage of a national emergency. Similarly, Obama is facing many of the same problems and criticisms as Rudd. For example, David Michael Green argued, among others, some less charitable, that Obama had not set the political agenda even allowing for the multiple problems he faced on assuming the presidency.

Yet we might equally ask what price courage and rectitude if it results in political failure? The illustrative case might be taken as the experience of Jimmy Carter and the Middle East process. Robert Parry at Common Dreams outlines the events where the Likud PM of Israel effectively worked to have the US President defeated. As a client state, whose aggression is bankrolled by the US, Israel exerts an extraordinary influence on the American political process. As a matter of even-handedness it should be observed that the US also bankrolls the Egyptian dictatorship, and effective government by the terms of the ruling elite but not the people.

Do we crash the Earth's climate because of the dysfunctional political economy, or do we as human beings have the wit to survive, and as the ancient philosophers suggested use reason not just to live well, but to live better? What system of political decision making and action would make that outcome a possibility? Can our pilots only see the shadows on the cave wall?




*

NOW THAT'S A THOUGHT!

David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York, and his articles appear in Common Dreams. In his most recent article he expresses surprise at the failure of Obama's use of the bully pulpit.

David Green reflects on the communication incompetence of the Obama Administration, suggesting that they have nothing to sell. Obama, he says, has not taken control of the political agenda. There seems to be an absence of debate, perhaps an inevitable concomitant of bipartisanship. The Obama Administration does not seem to have a progressive aspiration of any purpose. To be centrist in official American discourse is to be right of centre.

If bipartisanship is the Obama foil, the tactical genius of the Republicans is to cede the central ground and apply to the more politically animated people out further. As an aside I am thinking of reclaiming my Kenyan citizenship, although admittedly there a few documentary hurdles to cross, but who takes any notice of documents.

In passing, Professor Green suggested a very good idea, that might work here as well:

Imagine, for example, if there was a war on greed, instead of a phony and destructive war on terrorism. Imagine how far that might go toward framing solutions to so many of our problems, from the economic crisis, to healthcare, to foreign policy militarism, to global warming.

In fact, I would suggest, that is the type of rhetoric that is made necessary by the existential threat of global warming. Once one has accepted the responsible scientific consensus about the truth of what is happening with the global climate there needs to be a change in the means of production and consumption together with greater equality across the globe.

Then too, I suppose it is possible to have two thoughts. Thom Hartmann has a new book: Threshold - The Crisis of Western Culture, in which he suggests the reason for the rare skill set required by the leaders of the international cropracracy. CEO's it is suggested required the mind of successful frontline soldiers. The puzzle, via Alternet, is why do CEO's need to be paid so much?

I've examined this with both my psychotherapist hat on and my amateur economist hat on, and only one rational answer presents itself: CEOs in America make as much money as they do because there really is a shortage of people with their skill set. And it's such a serious shortage that some companies have to pay as much as $1 million a day to have somebody successfully do the job.

But what part of being a CEO could be so difficult -- so impossible for mere mortals -- that it would mean that there are only a few hundred individuals in the United States capable of performing it?

In my humble opinion, it's the sociopath part.

CEOs of community-based businesses are typically responsive to their communities and decent people. But the CEOs of most of the world's largest corporations daily make decisions that destroy the lives of many other human beings.

Only about 1 to 3 percent of us are sociopaths -- people who don't have normal human feelings and can easily go to sleep at night after having done horrific things. And of that 1 percent of sociopaths, there's probably only a fraction of a percent with a college education. And of that tiny fraction, there's an even tinier fraction that understands how business works, particularly within any specific industry.

Thus there is such a shortage of people who can run modern monopolistic, destructive corporations that stockholders have to pay millions to get them to work. And being sociopaths, they gladly take the money without any thought to its social consequences.

Add another pinch of insanity, and we are well along to understand how some corporations can act without regard to the welfare of the planet and the future of all human kind. A small but important claim for a working democracy, is that most people maintain their sanity, and it is usually true with just a few exceptions. Let us hope that it has equal, or greater, application to those selected as leaders.







*

BRITISH POLL ON AFGHANISTAN

Imagine asking the public what they think of the commitment of troops to Afghanistan. It is almost as unimaginable as asking the Federal Parliament to hold a conscious vote on any military deployment.

A poll by The Independent in Britain found the public there believed the was unwinnable and that the British troops should be withdrawn. Predictably, the response of the Government has been that the public relations effort needs to be upgraded. How can the mindless voters ignore the best best propaganda that money can buy?

Nigel Morris and Kim Sengupta report:

A majority of the public believes that the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable and British troops should be pulled out immediately, a poll for The Independent has found.

The growing opposition to the military offensive emerged as another two UK soldiers were killed, bringing the number of deaths so far this month to 22. Gordon Brown declared yesterday that Operation Panther's Claw – the five-week onslaught on Taliban positions in Helmand province – had been a success.

But today's ComRes survey suggests that the public mood is switching rapidly against the war – and that people do not believe it is worth sending reinforcements to Afghanistan.

More than half of voters (52 per cent) want troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan straight away, with 43 per cent disagreeing. Opposition to the military action is even stronger among women.

By a margin of nearly two-to-one, the public believes that the Taliban cannot be defeated militarily. Fifty-eight per cent view the war as "unwinnable", with 31 per cent disagreeing.

There is overwhelming agreement – by 75 per cent to 16 per cent – that British troops in Afghanistan lack the equipment they require to perform their role safely.

Despite that, 60 per cent of people do not think more troops and resources should be dispatched to the war zone. Just over one third (35 per cent) are in favour of reinforcements being sent in.

In Britain, as in Australia, for unknown reasons there is a consensus on the "goodness" of the murder and violence perpetrated in Afghanistan in the great war against Islam.

ELSEWHERE:

Juan Cole, as Tom Dispatch, reminds of the earlier Imperial anxiety induced in the fervid brains by the Pashtun savages.

THE KILLER SYNDROME

Soldiers are trained to kill, and if the reports are accurate the American Army is very indiscriminate about who they kill. Then add in factors such as high exposure to violence and continual redeployment to murdering, and surprise the soldiers experience problems returning to civilian life.

These outcomes are wholly predictable, but nobody is responsible, and if soldiers can be dishonorably discharged the individual bears the full cost of any treatment. The usual pattern is self medication through drugs and alcohol, which surprisingly does not work. Typically, when family members attempt to warn the army, the warning is ignored or the individual is subject to humiliation, which on a number of reported occasion has been a very misguided move on the part of the protagonist.

Dave Philipps of The Gazette of Colorado Springs is close to the action has written two articles - Part I and Part II describing the problems of soldiers returning from Iraq. The article goes into some detail of the listed cases.

In another article, Tom Roeder in the same newspaper reported the propensity to engage in violence and murder of disturbed soldiers returning to Fort Carson as a puzzle. He reports:

Most Fort Carson soldiers who came home from war to commit murder had lives that were broken by combat stress, mental illness and drug and alcohol problems, a report released by the Army today says.

The report, commissioned by commanders last year after six 4th Brigade Combat Team soldiers were charged in murders in a 12-month period, says combat stress, and mental health issues found in the bulk of soldiers-turned-killers combined with a cocktail of substance abuse issues, including drug and alcohol abuse, that wasn't consistently addressed.

It will result in increased screening for soldiers who show signs of trouble, policy changes and a series of Army studies at Fort Carson and elsewhere to better determine what eight years of war have done to troops. But the study reached no conclusions that showed a direct cause-and-effect relationship that led to the killings.

Unless we understand that peace is inconsistent with violence, and that peace can only be sustained and achieved by nonviolence these problems are going to recur, and costs borne directly by the trained killers will be indirectly borne by the society, but not that part of society who are the beneficiaries of the organized violence that is war. Similarly, it should be noted that individuals and the societies of Iraq, Afghanistan, and now add in Somalia suffer the effects of violence.

It is all too difficult to understand I suppose.




*

PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE

There are many more that the comparison published in The Observer, via The Raw Story. The photos were taken by spy satellites, and it is alleged their publication was prevented by the Bush Admninstration. They are certainly dramatic.




Can I believe the evidence as presented? How could it be that one year the ice is close to shore and the next it is completely absent?

Suzanne Goldenberg and Damian Carrington report in The Observer (Sunday 26 July 2009):

The photographs demonstrate starkly how global warming is changing the Arctic. More than a million square kilometres of sea ice - a record loss - were missing in the summer of 2007 compared with the previous year.

Nor has this loss shown any sign of recovery. Ice cover for 2008 was almost as bad as for 2007, and this year levels look equally sparse.

"These are one-metre resolution images, which give you a big picture of the summertime Arctic," said Thorsten Markus of Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Centre. "This is the main reason why we are so thrilled about it. One-metre resolution is the dimension that's been missing."

Disappearing summer sea ice poses considerable dangers, scientists have warned. Ice shelves are used by animals such as polar bears as platforms for hunting seals and other sea creatures. Without them, they could starve. In addition, ice reflects solar radiation. Without that process, the Arctic sea could warm up even more. The phenomenon threatens to set off runaway heating of the planet, say climatologists.

The latest revelations have triggered warnings from scientists that they no longer have the funds to keep a comprehensive track of climate change. Last week the head of the US's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Professor Jane Lubchenco, warned that the gathering of satellite data - crucial to predicting future climate changes - was now at "great risk" because America's ageing satellite fleet was not being replaced.

"Our primary focus is maintaining the continuity of climate observations, and those are at great risk right now because we don't have the resources to have satellites at the ready and taking the kinds of information that we need," said Lubchenco, who was appointed by Obama. "We are playing catch-up."

This evidence is easier to assimilate than that presented by Will Steffen via Brian at Larvatus Prodeo.

POSTSCRIPT:

It seems to me that similar photographic evidence might show the glacial recession, for example, in the Himalayas and others around the world.

The Himilayian Glaciers are interesting for their implications for the sub continent but equally because the Indian Minister for the Environment and Forestry is defending the right of his country to pollute the atmosphere. His ministry is expected to publish a report on the state of the Himilayan glaciers on 10 August. This could be the perfect example for the "deniers" or "delusionists" to reinforce their claim that science is the handmaiden of politics. ("Delusionists" et al call themselves "skeptics" or independent scientists and everybody else "alarmists" - all very silly, but there it goes.)




*

A CULTURE OF NONVIOLENCE

There are at least three conditions necessary for a nonviolent movement to be successful.

Success, I am taking as, the outcomes' consistency with the principles of nonviolence, and not just political expediency. In game theory this outcome might be described as win/win rather than win/lose.

There has to be a historical-cultural context. This usually means a religious moral framework that organizes the minds of people. Some groups can be influential, such as the Quakers or the Jains. Some people have had to have gotten their heads around a different way of relating to the world, to other beings and to human beings, and they perhaps are not part of institutions conditioned by the political struggle for power, resources and prestige. These attitudes do not make sense unless they resonant with the human mental processes. They might, for example, fire up the mirror neurons. M K Gandhi was a westernized Indian, but his westernization was superimposed on family practice and belief. Martin Luther King was from a religious tradition, that like the Quakers, had drawn from the nonviolent script of the New Testament.

Secondly, it is useful, depending on the scale of the campaign, it is useful to have knowledgeable, even charismatic, leadership. For example, in the recent demonstrations in Tehran and other Iranian cities, masses of people turned out, but the process stalled because there was no direction so lots of time was spent trying to decide what to do next. Fragmentation, confronted by a determined, organized and brutal agencies, reduces the democratic effectiveness of the campaign. The problem then is that hierarchical structures are created which have long term consequences, such as in the Union Movement.

Thirdly, nonviolence has shown to be an effective political means, provided the participants understand the relationship between means and ends. For example, the people sitting at the lunch counters in Virginia over the river from Washington DC were directly confronted by violence. The natural thing, I believe for most of us, is to fire up and get caught up in a violent response or the flight syndrome. What do you do if somebody comes at you with a knife or a gun? The people in Virginia felt fully justified, legitimated by their violence. One of the means of nonviolence is courage.

By way of a provisional summary, it seems to me that raises two fundamental issues: humanity and localism. All human beings have 'wired responses" and capacities. These attributes are socially conditioned, and they can be both rediscovered and broken by individual practice. People can only act with regard to what is in front of them, and behavior, especially institutional behavior, is conditioned by unfolding historical context.

Everybody can chose between violence and nonviolence. The problem is that people may not understand this is an effective choice they can make. Many people are able to act nonviolently intuitively. We have a problem, I understand, in our society of domestic violence, but we do not take into account social conditioning, especially for males, but not excluding females, the adversarial legal system originally modeled on conflict (and the method of dialectic), and the structural violence of institutions, in particular the work place.

(These are just some jottings to help me get my thoughts together to try to bring together the logic and evidence of nonviolence. I assume either my readers knows far more than I do, or has not really heard about nonviolence. A peaceful world, especially in the anthropocene age, remains a pre-eminent human aspiration. We have to master the details and the practicalities.)



*

FRIDAY NIGHT DOG BLOG: NOTHING CHANGES

John Lennon sang, "nothing is going to change my world". The meaning of the lyric may depend on how nothing is understood.

Mark noted at Gaia Community:

"Nothing certainly has the capacity to change and shape worlds. It is in fact the only thing that is shaping and changing the world. Mystics and modern scientists agree that everything (every thing) emerges from a field of “nothingness,” of pure potential. Call it Tao, Chi, Brahmand, God, Love, Zero Point Field or Quantum Field… Everything we strive for in our lives emerges from this field of promising potential. Everything we see, touch, hear or smell is a material manifestation of nothing. We use these manifestations to provide us with the experience of nothing (or everything). We don’t buy cars and houses because we want them per se, but because of the experiences they provide: mobility, freedom, shelter, security, protection…"

Otherwise nothing about our world or the dogs world can be taken for granted. They at least have the capacity to live in the present.

Taking the familiar in their senses:

Sasha takes in the winter sun:

Dexter enjoys:

Sasha seems to be pleased by the position:

Dexter has a range of expressions:

The possibilities of aggregation:

More of the same:

Somewhere somebody is happy:

Naturally, we have to find space for the nothing person, himself:



As Saturday morning starters we might now go to see whether we can climb aboard Friday Ark at Modulator.

PERPETUAL WAR STUNT

The ABC program, The Chaser's War on Everything, is somewhat like the USA, and by implication Australia: it is permanently at war.

We are fated never to know peace. The Pentagon, and the war machine in its thrawl, has contingency plans until 2047, or so it is reported. Australia will be inevitably drawn along, sucked in, unless something changes in the mind of the body politic, if indeed it has one with respect to fighting, murder and violence. So much for that paradigm.

John Yoo, now Professor of Law, at UC Berkeley was one of the principle enablers of the torture regime, pretty much continued unmolested by the "change you can believe in" Obama Administration. So it was encouraging to see the penetration of the politics of spectacle made possible for passes for television comedy. Here is the video, via The Raw Story:






*

SOLAR ELCIPSE

The sun came back and people cheered. A very sensible thing to do. Where would we be without the energy and light from the sun?

ABC News reported:

The longest solar eclipse of the 21st century has cast a shadow over much of Asia, plunging hundreds of millions into darkness across the giant land masses of India and China.

Ancient superstition and modern commerce came together in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity which could end up being the most watched eclipse in history, due to its path over Earth's most densely inhabited areas.

. . . A total solar eclipse usually occurs every 18 months or so, but Wednesday's spectacle was special for its maximum period of "totality" - when the sun is wholly covered - of six minutes and 39 seconds.

Such a lengthy duration will not be matched until the year 2132.

Superstition has always haunted the moment when Earth, moon and sun are perfectly aligned. The daytime extinction of the sun, the source of all life, is associated with war, famine, flood and the death or birth of rulers.

Desperate for an explanation, the ancient Chinese blamed a sun-eating dragon. In Hindu mythology, the two demons Rahu and Ketu are said to "swallow" the sun during eclipses, snuffing out its light and causing food to become inedible and water undrinkable.

In the run up to Wednesday's eclipse, some Indian astrologers had issued predictions laden with gloom and foreboding, while superstition dictated that pregnant women should stay indoors to prevent their babies developing birth defects.

A gynaecologist at a Delhi hospital said many expectant mothers scheduled for July 22 caesarian deliveries insisted on changing the date.

For others it was an auspicious date, with more than 1 million Hindu pilgrims gathering at the holy site of Kurukshetra in northern India, where bathing in the waters during a solar eclipse is believed to further the attainment of spiritual freedom.

While the report suggests that Monsoon clouds and bad weather spoiled the spectacle for some, it is equally true that without rain where would we be.

The report is a reminder that we can be thankful to be freed from ancient superstition although we have equally forgotten, or are simply ignorant of ancient wisdom.




*

"EARTH DEMOCRACY"

We are confronted with existential crisis, which is both climatic and economic, so it it necessary to pragmatic and purposeful, rather than passive and pessimistic.

The biggest problem is to understand that the vehicle we are riding, rather than driving, will not and cannot deliver a human future. A human future must be sustainable, provide equality and decency for all, as well as give expression to reason and justice. It must meet human needs.

Every person has a responsibility for the future, because everyone of us, if we apply ourselves can change our behaviors. Firstly we have to understand the ways that our behavior contributes to the global problem.

Some people have discovered paradigms that may work. Vandana Shiva is an advocate of "earth democracy". The story can be read very differently if we do not follow the script that says that the monopolization by global corporations will realize the human potential, which of course is not its' purpose or even incidental to its operation. VS was just on Late Night Live, but before that she had been interviewed in Yes Magazine.

Here is a short video in which she discusses the global food crisis and the World Bank:

MAN ON THE MOON

We used to look up at the full moon and try to see the man in the moon. Other cultures had more interesting ideas. I suspect that no longer happens. Forty years ago today, Neil Armstrong took a small step and stood on the moon.

I remember seeing the three astronauts in Perth. My sense at the time was the achievement of sending man to the moon was one of those moments that captured the imagination of the world. My memory is that Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins later went to Pakistan, among other places on their world tour, where the television pictures suggested they were rapturously received.

The Russians had achieved an unmanned landing ten years earlier, and while robots may be the practical way of space research, it did not have the drama of the manned landing in 1969. I wondered at the time what the historical significance of the event would be. I am still not sure.

However, I thought the sight of the earth rising from the moon as reported by the astronauts was the defining moment. I thought it might change us as some fundamental level forever, but that seems not to have happened. The global view of our world and its problems seems still to be eluding us.



*

CONSUMPTION AND CLIMATE CHANGE

How far do we want to drive toward the edge of the cliff before we stop. Technology is simply the application of science to meet social and human needs.

Stop consuming is one solution posited by Merrick Godhaven in The Guardian. He states the situation plainly - only for those who chose to recognize that climate change, global warming is real:

Technology is part of the solution to climate change. But only part. Techno-fixes like some of those in the Guardian's Manchester Report simply cannot deliver the carbon cuts science demands of us without being accompanied by drastic reductions in our consumption. That means radical economic and social transformation. Merely swapping technologies fails to address the root causes of climate change.

We need to choose the solutions that are the cheapest, the swiftest, the most effective and least likely to incur dire side effects. On all counts, there's a simple answer – stop burning the stuff in the first place. Consume less.

Deforestation, the source for example of the little noticed conflict in the Amazon with the traditional people is a clear example of over-consumption. He observes the general situation:

Climate change is not the only crisis currently facing humanity. Peak oil is likely to become a major issue within the coming decade. Competition for land and water, soil fertility depletion and collapse of fisheries are already posing increasing problems for food supply and survival in many parts of the world.

Technological solutions to climate change fail to address most of these issues. Yet even without climate change, this systemic environmental and social crisis threatens society, and requires deeper solutions than new technology alone can provide. Around a fifth of emissions come from deforestation, more than for all transport emissions combined. There is no technological fix for that. We simply need to consume less of the forest, that is to say, less meat, less agrofuel and less wood.

Our level of consumption is inequitable. Making it universal is simply impossible . . .

So let us accept these assumptions, the reality of anthropogenic climate change and the inadequacy of established technocratic and economic solutions, what would "a radical social and economic transformation look like"? How could that transformation be arrived at democratically and in time so that it was not driven by the exigency of emergency? What are the essential conditions that have to be established and met to ensure human survival?

I think it is essential that we see ourselves as global citizens concerned for the welfare of all people everywhere. I am wondering about the potential and efficacy of nonviolence not simply as a means of changing human relationships but equally of changing the relationship to nature and the rationale for pillaging the environment as well as other human beings.




*

JAKARTA BOMBING

In due course, I suppose the people who planned and executed the bombing of the hotels in Jakarta will be either be identified or claim responsibility.

Clearly, by targeting international hotels they were intending to harm international visitors, and it is not surprising that Australians and New Zealanders have been killed and injured. In that sense, it is personal. The people responsible for the bombing must feel that we have caused them harm. I just wish they would tell us what their grievances are rather than take such an extreme action.

It will probably turn out those who have organized this horrific action against their fellow human beings will claim to be strongly religious. As far as I know Islam teaches compassion and peace, and right conduct in the pursuit of war. Al Jazeera reports:

No one has yet claimed responsibility for Friday's blasts, in which devices packed with nails, ball-bearings, nuts and bolts were used.

However, suspicion has fallen on the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) group and its allies.

Sidney Jones, of the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera that one of the prime suspects "has to be Noordin [Mohammed] Top", the Malaysian-born leader of a splinter JI group.

"The police were actively looking for him just last week in a town in central Java where they found explosives similar to those used in the hotels [attacks]," she said.
"They have been close on the trail of some of these people in the past and I am sure we will see a wave of arrests in the aftermath of this bombing."

Ansyaad Mbai, Indonesia's security ministry's anti-terror desk chief, confirmed that there was evidence that Top was behind the attacks.

"There are strong indications that Noordin Top's group is behind the attacks because the bombs were hand-made and the tactic was suicide bombings," he told the AFP news agency.

They were also the same as devices discovered at an Islamic boarding school in central Java last week during a raid on Noordin's suspected hideout, Mbai said.

Noordin's Indonesian wife was reportedly arrested in the raid.

"I can't say the attacks yesterday were an act of retaliation for the recent arrests, but I can say that the police are getting very close to capturing Noordin," Mbai said

Thus it would seem that the attack is an act of vengeance with a view to damage the Indonesian economy following the successful presidential election. Seen in this light, the bombing would appear to be "criminal" without any religious or social justification. I note that using drones to attack and kill civilians is similarly "criminal".

We need rules that effectively cover these behaviors, so that the exercise of one transgression cannot be used as a justification for another. I do not understand people who are ideologically opposed to international law.




*

FRIDAY NIGHT DOG BLOG: AMBULATING ALONG

There is no flow about walking the dogs. There are stops all over the place.

Still when the sun shines Sasha and Dexter seem have reason to smile (if that is what they are doing).
............................................

An enlighted Sasha:

A more that ususal circumspect Dexter:

There is time for serious contemplation - from Dexter:

The sunshine seems to cheer the dogs:

Sasha was happy to meet and greet the white horse:

While the story is more ambulation than andante, Mozart had the score:



And here is some of the record:

And this week we will follow precendent and trail over to Friday Ark, at Modulator, to see you might come onboard.

CELBRITY DEATH

The treatment of Michael Jackson's death puzzled me. He was a popular entertainer of some note. People die every day, and as far as I know Jacko did not do anything for anybody else - I may be wrong about that.

Chris Hedges at Truthdig argues that the media attention or distraction was all about the cult of celebrity, a fascination that he sees as sinister and degrading for all concerned, not least the viewers. In fact, Chris Hedges is not in the slightest impressed. For example, he observes:

The moral nihilism of our culture licenses a dark voyeurism into other people’s humiliation, pain, weakness and betrayal. Education, building community, honesty, transparency and sharing are qualities that will see you, in a gross perversion of democracy and morality, ridiculed and voted off any reality show. Fellow competitors for prize money and a chance for fleeting fame elect to “disappear” the unwanted.

No analysis is complete without psychiatry, and in this case he might be referring to the typical politician, such as Robert McNamara:

The cult of self, which Jackson embodied, dominates our culture. This cult shares within it the classic traits of psychopaths: superficial charm, grandiosity and self-importance; a need for constant stimulation, a penchant for lying, deception and manipulation; and the incapacity for remorse or guilt.

Television may be a very serious fix indeed, since it in this description implies giving over body and soul to the manipulators:

The saturation coverage of Jackson’s death is an example of our collective flight into illusion. The obsession with the trivia of his life conceals the despair, meaninglessness and emptiness of our own lives. It deflects the moral questions arising from mounting social injustice, growing inequalities, costly imperial wars, economic collapse and political corruption. The wild pursuit of status, wealth and fame has destroyed our souls, as it destroyed Jackson, and it has destroyed our economy.

The fame of celebrities masks the identities of those who possess true power—corporations and the oligarchic elite. And as we sink into an economic and political morass, as we barrel toward a crisis that will create more misery than the Great Depression, we are controlled, manipulated and distracted by the celluloid shadows on the wall of Plato’s cave. The fantasy of celebrity culture is not designed simply to entertain. It is designed to drain us emotionally, confuse us about our identity, make us blame ourselves for our predicament, condition us to chase illusions of fame and happiness and keep us from fighting back. And in the end, that is all the Jackson coverage was really about, another tawdry and tasteless spectacle to divert a dying culture from the howling wolf at the gate.

And yet despite all the propaganda, that for example makes at different times the same people with no relevant education background experts on Communism and Islam, it is remarkable how inured most people are to the nonsense they are fed. People have a capacity to filter out what is presented.

Personally it is all a mystery to me since I do not watch television, which may be prejudicial here, but in the US perhaps necessary.




*

DYNAMICS OF POLITICAL CHANGE

So what causes fundamental political change, and are revolutions, such as the French Revolution fundamental political change, or merely changes in the holders of political power?

The proposition, otherwise stated, is that the structural violence, or the embedded violence in political institutions, such as corporations, is changed rather than abolished. Despite the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, it is a striking legal fact that legal persons have rights as much as natural persons, and because they have greater financial resources to use the legal system, and influence by public relations and political donations, they have greater rights than do individuals. Still it has to remembered that the statement of human rights was important, and it has changed behavior. The principles of human rights might not be fully realized in the modern world, but they are part of the social consensus and consciousness, perhaps more so for some than others.

Political change is not on the minds of most people every day of the week. Given our present circumstances and the predictions made for widespread violence in the wake of the impact of climate change, that the French Revolution may being significantly and substantially influence by climate change. So passively handcuffed to the juggernaut of violence are we as human beings, as distinct from our political and social institutions that the assumption is that we know no other way.

Nonetheless, in the past nonviolence was not the modus operandi. The Wikipedia article on the French Revolution notices, something among many that I was not aware of, that there was a political climate connection:

A contributing factor to the Revolution was the considerable increases in poverty in the preceding years. Some scholars trace this to several years of recurrent weather aberrations, caused by the Laki eruption of 1783[57] and the severe El Niño effects that were to follow.[58] Historian François Furet in his work, Le Passé d'une illusion (1995) (The Passing of An Illusion (1999) in English translation) explores in detail the similarities between the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution of 1917 more than a century later, arguing that the former was taken as a model by Russian revolutionaries.[59] [60]

Climate change has the potential to tip the balance to produce fundamental political change, unlike, for example, a financial crisis that might lead to the consolidation and reconfiguration of political power (via Public Opinion).

To produce the change that is ecological and socially sustainable, and universally just we have to engage in cultural change. To engage in cultural change is to work on the bedrock of every human society and every person. Revolutions occur when the clock stops ticking for the existing order, but whereas human beings may have set the clock running, they may not be able to stop it. We may wake up to find our deal is cooked.




*

CORRELATION OR CAUSE?

Senator Field, Family First, doubts that the Earth is keeping warmer, and that greenhouse gases, in particular carbon dioxide, are the principle agencies for the increase in temperature.

He points out the mean temperatures have not risen for the past fifteen years, and that carbon dioxide (CO2) has been rising exponentially during that time. Therefore, he concludes that CO2 may not a principle driver of mean temperature increase, and that it is more likely that the observed increase in mean temperature is due to natural causes. So, he would then contend, any attempt to mitigate global warming would be an unnecessary economic cost.

Steve Fielding is going to ask Al Gore to answer his question, since he was not satisfied with the answers provided by the Government scientific advisors. I doubt whether Al will be able to give Steve an answer he will find satisfactory.

Why does not Steve do what all other normal, non-scientific individuals do and go to Google, and from there to Wikipedia's "Global Warming" and from that article to an appropriate reference, for example, "Understanding and Attributing Climate Change"?

The more fundamental question is how does the Earth's climate system work. For example, everybody knows about lightning, but who understands how and why plasma is formed within the bolts of lightning. Usually in the atmospheric system there are delays between cause and effect, sometimes because of counteractions. The suggestion has been made that it takes thirty years for the greenhouse gases pumped into the environment to have an effect. The magnitude of the effect may be difficult, for all I know, to estimate, since it is genuinely an "unknown unknown" since 390.7 ppm of CO2 (as of May 2009) in the atmosphere has never occurred before in human experience.

The article mentioned above addresses the question: Can the warming of the 20th Century be explained by natural variability? The answer is summarized as follows:

It is very unlikely that the 20th-century warming can be explained by natural causes. The late 20th century has been unusually warm. Palaeoclimatic reconstructions show that the second half of the 20th century was likely the warmest 50-year period in the Northern Hemisphere in the last 1300 years.

This rapid warming is consistent with the scientific understanding of how the climate should respond to a rapid increase in greenhouse gases like that which has occurred over the past century, and the warming is inconsistent with the scientific understanding of how the climate should respond to natural external factors such as variability in solar output and volcanic activity.

Climate models provide a suitable tool to study the various influences on the Earth’s climate. When the effects of increasing levels of greenhouse gases are included in the models, as well as natural external factors, the models produce good simulations of the warming that has occurred over the past century. The models fail to reproduce the observed warming when run using only natural factors.

When human factors are included, the models also simulate a geographic pattern of temperature change around the globe similar to that which has occurred in recent decades. This spatial pattern, which has features such as a greater warming at high northern latitudes, differs from the most important patterns of natural climate variability that are associated with internal climate processes, such as El Niño.

Of course, it is possible the language is too difficult to understand, so we should go to popularizer of science. Here David Attenborough fits the requirement:



If the models were junk science, as suggested by Freeman Dyson for example, they would not be able to distinguish in terms of predictions between natural and non-natural cases.

The answer to Steve Fielding seems to be that the observed increase in global mean temperatures cannot be explained by natural causes and it can be explained by anthropogenic causes, especially by means of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide.

The World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) observes:

• The Earth System behaves as a single, self-regulating system comprised of physical, chemical, biological and human components;


• Human activities are significantly influencing Earth's environment in many ways in addition to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change;


• Global change cannot be understood in terms of a simple cause-effect paradigm;


• Earth System dynamics are characterised by critical thresholds and abrupt changes;


• Human activities could inadvertently trigger such changes with severe consequences for Earth's environment and inhabitants;


• In terms of some key environmental parameters, the Earth System has moved well outside the range of the natural variability exhibited over the last half million years at least; and


• An ethical framework for global stewardship and strategies for Earth System management are urgently needed.

*

MERCURIAL MONSOON

Two-thirds of the earth's population depend on the Asian Monsoon to supply water for agriculture and drinking. In India there is alarm that the rains have not arrived, and the implicit question of whether the delay is an effect of global warming.

Matt Wade reporting for The Sydney Morning Herald recounts that:

MILLIONS of Indian farmers are looking anxiously to the skies and wondering where the monsoon has gone.

Five weeks into the annual wet season, many parts of the subcontinent have a serious rain deficit. Among the worst hit is the northern state of Punjab, a region known as the breadbasket of India.

The capital, Delhi, has been badly affected, along with large parts of the poverty-stricken states Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

The elusive monsoon threatens to cause economic and social damage at a time when India was congratulating itself for weathering the global financial crisis better than most countries. At last week's meeting of world leaders in Italy, India made it clear it would not be deterred from pursuing high rates of economic growth despite the challenge of climate change.

There are reports that monsoon-dependent crops in the north of the country have already been spoiled because of very hot weather and a lack of rain. Fears of a below-par monsoon in some of the most important farming districts have triggered a sharp rise in fruit and vegetable prices. This threatens to hit poor families the hardest.

The Meteorological Department, which issues a daily monsoon report, says the monsoon made a comeback last week but it admits rain has been "scanty" in some of the most productive food growing areas.

The fitful monsoon has created havoc in India's biggest city, Mumbai. Over the past fortnight the metropolis has been plunged into chaos by flash-flooding caused by heavy downpours. However, a lack of rainfall in the city's catchment areas has created a critical water shortage. Mumbai's civic authority is so worried that it imposed a 30 per cent cut in town water last week and has stopped supplying water to non-essential services such as swimming pools.

There are reports the city may have only 20 days of water left unless the catchment areas receive more rain.

Could the failure of the monsoon to appear be a product of climate change? Ranjit Devraj, for IPS reports:

"There is growing evidence to suggest that climate change is making the monsoons more unpredictable and worsening the severity of events like floods and droughts," Vinuta Gopal, energy and climate change campaigner for Greenpeace, told IPS.

Gopal says that while there is no scientific evidence yet to link this year’s truant monsoon to climate change, what is clear is that the "modelling systems of the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) cannot make predictions with any degree of accuracy." This means that farmers cannot depend on the forecasts to time sowing, harvesting and all that goes in between.

"Farmers we [Greenpeace] spoke with in the four southern states [Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka] told us that even traditional methods of forecasting have become undependable," Gopal said. "What is certain is that the intensity and frequency of storms and spells of rain and drought are becoming commonplace, but exactly how precipitation patterns are changing is still to be worked out."

The monsoon is notoriously difficult to predict:

Pradhan Parth Sarthi, a climate scientist with the prestigious Energy Research Institute, told IPS that the Indian summer monsoon remains a "complex and mysterious phenomenon" and that it is a hard task for any meteorologist to predict its course and precipitation "through existing statistical and dynamical models."

"While climate change has little impact on average annual rainfall, going by rainfall data studied over a 100-year period, it is seen that during the monsoons heavy to very heavy rainfall is increasing in some areas and rainfall of lowered intensity is decreasing in other areas. These trends compensate each other in terms of net rainfall but they can be disruptive of normal agriculture," Sarthi said.

El Niño (abnormal rise in sea surface temperature over the equatorial central Pacific Ocean), one of several factors that can delay or cause a failure of the monsoons, seems to have caused a 50 percent reduction in normal rainfall in June, Sarthi said. "We are hoping that the situation will revive in July, the principal rainy season, when El Niño weakens over the central, equatorial Pacific Ocean."

"El Niño is already known to cause droughts and it will be fair to say that global warming may act to exacerbate these extreme events," Sarthi observed.

"Although it is impossible to predict the effects of global warming on the frequency of El Niños, all indications seem to be that they are becoming stronger, more common, and are no longer disappearing completely," says Kevin E. Trenberth, a lead author of the 2001 and 2007 United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s scientific assessments of climate change. "In other words, the Pacific doesn’t seem to be reverting to ‘normal’ anymore," Trenberth says in a report for the David Suzuki foundation.

For Gopal what is truly worrisome is a complacent attitude in which anomalous weather conditions are gradually becoming accepted as normal - and this despite a series of catastrophic events over the last few years.

However, should it be shown that the apparent disruption to the normal patterns of the monsoon are due to climate change there are two implications for the global response. Climate change would be shown to be an emergency with wide effects, and not as deniers such as Freeman Dyson claims limited to warming in the Arctic, with beneficial effects for Greenland. Secondly, India and China, will have to more seriously consider going cold turkey on coal, and to develop alternative energy sources. More generally that would mean the adoption of the policy of mitigation rather than the policies of adaptation, including perhaps Freeman Dyson's science fiction of genetically-enhanced carbon consuming trees.






*

FRIDAY NIGHT DOG BLOG - GOING HOME

Sasha and Dexter have memories longer than the road that stretches ahead. So they are going home.

They are taking their time about it. Something might be missed.

The Beatles provided my inspiration this week:




Home might have changed - will Dexter be leaving home now?

Somethings don't seem to change. We regularly stop at the knoll to sit down and take in the view. So the challenge is to see things anew:

Taking a detour means we can sit on the grass and look at the sky. Sasha and Dexter came into view:

Standing around, but having fun it seems:

Then home where Dexter checks out the new fence (which Sasha had done earlier). Fences are the intersection where dog environmental awareness meets human awareness:

Putting up the fence meant that the dogs did not have the same freedom of movement, although again Dexter saw the opportunity with open gates to head for freedom, but with no problems.

We will again this week, at this late hour, head over to Modulator and see who else is onboard Friday Ark.




*

CLIMATE MORALITY?

Global warming is either a fact or it isn't. There is no room for negotiation or politics.

If the expected effects of climate change, such as among other implications the shrinking of the northern ice cap, the drying up of the Amazon and the potential release of methane from the sea bed and the tundra, the human race with enormous suffering will have change imposed on it. What will then be the price of vanity and hubris, and who will pay for the cruel effects? The imposition of death, suffering and cruelty on others is by definition immoral. So we should understand, if climate change is a fact it is primarily a political but more fundamentally a moral question.

Those who would argue that increase in greenhouse gases caused by human activities does not affect the climate cannot make specious or solipsist arguments. Here is the case that convinced David Attenborough:



If the increase of carbon dioxide is not causing the observed changes in the earth's weather patterns, the increase in the ocean levels and the melting of the ice caps, then they have to provide alternative explanations that fit the patterns of temperature change over time. If they believe that the increase of carbon dioxide, and potentially of methane, is benign they have to prove it by establishing or suggesting a set of independent observations that would support the hypothesis.

"Great World Moral Leader" Obama is currently attending the Group of Seven Meeting in L'aquila, Italy. Peter Baker in The New York Times is agog with his herculean struggle. Obama after all with his powers of bipartisanship can game the United States political system, much like the global corporations, should be having no problems at all. Not so. It seems:

The world’s biggest developing nations, led by China and India, refused Wednesday to commit to specific goals for slashing heat-trapping gases by 2050, undercutting the drive to build a global consensus by the end of this year to reverse the threat of climate change.

. . . With Europe pressing for more aggressive action and Congress favoring a more restrained approach, Mr. Obama finds himself navigating complicated political currents at home and abroad.

If he cannot ultimately bring along developing countries, no climate deal will be effective.

The empire for which Obama is the willing figurehead is perhaps killing more people than global warming, but the later may be gaining. It is an interesting question as to which will crash first, the empire or the earth.

Without the empire, and the corporate stranglehold on what is laughingly called US democracy, the leader of that political system might have the moral standing to be a world leader, and one that leads by example. India and China wisely observe the rules of the game as set by global polluters is that it is everybody for themselves.

So who cares for Earth? It is the emotional and intellectual responsibility of every person, regardless of where they live, to protect the planet and the future, not for a few, but for as many as practical.

RE-ELECTION

According to the "quick count" it seems that Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yuhoyono has won re-election without the need for a run off election in September.

Niniek Karmini for AP, quoted by The Jakarta Post explained:

An unofficial quick count at 2,000 polling stations - with almost 100 percent of ballots tallied - gave Yudhoyono 60 percent of the vote, which would be enough to avoid a runoff in September. He needs 50 percent of cast ballots to win in one round.

Megawati Sukarnoputri, a former president whose father was the first postcolonial leader of Indonesia, was second at 27 percent, with Vice President Jusuf Kalla at 13 percent.

The preliminary result was based on ballots from all 33 provinces and was conducted by the Indonesian Survey Circle, which has accurately forecast previous elections

Opponents of the President argue that they will wait for the results of the official count which will be released by the National Electoral Commission by 27 July. The purported result it is suggested is a result of the experience of economic and political stability, so perhaps Indonesia has not been as susceptible to the Global Financial Crisis as others.

Based on the unofficial results, President Yuhoyono has gained 90% of the vote in Aceh. He seems to be popular in Papua. His opponents in the presidential race were equally national figures.

Indonesia is the third largest democracy in the world along with India and United States. For whatever, reason they have chosen to develop a political system that is unlike those comparable countries, by adopting, for example, the method of holding run-off elections. Polling appears to have been without incident across the country.




*

DR KELLY'S DEATH REVISITED

Dr David Kelly's death of apparent suicide at the time seemed unconvincing and strange in July 2003. Now The Daily Express has revealed that he was writing an expose of his work on anthrax and to rebut the possession by Iraq nuclear or biological weapons.

According to the newspaper, Kelly had advised Blair, the then British Prime Minister, of his conclusions prior to the invasion of Iraq. Kelly was an expert on anthrax, and he had been involved with Apartheid South Africa. As soon as anthrax comes up I am reminded of the murders in Washington, and that inconclusive investigation.

Dr Kelly it seemed accurately predicted the timing and circumstances of his own death according to the report by John Bryne via The Raw Story:

Kelly’s death — said to have been a suicide — has stirred controversy, as it came on the heels of testimony to the House of Commons about a memo which purported that Britain had “sexed up” a dossier on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. A Parliamentary inquiry ruled that the death had been suicide, though it also included testimony from a former British ambassador who quotes Kelly as having said, “I will probably be found dead in the woods” if Iraq were invaded.

There was, we are told, that Dr Kelly was involved in a bigger scandal which was the development of anthrax of the Apartheid Government of South Africa. John Byrne reports:

The allegations of a potential Kelly expose come from a new film about biological weapons being debuted in London on the sixth anniversary of Kelly’s death titled “Anthrax War” (the documentary aired earlier this year on Canadian public television). Kelly was an expert in biological warfare agents, as well as a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq.

‘‘The deeper you look into the murky world of governments and germ warfare, the more worrying it becomes,” the film’s director, Bob Coen, is quoted as saying. “We have proved there is a black market in anthrax. David Kelly was of particular interest to us because he was a world expert on anthrax and he was involved in some degree with assisting the secret germ warfare program in apartheid South Africa.”

According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s summary of the film, Coen “was raised in Zimbabwe where the former white regime has been accused of unleashing anthrax against the black population… [who] embarks on a journey that raises troubling questions about the FBI’s investigation of the 21st century’s first act of biological terrorism.

“Coen’s investigation takes him from the U.S. to the U.K. and from the edge of Siberia to the tip of Africa. In a rare interview, Coen confronts ‘Doctor Death’ Wouter Basson, who headed Project Coast, the South African apartheid-era bio-warfare program,” the network’s website adds. “Project Coast used germ warfare against select targets within the country’s black population.

Sometimes conspiracy theories prove to correct. The reason they emerge and are given traction arises from government secrecy. Imagine having a Parliamentary Committee doing the work of an Inquest?




*

XINJIANG PROTEST

The response of authoritarian governments follow they stereotypical formula. Xinjiang is the latest example, when apparently the underlying tensions between the Han Chinese and Uighur ethnicities. 140 people are reported to have died as a result.

The disturbance seems have been caused by the video on the internet of a person based to death in Southern China. If the television reports are to be believed it seems that local Uighurs took revenge in Urumqi, the capital city.

Stephen McDonell for the ABC reports:

Xinjiang's regional government has blamed international activists for planning the protest.

"This is a typical incident of beating, smashing and looting ordered by overseas forces. It was premeditated, planned and organised," Governor of Xinjiang Autonomous Region Nur Bekri said.

This year is the 60th anniversary of Xinjiang's re-incorporation into China; the government calls it the "peaceful liberation of Xinjiang" but many Uighurs still do not accept Beijing's rule.

Chinese authorities have warned that today's type of conflict could increase because of Xinjiang's strategic location on the border with Pakistan and Afghanistan.

They are worried that if Uighur separatist groups link up with the separatists in Pakistan, they could have a much more serious armed conflict in western China.

Stephen McDonell also observes that what Uighurs he has spoken to say publically and privately is contradictory. Authorities, as they did in Iran, are similarly, so it is reported, shutting down the internet to prevent pictures of the demonstrations being circulated.




*

US BASES

Chalmers Johnson has been on the case of off shore US bases. He notes that world wide they are now almost 800 in number. How might they be necessary? Why is there not more opposition to them?

They are extravagantly expensive to operate and once established there appears to be no initiative or wish to withdraw from them. It is almost as if enemies, or at least contingencies, have to be invented to justify them, but I suppose that is simply the logic of wider military-industrial complex. Clearly once the US did withdraw, for example from the air base and associated facilities at Frankfurt there is no way could be retrieved despite the fact the cold war is now over. I suppose they might be analogous to the naval bases the Britain had during the Empire, and the bases represent landing rights, when not electronic spying stations.

Now it seems that cost squeeze may well increase - who knows (does anybody care?) what that does to the US budgetary bottom line. Chalmers Johnson, at Tom Dispatch, observes:

On June 23rd, we learned that Kyrgyzstan, the former Central Asian Soviet Republic which, back in February 2009, announced that it was going to kick the U.S. military out of Manas Air Base (used since 2001 as a staging area for the Afghan War), has been persuaded to let us stay. But here's the catch: In return for doing us that favor, the annual rent Washington pays for use of the base will more than triple from $17.4 million to $60 million, with millions more to go into promised improvements in airport facilities and other financial sweeteners. All this because the Obama administration, having committed itself to a widening war in the region, is convinced it needs this base to store and trans-ship supplies to Afghanistan.

I suspect this development will not go unnoticed in other countries where Americans are also unpopular occupiers. For example, the Ecuadorians have told us to leave Manta Air Base by this November. Of course, they have their pride to consider, not to speak of the fact that they don't like American soldiers mucking about in Colombia and Peru. Nonetheless, they could probably use a spot more money.

Now it is not the case, as has been alleged, that there was never opposition to the presence of the bases. As Chalmers Johnson knows well the base at Okinawa has been a source of angst for ever. At the same time, one suspects that Japan is not susceptible to the "economic hitmen" and the "jackals", as for example Honduras might be. Nor is it the case that the bases have not attracted popular protest, as is currently occurring in Italy.

Empires are after all political systems, subject to "forcings" and "feedback" mechanisms, and potentially systemic breakdowns. It is ironic to say the least that one of the principle creditor nations, China, is at the same time, strategic objective of the Empire. Then again perhaps by becoming overly involved in the Islamic world, the Empire has averted its focus from Latin America, offering that potentially rich continent (and peninsula) the possibility of social and political progress.

I suppose it ought not be surprising that there is no political opposition to overseas bases in the US, since there is no political opposition in that system. The greater the cost of the delusion, the stronger the belief in the reality it suggests but cannot deliver. No, I think the US Empire will last for a thousand years, at least. Like the mark of Cain, it is a permanent feature of mankind.



*

HAPPY PLANET INDEX

As might be expected the winners of such a world league table do not include the usual suspects. In fact far from it. The Happy Planet Index for 2009 identifies the top five successful countries as Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Guatemala and Vietnam. These set of winners contrasts with the 2006 list which had as the leaders: Vanuatu, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica and Panama. What is it about Central American and Caribbean countries that accounts for their success?

Ashley Seager in The Guardian observes:

The report says the differences between nations show that it is possible to live long, happy lives with much smaller ecological footprints than the highest-consuming nations.

The new HPI also provides the first ever analysis of trends over time for what are supposedly the world's most developed nations, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

OECD nations' HPI scores plummeted between 1960 and the late 1970s. Although there have been some gains since then, HPI scores were still higher in 1961 than in 2005.

Life satisfaction and life expectancy combined have increased 15% over the 45-year period for those living in the rich nations, but it has come at the cost of a 72% rise in their ecological footprint. And the three largest countries in the world – China, India and the US, which are aggressively pursuing growth-based development models – have all seen their HPI scores drop in that time.

Money is one form of satisfaction, and quantitative measurement, can allow us to lose sight of other possibilities, in particular the social and planetary cost of economic activities. The article in Wikipedia points out the HPI is not perfect, but it has some objective basis. On this basis people who are born in Costa Rica are luckier than those born in Australia.

Costa Rica's only other distinction that I was aware of was that they did not have an army, although they have military police. Still the amount of money spent, and proposed to be spent, on defence does not seem to improve the quality of our lives.


*

FRIDAY NIGHT DOG BLOG: TANGLED UP IN BLUE

You might ask how can a story about a dog be a story of nonviolence?

With poetic licence, the Dylan song could be easily cast as "tangled up in a blue". Around these parts a blue could be seen as a fight. As you notice from the photos, Dexter of the blue harness, is not given too much leeway, although he when given the opportunity takes it. We replaced our fence in the back with a real fence:

Dexter got out the back door, because an unnamed person had left it slightly open, walked pass the the bloke putting up the fence. By this time I was on his trail, but in these circumstances, when the call of the open spaces is heard he does not listen to me. As it happened two women walking two dogs came on the scene.

Dexter and the larger of the two dogs appeared to familiarizing themselves, and then situation turned into a fraca that sounded serious. What to do? One response would be enter into the scene with physical force and violence and make the situation and consequences far worse. One of the women started screaming to stop. It worked. Dexter sat like he had being told sit and stopped. The woman said she was normally frightened in these circumstances. Like human beings if there is a resort to violence, however pressing the circumstances, the results turn out for the worst.

Otherwise events were ran to plan.

Dexter had other things on his mind:

Sasha stands her ground despite appearances:

Dexter featured at the knoll, but Sasha is not forgotten:

It seems there was shade of blue in some photos along the way:

And it was very pleasant to see two horses grazing:

Sasha might feel she has been left out, and we cannot have that. "If you see her, say hello". Francesco De Gregori has the song- Non dirle che non è così:




Now we will set our course to join Friday Ark again this week at Modulator.



*

WAR OF WORDS

Wars are fought with words and narratives. Who would have thought that Associated Press was stubborned to the Pentagon?

Listen to the report from Associated Press report, via You Tube:


As others have noticed the reporter, doubtless following the proud tradition of objectivity, talks of "Taliban infected villages". The clear implication and association of that description is that "Taliban" who might be described otherwise as perhaps Pashtun Clansmen, are casually dismissed as vermin, and therefore non-human and fit to be exterminated. Hence we move by constant repetition into an existential war against the enemy of civilization, on the premise that the Taliban were responsible for 911 and would if successful provide succour, if not sponsor other attacks on the West. Such a proposition ignores the many 911 in the form of drone and helicopter attacks on the Pashtun rural people, whether in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

The barbarity of the tools available does not make for civilization, nor does the abuse of language, the complete disregard of workable concept of justice, nor for that matter the complete reliance on violence that has worked so well in Iraq. The latter point depends on whose perspective we adopt. Perhaps from the point of view of the oil cartels and the merchants of death it has worked exceedingly well. The politics of the Afghan-Pakistan war should be in terms of whose interests are being furthered. Equally, it is undoubtedly the case that the "Resistance" are brutal and extreme as might be expected from thirty years of war, and the special favors that some among them received from the Pakistan Inter Service Intelligence, acting independendly and on behalf of American policy and financing.

George Orwell can in prospect have the satisfaction that what he observed and predicted has come to pass. Obama can too have the satisfaction that his war would be endorsed by O'Brian.

2 + 2 = 5.

GAZA BLOCKADE CONTINUES

A group of twenty activists and their boat have been arrested in international waters by the Israeli navy.

The Israelis stated that any international organization could provide humanitarian aid through the crossings to Gaza from Israel.

At The Raw Story, Stephen C Webster reported that Huwaida Arraf, leader of the Free Gaza Movement and coordinator of the mission prior to his arrest by the Israelis said:

“No one could possibly believe that our small boat constitutes any sort of threat to Israel,” he said in a release. “We carry medical and reconstruction supplies, and children’s toys. Our passengers include a Nobel peace prize laureate and a former U.S. congressperson. Our boat was searched and received a security clearance by Cypriot Port Authorities before we departed, and at no time did we ever approach Israeli waters.”

Arraf called the intervention a “premeditated attack” and “a clear violation of international law.”

Despite the fact, as the BBC reported the British Government spokeperson said that they would be concerned if British Citizens were arrested in international waters, and despite the fact that the ship had on board a Nobel Prize Winner and former US Congresswoman, the Israelis went ahead anyway. They claimed the vessel had entered into Israeli/Palestinian waters, and that warning had been given.

The BBC reported:

On Monday, a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross described the 1.5 million Palestinians living in Gaza as people "trapped in despair", unable to rebuild their lives after Israel's offensive.

Donors have pledged $4.5 billion for reconstruction and rehabilitation in Gaza following the 22-day offensive which left more than 50,000 homes, 800 industrial properties and 200 schools damaged or destroyed, as well as 39 mosques and two churches.

The blockade on the battered and slaughtered Palestinians of Gaza is carrying on violence by other means. Nuclear-armed, little Israel believes itself immune from International Law and standards of human decency and justice. The time for such toleration by other countries is long past since Israel has as much regard to their citizens as for the Palestinians.

Mairead Maguire, who won her Nobel Prize in Northern Ireland but who is no stranger to the plight of the Palestinians posted a copy of a letter she sent to Obama on her website in which she said:

“To visit Palestine is to walk with a people whose lives are being made unbearable by Israeli Policies of ethnic cleansing,” she wrote. “Each year when I visit I ask myself ‘how can the Palestinians bear so much suffering and still have hope?’ The Philosopher Karl Jung says ‘Go into your grief for there your soul will grow’. Being privileged to walk alongside the Palestinian people, one sees so much soul.”

“I appeal to you President Obama, to change USA Policies and stop supporting through military aid, etc, [Israel's] occupation of Palestine, and to move immediately to help lift the siege of Gaza and say to Israel ‘enough is enough.’ [...] Love and hope gives us all courage and belief that peace and freedom is possible.”

*

WHEN TURNING POINTS TIP

Seldom do people who live at history's turning points caught up in events understand that a new course has been taken.

This is just another example of by being part of the process means which means I suspect for most of us we do not understand the process as a whole. The situation is paradoxical. Modern people through mass and global communication are more aware of events that occur at a distance than were people in the ancient world. Instant communication creates a fickleness. Everything that happens has a surface quality until it is taken over by a fresh event. Ancient people could not as I can walk to the kitchen to check out the calendar, for example, they had to look at the skies and know the stories that made sense of what they were seeing. These stories were so deeply imbued that it is not surprising that there are analogies between the Egyptian god, Horus and the Christ stories of the new testament, of which there were about twenty-six versions.

The perspective of time is usually required to assess the significance of an event. The tumult and storm of the moment is not a good guide for significance. In retrospect it is not the dismissal of the Whitlam Government in 1975 that was the decisive point but rather its election in 1972. The events called 911 are principally significant because they took place in the United States rather than the far more horrendous events that have taken place in Iraq.

History as a reflective narrative to distinguish the surface events and the significance of the underlying processes. How might things had turned out had Pope Clement annulled Henry VIII's marriage with Catherine of Aragon? Around this one matter there are a concourse of events. Adrian Pabst sees more significance behind the curtain than what was happening on stage. He observes:

By eliminating the monasteries and cutting ties with the papacy, Henry established a monarchical power vertical that commanded unprecedented fiscal control and military might – the basis for his foreign policy adventurism which further isolated England from the rest of Europe. Little wonder that Charles Dickens described Henry's rule as a "spot of blood and grease on the history of England". Crucially, the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII and his son Edward VI redistributed one quarter of national wealth at the expense of the peasantry. The endowment of monasteries, including landed property, was transferred to the newly created Court of Augmentations – an early modern precursor of quangos, charged with overseeing monastic expropriation. The triple effect was to curb the social and educational functions of monastic orders, channel wealth and income to the Crown and concentrate land ownership in the hands of the nobility, local magnates and the newly landed gentry.

England owes the centralization of power and wealth to her son Henry Tudor whose dubious legacy has been faithfully defended by Thatcher and her heir Blair. Coupled with the forced expropriation of free peasant proprietors by feudal lords during the "enclosure movement" throughout the 16th century, land ceased to be commonly owned and became privatised. This process of "primitive accumulation" created the surplus wealth that was used for financial speculation abroad. The ruling classes diverted resources for their own enrichment and self-aggrandisement. As such, the perennial sanctity of life and land was subordinated to secular sacrality of the national state and the transnational market. Thus capitalism was born. Curiously, Henry's quest for national sovereignty made England more dependent on foreign markets than ever before.

In reality, history can be unpacked, but not untangled. The future might yet be made. Perhaps the really significant events of our time are not the optical illusions staged for, and by television, but anthropomorphic changes to the environment and weather systems which will determine whether the story of the human species, integral as it is to cosmology and planet Earth, has a future. We are dealing with dynamic physical systems that have momentum and consequence and minds that change and with insight in the consequences of actions.

As Paul Krugman observes denial of climate changes is a from of betrayal of the planet. In this case it is not a matter of turning points, mere changes in direction, but tipping points in which momentum takes over and can be influenced by seemingly trivial forces. Interesting, the opponents of the Krugman stance on climate change have come up with an article in The Timaru Herald (21 May 2007) reporting the opinions of Augie Auer who said that water vapour is the major greenhouse gas.