Dick Bennett's Anthologies focused on Stopping US Wars & Nuclear Holocaust and Stopping Warming & Climate Calamity, including examinations of their causes, consequences, and cures
·World BEYOND War: Use the United Nations to End the War on Gaza.
· PEACE BY
PEACE: 99 Steps Toward Violence
Prevention and De-escalation.
Peace in Korea and NE Asia
US REJECTION OF NK PEACE PROPOSALS BEGINNING IN 1990s, LEADING TO KIM
JONG-UN’S New Year’s address on January 15, 2024 severing ties with the more than
thirty years of peaceful reunification pursued by North Korea’s two previous
leaders, and leading to the urgent need to see the world as others see it, in
order to change our manner of thinking.
[This major scholarly article (over 500 Notes), that attempts to
understand NK as their leaders understand it, might seem baffling to US
readers, accustomed as we are to a demonized NK. Anyone growing up in the US anti-communist
propaganda regime will find section after section of the article a shock to their
inculcated system of assumptions regarding that nuclear nation. –Dick]
World
BEYOND War: Tell World Governments to Use the United Nations to End the
War on Gaza.
The
crime of genocide is happening. The intentional destruction of a people, in
whole or in part, is genocide. The law is meant to be used to prevent it, not
just review it after the fact.
We sent over half a million
emails to key governments urging them to invoke the genocide
convention at the International Court of Justice. South Africa did so, charging
Israel with genocide. Nicaragua, Mexico, Libya, Colombia, and others formally
filed declarations of intervention in support of the case. The court has
ordered Israel to cease its genocidal acts, and the prosecutor of the
International Criminal Court has requested arrest warrants. We sent over 200,000 emails urging
governments to use United Nations General Assembly Resolution 377 (Uniting For Peace) which
allows the General Assembly to act when the Security Council fails. The General
Assambly has now passed a resolution, but it does not go far enough.
[The
following book is offered by a publisher as an investment, or
“kickstarter.” I
don’t know much about this publishing gambit, but I do like PM Press. --D] PEACE BY
PEACE: 99 Steps Toward Violence
Prevention and De-escalation. PM Press, 2024.
Publisher’s
description: Peace by Peace: 99 Steps
Toward Violence Prevention and De-escalation shares Ian Brennan’s
decades of experience successfully providing violence prevention & crisis
resolution training. This book is
designed to help us navigate violence, conflict, and resolution in these
tumultuous times. k is designed to help us navigate violence, conflict, and
resolution in these tumultuous
Codepink on US Climate Hypocrisy v. China. Adam Hanieh.“…Oil, Corporate
Power.” Climate and Capitalism, October 2040.
Giraffe Hero:Colette
Pichon Battle.
US, CHINA,
AND CLIMATE “Tell US Climate Envoy John Podesta:STOP THE CLIMATE HYPOCRISY!”CODEPINK.9-26-24
Dear Dick,
Earlier this month, US climate envoy John Podesta met with Chinese Foreign
Minister Wang Yi to discuss financing for global climate initiatives. This is
one of many meetings where US officials criticize China’s
sustainability strategies, demanding Beijing do more, while
simultaneously undermining its efforts.
The US treats China’s
growing dominance over the “green economy” as a security threat, and labels China’s efforts to invest in
green energy projects in the Global South as “geopolitical
expansionism.”
The message is clear:
The US wants China to contribute to the climate effort… but only in ways the
Biden administration deems acceptable. This contradictory approach will
only hinder the global effort to convert to renewable energy
and delay climate goals. We need urgent action to counter
climate change, which will only happen if our leaders work together,
not against one another.
Adam Hanieh’s new book, Crude Capitalism: Oil,
Corporate Power, and the Making of the World Market (Verso,
2024) could not be timelier. As all eyes turn to Baku for COP29, the capitalist
world heads to yet another performance of misdirection. In contrast to that
monumental deception, we need to see things as they really stand and take
action accordingly. So, let’s take a deep dive and get the record straight, the
basic problem remains that capitalism is destroying planet Earth at an
accelerating pace.Crude Capitalism—hereafter CC—goes a long way to explaining why the capitalist
powers remain so fully committed to oil, come what may.
CC is deeply impressive for the range it covers and the quality
of the analysis. Hanieh’s explanation of how the global oil industry became
central to global capitalism is comprehensive and compelling. The arguments
presented cover the role of oil in the capitalist system over the long
twentieth century, explaining the many connections with the ascendancy of the
US as the dominant imperialist power. . . .MORE
NEW ARTICLES
IN CLIMATE & CAPITALISM Ecosocialist
Bookshelf, October 2024New books on oil, empire, the science of death, fungal health threats,
degrowth, and socialist strategy.Source
Colette Pichon Battleleft a career as a
corporate attorney after Hurricane Katrina devastated her childhood home ground
in rural Louisiana. Her new work is helping people without wealth deal with
the threat of the climate crisis. Her nonprofit Taproot Earth trains
endangered communities and lobbies for the policies and funding that are needed
for survival. Learn more here. [Tell me if you know of someone in AR who provides
a similar service, and I will pass on the info.]
END OMNI
CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, #200, OCTOBER 14,
2024.Compiled by Dick Bennett.
America today believes that when it comes to foreign policy, we are possessed with the “Midas Touch”—everything we do turns to gold. But the reality is, just like King Midas of old, everything we touch dies.
King Midas was a Phrygian King believed to rule in the 2nd Millenium BC, whose territory encompassed the area of what is modern day Anatolian Plateau around the present-day city of Ankara.
Publius Ovidius Naso, the Roman poet better known as Ovid, told the tale of King Midas in volume 11 of his 15-book anthology of Greek logical narrative, Metamorphoses. There, Midas befriended the satyr Silenus who, as a reward for Midas’ hospitality, granted the Phrygian King a wish. Midas wished that everything he touched turned to gold. The wish was granted, and soon Midas was overjoyed by his ability to instantly create wealth. However, the fulfilled wish soon became a curse, for when Midas tried to eat food or drink, he could not do so, because it turned to gold at his touch. When his daughter tried to console him, he touched her, turning her into gold, thereby killing her. Midas finished his life alone, parched and starved.
There is no better analogy for America’s self-anointed role as global hegemon than that of King Midas.
We hold a privileged position, and yet we want more, so much so that our insatiable greed for power and wealth leaves us blind to their consequence.
We call the “American Midas Touch” by many names—we are the exceptional nation, the indispensable nation, the guardian of the rules based international order we ourselves wrote.
Democracy is our “gold,” and we seek to reach out and “touch” as many nations as possible with the wonderful “gift.”
President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken address the Summit for Democracy, March 2023
In his National Security Strategy, published in October 2022, President Joe Biden articulated his vision of how and why America should lead the world. “Our world,” Biden wrote, “is at an inflection point.” The need for American leadership, Biden declared, is “as great as it has ever been,” especially in the present time, where America and its allies find themselves “in the midst of a strategic competition to shape the future of the international order.” The United States, Biden asserted, “will continue to defend democracy around the world” grounded in the “basic belief that the rules-based order must remain the foundation for global peace and prosperity.”
Biden has called the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine a clear test for democracies around the world, labeling it a “great battle for freedom.”
Scott will discuss this article and answer audience questions on Ep. 203 of Ask the Inspector. Call us during the show at 520.525.8359 or click here to submit your question in advance.
But our motivations aren’t purely derived from moral benevolence; US officials openly brag about how US military aid to Ukraine directly benefits the American Defense Industrial Base (DIB)—perhaps better known by the name given to it by former President Dwight Eisenhower, the “military industrial complex.” The $44 billion dollar package dispatched to Ukraine earlier this year was sold as a vehicle to strengthen the DIB by injecting $27 billion into the coffers of defense contractors spread out in some 37 states.
And spreading “democracy” in Ukraine isn’t our only objective—Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, recently called Ukraine a “goldmine” under which sits some $12-15 trillion in mineral deposits which the US and its allies “can’t afford to lose” to Russia.
Biden and the United States touched Ukraine.
Ukrainian soldier’s graves
And Ukraine died.
Biden invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attend his “democracy summit” back in March 2023, and nodded in agreement when Netanyahu proclaimed that the “alliance between the world’s greatest democracy and the strong, proud and independent democracy—Israel—in the heart of the Middle East is unshakeable.”
Seven months later Hamas attacked Israel, initiating a conflict which has escalated into a regional war which threatens to impact global energy security and international principles of nuclear non-proliferation. Tens of thousands—perhaps hundreds of thousands—of innocent civilians have perished because of “democratic” Israel’s apartheid policies and genocidal behaviors.
But war is good for the American DIB, which has pumped billions of dollars of weapons and ammunition into Israel’s killing machine since the conflict started.
Israel has also emerged as a significant producer of natural gas and is positioning itself to reduce Europe’s dependency on Russian energy—last year Israel was able to supply Europe with 10 billion cubic meters of gas, and this number is expected to rise.
One of the threats posed to Israel’s gas industry is the inherent instability of the situation between Israel and Hezbollah, in Lebanon, and by extension Hezbollah’s regional ally, Iran. The recent decision by Israel to expand its military operations into Lebanon seems driven by a desire to eliminate both Hezbollah and Iran as regional threats to the Israeli gas industry.
Greed, it seems, is the driver of most policies that are justified in the name of national security.
Gold.
Biden touched Israel and the Middle East.
And the Palestinians and Lebanese died.
A Palestinian mother holds her dead child, 2024
Ask the Georgian people about the American “Midas touch.”
We infiltrated Georgian society in the name of “democracy,” using soft-power instruments operating under the guise of “aid” (courtesy of Samantha Power and the US Agency for International Development), dispensing US-funded largesse through “non-governmental organizations” such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), literally created in the 1980’s to supplant regime-change activities carried out by the CIA (and, as if to prove that the NED has not forgotten its roots, Victoria Nuland, the neo-conservative policy hawk who oversaw the 2014 Maidan coup in Ukraine, was just appointed to the NED Board of Directors). Half of the monies disbursed by the NED annually are allocated to four outlets—the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (associated with the AFL–CIO), the Center for International Private Enterprise (affiliated with the US Chamber of Commerce), the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (associated with the Democratic Party), and the International Republican Institute (affiliated with the Republican Party).
Nothing screams money and politics like these four organizations.
Georgians march in opposition to the foreign agent’s registration law
And nothing could be farther from genuine democracy than the mission of the NED, which is by design intended to supplant sovereignty and replace it with American subservience.
Once upon a time, the Republic of Georgia celebrated “American democracy,” so much so that they put accession to both the European Union (EU) and NATO as constitutionally-binding requirements.
But when Georgia stood up to the tyranny of USAID and NED, requiring NGO’s that received 20% or more of their funding from foreign sources to register as foreign agents, the Biden administration responded by enacting economic sanctions and pulling back military support.
By refusing to be touched by the American Midas, Georgia will live to pursue its sovereign goals and objectives unencumbered by American politics and greed.
Not all nations have been so wise, and as such, so fortunate as Georgia.
There was a time when America was home to a nation of builders, citizens who worked to construct the infrastructure that would serve as the foundation of their nation. Men epitomized by characters such as Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey, in Frank Capra’s 1946 holiday classic, It’s a Wonderful Life. George dreamed of being an engineer, and traveling the world, building great things.
Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, 1946
The reality behind this fictional character is that when Jimmy Stewart portrayed him, he was less than a year removed from his own wartime service as a pilot flying B-24 bombers over Europe. He was grounded in the final months of the war for being “flak happy”—what today is known as post-traumatic stress disorder. He had nightmares of exploding airplanes and men screaming over the radio as they fell to their deaths (in one mission, Stewart’s squadron lost 13 aircraft and 130 men, most of whom were known to Jimmy).
The scenes in the movie where George Bailey suffered a nervous breakdown and tried to kill himself wasn’t acting as much as it was therapy, with Jimmy Stewart relieving his own personal demons before the camera.
Jimmy Stewart believed in the America that was portrayed in the film, a land where kindness and generosity could triumph over avarice and cruelty. America, to him, was a land filled with George Baileys, trying to make life better for everyone they met.
George Kennan, author of the “Long Telegram,” February 1946
But the dreams and aspirations of pre-war America evaporated in the reality of a post-war America where the Masters of War took precedent over a nation of builders. Death and destruction quickly became the coin of the realm, all in the name of seeking to impose a vision of American hegemony over a globe once dominated by Empires composed of friend and foe alike. Indeed, the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union was triggered by Moscow’s refusal to subordinate itself financially to the American-led rules based international order more than anything else—Stalin’s opposition to joining the Bretton Wood’s institutions of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). His opposition was given voice in a speech delivered on February 9, 1946, where he extolled the strength of the Soviet economy as it compared to those of “world capitalists” like the United States and Europe. This led to George Kennan writing his now-famous “long telegram”, which in turn spawned the Truman-era of containment, which led to the Cold War.
The Cold War was about money, not ideology.
It was about the need for the United States to assert economic control over the post-war world.
It was about gold.
We touched Korea, and Koreans died.
Vietnamese victims of America: The Mai Lai massacre, 1968
We touched Vietnam, and the Vietnamese died (so, too, did Jimmy Stewart’s son, who was commissioned in the US Marines and died in combat leading his Marines in an action that would earn him a posthumous Silver Star medal).
We touched South and Central America, and the citizens of these lands died.
We touched Africa, and the Africans died.
We touched Afghanistan, and the Afghans died.
We touched Iraq, and the Iraqis died.
Everything we touched, died.
Everything we touch dies.
Americans would be hard-pressed to find one instance of American post-war policy intervention that did not manifest itself into death and destruction.
The America curse.
The American Midas Touch.
Senator Lindsey Graham
And this is the part most Americans fail to comprehend. There are those among us, like Senator Lindsey Graham, whose faces can contort into a combined smile-sneer as they speak about the financial benefit America will accrue by embarking on its path of blood-soaked hegemony.
But they forget the end of the Midas story.
A king driven mad by hunger and thirst, void of friends and family, because the happiness sought through the pursuit of gold only, in the end, left him surrounded by death and famine.
Subscribed