World lacks enough food, fuel as population soars: U.N.

(I am borrowing this story - first posted in Late Breaking News but locked there - it may also be in Good Reads) I found it interesting because I'm sure the markets are salivating over the opportunity to raise prices on all commodities described herein. But to me the article simply points out how unsustainable capitalism is and why we must transform to socialism as quickly as we can to save our planet.


By Nina Chestney

LONDON | Mon Jan 30, 2012 4:07pm EST

(Reuters) - The world is running out of time to make sure there is enough food, water and energy to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population and to avoid sending up to 3 billion people into poverty, a U.N. report warned on Monday.

As the world's population looks set to grow to nearly 9 billion by 2040 from 7 billion now, and the number of middle-class consumers increases by 3 billion over the next 20 years, the demand for resources will rise exponentially.

Even by 2030, the world will need at least 50 percent more food, 45 percent more energy and 30 percent more water, according to U.N. estimates, at a time when a changing environment is creating new limits to supply.

And if the world fails to tackle these problems, it risks condemning up to 3 billion people into poverty, the report said.

Efforts towards sustainable development are neither fast enough nor deep enough, as well as suffering from a lack of political will, the United Nations' high-level panel on global sustainability said.

"The current global development model is unsustainable. To achieve sustainability, a transformation of the global economy is required," the report said.

"Tinkering on the margins will not do the job. The current global economic crisis ... offers an opportunity for significant reforms." ...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/30/us-un-development-idUSTRE80T10520120130

2011: A year of fighting back

1. Resistance to FBI repression

Fight Back!’s most extensive coverage in 2011 was of the ongoing struggle to stop FBI repression of anti-war and international solidarity activists. On Sept. 24, 2010 several activists’ homes were raided by the FBI in Chicago and Minneapolis and 23 activists were called before a grand jury investigating “material support for terrorism” charges. They all refused to testify, and so far nobody has been indicted or jailed. The movement to defend the anti-war and solidarity activists is a high priority for Fight Back!. On May 18, Fight Back! reported on the Unveiling of secret documents the FBI accidentally left behind at one of the activists’ homes they raided last September. The documents gave their operational plans and a series of McCarthyistic questions they planned to ask people about their relationship to Freedom Road Socialist Organization and other groups. A day later, the number of targeted activists grew to 24 and Fight Back! reported on a new raid related to the September 2010 raids, when the FBI and LA Sheriff deputies FBI and Los Angeles County Sheriff raided the home of veteran Chicano activist Carlos Montes. We then reported on the immediate protests by supporters of Carlos Montes denouncing the FBI/Sheriff's raid, and demanding that all charges be dropped.

Fight Back! gave political analysis of the FBI raids, their context, and the struggle ahead as the one year anniversary of the 2010 raids came. First was a statement on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks: September 11 ten years later: Pretext for war and repression. Then was a statement calling for people to stand against repression, drop the charges against Carlos Montes and prepare for more challenges ahead. Finally there was a statement from the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, One year since the September 24 FBI raids and Grand Jury subpoenas.

Much more here: http://www.fightbacknews.org/2011/12/30/2011-year-fighting-back-against-oppression-and-repression

Austerity Reigns Over Euro Zone as Crisis Deepens

Do we have any European socialists in our group? Although the article thinks the US is doing a little better (based on bogus employment figures), I tend to think this year may usher in more austerity both in Europe and here. Unless they hold off until after the election of course, I suppose that is possible. Thoughts?

By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ
Published: January 1, 2012

Europe’s leaders braced their nations for a turbulent year, with their beleaguered economies facing a threat on two fronts: widening deficits that force more borrowing but increasing austerity measures that put growth further out of reach.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy will meet on Jan. 9 with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss a new fiscal treaty intended to impose stringent budget requirements on European Union nations.

Saying that Europe was facing its “harshest test in decades,” Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany warned on New Year’s Eve that “next year will no doubt be more difficult than 2011” — a marked change in tone from a year ago, when she praised Germans for “mastering the crisis as no other nation.”

Her blunt message was echoed in Italy, France and Greece, the epicenter of the debt crisis, where Prime Minister Lucas Papademos asked for resolve in seeing reforms through, “so that the sacrifices we have made up to now won’t be in vain.”

While the economic picture in the United States has brightened recently with more upbeat employment figures, Europe remains mired in a slump. Most economists are forecasting a recession for 2012, which will heighten the pressure governments and financial institutions across the Continent are seeing.

Adding to the gloomy outlook is the prospect of a downgrade in France’s sterling credit rating, a move that analysts say could happen early in the new year and have wide-ranging consequences on efforts to stabilize Europe’s finances. ..

More here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/02/business/global/in-euro-zone-austerity-seems-to-hit-its-limits.html?_r=1&smid=fb-nytimes&WT.mc_id=BU-E-FB-SM-LIN-ARO-010212-NYT-NA&WT.mc_ev=click


Petros Giannakouris/Associated Press
In Athens, homeless people have a New Year’s Day meal. Prime Minister Lucas Papademos has warned of a “very difficult year.”

Happy New Year Comrades -

Do they know it's Christmas?

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate -

Globalism=Capitalism=Occupy the World

This is why our fight must be global. There are roughly 1200 billionaires in the world (source - wiki), and they live a global lifestyle. Along with living wherever they choose (which often includes multiple homes), they buy and sell their companies and products on a global level, and use our labor globally. "Proletarians of all countries, unite!" was true in 1848 when Marx wrote it, and even more true now. If we have any hope of fighting back it must be on that scale.

The story that sparked my post this morning -

Billionaire's Daughter Pays Record Sum for NYC Pad
ForbesBy Luisa Kroll | Forbes – 12 hours ago

Former Citigroup chairman Sandy Weill listed his 6,744-sq-ft apartment at 15 Central Park West for an astonishing $88 million in November, promising to donate the proceeds of the sale to charity.

Now comes news that Ekaterina Rybolovleva, the 22-year-old daughter of Russian billionaire Dmitriy Rybolovlev, is buying the condominium. Rybolovleva is currently studying at an undisclosed U.S. university and plans to stay in the apartment when visiting New York. According to a source familiar with the sale, she paid the full asking price of $88 million, setting a record for highest individual transaction in New York City history.

Here is the official statement from her representatives: A company associated with Ekaterina Rybolovleva, daughter of a well-known businessman Dmitriy Rybolovlev, has signed a contract to purchase an apartment at 15 Central Park West, New York. The apartment is a condominium currently owned by the Sanford Weill Family.

Entire article here: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/billionaire-s-daughter-pays-record-sum-for-nyc-pad.html

NDAA

As far as I know this has not yet been signed, but could be at any moment. Thoughts?


Here's a story from the 14th -

US: Refusal to Veto Detainee Bill A Historic Tragedy for Rights
President Decides to Sign Ill-Conceived National Defense Authorization Act
December 14, 2011

(Washington, DC) – US President Barack Obama’s apparent decision to not veto a defense spending bill that codifies indefinite detention without trial into US law and expands the military’s role in holding terrorism suspects does enormous damage to the rule of law both in the US and abroad, Human Rights Watch said today. The Obama administration had threatened to veto the bill, the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), over detainee provisions, but on December 14, 2011, it issued a statement indicating the president would likely sign the legislation.

“By signing this defense spending bill, President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “In the past, Obama has lauded the importance of being on the right side of history, but today he is definitely on the wrong side.”

http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/12/14/us-refusal-veto-detainee-bill-historic-tragedy-rights

Christopher Hitchens - NY Times Obit

I wasn't a fan of this guy, but have seen many on the left memorializing him today. He was known as a socialist (Trotskyist) earlier in life, yet wound up supporting the war in Iraq. Thoughts from this group??


Christopher Hitchens, 1949-2011
Polemicist Who Slashed All, Freely, With Wit
By WILLIAM GRIMES
Published: December 16, 2011

Christopher Hitchens, a slashing polemicist in the tradition of Thomas Paine and George Orwell who trained his sights on targets as various as Henry Kissinger, the British monarchy and Mother Teresa, wrote a best-seller attacking religious belief, and dismayed his former comrades on the left by enthusiastically supporting the American-led war in Iraq, died on Thursday in Houston. He was 62.

The cause was pneumonia, a complication of esophageal cancer, Vanity Fair magazine said in announcing the death, at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. Mr. Hitchens, who lived in Washington, learned he had cancer while on a publicity tour in 2010 for his memoir, “Hitch-22,” and began writing and, on television, speaking about his illness frequently.

“In whatever kind of a ‘race’ life may be, I have very abruptly become a finalist,” Mr. Hitchens wrote in Vanity Fair, for which he was a contributing editor.

He took pains to emphasize that he had not revised his position on atheism, articulated in his best-selling 2007 book, “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything,” although he did express amused appreciation at the hope, among some concerned Christians, that he might undergo a late-life conversion.

< snip >

Mr. Hitchens, a British Trotskyite who had lost faith in the Socialist movement, spent much of his life wandering the globe and reporting on the world’s trouble spots for The Nation magazine, the British newsmagazine The New Statesman and other publications.

His work took him to Northern Ireland, Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, Spain and Argentina in the 1970s, generally to shine a light on the evil practices of entrenched dictators or the imperial machinations of the great powers...

Read the entire piece here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/arts/christopher-hitchens-is-dead-at-62-obituary.html?pagewanted=all

Jury Duty

Much to my surprise I am enjoying DU Jury Duty. I have done it 5 times and nearly every time I've had to really think it out and leave an explanation for my choice. The first 4 times we voted to leave the post alone, the last one hasn't been decided yet.

Kind of a cool system, particularly since it's random and you don't know who the other 5 jurors are. Modding is a hard job when you are in that position and this makes it less stressful knowing there are 5 others working with you on each post. Bravo to the Admins for coming up with something new and more democratic.

Protesters shut down Washington DC lobbying firms

Once again we turn to Europe for reporting of resistance in our country - this is the first I've seen of this story. Excellent idea to obstruct the lobbyists. Back when I did legal support in Washington I saw the process in action. One way corporations can sway the government is through these lobbyists. The lobbying firms (and/or associations) hire lawyers to write suggested legislation and send it to folks on the hill. This used to involve running things back and forth manually - but may well be done electronically now. Turning the spotlight on these folks and explaining how they work is important.


World Protesters shut down Washington DC lobbying firms
Thursday 08 December 2011
by Our Foreign Desk

Police arrested more than 60 people in Washington on Wednesday for shutting down the heart of the US corporate lobbying industry as part of a week-long union-backed campaign.

Over 1,000 protesters, including hundreds of trade unionists, unemployed people and clergy, staged the sit-in on rain-sodden K Street at midday to highlight the corrupting influence of big capital on the political process.

They chanted: "We Are The 99 per cent" and waved union banners and placards reading: "Democracy is not for sale."

Members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represents health and public-sector workers, are playing a leading role in the Take Back the Capitol campaign, which aims to remind members of Congress that they are meant to represent ordinary US citizens, not huge corporations.

"No amount of rain can faze those battered by the storm of economic injustice and corporate greed," the SEIU declared as protesters shut down K Street.

Police threatened to arrest the protesters for obstruction. They moved in when hundreds stayed put and officers hauled 62 into waiting police vans.

<snip>

Read entire article here: http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/content/view/full/112915