G8 leaders must tackle low wages

Washington's death

At the G20 meeting in London in April, Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, pronounced the 'Washington consensus' dead.

The 'Washington consensus' is shorthand for the free market ideology that pressed for financial sector deregulation, privatisation and trade liberalisation.

It is this 'neoliberalism' that has informed the way business has been done in the world for the last 30 years - whether in the developed or developing world.

So if it is dead, what are the alternatives? What new international system will replace it? What hints and promises have we been given?

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Banking time bombs Money and power makes for a toxic bond Why America is a bank-owned state

Well, the one thing all countries seem to agree on is banking regulation. Banks have been asked to ensure they have more hard cash in their coffers.

That way, when things come crashing down, it doesn't turn into a tsunami that sweeps us all along with it, as has happened this time around.

However, I think we have become pretty gung-ho when it comes to regulation, without properly studying what really led to the crisis in the first place.

This means, of course, that the new regulations being introduced may not be the most effective or even appropriate.

Moreover, I believe the regulations we have agreed to put in place are not of the kind necessary to really change the modus operandi of Wall Street or the City in London (see previous post: The 'save-us-or-else banks').

The powers that be are not breaking up the banking oligarchs or their networks.

Regulations are politically and conveniently deceptive; they are a great decoy.

Income inequality

This is because they confer on the world leaders and their finance ministers the appearance of doing something, without having to deal with the real issues as to why we got into this mess in the first place - our indebtedness.

Why we borrowed so much from banks has little to do with the failures of financial markets or their regulations per se.

But it has everything to do with income inequality and our low wages.

"Before governments start speaking of exit strategies, can they also please tell us how they will invest in affordable homes, health care and pensions?"

The fact is that wages in the Western world, for the vast majority of us, have been stagnant since the 1990s, with some economists saying wages have been at a standstill since the 1970s.

And no, I am not talking about the salary of bankers here, but those of the majority of the population.

This income stagnation was taking place while our standard of living was going up.

So to make up for our own balance sheet hole, we had to borrow on things such as our homes.

This allowed banks to get up close and personal with us in our lives. Our homes, our education, our health care and our pensions were all linked to a bank or financial intermediary.

Our governments assisted in this, under the economics and politics of 'neoliberalism', they pulled away from the provision of affordable health care, housing, education and pensions.

Moreover, they relied on us spending from our illusory debt-based wealth to support our economies. We, the people, created our own stimulus packages out of debt.

This illusion of success and wealth, got governments off the hook.

They didn't have to come up with any "structural" changes into the economy that would give us a higher real wage - such as investing in newer technologies or green industries - all sectors that could pay higher wages and allow us to afford more things without having to borrow.

New profits

Banks were delighted for this to happen, because we became their new source of profit, as the economist Santos Los Paulos writes:

"First, lending and the selling of financial services to individuals developed as central lines of business for leading banks.

"Credit to individuals reached almost 50 per cent of all balance sheet lending of US commercial banks in 2006.

"Citigroup and Bank of America committed, for example, over three quarters of their loan portfolio to such lending.

"Through such services, financial intermediaries [banks] have tapped directly into the income of wage earners as a source of profit." Gulp!

Root of crisis

And this is the root of the current crisis. Traditionally, a bank's normal role is to lend to industries which in turn invest that money, and by doing so they become more productive, employ more people and make a profit.

So banks are meant to be nurturing and assisting the productive side of our economy.

The buck was not meant to stop with us because we don't make a profit - we earn a salary. We pay interest to the banks out of our earnings. The distinction is huge.

Once banks started seeing us as sources of profit, the trouble started.

And this trouble will return again once the recession starts bottoming out, and banks start lending again.

This is because the power of banks has not been diminished, nor has their size relative to our economies.

In the next G8 communique, I want one world leader to address the issue of how they plan to raise our wages.

And before governments start speaking of exit strategies, can they also please tell us how they will invest in affordable homes, health care and pensions?

If we do not hear answers to such questions, then you and I will know that our leaders have learnt nothing from this crisis.

And we really cannot allow this to happen.

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Why America is a bank-owned state

America: A bank-owned state

In my last column I introduced the idea that America's handling of the financial crisis, and in particular the way it has refused to deal with the banks, is more in keeping with how an "emerging" economy might behave and act.

So this week, I will say that America has become a bank-owned state, allowing its banking oligarchs to suffocate the economy so they can survive at any price.

As a development economist, what always made developing and poorer countries stand out was the level of inequality between individuals.

That is, the difference between how a small percentage, usually the country's capitalists, oligarchs and those close to people in power, were overdosing on wealth as the rest struggled to make ends meet, or even survive.

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Money and power makes for a toxic bond

Everyone in the country knew it, from the poorest farmer on the street to the richest oligarch. It was in your face, unashamed, unabated and highly discomforting.

Discomforting because it made all of us who witnessed it feel crippled at the power of the status quo, ruing the unfairness of life when merit always comes last, relative to who you know and who you are.

We took some relief from believing that this only happens because these countries were authoritarian, and not so accountable to their electorate.

Yet, if we look closer at the leading capitalist economies such as those of America and the UK, we will find that inequity raises its ugly head equally, and as starkly, when you look at the numbers.

Kept in the dark

Here too, a small percentage have the lion's share of national income in their hands, while the rest of the population experience stagnant incomes, all within a democratic, rather than an authoritarian, political regime.

Yet the real difference here is that, away from the numbers, the wider population and the electorate were mostly kept in the dark about this.

In 2006, the top one per cent of American households' share of all disposable income amounted to almost a quarter of all households' disposable income, according to Robert Hunter Wade, professor of political economy at the London School of Economics.

Signs that the crisis would become a great recession were apparent for a long time [EPA]

In crude terms, one per cent of the population have a quarter of all the wealth.

Moreover, Wade found the average income of the bottom 90 per cent of the population remained almost stagnant after 1980, although consumption kept rising thanks to the build-up of private debt.

This means that 90 per cent of the American economy were financing their American dream on debt.

In the UK, Wade found the pay gap between the highest and average earners had widened alarmingly.

Back in 1989, chief executives pocketed 17 times more than average earners.

By 2007, those same "captains of industry" were earning 75 times more than the average worker.

That is one enormous leap and I wouldn't mind that happening to my salary!

What's good for Wall Street ...

Warning signs that the financial crisis would become the great recession were there for all to see for a long time.

But where were the alarms in the system itself to say that these countries and the individuals in them were pursuing an unsustainable way of life?

Where were the signs that things were going to end disastrously and, worse still, that the most vulnerable might end up paying the heftiest and most disproportionate price than anyone else?

I believe the status quo was allowed to go unquestioned because banks were benefiting obscenely from the interest on our debt, and governments were in cahoots with these banks.

"... this warped and unjust way of operating was not questioned because the electorate was kept in the dark in the most subtle way possible"

Let's not forget that governments conveniently moved away from the provision of affordable healthcare, free university education and affordable housing while the banks entered our lives, aggressively, to fill that void.

In addition, I think that this warped and unjust way of operating was not questioned because the electorate was kept in the dark in the most subtle way possible.

The whole issue was made invisible. It was kept off the radar screens of electoral politics.

The American electorate were made accomplice to this because they were convinced that what was good for Wall Street, was good for America as a whole.

It was a political sleight of hand of the highest order. And this explains the bipartisan agreement to the ill-designed deregulation of the finance sector that we have seen over the years.

America has become a bank-owned state.

Ann Pettifor, a fellow development economist who works for the New Economics Foundation, says the US administration has been hijacked, and democracy has been pushed aside in favour of what is good for the bankers, by what Abraham Lincoln called "the money power".

And how right she is. The way the banks are being bailed out is a clear example of this political edifice.

Sucking the life out of tax-payers

The fact some of these failing banks have been thrown a lifeline is a testament to the hold they have over Barack Obama's administration.

Some of the banks should be allowed to die because they are so insolvent and holding so much in toxic assets that they will forever need to be on taxpayer-funded life support.

The problem is, this life support is sucking the life out of the taxpayer in the process, as it weighs them down with ever-increasing debt.

On top of that, the money could be used to restructure the economy in a way that is less reliant on the financial sector.

Underlying this refusal to kill those banks in poor health is a faulty and, dare I say, convenient assumption, that is not backed up by reality or fact, that the banks are facing a liquidity crisis as opposed to them facing a solvency crisis.

A liquidity crisis means the banks are facing a credit shortage, and once that is sorted, all will be well.

Geithner's 'stress tests' were meant to tell which banks would not be able to survive [EPA]

A solvency crisis means that the assets of many banks, firms and households are worth less than their debt.

And this means that these banks have to be completely nationalised.

Which leads us to Timothy Geithner, the US treasury secretary, and his "stress tests".

The tests were meant to give a clear and final assessment of these banks' balance sheets, telling us which were healthy and which would not be able to survive and would need more cash if the recession deepens.

As in any induced test, like the ones we undergo when we have our hearts tested, the "stress tests" were meant to simulate worse-case scenarios. Well, that was the promise at least.

The hope was that some would be declared so bad, they would have to go under once and for all.

Unfortunately, the tests turned out peculiarly lacking in stress.

Nouriel Roubini, professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University, says: "The government used assumptions for the macro variables in 2009 and 2010 that are so optimistic that the actual data for 2009 are already worse than the adverse scenario.

"As for some crucial variables, such as the unemployment rate – key to proper estimates of default and recovery rates for residential mortages ... and other bank loans – the current trend shows that by the end of 2009 the unemployment rate will be higher than the average unemployment rate assumed in the more adverse scenario for 2010, not for 2009."

The unemployment rate used in the worse-case scenario was assumed to average 8.9 per cent in 2009 and 10.3 per cent in 2010. But unemployment has already reached 9.4 per cent this year, and looks likely to overtake 10.3 per cent by next year.

So, there is nothing really challenging about these worse case scenarios at all.

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China puts people before banks

China is one economy where there is no disconnect between the financial and normal world [GETTY] Samah El-Shahat, Al Jazeera's resident economist, writes a regular column analysing key elements that have contributed to the global financial downturn and its impact across the world. China hasn't allowed its banking sector to become so powerful The one question that isn't going away this global recession, is whether China can save the world. But before we go running to Beijing, hat in hand, demanding assistance or else, there are some home truths that need to be considered first. China is a developing country, with a per capita income of $4,000, which is much closer to those of African economies than to the US per capita income at $39,000, and $33,000 in Europe. China has 130 million people who still live in absolute poverty, and even electricity hasn't made it every household yet. So why should China be asked to save anyone but itself right now? China: Special Report In fact, as Michael Pettis, a professor at Beijing university's Guanghua School of Management says, China's consumption was about the equivalent of France's last year, but no one is calling on Paris to save the world. The crisis, though, has exposed and clearly magnified the fault lines in China's emerging economy of 1.3 billion people. The Asian giant needs to nurture its own domestic demand, so that when the export market goes sick, like it has in this Great Recession, it doesn't drag China down with it. But making her people spend more than they save is harder said than done. After all, less than a generation ago the Chinese were so poor that hunger was the accepted norm in their daily lives. Tiger has risen Read more columns Money and power makes for a toxic bond Why America is a bank-owned state Banking time bombs Greed and low wages Bonuses are back Speak to Chinese officials in their late 40s onward and they will tell you that thinking about food was a major preoccupation as they were growing up - it was so scarce and many had to collect food coupons. Yes, this Asian tiger has risen despite a recent past of malnutrition. So getting the Chinese to move away from the "survivors'" mentality of savers to one of spenders will not be easy. Economists believe it takes a whole generation before people can change their ways and habits. But such a change can be overwhelmingly helped by the establishment of social welfare and safety nets such as health care provision, and other forms of social security. This might encourage the Chinese to loosen their purse strings. So why do we assume China can save the global economy? Is this not a warped sense of economic prioritising to ask a developing country with pressing economic and social problems of its own to come in and sacrifice herself for the rest of the world? Lending the US This could have something to do with China's $2tn in denominated securities, and bonds it has acquired from the US. It is after all the US's biggest lender. Yet, take that two trillion-dollar sum and divide it by 1.3 billion - the Chinese population - and I assure you not much would be left for your average Chinese citizen. However, I feel this basic misunderstanding of China and her position in the world, has to do with our negative bias toward that country - we are much tougher and harder when it comes to the way we report our economic stories on China. We are not telling enough stories of how we can in fact learn from China, particularly in the way its keeps the power of its banks in check. Something we have been unable to do. China is the one leading economy where the divide - the disconnect between its financial sector and the world normal Chinese people and their businesses inhabit - doesn't exist. Both worlds are booming again and this is due to the way the government handled its banks. China hasn't allowed its banking sector to become so powerful, so influential, and so big that it can call the shots or highjack the bailout. In simple terms, the government preferred to answer to its people and put their interests first before that of any vested interest or group. And that is why Chinese banks are lending to the people and their businesses in record numbers. Why don't we hear more about that in the media? Different planets COUNTING THE COST Watch Al Jazeera's weekly business show In the UK and US, the financial sector is booming, while the world of normal people seems to be going from bad to worse, unemployment is high, businesses are folding and house foreclosures are still taking place. Wall Street and Main Street might as well be existing on different planets. And this is in large part because banks are still not lending money to the people. In the UK and US, banks have captured all the money from the taxpayers and the cheap money from quantitative easing from central banks. They are using it to shore up, and clean up their balance sheets rather than lend it to the people. The money has been hijacked by the banks, and our governments are doing absolutely nothing about that. In fact, they have been complicit in allowing this to happen. I asked Costas Lapavitas from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) whether governments had put the interests of banks before the interests of their wider populations. "Yes I think you can say that. I think governments will probably come out and say that we helped rescue the banks, and we prevented generalised collapse. And to a certain extent that is true of course," he said. "However there were so many ways in which banks could have been rescued and this particular way has been done in such a way that the banks have no incentive to change the ways they operate ... It is as if the banks have written the policies that the state adopted." Interests of shareholders The US and British governments have allowed banks to solve their own crises in the interests of their own mangers, and shareholders – they are after all private business. Governments should have made it conditional for banks to lend to us, before they are given access to so much of our money and the Federal Reserve's cheap credit. So the Western hemisphere is suffering the consequences of government failure, while the Asian Giant is celebrating government getting it right. Funny, how our seemingly democratic governments have been taken over by vested interests. So, lay off China. It is the one country that is putting the interests of its people above that of the banks. And in these pressing times I say Hallelujah to that.

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Kim 'in full control' of N Korea

The White House says it is up to North Korea to make direct talks a reality [AFP] North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il appears to be in "full control" of his country and government, and has signalled he wants better ties with the US, a top White House security official has said. But Jim Jones, the US National Security Adviser, said it remained up to North Korea to make the first move following Kim's lengthy talks with Bill Clinton, the former US president, during a visit to Pyongyang last week. Doing the rounds of US political morning talk shows on Sunday, Jones said the White House was continuing to debrief Clinton and members of his team, hoping to get as much information as possible on the state of the North Korean leadership. Kim is widely believed to have suffered a stroke last year, although there has been no mention of ill health in the country's tightly-controlled state media. "Kim appeared to be in control of his government and sounded very reasoned," said Jones, citing information passed on by Clinton and his aides. "He seemed to be in control of his faculties." Clinton, who flew to North Korea to obtain the release of two US journalists detained for illegally entering the country, held more than three hours of talks with Kim during his visit. Persuasive mission "North Korea can't continue to make commitments and then violate them and expect to start from where they left off. The ball is in their court" Susan Rice, US ambassador to the UN The former US president was the most senior US envoy to visit the North in almost a decade, although Obama administration officials insist the visit was a humanitarian mission carried out by a private individual. Nonetheless Jones said that during talks with the North Korean leader, Clinton had emphasised on the importance and advantages of denuclearising the Korean peninsula, including the possibility of a dialogue with the US. "I'm quite sure the former president was very articulate and persuasive that the North Koreans know exactly what the world community, the members of the six party talks expect," he said on NBC television. "And it's up to them to move forward." Both Jones and Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, said that Washington was prepared to resume the kind of direct talks held in the latter years of the Bush administration. In a separate television interview Rice urged the North Koreans "to uphold their international obligations" and resume the international negotiations. "In that context, we have said that we would be prepared to have a direct dialogue", she said on CNN. "But North Korea can't continue to make commitments and then violate them and expect to start from where they left off. The ball is in their court." Criticism North Korea withdrew from nuclear talks after a series of missile tests earlier this year [AFP] Clinton's visit has come under fire from some prominent conservatives in the US who have criticised it as essentially giving in to North Korean blackmail. Refuting suggestions that the visit was a propaganda victory for Pyongyang, Jones said the mission had been vetted by South Korea, Japan, China and Russia. "We had 100 per cent from all these countries," he said, referring to the members of six-party talks. The Obama administration is trying to coax the North into abandoning its nuclear weapons programme while at the same time moving to enforce tougher UN sanctions against Pyongyang. North Korea pulled out of the six-party nuclear disarmament talks in April after test-firing a long-range missile. It followed up the missile launch with a second nuclear test in May, sparking the latest crisis in international efforts to get it to abandon nuclear weapons.

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UN voices concern over Afghan poll

Some candidates have complained about the level of security they have received [AFP] Security fears in many parts of Afghanistan are hindering preparations for this month's presidential election, the United Nations has said. The report, compiled by the UN mission in Afghanistan and Afghanistan's independent human rights commission (AIHRC), said insecurity had "severely limited freedom of movement and constrained freedom of expression for candidates". It said the ability of candidates and their supporters to campaign had been hampered as they are unable to go attend public gatherings or go door-to-door visiting constituencies. "These restrictions have, in turn, created significant limitations on freedom of association and peaceful assembly, and amplified women’s difficulties in participating in the electoral process," the report said. "The same limitations have posed challenges to the complaints process and preparations for polling and counting, including voter and civic education." Logar attack Just hours after the report was published, the governor's compound in the province of Logar, south of Kabul, came under attack from up to six suspect suicide bombers. "The Taliban say they have sent six men equipped with suicide vests and AK47s," Al Jazeera's James Bays reported from the capital. "There are two things significant about this; Logar is the province right next to Kabul, and the second thing is that in the governor's compound is the office of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) and we are hearing from eyewitnesses at the scene that much of the fighting seems to be around that office. "It is going to worry them a lot. It is a huge security challenge. Logar is a place that has had a lot of violence." The private Afghan television station Tolo, quoting an unidentified official, said Afghan security forces had been battling the Taliban fighters for several hours. US and Nato-led forces in Afghanistan have stepped up operations for the election on August 20, the second since the Taliban were forced from power in 2001, but fears remain that polling will be marred by violence. Taliban advance In an interview published on Monday, General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of US and Nato troops in Afghanistan, said that Taliban fighters were advancing out of their traditional strongholds in Afghanistan's south and east. "Our position is that where there is no security, where the election commission can't go, I don't think we would be able to do anything" Zekria Barakzai, deptuy chief electoral officer "It's a very aggressive enemy right now," McChrystal told The Wall Street Journal newspaper. "We've got to stop their momentum, stop their initiative. It's hard work." Some candidates in the presidential election have complained that they had not been provided with sufficient security. One campaign manager for a presidential candidate was quoted by the report as saying that security considerations had played a role in deciding to shift from large rallies to smaller ones. "Provincial council candidates in provinces such as Khost, Kunduz, Logar, and Kandahar reported that insecurity hampers their ability to campaign in many districts," the report said. Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from the capital, Kabul, said: "The [Afghan] army is so stretched thin to the point that they have told some candidates 'we don't have enough people to provide security for you and therefore you have have to use your own people for security'." Postponement fears In some areas there have been no campaign rallies at all, and concerns remain that voting may not be possible in some parts of the country. "[There is a] threat by the Taliban that they will decapitate anybody who votes in this election, saying this election is illegitimate because it is financed by Americans," Al Jazeera's Ahelbarra said. On Monday, Zekria Barakzai, the deputy chief electoral officer, told reporters in Kabul that voting might have to be suspended in 10 districts unless security is improved. "Our position is that where there is no security, where the election commission can't go, I don't think we would be able to do anything because the elections require a peaceful environment," he said. A final list of areas where voting will be able to take placed is expected to be published on August 15. However, despite the security problems, some officials remain hopeful that the polls can be a success. "The people of Afghanistan have demonstrated a high level of interest and enthusiasm to participate and practice their political rights in the upcoming presidential and provincial council elections," Sima Samar, the chairperson of AIHRC, said.

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US to target 'Afghan drug lords'

Opium trafficking provides the Taliban with much of its income

The US has put 50 Afghans suspected to be drug traffickers with Taliban links on a list of people to be "captured or killed", the New York Times reports.

Two American generals have told the US Congress that the policy is legal under the military's rules of engagement and international law, the paper says.

In a report, yet to be released, it was described as a key strategy to disrupt the flow of drug money to the Taliban.

The move is a major shift in America's counter-narcotics drive in Afghanistan.

In interviews with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which is due to release the report later this week, two American generals serving in Afghanistan said that major traffickers with proven links to the insurgency have been put on the "joint integrated prioritised target list", the New York Times reported.

That means they have been given the same target status as insurgent leaders, and can be captured or killed at any time.

It quoted one of the generals as telling the committee: "We have a list of 367 'kill or capture' targets, including 50 nexus targets who link drugs and the insurgency."

The generals were not identified in the Senate report, the paper said.

Poppy destruction

For many years, US policy in Afghanistan focused on destroying poppy crops.

But in March Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy to the region, said that US efforts to eradicate opium poppy crops in Afghanistan had been "wasteful and ineffective".

He said efforts to eradicate poppy cultivation had failed to make an impact on the Taliban insurgents' ability to raise money from the drugs trade.

The BBC's Jill McGivering says that the proposal is the latest evidence that the Obama administration wants to try a new approach.

The strategy of eradicating poppy crops has been difficult partly because many of the key growing areas are under Taliban control, our correspondent says.

The new willingness to intervene is also recognition of the corrosive effect the drugs trade is having on the country.

As well as funding the Taliban, it is also fuelling organised crime and corruption, our correspondent says.

The southern Afghan province of Helmand is the main producer of Afghan opium, which accounts for more than 90% of the global supply.

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Fight back against health insurance lies

Forget Shorter Showers Why personal change does not equal political change

Forget Shorter Showers

Why personal change does not equal political change

by Derrick Jensen

Published in the July/August 2009 issue of Orion magazine

WOULD ANY SANE PERSON think dumpster diving would have stopped Hitler, or that composting would have ended slavery or brought about the eight-hour workday, or that chopping wood and carrying water would have gotten people out of Tsarist prisons, or that dancing naked around a fire would have helped put in place the Voting Rights Act of 1957 or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Then why now, with all the world at stake, do so many people retreat into these entirely personal “solutions”?

Part of the problem is that we’ve been victims of a campaign of systematic misdirection. Consumer culture and the capitalist mindset have taught us to substitute acts of personal consumption (or enlightenment) for organized political resistance. An Inconvenient Truth helped raise consciousness about global warming. But did you notice that all of the solutions presented had to do with personal consumption—changing light bulbs, inflating tires, driving half as much—and had nothing to do with shifting power away from corporations, or stopping the growth economy that is destroying the planet? Even if every person in the United States did everything the movie suggested, U.S. carbon emissions would fall by only 22 percent. Scientific consensus is that emissions must be reduced by at least 75 percent worldwide.

Or let’s talk water. We so often hear that the world is running out of water. People are dying from lack of water. Rivers are dewatered from lack of water. Because of this we need to take shorter showers. See the disconnect? Because I take showers, I’m responsible for drawing down aquifers? Well, no. More than 90 percent of the water used by humans is used by agriculture and industry. The remaining 10 percent is split between municipalities and actual living breathing individual humans. Collectively, municipal golf courses use as much water as municipal human beings. People (both human people and fish people) aren’t dying because the world is running out of water. They’re dying because the water is being stolen.

Or let’s talk energy. Kirkpatrick Sale summarized it well: “For the past 15 years the story has been the same every year: individual consumption—residential, by private car, and so on—is never more than about a quarter of all consumption; the vast majority is commercial, industrial, corporate, by agribusiness and government [he forgot military]. So, even if we all took up cycling and wood stoves it would have a negligible impact on energy use, global warming and atmospheric pollution.”

Or let’s talk waste. In 2005, per-capita municipal waste production (basically everything that’s put out at the curb) in the U.S. was about 1,660 pounds. Let’s say you’re a die-hard simple-living activist, and you reduce this to zero. You recycle everything. You bring cloth bags shopping. You fix your toaster. Your toes poke out of old tennis shoes. You’re not done yet, though. Since municipal waste includes not just residential waste, but also waste from government offices and businesses, you march to those offices, waste reduction pamphlets in hand, and convince them to cut down on their waste enough to eliminate your share of it. Uh, I’ve got some bad news. Municipal waste accounts for only 3 percent of total waste production in the United States.

I want to be clear. I’m not saying we shouldn’t live simply. I live reasonably simply myself, but I don’t pretend that not buying much (or not driving much, or not having kids) is a powerful political act, or that it’s deeply revolutionary. It’s not. Personal change doesn’t equal social change.

So how, then, and especially with all the world at stake, have we come to accept these utterly insufficient responses? I think part of it is that we’re in a double bind. A double bind is where you’re given multiple options, but no matter what option you choose, you lose, and withdrawal is not an option. At this point, it should be pretty easy to recognize that every action involving the industrial economy is destructive (and we shouldn’t pretend that solar photovoltaics, for example, exempt us from this: they still require mining and transportation infrastructures at every point in the production processes; the same can be said for every other so-called green technology). So if we choose option one—if we avidly participate in the industrial economy—we may in the short term think we win because we may accumulate wealth, the marker of “success” in this culture. But we lose, because in doing so we give up our empathy, our animal humanity. And we really lose because industrial civilization is killing the planet, which means everyone loses. If we choose the “alternative” option of living more simply, thus causing less harm, but still not stopping the industrial economy from killing the planet, we may in the short term think we win because we get to feel pure, and we didn’t even have to give up all of our empathy (just enough to justify not stopping the horrors), but once again we really lose because industrial civilization is still killing the planet, which means everyone still loses. The third option, acting decisively to stop the industrial economy, is very scary for a number of reasons, including but not restricted to the fact that we’d lose some of the luxuries (like electricity) to which we’ve grown accustomed, and the fact that those in power might try to kill us if we seriously impede their ability to exploit the world—none of which alters the fact that it’s a better option than a dead planet. Any option is a better option than a dead planet.

Besides being ineffective at causing the sorts of changes necessary to stop this culture from killing the planet, there are at least four other problems with perceiving simple living as a political act (as opposed to living simply because that’s what you want to do). The first is that it’s predicated on the flawed notion that humans inevitably harm their landbase. Simple living as a political act consists solely of harm reduction, ignoring the fact that humans can help the Earth as well as harm it. We can rehabilitate streams, we can get rid of noxious invasives, we can remove dams, we can disrupt a political system tilted toward the rich as well as an extractive economic system, we can destroy the industrial economy that is destroying the real, physical world.

The second problem—and this is another big one—is that it incorrectly assigns blame to the individual (and most especially to individuals who are particularly powerless) instead of to those who actually wield power in this system and to the system itself. Kirkpatrick Sale again: “The whole individualist what-you-can-do-to-save-the-earth guilt trip is a myth. We, as individuals, are not creating the crises, and we can’t solve them.”

The third problem is that it accepts capitalism’s redefinition of us from citizens to consumers. By accepting this redefinition, we reduce our potential forms of resistance to consuming and not consuming. Citizens have a much wider range of available resistance tactics, including voting, not voting, running for office, pamphleting, boycotting, organizing, lobbying, protesting, and, when a government becomes destructive of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, we have the right to alter or abolish it.

The fourth problem is that the endpoint of the logic behind simple living as a political act is suicide. If every act within an industrial economy is destructive, and if we want to stop this destruction, and if we are unwilling (or unable) to question (much less destroy) the intellectual, moral, economic, and physical infrastructures that cause every act within an industrial economy to be destructive, then we can easily come to believe that we will cause the least destruction possible if we are dead.

The good news is that there are other options. We can follow the examples of brave activists who lived through the difficult times I mentioned—Nazi Germany, Tsarist Russia, antebellum United States—who did far more than manifest a form of moral purity; they actively opposed the injustices that surrounded them. We can follow the example of those who remembered that the role of an activist is not to navigate systems of oppressive power with as much integrity as possible, but rather to confront and take down those systems.

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Single Payer Summer: We Demand National Single-Payer Or At Least the Right for States to Do It

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009
Single Payer Summer: We Demand National Single-Payer Or At Least the Right for States to Do It ...by David Swanson

After Downing Street

The U.S. House of Representatives has committed to bringing single-payer healthcare to a vote following summer recess. Stranger things have happened, greater obstacles have been overcome, than what would be involved in winning that vote, winning in the Senate, and compelling the president to sign the bill. We have a moral responsibility to put everything we have into trying; and even a near-victory will advance the cause.

But it is important to recognize exactly how that promise of a floor vote on single-payer came to be, what else is at stake, and what we are up against. Being properly informed, I think, will not diminish by one iota the ferocity of our campaign for justice, but it will alter our strategy by adding a secondary demand to it. For those either too mentally feeble, or -- much more commonly -- who imagine their fellow citizens to be too mentally feeble, to keep two tiny things in their heads at once, I don't know what to say other than: please throw away your television.

When Antonio Gramsci referred to the pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will, I think he meant to renounce the idea that one can best campaign for justice if filled up with false beliefs that victory will be easy. I think one can best campaign for justice if one knows exactly what one is up against but doesn't give a damn how grim that picture appears.

So, here's the truth. Congress is not voting on single-payer healthcare purely because we forced it to, or because the bill is (prior to our shaking the country up this summer) even remotely likely to pass. Our advocacy for single-payer has had an impact. We're a big reason why some congress members are fighting for a public option. Whether or not you consider any of the current versions of public option worth the paper they're written on, the fact is they'd be weaker without the public demand for single-payer, and were that demand stronger so would the public option be. Our work has also led to passage in the House Education and Labor Committee of an amendment that would make it easier for states to create single-payer systems. And our advocacy led to the promise of a floor vote on single payer in the fall.

But the floor vote was negotiated as an alternative to a vote in the Energy and Commerce Committee. We lost the opportunity to have a vote there. And the Democratic Party leadership, which largely takes its orders from the White House on this, was not so much afraid that single-payer would win on the merits, as that it would pass because Republicans voted for it purely out of spite. The Democratic "leaders" badly wanted to get a bill out of that committee before August, a bill that would at least vaguely resemble the bills passed by two other House committees. Rather than risk failing in that goal, they preferred to allow a floor vote later that would not interfere with the bill they want to pass, and which itself -- at least in their minds -- would be extremely unlikely to succeed.

Allowing such a vote would have another positive side-effect from the point of view of those in charge: it would overwhelmingly distract attention from the state single-payer language passed by the Education and Labor Committee. From their point of view, national single-payer will not pass on the floor this year, not with them whipping hard against it and the Republicans opposing it. But if the language on allowing states to do state-level single-payer is left in the bill that they whip for and pass, it's unlikely to cost them any Blue Dog votes, and it's likely to result in a number of states fairly quickly taking actions that accelerate public awareness of the shortcomings of the federal reforms.

From the point of view of people who really want to get our population better healthcare and who have not been purchased by insurance, drug, and hospital companies, lobbying for Yes votes on single-payer AND lobbying to leave the states language in the non-single-payer bill (or at least allow a vote on it) seems to make a lot of sense. We're saying that we want single-payer nationally, but that if they won't give it to us right away, we at least want states to be left free to lead the way. Canada arrived at its system after a province led the way, and the first state likely to create single-payer, California, is about the same size as Canada. If Canada's system does so much good, why would we deny the same to California?

For those lobbying directly for a public option, it also makes perfect sense to demand freedom for states to do better faster. If the goal is providing more people with better healthcare, if the goal is not to avoid making the federal government look second best, if the goal is not to achieve a perverse hyper-simplicity of "messaging," then including the state single-payer language in August demands is the way to go.

Does mentioning allowing states to do single-payer subtract from demanding that the nation do it? I can't see how.

Does avoiding the topic risk tossing aside our best chance at advancing the cause? Absolutely.

Here's the message we should have: We demand national single-payer or at least the right for states to do it.

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Mystery of Taliban chiefs deepens

Baitullah Mehsud has been blamed for suicide attacks on Western forces

Confusion surrounds the leadership of the Taliban in Pakistan after reports of a gun battle between potential successors to leader Baitullah Mehsud.

Pakistani officials have said they had "credible evidence" that Baitullah Mehsud had died in a US drone attack.

But a senior Taliban commander, Hakimullah Mehsud, contacted the BBC to say his chief was alive and well.

Now officials in Islamabad say Hakimullah was himself one of those killed in a fight over succession.

The BBC's Aleem Maqbool, in Islamabad, says the situation is very unclear and information is based on rumours from deep inside militant territory in north-west Pakistan.

The US and Pakistani governments say their intelligence suggests Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a US rocket attack on Wednesday.

Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik told the BBC that they had received reports that a meeting of Taliban commanders in South Waziristan, called to decide on the movement's new leadership, turned into a gunbattle.

The unconfirmed reports say that Hakimullah Mehsud, a deputy to Baitullah Mehsud, was killed.

The 'Shura' (party leaders) are at loggerheads with one another. This is going to grow in the coming days Maulvi Saifullah Mehsud

However, Hakimullah Mehsud had earlier contacted the BBC to say his chief was still alive.

Mr Malik said the other Taliban leader allegedly involved in the shootout was Waliur Rehman.

He challenged the Taliban to prove its leaders are still alive.

But Taliban commanders have dismissed the challenge as a ploy to flush them out into the open.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for a Taliban group that was opposed to Baitullah Mehsud, Maulvi Saifullah Mehsud, said Baitullah's supporters were turning on one another in the struggle to find a new leader.

"Differences have arisen between the followers of Baitullah, that is why they are claiming that he is not dead," he said.

"The 'Shura' (party leaders) are at loggerheads with one another. This is going to grow in the coming days. God willing, the infighting will get worse."

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