Alice's blog

At the moment it is abundantly easy to sense everywhere in the Arab World elation at what appears to be one of greatest events in modern Arab history.

A genuine popular revolution, spontaneous and apparently leaderless, yet sustained and remarkably determined, overthrew a system that by all accounts had been the most entrenched and secure in the whole region. The wider implications beyond Tunisia are hard to miss. Just as in the case of the Iranian revolution more than three decades ago, what is now happening in Tunisia is watched by all in the Arab world--as either a likely model of the transformation to come in their respective countries, or at least as a badly needed source of revolutionary inspiration.

The Iranian revolution, too, had unexpectedly toppled what then seemed to be the most entrenched and secure regime in the region. Now the Tunisian revolution appears to be part of a more immediate pattern; mass demonstrations had been taking place in Algeria and Jordan, and virtually all commentators are drawing parallels to their own countries. Since the popular uprising in Sudan that toppled Jafar Numeiry in 1985, there has been no genuine (and equally peaceful) popular revolt against an Arab regime. And the outcome, thus far, of the Tunisian revolution of 2011 seems more promising than that of Sudan in 1985, where the military took over and diffused the revolutionary moment. In the case of Tunisia, the army has remained on the sidelines, and the transition is thus far perfectly constitutional?although more radical voices of the revolution are calling for immediately drafting a completely new constitution. Time and future research will of course tell us more about the exact dynamics of this historic moment, which is continuing to unfold, as well as its regional ramifications. At this point, only some preliminary reflections are possible.

First, Tunisia had seemed for long to be an unlikely candidate for revolution due to its apparent stability, comparatively healthy economy, relatively good educational system, and strength of state apparatus.
Stability and longevity were characteristic of the regime. In 44 years of independence, the country had known only two presidents. The idea of ?president for life,? which now is more or less the rule in the republican parts of the Arab World, was in fact pioneered as an official term by the first Tunisian president Habib Bourguiba in 1975. From today?s perspective it is hard not to feel somewhat nostalgic to the bygone innocence of that
moment: where else would a president now openly acknowledge the pointlessness of the cynicism and formality associated with being repeatedly re-elected, without opposition and always with practical unanimity?

Even amongst Arab governments distinguished in the arts of authoritarianism, the regime that had just been toppled stood out. The regime of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali allowed no opposition of any kind, no criticism of the president, hardly any civil society, banned much of the foreign and Arab press, and whatever part of the internet it deemed even remotely dangerous?including Facebook and similar social media. In 2009, the Committee to Protect Journalists placed Tunisia third among the most dangerous countries in the world from which to blog. At the same time the OpenNet Initiative, which traces the number of blocked sites and categories, found the former Tunisian regime to be the most hostile Arab regime to internet freedom. During the reign of Ben Ali, the security apparatus had virtually free hand in arresting and torturing suspects everywhere, including in mosques.

In spite of this climate of total control, the revolution found ways to spread images and stories that proved crucial for its further growth and ultimate success. Mobile phones became uniquely valuable for taking images of confrontation and sending them around the country, and whatever communication or internet resources were available captivated the full attention of what appears to have been an enormous number of disaffected people, who without any prior plan staged a revolution. What is significant here is the factor of creativity. The revolution appears to have taken place not because it had resources?a model already familiar from the completely resourceless first Palestinian intifada in 1987. The events in Tunisia suggest that when there is enough reason for it, a revolution invents the resources that are appropriate for it. That was the case in Tunisia in 2011, just as it was in Palestine in 1987 and in Iran in 1979.

In Tunisia, the opposition parties were clearly caught off-guard by the events, and remained unable to direct the revolution that maintained a character of spontaneity to this point, when the revolution appears to have already attained the basic demands on which all participants agreed?the departure of Ben Ali, the promise of free elections, free association, free media, and the release of political prisoners. By contrast, in the case of the first Palestinian intifada and the Iranian revolution, both of which lasted much longer than the Tunisian revolution before they could reach any goals at all, leaderships and coordinating committees emerged after an initial period of spontaneity, and they served to introduce an element of planning into those uprisings. All those revolts were characterized by organizational or networking creativity, necessitated by the fact that the authorities had been highly vigilant in collecting knowledge about then making inaccessible all revolutionary resources, including means of communication as well as potential leadership at all levels.

Second, the Tunisian revolution seems to have been born out of a condition of closed possibilities and not simply out of economic grievances. The revolution began in marginal and neglected parts of the country, and the trigger appears to have to do with economic grievances. Yet if revolutions were to be explained by economics alone, it would be hard to explain this revolution. For by any meaningful comparison (to the Maghreb countries, the southern Mediterranean, or the Arab World more generally), Tunisia did not seem to be doing exceptionally badly.

The worst economic news was unemployment figures, which officially remained high at 14%, and much higher among young people. But such rates are not unusual in the region, and several Arab countries have officially much higher rates of unemployment. Poverty rates remained steady for years at a little over 7%, but that was nearly half of what it had been in 2000, and a vast improvement over the 22% it had been when Ben Ali assumed power in 1987. In other countries nearby, poverty rates remained steady for years at much higher rates: 20% in Egypt, 15% in Morocco, and nearly one quarter of the population in Algeria. In 2009 per capita income in Tunisia worsened slightly and stood at $7,200, close to the level it has been at 2005. But overall the decline was not drastic, and that amount was still higher than any neighboring country except oil-producing Libya, but higher than neighboring oil producing Algeria ($6,600), as well as Morocco ($3,800) or Egypt ($4,900). Tunisia?s life expectancy compared very well to other Arab countries, as did its literacy rates. One may even question the gravity attached to one of the main grievances against Ben Ali?s development policies, namely that they exacerbated class differences by benefitting some more than others. As measured by the Gini index (at 40), Tunisia?s income distribution appears in fact to be more equal than that of Malaysia or China, for example, as well as most Third World countries. It appears equivalent to that of Turkey and Israel, neither of which expect a revolution (at least from those they regard to be their citizens).

It would therefore appear that, again if economics were to explain things, that we should see a revolution in Egypt, for example, where relevant economic indicators are miserable. But as Amr el-Shobaki suggested, the saving grace of the Egyptian regime is that it has put into use a ventilation safety valve, meaning that grievances and criticisms of the government and even the president are allowed; that civil society is tolerated; that the opposition can publish its newspapers; and so on. At the same time, the ruling party in Egypt exercises complete monopoly on power; openly engineers election fraud; and tolerates no real threat to its political hegemony. More interestingly?as seen in the bizarre parliamentary elections in November 2010, the ruling party even allows, in fact seemed to encourage, competition within itself. Thus for the first time it nominated in that election several candidates who would compete against each other in several districts. In doing so it appeased several new power players as well as a variety of local leaders (traditional or otherwise), who demanded an official certification of their leading role in their communities, in exchange for offering support to the ruling party.

The equation in Egypt, therefore, has diffused revolutionary potentials in spite of the gravity of the situation, by allowing criticism but prohibiting change, and by inviting all ambitious politicians to join the party and compete against each other within it, even in public. This cynical game is still more sophisticated than one sees in most other Arab countries, where authoritarian regimes play a schizophrenic game: on the one hand they see the point of allowing some safety ventilation valve to remain open, while on the other they exhibit paranoia when more than six people meet in a public place to discuss anything resembling politics. Jordan, which is sometimes lauded in the West for its largely bogus democratic experiment, is a good example of this deadly schizophrenia. There is a parliament, the election of which last October was manipulated more than usual to produce a completely pliable body. In comparison to Egypt, no criticism of the king is possible, and in fact every time his name appears in the press, the expected practice is that it should be followed by praise, even if it is mentioned in the context of reporting a fully innocuous event.

Since the Iranian revolution (and some might argue that as of the late 1960s, in gradual response to the Arab disaster of 1967), Arab regimes became completely obsessed with the question of regime survival, the obsession with which seemed to trump all other issues, including development, liberalization, and national liberation?as evidenced in their abandonment of the Palestinians and the Iraqis to their fate. Following the Nasser era, the priority assigned to the task of regime survival was coupled almost everywhere in the Arab World with an incoherent sense of grand mission. The post-Nasser era witnessed the gradual abandonment of important postcolonial claims that had been invested in the new states, thus justifying them and affording them legitimacy for a while. The idea then was that postcolonial governments embodied a grand liberationist and developmentalist mission. That claim was, gradually since 1970, paved over with more clintelist thinking, so that government was increasingly regarded, by its elites and constituents alike, as simply a source of situational favors. That idea became only more established with the commitment of almost all Arab governments to neoliberal economics, which did not produce the intended results. It failed?for various possible reasons, but a definite factor is the pervasive corruption against which the Tunisians revolted.

Throughout the Arab World the ruling elites have lived off and also encouraged corruption, since it corresponded to their understanding of the clientelist character of the state. Here, the Tunisian regime was no exception but in fact a perfectly typical example.

Political culture thus suffered a transformation that reflected the increasing clientelist character of the state and the lost hopes in the grand postcolonial aspirations that had been invested in it earlier. State ideology itself became more personalistic, infinitely magnifying a single element that under Nasser had been only one of the elements of his charisma.

For the past three or four decades, the Arab region saw an unusual investment in the personality cult of the leader. However, unlike the case of Nasser, who in spite of all his faults and subsequent critiques of his regime remained genuinely popular, all subsequent attempts at personality cults were purely state-engineered. The displays seemed only intended to impress by having the images, statues and banal statements of largely ineloquent leaders occupy so much public space. This was most evidently the case in republican environments as Syria, Iraq, Libya and Tunisia, but lesser pompous attempts at personality cults were evident everywhere in the Arab world, and they indicate nothing other than the ideological emptiness of government on the one hand, and its (so far evidently unpersuasive) attempt to substitute symbolic populism for genuine democratization.

Here then we have states that lacked a sense of themselves as anything other than being sources of situational favor; that, furthermore, lacked and resisted democratic accountability; that had therefore no mechanisms (other than accident) by which they might produce visionary leaders; and that substituted for all these shortcoming by an attempt at aggrandizing the personality cult of the leader, whose cult became the only ideology of the government. And personality cults entailed, as a consequence, the gradual transformation of all Arab republics into quasi-kingdoms, with sons following fathers as presidents. A dynastic transition has already happened in Syria, is apparently planned in Yemen, Egypt, and Libya, and was the plan in Iraq and, until now, Tunisia. The termination of the Iraqi experiment could not very well really be inspiring, since the agent of change there was illegitimate and external, viewed by most Iraqis and Arabs as a manifestation of arrogant imperialism. That lesson has now been corrected in Tunisia, from which the feeling disseminates to all Arabs that the personality cult of the leader, of which they were never persuaded anyway, could be undone by their own efforts.

The revolution in Tunisia was a response to a sense of closed possibilities.
Nowhere do we see any identifiable ?structure of opportunities? that could have made it possible. Everywhere we see the opposite?absence of any opportunities whatsoever. The pre-revolutionary climate displays a scene of extreme desperation and exasperation. And it is precisely that scene that was so poignantly allegorized in the protest-suicide of a young man after the police took away from him the last meager resource he had for leading a decent life.

Revolution here is triggered in a closed political cosmos. Obviously, regime?s insistence on substituting the leader cult (or official populism) for democracy or civil society can at the end of the road only produce a revolution, regardless of how strong the regime?s repressive apparatus might be. The weaknesses of this model of governing may now be apparent to Arab leaders, but their demonstrated short-sightedness, pervasive corruption, and entrenched ethic of self-service, make it questionable as to whether they may be shaken into learning the right lesson, even though it might be in their own interest. But regime leaders could be just as suicidal as their opposition could be, especially if the political scene they had spent decades creating and honing cannot accommodate any reform without crumbling completely. This is perhaps the conundrum that we are facing now, and there are two likely reasons for it.

First, the fanatic priority attached to regime survival has entailed the elimination of all sustained voices of reform within existing regimes. This was manifested in the removal of all possible competition to the leader, although competition for prestige, positions and resources at lower rungs of the system was not prohibited and in fact was to be expected. But what became increasingly apparent in republican, and in some cases even royal, Arab state politics over the last few decades, is the absence of a clear successor to the leader of the state. Over the years, such early collective leadership structures as the oft- called ?revolution?s leadership council,?
usually characteristic of regimes formed through military coups, were dismantled or weakened. In many countries the office of the vice president was eliminated or replaced by a number of vice-presidents so as to dilute the ability of a single person to act as a magnet for an inner-regime reform movement. At the same time, we saw an investment in personality cults, which was meant to elevate the leader far above all other possible competitors; the investment in sons or other family members as likely successors; the frequent removal of all potential contenders within ruling parties; and the toleration, if not encouragement, of corruption among state elites, which had the effect of producing in them an attachment and loyalty to a system that worked so well for them. Often those tended to be new elites, meaning that they had no traditional power or wealth base in society to fall back upon were they to lose their state connection.

Thus over time it became less and less expected that reform would come from within existing regimes. No ?free officers? were to be produced, and even military coups that had been so frequent and that served as channels of reform as well as for expressing popular resentments in the 1950s and 1960s, became unusual as of 1970. Within a decade thereafter, even power struggles over policy directions within existing regimes became rare, and especially the top leaders tended to rule more or less for life. One of their tools of longevity consisted of producing uncertainty about likely succession and fear about the consequences of *any* succession while they were alive.

That meant, essentially, that the end of regimes became associated with the end of their leaders. And it also meant that all public frustration and resentment would converge on the leader as a person. That reality rigidified the political scene. Any show of weakness meant the end. Thus when Ben Ali, having already ruled for 23 years and is now 74, sought to calm the revolutionary crowds by promising not to run for office again (in 2014!), he found himself forced to flee the country the following day. Following his speech, but before his departure, all commentators noted the single most exceptional fact about what he said: it was his first expression of weakness. The logic of the regime he had built meant that any first expression of weakness will be your last.

The revolution, by contrast, represents exactly the opposite qualities?weakness and martyrdom are its ideological fuel, absence of leadership is what keeps it together, weak organization is what makes it hard to capture. One of the most striking facts about this revolution is that even after a month of constant activism, it has remained leaderless and has seemed to be capable of going on as such. Further, its relatively peaceful quality has been absolutely impressive?all deaths and injuries have been result of state violence. Surprisingly, these two qualities?sustained leaderless movement and sustained absence of violence?seem related. For the revolution would have been easily defeated by the state had it turned to violence, given the state?s vastly superior repressive apparatus and the likely withdrawal from the streets of all those segments that had been drawn to the movement out of a sense of moral outrage but who were not prepared to be part of a violent crowd. In fact, it seems that the unusual longevity and sustained energy of the revolution has been dependent on a collective moral outrage alone, but not organization, leadership, or a detailed political program. And the absence of revolutionary violence in the face of state violence only deepened that sense of moral outrage, giving it the quality of messianic commitment.

This messianic commitment, another striking quality of this revolution, bears no resemblance to religion, and it may indeed appear as a mystery as to why religion did not play a greater part in this revolt, even though organized religious forces had been part of the Tunisian opposition for three decades. But religious opposition, which since 1979 has been the main internal obsession of Arab regimes, appears in the context of the Tunisian revolution, so far largely secular, to have all along been part of a larger social consensus that transcends religiosity. The common demands to this point seem to be more basic, even intuitive: the right to be respected as a citizen, to enjoy a decent life and to participate in the creation of the system which rules over the person. These very old demands are not uniquely religious, nor uniquely communist, nor uniquely nationalist, even though these discourses have served as different vehicles for expressing them.
Instead of addressing them, Arab governments have always preferred to fixate on the identity of what they regarded to be their internal enemy, assuming that the trouble (and the demand) would go away with the repression of a particular enemy. For the last three decades this enemy has been called ?Islamists,? before that it was known as ?communists.?

But what makes any resourceless revolution into a relentless machine is not its name, nor its ideology. It is the persistence of very old, basic expectation of citizenship and participation, an expectation whose intuitive nature and pure form is discovered again after having been mystified in the idiom of one discourse or another. Thus when Mohamad Bu?azizi set himself and subsequently the whole country on fire, he certainly did not realize what he was about to symbolize, which was grievances coming back to earth and expressed in the most earthly manner possible. Not as mystification, not as reenacting an ancient struggle between good and evil, not as an expression of a party ideology. He gave a human expression to suffering and protest that negated all need to engage in controversies about ideas, ideologies, political systems, proper course of action, and so on. He rejected his fate, and ended his life in public and in the most horrible manner. But before doing so he had followed all the usual recipes for survival?got an education and a university degree, lived by the rules, belonged to no parties, bothered no one, was diligent, and was still content with the bare minimum existence, until that was taken away from him.
Bu?azizi?s story was narrated time and again, and its ethic was very simply:
resistance was not his first choice, he had sought all other options first.
All doors and possibilities then appeared closed, just as the system itself in which he had languished all his life. That he expressed a high tragic form of a collective feeling is evident in the immense emotional energy that quickly engulfed the entire country and made it impossible for anyone to feel that life could continue as it was before. The revolution begins at the point when an act of someone burning himself appears as an act that anyone can identify with, rather than as an expression of personal pathology or insanity. Bu?azizi may not have intended to stir up a revolution, and clearly he was unaware of any opportunities or resources for such a revolution. Neither was apparently anyone who initially rose up to protest his fate, and against a system that had long believed that it had left no room for error and no opportunity for a revolution.

--
Mohammed Bamyeh,
Department of Sociology
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA

http://www.sociology.pitt.edu/faculty/?q=mohammed-bamyeh/view

Aleister Crowley’s “White Stains”

WITH DOG AND DAME
AN OCTOBER IDYLL

-William Blum

.

April 22nd, Cochabamba, Bolivia

Today, our Mother Earth is wounded and the future of humanity is in danger.

If global warming increases by more than 2 degrees Celsius, a situation that the “Copenhagen Accord” could lead to, there is a 50% probability that the damages caused to our Mother Earth will be completely irreversible. Between 20% and 30% of species would be in danger of disappearing. Large extensions of forest would be affected, droughts and floods would affect different regions of the planet, deserts would expand, and the melting of the polar ice caps and the glaciers in the Andes and Himalayas would worsen. Many island states would disappear, and Africa would suffer an increase in temperature of more than 3 degrees Celsius. Likewise, the production of food would diminish in the world, causing catastrophic impact on the survival of inhabitants from vast regions in the planet, and the number of people in the world suffering from hunger would increase dramatically, a figure that already exceeds 1.02 billion people.

The corporations and governments of the so-called “developed” countries, in complicity with a segment of the scientific community, have led us to discuss climate change as a problem limited to the rise in temperature without questioning the cause, which is the capitalist system.

We confront the terminal crisis of a civilizing model that is patriarchal and based on the submission and destruction of human beings and nature that accelerated since the industrial revolution.

The capitalist system has imposed on us a logic of competition, progress and limitless growth. This regime of production and consumption seeks profit without limits, separating human beings from nature and imposing a logic of domination upon nature, transforming everything into commodities: water, earth, the human genome, ancestral cultures, biodiversity, justice, ethics, the rights of peoples, and life itself.

Under capitalism, Mother Earth is converted into a source of raw materials, and human beings into consumers and a means of production, into people that are seen as valuable only for what they own, and not for what they are.

Capitalism requires a powerful military industry for its processes of accumulation and imposition of control over territories and natural resources, suppressing the resistance of the peoples. It is an imperialist system of colonization of the planet.

Humanity confronts a great dilemma: to continue on the path of capitalism, depredation, and death, or to choose the path of harmony with nature and respect for life.

It is imperative that we forge a new system that restores harmony with nature and among human beings. And in order for there to be balance with nature, there must first be equity among human beings. We propose to the peoples of the world the recovery, revalorization, and strengthening of the knowledge, wisdom, and ancestral practices of Indigenous Peoples, which are affirmed in the thought and practices of “Living Well,” recognizing Mother Earth as a living being with which we have an indivisible, interdependent, complementary and spiritual relationship. To face climate change, we must recognize Mother Earth as the source of life and forge a new system based on the principles of:

* harmony and balance among all and with all things;
* complementarity, solidarity, and equality;
* collective well-being and the satisfaction of the basic necessities of all;
* people in harmony with nature;
* recognition of human beings for what they are, not what they own;
* elimination of all forms of colonialism, imperialism and interventionism;
* peace among the peoples and with Mother Earth;

The model we support is not a model of limitless and destructive development. All countries need to produce the goods and services necessary to satisfy the fundamental needs of their populations, but by no means can they continue to follow the path of development that has led the richest countries to have an ecological footprint five times bigger than what the planet is able to support. Currently, the regenerative capacity of the planet has been already exceeded by more than 30 percent. If this pace of over-exploitation of our Mother Earth continues, we will need two planets by the year 2030. In an interdependent system in which human beings are only one component, it is not possible to recognize rights only to the human part without provoking an imbalance in the system as a whole. To guarantee human rights and to restore harmony with nature, it is necessary to effectively recognize and apply the rights of Mother Earth. For this purpose, we propose the attached project for the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth, in which it’s recorded that:

* The right to live and to exist;
* The right to be respected;
* The right to regenerate its bio-capacity and to continue it’s vital cycles and processes free of human alteration;
* The right to maintain their identity and integrity as differentiated beings, self-regulated and interrelated;
* The right to water as the source of life;
* The right to clean air;
* The right to comprehensive health;
* The right to be free of contamination and pollution, free of toxic and radioactive waste;
* The right to be free of alterations or modifications of it’s genetic structure in a manner that threatens it’s integrity or vital and healthy functioning;
* The right to prompt and full restoration for violations to the rights acknowledged in this Declaration caused by human activities.

The “shared vision” seeks to stabilize the concentrations of greenhouse gases to make effective the Article 2 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which states that “the stabilization of greenhouse gases concentrations in the atmosphere to a level that prevents dangerous anthropogenic inferences for the climate system.” Our vision is based on the principle of historical common but differentiated responsibilities, to demand the developed countries to commit with quantifiable goals of emission reduction that will allow to return the concentrations of greenhouse gases to 300 ppm, therefore the increase in the average world temperature to a maximum of one degree Celsius.

Emphasizing the need for urgent action to achieve this vision, and with the support of peoples, movements and countries, developed countries should commit to ambitious targets for reducing emissions that permit the achievement of short-term objectives, while maintaining our vision in favor of balance in the Earth’s climate system, in agreement with the ultimate objective of the Convention.

The “shared vision for long-term cooperative action” in climate change negotiations should not be reduced to defining the limit on temperature increases and the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but must also incorporate in a balanced and integral manner measures regarding capacity building, production and consumption patterns, and other essential factors such as the acknowledging of the Rights of Mother Earth to establish harmony with nature.

Developed countries, as the main cause of climate change, in assuming their historical responsibility, must recognize and honor their climate debt in all of its dimensions as the basis for a just, effective, and scientific solution to climate change. In this context, we demand that developed countries:

* Restore to developing countries the atmospheric space that is occupied by their greenhouse gas emissions. This implies the decolonization of the atmosphere through the reduction and absorption of their emissions;
* Assume the costs and technology transfer needs of developing countries arising from the loss of development opportunities due to living in a restricted atmospheric space;
* Assume responsibility for the hundreds of millions of people that will be forced to migrate due to the climate change caused by these countries, and eliminate their restrictive immigration policies, offering migrants a decent life with full human rights guarantees in their countries;
* Assume adaptation debt related to the impacts of climate change on developing countries by providing the means to prevent, minimize, and deal with damages arising from their excessive emissions;
* Honor these debts as part of a broader debt to Mother Earth by adopting and implementing the United Nations Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth.

The focus must not be only on financial compensation, but also on restorative justice, understood as the restitution of integrity to our Mother Earth and all its beings.

We deplore attempts by countries to annul the Kyoto Protocol, which is the sole legally binding instrument specific to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by developed countries.

We inform the world that, despite their obligation to reduce emissions, developed countries have increased their emissions by 11.2% in the period from 1990 to 2007.

During that same period, due to unbridled consumption, the United States of America has increased its greenhouse gas emissions by 16.8%, reaching an average of 20 to 23 tons of CO2 per-person. This represents 9 times more than that of the average inhabitant of the “Third World,” and 20 times more than that of the average inhabitant of Sub-Saharan Africa.

We categorically reject the illegitimate “Copenhagen Accord” that allows developed countries to offer insufficient reductions in greenhouse gases based in voluntary and individual commitments, violating the environmental integrity of Mother Earth and leading us toward an increase in global temperatures of around 4°C.

The next Conference on Climate Change to be held at the end of 2010 in Mexico should approve an amendment to the Kyoto Protocol for the second commitment period from 2013 to 2017 under which developed countries must agree to significant domestic emissions reductions of at least 50% based on 1990 levels, excluding carbon markets or other offset mechanisms that mask the failure of actual reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

We require first of all the establishment of a goal for the group of developed countries to achieve the assignment of individual commitments for each developed country under the framework of complementary efforts among each one, maintaining in this way Kyoto Protocol as the route to emissions reductions.

The United States, as the only Annex 1 country on Earth that did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, has a significant responsibility toward all peoples of the world to ratify this document and commit itself to respecting and complying with emissions reduction targets on a scale appropriate to the total size of its economy.

We the peoples have the equal right to be protected from the adverse effects of climate change and reject the notion of adaptation to climate change as understood as a resignation to impacts provoked by the historical emissions of developed countries, which themselves must adapt their modes of life and consumption in the face of this global emergency. We see it as imperative to confront the adverse effects of climate change, and consider adaptation to be a process rather than an imposition, as well as a tool that can serve to help offset those effects, demonstrating that it is possible to achieve harmony with nature under a different model for living.

It is necessary to construct an Adaptation Fund exclusively for addressing climate change as part of a financial mechanism that is managed in a sovereign, transparent, and equitable manner for all States. This Fund should assess the impacts and costs of climate change in developing countries and needs deriving from these impacts, and monitor support on the part of developed countries. It should also include a mechanism for compensation for current and future damages, loss of opportunities due to extreme and gradual climactic events, and additional costs that could present themselves if our planet surpasses ecological thresholds, such as those impacts that present obstacles to “Living Well.”

The “Copenhagen Accord” imposed on developing countries by a few States, beyond simply offering insufficient resources, attempts as well to divide and create confrontation between peoples and to extort developing countries by placing conditions on access to adaptation and mitigation resources. We also assert as unacceptable the attempt in processes of international negotiation to classify developing countries for their vulnerability to climate change, generating disputes, inequalities and segregation among them.

The immense challenge humanity faces of stopping global warming and cooling the planet can only be achieved through a profound shift in agricultural practices toward the sustainable model of production used by indigenous and rural farming peoples, as well as other ancestral models and practices that contribute to solving the problem of agriculture and food sovereignty. This is understood as the right of peoples to control their own seeds, lands, water, and food production, thereby guaranteeing, through forms of production that are in harmony with Mother Earth and appropriate to local cultural contexts, access to sufficient, varied and nutritious foods in complementarity with Mother Earth and deepening the autonomous (participatory, communal and shared) production of every nation and people.

Climate change is now producing profound impacts on agriculture and the ways of life of indigenous peoples and farmers throughout the world, and these impacts will worsen in the future.

Agribusiness, through its social, economic, and cultural model of global capitalist production and its logic of producing food for the market and not to fulfill the right to proper nutrition, is one of the principal causes of climate change. Its technological, commercial, and political approach only serves to deepen the climate change crisis and increase hunger in the world. For this reason, we reject Free Trade Agreements and Association Agreements and all forms of the application of Intellectual Property Rights to life, current technological packages (agrochemicals, genetic modification) and those that offer false solutions (biofuels, geo-engineering, nanotechnology, etc.) that only exacerbate the current crisis.

We similarly denounce the way in which the capitalist model imposes mega-infrastructure projects and invades territories with extractive projects, water privatization, and militarized territories, expelling indigenous peoples from their lands, inhibiting food sovereignty and deepening socio-environmental crisis.

We demand recognition of the right of all peoples, living beings, and Mother Earth to have access to water, and we support the proposal of the Government of Bolivia to recognize water as a Fundamental Human Right.

The definition of forests used in the negotiations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which includes plantations, is unacceptable. Monoculture plantations are not forests. Therefore, we require a definition for negotiation purposes that recognizes the native forests, jungles and the diverse ecosystems on Earth.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples must be fully recognized, implemented and integrated in climate change negotiations. The best strategy and action to avoid deforestation and degradation and protect native forests and jungles is to recognize and guarantee collective rights to lands and territories, especially considering that most of the forests are located within the territories of indigenous peoples and nations and other traditional communities.

We condemn market mechanisms such as REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and its versions + and + +, which are violating the sovereignty of peoples and their right to prior free and informed consent as well as the sovereignty of national States, the customs of Peoples, and the Rights of Nature.

Polluting countries have an obligation to carry out direct transfers of the economic and technological resources needed to pay for the restoration and maintenance of forests in favor of the peoples and indigenous ancestral organic structures. Compensation must be direct and in addition to the sources of funding promised by developed countries outside of the carbon market, and never serve as carbon offsets. We demand that countries stop actions on local forests based on market mechanisms and propose non-existent and conditional results. We call on governments to create a global program to restore native forests and jungles, managed and administered by the peoples, implementing forest seeds, fruit trees, and native flora. Governments should eliminate forest concessions and support the conservation of petroleum deposits in the ground and urgently stop the exploitation of hydrocarbons in forestlands.

We call upon States to recognize, respect and guarantee the effective implementation of international human rights standards and the rights of indigenous peoples, including the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples under ILO Convention 169, among other relevant instruments in the negotiations, policies and measures used to meet the challenges posed by climate change. In particular, we call upon States to give legal recognition to claims over territories, lands and natural resources to enable and strengthen our traditional ways of life and contribute effectively to solving climate change.

We demand the full and effective implementation of the right to consultation, participation and prior, free and informed consent of indigenous peoples in all negotiation processes, and in the design and implementation of measures related to climate change.

Environmental degradation and climate change are currently reaching critical levels, and one of the main consequences of this is domestic and international migration. According to projections, there were already about 25 million climate migrants by 1995. Current estimates are around 50 million, and projections suggest that between 200 million and 1 billion people will become displaced by situations resulting from climate change by the year 2050.

Developed countries should assume responsibility for climate migrants, welcoming them into their territories and recognizing their fundamental rights through the signing of international conventions that provide for the definition of climate migrant and require all States to abide by abide by determinations.

Establish an International Tribunal of Conscience to denounce, make visible, document, judge and punish violations of the rights of migrants, refugees and displaced persons within countries of origin, transit and destination, clearly identifying the responsibilities of States, companies and other agents.

Current funding directed toward developing countries for climate change and the proposal of the Copenhagen Accord are insignificant. In addition to Official Development Assistance and public sources, developed countries must commit to a new annual funding of at least 6% of GDP to tackle climate change in developing countries. This is viable considering that a similar amount is spent on national defense, and that 5 times more have been put forth to rescue failing banks and speculators, which raises serious questions about global priorities and political will. This funding should be direct and free of conditions, and should not interfere with the national sovereignty or self-determination of the most affected communities and groups.

In view of the inefficiency of the current mechanism, a new funding mechanism should be established at the 2010 Climate Change Conference in Mexico, functioning under the authority of the Conference of the Parties (COP) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and held accountable to it, with significant representation of developing countries, to ensure compliance with the funding commitments of Annex 1 countries.

It has been stated that developed countries significantly increased their emissions in the period from 1990 to 2007, despite having stated that the reduction would be substantially supported by market mechanisms.

The carbon market has become a lucrative business, commodifying our Mother Earth. It is therefore not an alternative for tackle climate change, as it loots and ravages the land, water, and even life itself.

The recent financial crisis has demonstrated that the market is incapable of regulating the financial system, which is fragile and uncertain due to speculation and the emergence of intermediary brokers. Therefore, it would be totally irresponsible to leave in their hands the care and protection of human existence and of our Mother Earth.

We consider inadmissible that current negotiations propose the creation of new mechanisms that extend and promote the carbon market, for existing mechanisms have not resolved the problem of climate change nor led to real and direct actions to reduce greenhouse gases. It is necessary to demand fulfillment of the commitments assumed by developed countries under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change regarding development and technology transfer, and to reject the “technology showcase” proposed by developed countries that only markets technology. It is essential to establish guidelines in order to create a multilateral and multidisciplinary mechanism for participatory control, management, and evaluation of the exchange of technologies. These technologies must be useful, clean and socially sound. Likewise, it is fundamental to establish a fund for the financing and inventory of technologies that are appropriate and free of intellectual property rights. Patents, in particular, should move from the hands of private monopolies to the public domain in order to promote accessibility and low costs.

Knowledge is universal, and should for no reason be the object of private property or private use, nor should its application in the form of technology. Developed countries have a responsibility to share their technology with developing countries, to build research centers in developing countries for the creation of technologies and innovations, and defend and promote their development and application for “living well.” The world must recover and re-learn ancestral principles and approaches from native peoples to stop the destruction of the planet, as well as promote ancestral practices, knowledge and spirituality to recuperate the capacity for “living well” in harmony with Mother Earth.

Considering the lack of political will on the part of developed countries to effectively comply with commitments and obligations assumed under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, and given the lack of a legal international organism to guard against and sanction climate and environmental crimes that violate the Rights of Mother Earth and humanity, we demand the creation of an International Climate and Environmental Justice Tribunal that has the legal capacity to prevent, judge and penalize States, industries and people that by commission or omission contaminate and provoke climate change.

Supporting States that present claims at the International Climate and Environmental Justice Tribunal against developed countries that fail to comply with commitments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol including commitments to reduce greenhouse gases.

We urge peoples to propose and promote deep reform within the United Nations, so that all member States comply with the decisions of the International Climate and Environmental Justice Tribunal.

The future of humanity is in danger, and we cannot allow a group of leaders from developed countries to decide for all countries as they tried unsuccessfully to do at the Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen. This decision concerns us all. Thus, it is essential to carry out a global referendum or popular consultation on climate change in which all are consulted regarding the following issues; the level of emission reductions on the part of developed countries and transnational corporations, financing to be offered by developed countries, the creation of an International Climate Justice Tribunal, the need for a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, and the need to change the current capitalist system. The process of a global referendum or popular consultation will depend on process of preparation that ensures the successful development of the same.

In order to coordinate our international action and implement the results of this “Accord of the Peoples,” we call for the building of a Global People’s Movement for Mother Earth, which should be based on the principles of complementarity and respect for the diversity of origin and visions among its members, constituting a broad and democratic space for coordination and joint worldwide actions.

To this end, we adopt the attached global plan of action so that in Mexico, the developed countries listed in Annex 1 respect the existing legal framework and reduce their greenhouse gases emissions by 50%, and that the different proposals contained in this Agreement are adopted.

Finally, we agree to undertake a Second World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in 2011 as part of this process of building the Global People’s Movement for Mother Earth and reacting to the outcomes of the Climate Change Conference to be held at the end of this year in Cancun, Mexico.

http://www.greanvillepost.com/?p=5662

INTRODUCTION TO DOWSING YOUR GUIDES
with Instructor, Christina M. Schumacher

I have spent most of my life studying different areas of the metaphysical. When I say, "most of my life," I mean from the age of eight to my current age of 46. I'm still not finished. Throughout these studies, I found that I was very much intrigued on the subject of channeling. Once I'd discovered channeling, in my early 20's, I purchased as many books as I could get my hands on. This included books written by Jane Roberts about Seth as well as books channeled to Jane Roberts by Seth. I bought "how to" books on channeling and meeting my guides, went to see a woman who channeled a group of beings, and watched DVD's of J. Z. Knight channeling Ramtha. Even now, I enjoy going online and listening to Kryon who is channeled by Lee Carroll.

Interestingly, Jane Roberts "met" Seth through the Ouija Board which did not have the reputation in 1963 as it seems to have now. Jane was a writer and a complete skeptic concerning anything of a metaphysical nature. However, as a writer, she had to "go with the flow" when it came to what kinds of things were in demand in the writer's market if she wanted to stay out there. When her publisher came to her and said new age material was "in demand," Jane was at a loss as these were areas she knew nothing about and really had no interest in. Not knowing where to start, she decided to try the Ouija Board as it was the most easily accessible item that she could think of. She sat down with her husband and they began working with the board.

It wasn't long and Seth came through. It was obvious to both Jane and her husband that he was a higher level being with a great deal of mental, physical, emotional and spiritual information to share. There wasn't any nonsense garbled language, but clear and concise messages full of love and understanding and knowledge about the universe. After awhile, as the Ouija Board became too slow for Seth's communications, he gave Jane exercises to do to expand her energy to allow him to come through her directly. Before long, Jane was channeling Seth through her own mouth while in a trance state. Her husband dictated every session and the books written by Jane Roberts and also those written by Seth were born.

This relationship between Jane Roberts and Seth began in 1963 and the Seth material is still out there. Just by Googling Jane Roberts, you can find multitudes of information and, believe me when I say, the books are well worth reading.

After reading the Seth books, my desire to channel made me continue reading up on everything I could to try to do what these people could do. Although I had a Ouija Board (an antique from 1915), according to the books, this was not necessary to learn to channel.

Part of the problem was that I was working a full time job and raising four children which did not give me a lot of time, or privacy, to do the exercises I would find in the books on how to channel. Every book that I found stated that I had to have a special room of my own to practice meditation and that it should be set up with the "right atmosphere" to allow the energy I would need to flow properly. If you're a parent, you know that an "extra room" can be hard to come by and that privacy for meditation can also be nearly impossible. Children (especially four of them) can require any number of things throughout all hours of the day and night. If you've ever been a parent on the phone when your kids are young (and sometimes in the teen years), you know exactly what I mean. They can be playing off by themselves but, as soon as you are on the phone, they magically appear and need all kinds of things. Try doing meditation. If they know you aren't supposed to be interrupted, they will find any manner of ways to make sure they have access to you.

After awhile, I knew that I had to wait until my children were older before I would be able to concentrate well enough and get the privacy I needed to be able to learn how to channel as I wanted to. In the meantime, I continued reading and learning about Spirit Guides - these higher level beings who were being channeled - all the time gaining more and more desire to meet my own guides. I didn't care, necessarily, how it came about, I just wanted to be able to communicate with them whenever I felt the need as I knew they would have amazing information to share.

In 2006, I discovered that it wasn't necessary for me to have that special room and all that quiet time to be able to communicate with my guides. I do not channel through my mouth as Jane Roberts, Lee Carroll and J. Z. Knight do, but I still have full communication with my guides. I also discovered that anyone could do it if they were given the right tools and had the desire to learn. This is what I am here to teach you - how to meet your guides and communicate with them without trying to learn methods of meditation and needing to build a new room onto your home. Your guides have a lot to share with you, so come in and meet them. It will change your life in a way that you never imagined possible!

http://www.metaphysicalu.com/IntroDowsingGuides.htm

I HAVE A DREAM

I have a dream that in the New Earth, there will be a new Bill of Rights.
The first amendment will be, "Your daily wage is directly tied to the beauty and truth and love you provide."

I have a dream that in the New Earth, childbirth will be broadcast on prime time TV every single night.

I have a dream that the New Earth will have rapturists, and they'll vastly outnumber the terrorists. The rapturists will be performance artists with a conscience . . . charismatic improvisers who love to spring fun surprises.
They'll commit unexpected interventions and unscheduled spectacles that delight hordes of strangers.

I have a dream that in the New Earth, we will add an eleventh commandment to the standard ten: Thou shalt not bore God.

I have a dream of a week-long annual holiday called the Bacchanalia. Work and business will be suspended so that all adults can explore their ripe mojo with frothy erotic experiments. Tenderly orgiastic marathons will rage unabated. Reverential ecstasy and grateful generosity will rule.

I have a dream that when anchormen report tragedies on their nightly TV shows, they'll break down and cry and let their emotions show. No more poker faces.

*

In the New Earth, you'll be a fascinating enigma worthy of a best-selling
unauthorized biography and I'll be an inscrutable genius whose every
move is packed with symbolic meaning -- and vice versa. That will be the
law in the New Earth -- far different from the Old Earth, where
schadenfreude is epidemic and your distinctive flair is supposed to make
me feel worshipful or diminished.

*

I have a dream that in the New Earth, the word "a**hole" will be a term of
endearment rather than abuse. Plutocracy will be a felony. April Fool's Day
will come once a month. There'll be scientific horoscopes and mystical
logic. Every one of us will have at least one imaginary friend. Compassion
will be an aphrodisiac.

In the New Earth, we'll launch an affirmative action program that
ultimately makes most of us celebrities. Buddhist real estate developers
will build a chain of sacred shopping centers in the heartland. The CEOs of
the Fortune 500 companies will be required by law to enjoy once-a-week
sessions with Jungian psychotherapists. Pioneers in artificial intelligence
research will develop computers that can talk to God.

In the New Earth, same-sex marriages will be fully sanctioned, of course.
But why stop there? We'll also legalize wedding bonds among
threesomes, foursomes, fivesomes, and large groups of people who are in
love with each other. I have a dream that we will expand the meaning of
love beyond anything our ancestors imagined.

*

In the New Earth, our children will study singing and dancing and
meditation and dream work with as much diligence as they now devote to
math and science. They'll learn to see with their own eyes and think with
their own minds and feel with their own hearts, studying those subjects
as intently as they do spelling and grammar and social studies. Beginning
in seventh grade, they'll get lessons in the art of creating successful
intimate relationships. And we'll teach them why it's only fair that for the
next 3,000 years we use "her" for the generic singular pronoun instead of
"him."

*

I have a dream that we will take everything we need and give everything
we have. We'll be both selfish altruists and generous braggarts, libertarian
socialists and capitalist humanitarians. That'll be the law in the New Earth
-- different from the Old Earth, where you can blindly serve your own
interests or devote yourself to the needs of others, but not both.

*

I have a dream that in the New Earth, Oprah Winfrey will buy up all the
Pizza Huts on the planet and convert them into a global network of
menstrual huts, where for a few days each month, every one of us, men
and women alike, can resign from the crazy-making 9-5 -- drop out and
slow down, break trance and dive down into eternal time.

We will sleep nine hours every night as we practice our lucid dreams . . .
sing love songs from the future while soaking in steamy herb baths . . .
feast on chocolate as we converse with the little voices in our heads . . .
research the distinctions between stupid, boring pain and smart,
fascinating pain until we finally get it right . . . wear magic underwear
made from eagle feathers, spider webs, and 100-year-old moss . . . and
conjure up bigger, better, more original sins and wilder, wetter, more
interesting problems.

*

In the New Earth, you'll kick your own ass and I'll wash my own brain. I'll
be my own parent and you'll be your own wife. And vice versa. That'll be
normal in the New Earth -- different from the Old Earth, where everyone
except me is to blame for my ignorance and you call on everyone except
yourself to give you what you need.

I'll push my own buttons and right my own wrongs. You'll wake yourself
up and sing your own songs.

*

I'm the president now . . . and so are you. I am the Supreme Commander
of the United Snakes of the Blooming HaHa . . . and so are you. And what
we proclaim is that in the New Earth, we will love our neighbors as
ourselves, even if our neighbors are jerks. We will never divide the world
into us against them. We will search for the divine spark even in the
people we most despise, and we will never dehumanize anyone, even
those who dehumanize us.

I have a dream that sooner or later every one of us will become a
well_rounded, highly skilled, incredibly rich master of rowdy bliss -- with
lots of leisure time and an orgiastic feminist conscience.