The United States is running out of time to get its budget and trade deficits under control. Despite the urgency of the situation, 2010 has been wasted in hype about a non-existent recovery. As recently as August 2 Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner penned a New York Times Column, Welcome to the Recovery.
As John Williams (shadowstats.com) has made clear on many occasions, an appearance of recovery was created by over-counting employment and undercounting inflation. Warnings by Williams, Gerald Celente, and myself have gone unheeded, but our warnings recently had echoes from Boston University professor Laurence Kotlikoff and from David Stockman, who excoriated the Republican Party for becoming big-spending Democrats.
It is encouraging to see a bit of realization that, this time, Washington cannot spend the economy out of recession. The deficits are already too large for the dollar to survive as reserve currency, and deficit spending cannot put Americans back to work in jobs that have been moved offshore.
However, the solutions offered by those who are beginning to recognize that there is a problem are discouraging. Kotlikoff thinks the solution is massive Social Security and Medicare cuts or massive tax increases or hyperinflation to destroy the massive debts.
Perhaps economists lack imagination, or perhaps they don't want to be cut off from Wall Street and corporate subsidies, but Social Security and Medicare are insufficient at their present levels, especially considering the erosion of private pensions by the dot com, derivative and real estate bubbles. Cuts in Social Security and Medicare, for which people have paid 15% of their earnings all their life, would result in starvation and deaths from curable diseases.
Tax increases make even less sense. It is widely acknowledged that the majority of households cannot survive on one job. Both husband and wife work and often one of the partners has two jobs in order to make ends meet. Raising taxes makes it harder to make ends meet--thus more foreclosures, more food stamps, more homelessness. What kind of economist or humane person thinks this is a solution?
Ah, but we will tax the rich. The usual idiocy. The rich have enough money. They will simply stop earning.
Let's get real. Here is what the government is likely to do. Once the Washington idiots realize that the dollar is at risk and that they can no longer finance their wars by borrowing abroad, the government will either levy a tax on private pensions on the grounds that the pensions have accumulated tax-deferred, or the government will require pension fund managers to purchase Treasury debt with our pensions. This will buy the government a bit more time while pension accounts are loaded up with worthless paper.
The last Bush budget deficit (2008) was in the $400-500 billion range, about the size of the Chinese, Japanese, and OPEC trade surpluses with the US. Traditionally, these trade surpluses have been recycled to the US and finance the federal budget deficit. In 2009 and 2010 the federal deficit jumped to $1,400 billion, a back-to-back trillion dollar increase. There are not sufficient trade surpluses to finance a deficit this large. From where comes the money?
The answer is from individuals fleeing the stock market into "safe" Treasury bonds and from the bankster bailout, not so much the TARP money as the Federal Reserve's exchange of bank reserves for questionable financial paper such as subprime derivatives. The banks used their excess reserves to purchase Treasury debt.
These financing maneuvers are one-time tricks. Once people have fled stocks, that movement into Treasuries is over. The opposition to the bankster bailout likely precludes another. So where does the money come from the next time?
The Treasury was able to unload a lot of debt thanks to "the Greek crisis," which the New York banksters and hedge funds multiplied into "the euro crisis." The financial press served as a financing arm for the US Treasury by creating panic about European debt and the euro. Central banks and individuals who had taken refuge from the dollar in euros were panicked out of their euros, and they rushed into dollars by purchasing US Treasury debt.
This movement from euros to dollars weakened the alternative reserve currency to the dollar, halted the dollar's decline, and financed the massive US budget deficit a while longer.
Possibly the game can be replayed with Spanish debt, Irish debt, and whatever unlucky country swept in by the thoughtless expansion of the European Union.
But when no countries remain that can be destabilized by Wall Street investment banksters and hedge funds, what then finances the US budget deficit?
The only remaining financier is the Federal Reserve. When Treasury bonds brought to auction do not sell, the Federal Reserve must purchase them. The Federal Reserve purchases the bonds by creating new demand deposits, or checking accounts, for the Treasury. As the Treasury spends the proceeds of the new debt sales, the US money supply expands by the amount of the Federal Reserve's purchase of Treasury debt.
Do goods and services expand by the same amount? Imports will increase as US jobs have been offshored and given to foreigners, thus worsening the trade deficit. When the Federal Reserve purchases the Treasury's new debt issues, the money supply will increase by more than the supply of domestically produced goods and services. Prices are likely to rise.
How high will they rise? The longer money is created in order that government can pay its bills, the more likely hyperinflation will be the result.
The economy has not recovered. By the end of this year it will be obvious that the collapsing economy means a larger than $1.4 trillion budget deficit to finance. Will it be $2 trillion? Higher?
Whatever the size, the rest of the world will see that the dollar is being printed in such quantities that it cannot serve as reserve currency. At that point wholesale dumping of dollars will result as foreign central banks try to unload a worthless currency.
The collapse of the dollar will drive up the prices of imports and offshored goods on which Americans are dependent. Wal-Mart shoppers will think they have mistakenly gone into Neiman Marcus.
Domestic prices will also explode as a growing money supply chases the supply of goods and services still made in America by Americans.
The dollar as reserve currency cannot survive the conflagration. When the dollar goes the US cannot finance its trade deficit. Therefore, imports will fall sharply, thus adding to domestic inflation and, as the US is energy import-dependent, there will be transportation disruptions that will disrupt work and grocery store deliveries.
Panic will be the order of the day.
Will farms will be raided? Will those trapped in cities resort to riots and looting?
Is this the likely future that "our" government and "our patriotic" corporations have created for us?
To borrow from Lenin, "What can be done?"
Here is what can be done. The wars, which benefit no one but the military-security complex and Israel's territorial expansion, can be immediately ended. This would reduce the US budget deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars per year. More hundreds of billions of dollars could be saved by cutting the rest of the military budget, which in its present size, exceeds the budgets of all the serious military powers on earth combined.
US military spending reflects the unaffordable and unattainable crazed neoconservative goal of US Empire and world hegemony. What fool in Washington thinks that China is going to finance US hegemony over China?
The only way that the US will again have an economy is by bringing back the offshored jobs. The loss of these jobs impoverished Americans while producing over-sized gains for Wall Street, shareholders, and corporate executives. These jobs can be brought home where they belong by taxing corporations according to where value is added to their product. If value is added to their goods and services in China, corporations would have a high tax rate. If value is added to their goods and services in the US, corporations would have a low tax rate.
This change in corporate taxation would offset the cheap foreign labor that has sucked jobs out of America, and it would rebuild the ladders of upward mobility that made America an opportunity society.
If the wars are not immediately stopped and the jobs brought back to America, the US is relegated to the trash bin of history.
Obviously, the corporations and Wall Street would use their financial power and campaign contributions to block any legislation that would reduce short-term earnings and bonuses by bringing jobs back to Americans. Americans have no greater enemies than Wall Street and the corporations and their prostitutes in Congress and the White House.
The neocons allied with Israel, who control both parties and much of the media, are strung out on the ecstasy of Empire.
The United States and the welfare of its 300 million people cannot be restored unless the neocons, Wall Street, the corporations, and their servile slaves in Congress and the White House can be defeated.
Without a revolution, Americans are history.
Paul Craig Roberts [email him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan's first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow's Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.
]]>The severity of the ongoing financial crisis has invoked more debate than the run-of-the-mill financial crisis that seems to occur about once every 10 or so years. The suggested reasons for this financial crisis have been many: deregulation, failed supervision, unsupervised non-bank financial institutions, inadequate capital, an extended episode of low interest rates
, excessive risk taking; then there is the emergence of a parallel banking sector (the repo market), financial innovations (derivatives), mark-to-market accounting, financial sector consolidation and the emergence of "too big to fail" financial institutions.
There are the shortcomings of the credit rating agencies and especially the conflict of interest in their operations, excessive
assumption of debt and leveraging, increased international capital mobility, and yes, human greed, fraud and Ponzi finance. The list is long and could be lengthened even further.
Depending on which of these reasons one considers the culprit(s), recommendations for reform have also been numerous. But most reforms are little more than a "bandaging" of the current financial system: higher levels of capital, breaking up financial institutions, re-regulation to include all financial institutions, measures to limit risk taking and to increase transparency and more.
But it is difficult to see how any of these changes will eliminate the likelihood of future financial crises. For example, higher capital would reduce bank lending, to create money and to leverage, but there is always the chance that bad loans could still wipe out a bank's capital. And on and on.
The foundational problem is that the conventional banking system is a fractional reserve banking system that is predominantly based on debt financing
and, by its structure, creates money, debt and encourages leveraging. The embedded risk of such a system is that its money and debt creation and leveraging could be excessive. Safeguards, such as deposit guarantee schemes, for example, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in the United States, and the classification of some banks as "too big to fail", are the implicit government subsidies that reduce funding cost and create moral hazard, encouraging mispricing and excessive assumption of risk by financial institutions.
Systemic risks inherent in the system, such as the linkages and the interdependencies of institutions as well as the prominence of too large too fail institutions, create financial instability and threaten the entire financial and real economy.
In other words, the financial institutions of today, in particular the commercial banks, create excessive debt. It is this debt that is, in turn, the basis of systemic risk and threatens the financial system. Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff have confirmed that in every financial crisis for the last eight centuries and the world over, excessive debt has been the recurring feature. There is only one road to financial stability - adopt policies and practices that eliminate moral hazard and excessive debt creation and leveraging.
One way to ensure the stability of the financial system is to eliminate the type of asset-liability risk that threatens the solvency of all financial institutions, including commercial banks. This requires commercial banks to restrict their activities to two - (i) cash safekeeping, and (ii) investing client money as in a mutual fund. Banks would accept deposits for safekeeping only (as for example in a system with 100% reserve requirement) and charge a fee for providing this service and for check-writing privileges.
In other words, in such a financial system, there would be no debt financing by institutions, only equity financing and risk sharing. Banks would not create money as under a fractional reserve banking system. Financial institutions would be serving their traditional role as intermediaries between savers and investors (affording savers instruments to encourage savings and channeling their savings to the most productive investments) but with no debt on their balance sheets, no leveraging and no predetermined interest rate payments as an obligation.
Proposals along these lines are not new. During the biggest crisis of all, the Great Depression, such an approach was recommended in the "Chicago Plan". This reform plan was formulated in a memorandum written in 1933 by a group of renowned Chicago professors, including Henry Simons, Frank Knight, Aaron Director, Garfield Cox, Lloyd Mints, Henry Schultz, Paul Douglas and A G Hart, and was forcefully advocated and supported by the noted Yale University professor Irving Fisher.
Noting the fundamental monetary cause underlying each of the severe financial crises in 1837, 1873, 1907 and 1929-1934, the Chicago Plan called for a full monopoly for the government in the issuance of currency and forbidding banks from creating any money or near money by establishing 100% reserves against checking deposits. Investment banks that play the role of brokers between savers and borrowers were to undertake financial intermediation.
Hence, the inverted credit pyramid, the high leveraged financial schemes (eg, hedge funds), and monetization of credit instruments (eg, securitization) are excluded. The credit multiplier is far smaller and is determined by the savings ratio instead of the reserves ratio.
More recent than the Chicago Plan, Laurence Kotlikoff in a book published in 2010 has made a proposal along similar lines, coining it "Limited Purpose Banking" (LPB). Henry and Kotlikoff, writing in Forbes, said of this approach: "Were we really serious about fixing our financial system, there's a very simple alternative - Limited Purpose Banking. LPB would transform all financial intermediaries with limited liability into mutual fund companies. Under LPB a single regulatory agency - the 'Federal Financial Authority' - would organize the independent rating, verification, custody and full disclosure of all securities held by the mutual funds. Voila, by dint of competition and transparency, 'liar loans', off-balance sheet gimmickry, and toxic assets would all disappear. LPB would let the financial sector do only what Main Street needs it to do - connect lenders to borrowers and savers to investors. The financial sector's job is not to take taxpayers to the casino and collect the winnings."
There are many reasons why reform along this, or similar lines, has not entered the political and financial mainstream until the recent financial turmoil. For starters, there is the opposition of the powerful financial sector. The lobbying of the financial sector against fundamental financial reform in the United States is well documented and its interest is evident. Starting in the 1970s, the financial sector has now gained relative to the real sector, as measured by its growing share of gross domestic product, aggregate corporate profits and salaries and bonuses. The financial sector will not readily give up activities and instruments that have allowed it to establish such a dominant position and to accumulate such gains.
A second popular concern is the "assumed" impact on economic growth and prosperity if debt financing is significantly reduced or eliminated. Although most observers attribute a significant role to the explosion of debt and leveraging in bringing about financial crises, at the same time some argue that the reduction, let alone elimination, of debt financing and bank money creation would reduce economic growth.
This is an empirical issue that deserves careful estimation - how would growth over the long haul compare under each regime? And what would be the attendant social benefits and costs under each regime? While many have prejudged the result, we are not sure that booms and busts are superior to steady growth.
A third reason for inaction on fundamental reform is that politicians are by nature and temperament "incrementalists", always with an eye on the next election. Given the lobbying of the financial sector, politicians invariably put off wholesale and fundamental reforms until they have no other option.
Henry and Kotlikoff (2010) judge the recently adopted Dodd-Frank Bill and provide their reason why fundamental reform may have been sidestepped yet again: "This kind of 'cowboy capitalism' is far too dangerous to maintain. But Dodd-Frank does precisely this, albeit with many more regulatory cops on the beat. In contrast, LPB would put an end to Wall Street's gambling with taxpayer chips. Since mutual funds are, in effect, small banks with 100% capital requirements in all circumstances, they can never fail. Neither can their holding companies.
"Under LPB, financial crises and the massive damage they inflict on the entire (global) economy would become a thing of the past. Of course, there would be losers. Some Wall Street executives might have to find employment in Las Vegas or offshore banks. Some lobbyists, lawyers, credit analysts and accountants might need to find higher callings. Some politicians might even have to solicit more support from Main Street. Alas, Dodd-Frank bears no resemblance to Limited Purpose Banking. But bad laws don't always last, and this one may eventually lead us to LPB by showing us precisely what not to do - if we ever get another chance."
While the Chicago Plan or LPB are two approaches to alleviate financial booms and busts, Islamic teachings long ago recommended a similar financial system, incorporating equity financing (risk sharing) and prohibiting debt financing, its attendant interest payments and the risks that accompany excessive debt creation and leveraging; in other words a two-tiered banking system, one that handles deposits for safekeeping only and the other that acts much like an investment bank.
These investment banks invest directly in real projects with investor capital as well as with their own capital, and share directly in the risks of the project. They invest directly in every segment of the economy (except activities that are prohibited, such as gambling and alcohol).
Call reform along these lines whatever you wish as the name is unimportant. But what is important and undeniable is that effective reform must limit debt creation. Otherwise, recurring episodes of excessive debt creation will put countries in debtors' prison with no possibility of avoiding financial and economic crises that keep on coming with regular frequency.
Hossein Askari is professor of international business and international affairs at George Washington University. Noureddine Krichene is an economist with a PhD from UCLA.
(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
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Home Minister P Chidambrum was not addressing humdrum 'aam aadmi' when he talked definitely about the saffron terrorism. He was addressing the director generals of police of all the states of India. Therefore the meeting assumes importance because it will be again the venue where the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would address the following day.
Why had the Home Minister to be so categorical about saffron terrorism? Already Hindu terrorism had created such a furor when Malegaon 2008 exploded on the national psyche. Remember what LK Advani and others of his ilk said and did then. Therefore Chidambrum took a more realistic epithet to define the groups. In the first place those suspected and accused or even arrested in Nanded, Malegaon, Purna, Parbhani, Jalna, Goa, Modasa , Mecca mosque, Ajmer, Samjhauta Express are all from the sangh parivar which is known as saffron group or family. They include members of RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal, Abhinav Bharat, Sanatan Sansthan, etc. they belong to one family.
What prompted the Home Minister to make it public does not need much deciphering as it was widely seen now than ever before that there was clear attempt to shield the guilty and throw the blames on the Muslims. Who did this but the police and the investigation agencies and even the National Security Advisor Mr Narayanan. When the public domain is seized of the truth you cannot go on beating the dead horse believing that there was just one and one organization. That SIMI and only SIMI with its many aliases was the whole and sole terrorist organization. Every two years the government went to the Supreme Court to plead for re-imposing ban on it. It went on the nerves of the Judge who told the government to give at least one instance where SIMI was clearly involved. The judge asked the government to lift the ban but then the government again re-imposed the ban not by citing proof but allegations.
In contrast the proof in Malegaon 2008 was just undeniable. Heman Karkare was a dedicated and professional officer and looked at the matter in a very objective manner. He had told his assistants that if the suspected was a Hindu they should check it not once but thrice and make sure they had enough proof.
We cannot always rush the attorney general of India and the chairman of the National Human Rights Commission to Geneva to plead with the Amnesty International not to go public about what was happening in India, as PM Vajpayee did when he rushed Soli Sorabji and Justice Verma to hide the shame of Narendra Modi's Gujarat pogroms of 2002. We have still not accepted that that was also terrorism conducted according to the strategy of the Hindutva laboratory of the state of Gujarat. The world is watching. Due to certain considerations if some have not been so forward in condemnation it should not be taken to mean that such things had not happened, that it was mere Newton's third law.
The Samjhauta Express case has exposed how even the highest officers played terror politics to hide terrorism. The Haryana police had almost cracked the case but they were stymied by the Madhya Pardesh police. Now the accused involved in Malegaon and Ajmer cases are the ones who were behind the Samjhauta.
The making official of saffron terrorism in the present context should be seen as a belated hint that it is far too late to go on not calling a spade a spade.
Is not phenomenon about the new discoveries that the above mentioned groups had even arranged help from Israel, that they had drafted their own constitution, that they had made arrangement for training terrorists with Nepal, that they had used Bhonsla Military School for potential terrorists' indoctrination and training, that they had even infiltrated the army and the IB. If these are not remarkable and unusual then what phenomenon is?
http://commonalty.blogspot.com/
Aid groups reported last week that Rwandan and Congolese rebels took over villages in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo and gang-raped almost 200 women and five young boys. The rapes occurred between July 30 and August 3, within miles of a United Nations peacekeeping base. A joint UN human rights team has now confirmed the rapes of 154 women. [includes rush transcript]
Eve Ensler, award-winning playwright and creator of The Vagina Monologues and V-Day, a global movement to stop violence against women and girls. She is the director of Swimming Upstream: A Testimony, a Prayer, a Hallelujah, an Incantation. Her latest book is called I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World.
AMY GOODMAN: The latest news out of Congo, just this week--you wrote this just a month ago. Last week aid groups reported Rwandan and Congolese rebels took over villages in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo and gang-raped almost 200 women and five young [boys]. The rapes occurred between July 30th and August 3rd within miles of a UN peacekeeping base.
The humanitarian group that documented the rapes, International Medical Corps, said aid and UN workers knew the rebels had occupied the villages soon after it happened and that they notified the United Nations about the attacks on August 6th. But it's taken the UN nearly three weeks to respond. A joint UN human rights team has now confirmed the rapes of 154 women. On Wednesday, the top UN official in Congo, Roger Meece, said peacekeeping forces could not have prevented the rapes, because they did not know they were happening.
Meanwhile, here in New York, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was outraged by the attacks and has dispatched two envoys to the eastern DRC to investigate the mass rapes.
SECRETARY-GENERAL BAN KI-MOON: The recent savage rape and assault of at least 154 Congolese civilians is another grave example of the levels of sexual violence and insecurity that continue to plague eastern DRC. It is one more brutal reminder of the challenges of keeping the peace and protecting civilians in conflict zones. Yet, beating these challenges is our collective responsibility. I have called on the authorities of the DRC to investigate this incident and bring the perpetrators to justice.
AMY GOODMAN: That's UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Eve Ensler, your response?
EVE ENSLER: I have many responses. You know, I mean, the attacks occurred within ten to twenty miles of the UN peacekeepers. So, from my point of view, if you look at the hundreds of thousands of women who have been raped, the peacekeeping forces have been highly unsuccessful in the--and I think, to some degree, it has a lot to do with will, it has a lot to do with training, it has a lot to do with "Do we really care about the women of Congo?" because, you know, when we do care, things change overnight. You know, I think that is very, very--I have been trying to figure out for the last three-and-a-half years what is it that keeps the power elites from really changing the situation in the Congo. And I have come to the conclusion that it all has to do with minerals somewhere, that the corporations are linked to governments, and so, as a result, there is not this real fight that goes on.
But I also think there is a history of colonialism and racism in the Congo that has created images in our brain of what the Congo is, and I think we just--or people just expect things like this to happen in the Congo. There's--amazing to me. I was in Bosnia in 1992 when women were being raped in the war, and I spent months and months and a lot of my life devoted to stopping those atrocities. But I will tell you, you know, within a year and a half, when it was heard that 20,000 to 40,000 white women were being raped in the middle of eastern Europe, that war got ended, and those women got protected. It's been thirteen years in the Congo. Thirteen years. Thirteen years. And I wish I could tell you that this recent gang rape was shocking. What's shocking is that it's not shocking. What's shocking is that this particular story got picked up by the wires, but got picked up three weeks after it occurred. The story of the three peacekeepers who died, you know, literally after that attack, got picked up the day it happened. And I think that's an indication of this kind of malaise and this kind of ennui that is around women being raped, and this acceptability, that just is very prevalent throughout the world.
AMY GOODMAN: Who did you speak to at the White House?
EVE ENSLER: I don't want--well, I spoke to Valerie Jarrett, actually. And I was hoping that she would really enlist Michelle Obama in our struggle. And I was hoping that this administration would be enlisted in this struggle. It just seems to me, where women are being raped, where these kind of atrocities are occurring, it is the worst violence in the world towards women right now. And when you allow that kind of violence to proliferate, when you, in the collective unconscious of the world, say it's OK to rape 500,000 women--8,000 women have already been raped this year. That's reported rapes. Most women live in the bush, and they can't report those rapes. When you as a government, when you as a world, when you as an international body, license those kind of rapes, you will see the spread of that everywhere in the world. We saw it in the Kenyan riots. We saw it in the stadium in--was it--no Ghana, in Guinea, where--we're just seeing this proliferation now as rape as a tool.
AMY GOODMAN: Describe the City of Joy, what you're establishing.
EVE ENSLER: The City of Joy is a--we spent months and months with women in Congo, interviewing them and talking to them about what they most wanted and needed. And everybody talked about a place where they could heal, where they could be trained, where they could become leaders, where they had time and a respite to rebuild themselves and redirect their energies towards their communities. So it is this beautiful pastoral city that has fields and fields of land that will be harvested by the women. There will be--
AMY GOODMAN: It's in eastern Congo?
EVE ENSLER: It's in eastern Congo. It's in Bukavu, and it's connected to Panzi Hospital. They own City of Joy, and it's part of their foundation.
AMY GOODMAN: Where they perform the operations on the women who've been raped.
EVE ENSLER: Dr. Mukwege operates on the women in Panzi Hospital. So, many of our women will come and be referred from there, as well as all over eastern Congo. And then women will be trained in radio. There will be a radio station. Google has just given us a whole tech center, so women will learn computers. There will be wonderful therapy. There will be dance. There will be art. There will be products they develop. It will be a place where women get to come, ninety women for six months. And in that time, they will have food, care, love, support and training.
AMY GOODMAN: And you're going to be there opening City of Joy with any others?
EVE ENSLER: I am, indeed.
AMY GOODMAN: Eve, we only have a minute. What gives you the strength? People must be watching and listening to you in awe right now. For those who are listening, they can't see your eyes shining, but they can hear your voice shining. You are in the midst of chemo. What--this is the...?
EVE ENSLER: Fourth round.
AMY GOODMAN: Fourth round. You go for another one on Monday. What gives you the strength?
EVE ENSLER: The women of Congo saved my life. The women of Congo saved my life. Every day I get up, and I think to myself, I can keep going. If a woman in Congo gets up this morning after she's had her insides eviscerated, what problem do I really have? And I think of how they dance. Every time I go to the Congo, they dance and they sing and they keep going, in spite of being forgotten and forsaken by the world. And I think to myself, I have to get better. I have to live to see the day when the women of Congo are free, because if those women are free, women throughout the world will be free and will get to continue.
AMY GOODMAN: And you're going to New Orleans to direct Swimming Upstream on September 10th?
EVE ENSLER: I am.
AMY GOODMAN: Mahalia Jackson Theater. You're going to be at the Apollo Theater on September 13th?
EVE ENSLER: I will, indeed. And I hope people come, and they can get tickets at vday.org. We want to sell out the place so that the women of New Orleans know that New York cares as much as we do care about what happened post-Katrina.
AMY GOODMAN: You are a model, an inspiration for many, for women and men who are dealing with cancer right now. Your final thoughts?
EVE ENSLER: I know this may sound absurd, but cancer has been a huge gift to me. A huge gift. And I think if I feel anything, my allegiance with the sick, my allegiance with the poor, my allegiance with the raped, my allegiance with the oppressed, has been solidified in a way I would have never understood. I think if we see cancer as a transformational thing, something that allows us to kind of strip away all that is keeping us from awareness of priorities, awareness of the suffering of others, awareness of what we really could be doing in terms of service, it's a gift. It's a gift.
AMY GOODMAN: Eve Ensler, bald, brave and beautiful. Thank you very much for being with us.
EVE ENSLER: Thank you, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: Playwright and creator of The Vagina Monologues and V-Day, continues to share her strength around the world.
Wayanad, which has been in the news for the high number of farmer suicides, is also known for widespread homestead farming. A typical home garden integrates trees with field crops, livestock, poultry and fish. Home gardens form a dominant and promising land use system and maintain high levels of productivity, stability and sustainability, say A V Santhoshkumar and Kaoru Ichikawa
Wayanad district in Kerala lies on the edge of the Deccan plateau and is unique because of its elevation (700-2,100 metres above mean sea level) compared to the rest of the plains in the state. This district has a purely agriculture-dependent economy and is among the most underdeveloped regions in India. The social fabric of the district is distinctly different from the rest of Kerala, with the highest proportion of aboriginal tribes, a low sex ratio, and an environmentally fragile ecosystem. The district covers an area of 212,560 hectares and is home to 780,619 inhabitants (2001 census). Aboriginal tribes form 17.4% of the total district population.
The gross cropped area of Wayanad covers 97.82% of the geographical area and is dominated by cash crops. The major plantation crops (tea, coffee, pepper and arecanut) together constitute 38% of cropped area. Coffee, which covers a total area of 67,429 hectares, is grown as under-crop in the homesteads of over 80% of small and marginal farmers in Wayanad district. Pepper, the second most important crop in the district, is also grown in home gardens. Of the total estimated 155,855 landholdings in the district of Wayanad, 83% belong to either small or marginal farmers.
Since Wayanad is a largely montane area that receives high annual rainfall within a short span of three to four months, land performs important hydrological and watershed functions. A large number of people living in the adjoining areas receive most of their water supply from rivers originating in the area. Thus, the soils and waters of this region sustain the livelihoods of many people. The geographic setting of Wayanad makes it highly sensitive to environmental stresses.
The area falls entirely within the Western Ghats of India, one of the 18 biodiversity hotspots. It is characterised by high levels of species endemism. The forests here are globally important as they house endemic flora and fauna, including 229 species of plants, 31 species of mammals, 15 species of birds, 52 species of amphibians. Among these, 55 species are critically endangered, 148 species are endangered, and 129 species are vulnerable, according to IUCN classification. A number of cultivated food plants have their wild relatives in these wet evergreen forests, including the spices black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon and curcuma.
The forests of Wayanad are unique and important because they represent a transition zone from the moist forests of the southwestern ghats to the northern drier forests. However, a large proportion of the Wayanad landscape comprises tea and coffee plantations that have resulted in severe fragmentation of the forests. Conserving these forests from fragmentation and overexploitation is a huge challenge.
In addition to rich biodiversity, Wayanad is home to diverse social, religious, and linguistic groups. The cultural diversity of rituals, customs and lifestyles has led to the establishment of several religious institutions. The six main tribal communities living in Wayanad are the Paniyan, Adiyan, Kattunaickan, Mullu Kuruman, Urali Kuruman and Kurichian. Each of these tribal groups has its own unique social and cultural characteristics.
Sustainable use of biological diversity in socio-ecological production landscapes
The district of Wayanad is characterised by homestead farming at the subsistence level and smallholder plantations. Paddy, the staple food of the region, is cultivated on 11,331 hectares. Paddy-based cropping systems involve paddy, vegetables and banana. The uplands adjoining the wetlands are characterised by homestead farming with coffee and pepper. Coffee-based cropping systems involving coffee, pepper and ginger, along with many trees, are the most prevalent land use patterns. In traditional agro-forestry systems composed mainly of home gardens, the native tree composition of farmlands was largely left intact; only the under-storey plants were replaced by crops. This system lies contiguous with the natural forests and provides an unhindered habitat for wildlife in the area due to plant diversity and shade.
Most farmers in Wayanad are small, marginal, and tend to grow multiple sets of crop on their farmlands. Traditionally, the inhabitants of the area have not depended on forests or community-owned lands for their biomass requirements. One of the reasons was the absence of community-held lands, unlike in many other places in the world. Farmers maintain a spectacular variety of plants in their home gardens to meet their varied needs.
A typical home garden represents an operational farm unit that integrates trees with field crops, livestock, poultry and/or fish, with the basic objective of ensuring sustained availability of multiple products such as food, vegetables, fruits, fodder, fuel, timber, medicines and/or ornamentals, besides generating employment and cash income. Home gardens constitute a dominant and promising land use system, maintaining high levels of productivity, stability, sustainability and equitability.
Home gardens with a multi-storey canopy structure are deliberately planned to mimic a natural forest and thereby lack a discernible planting pattern. Physiognomically, home gardens exhibit a multi-tiered canopy structure somewhat similar to that of a tropical evergreen forest. The mean density of trees in a home garden is estimated to be as high as 116 trees per hectare.
Home gardens play an important role in the food security of the region as they supply varied products throughout the seasons. Tubers, vegetables, fruits and spices from home gardens make up a significant part of the nutritional requirements of the household. Crop diversity in homesteads results in a range of output from a given area, increasing self-sufficiency and reducing the economic risks associated with adverse climatic, biological and market impacts on particular crops. In densely populated or heavily degraded areas without sufficient staple crop fields, as in Wayanad, home gardens also provide large portions of staple foods.
Another important function of home gardens is the generation of a cash income. Most of the income from a home garden is from marketable surplus derived from perennials such as fruit trees. Income from a home garden could account for more than 50% of the total income of a household.
The high degree of biodiversity present in a home garden is unique and totally distinct from the biodiversity present in a natural forest. The biodiversity of a home garden is the result of generations of conscious selection by farmers, and bears the imprint of their choices. Moreover, these components are, in most cases, the last refuge for species that are useful but not commercially viable for cultivation. Various studies have indicated that home gardens usually contain high volumes of commercial timber and fuelwood which satisfy a substantial proportion of society's demands.
Home gardens also meet a significant portion of the household's energy requirements. Most cooking fuel requirements are met through twigs and other forms of litter collected from the home garden. Oils extracted from varied sources, like coconut and sesame, used to serve as the source of lighting fuel in traditional homesteads before the advent of electricity. The green leaves and cowdung from home gardens used to be a major source of chemical energy in the household, and the fodder from home gardens fed to the cows would serve as the major mechanical energy source used in farming.
In addition to their production value, home gardens have an important social and cultural function. At times, they serve as a status symbol and the aesthetic value partly outweighs the productive function. The exchange of home garden products and planting material is common in many traditional societies. Some plant species in home gardens are necessary for religious ceremonies; not being commercially viable, they are not cultivated. Most traditional medicinal plants are encountered in home gardens. Home gardens also fulfil ecological functions, particularly in landscapes where large, monotonous and mono-functional agricultural fields dominate.
The multi-layered vegetation structure of home gardens, which resemble natural forests, offers a habitat to a diverse community of wild plants and animals. This structure appears to contribute substantially to the sustainability of home garden systems.
Home gardens save agricultural lands from the degradation resulting from intensive agriculture, and maintain or increase site productivity through nutrient recycling and soil protection. Farmers derive a variety of services and products from home gardens; they increase the value of output per unit of land through spatial or inter-temporal inter-cropping of trees and other species. Home gardens also help farmers by supplying raw materials (such as leaf compost) for agriculture. And they spread the need for labour inputs more evenly seasonally, thus reducing the effects of sharp peaks and troughs characteristic of tropical agriculture. Farmers are able to utilise family labour as a part-time activity without requiring a change in occupation for the landholder.
The technology involved in home gardens is simple, labour-intensive and requires little outside technical or financial support. Tree components of home gardens offer many useful 'assets' to the poor such as low investment cost, rapid appreciation, divisibility, flexible harvesting time and the ability to meet unforeseen contingencies.
Despite these advantages, home gardens rank low in economic calculations as the marketable surplus produced by them is quite low. Lower economic returns force many farmers to shrink their home gardens to make space for more remunerative mono-crops. The process of modernisation includes a decrease in tree/shrub diversity, gradual concentration on a limited number of cash crop species, increase in ornamental plants, gradual homogenisation of the home garden structure, and an increase in the use of external inputs. Traditional home gardens are subject to different conversion processes linked to socio-economic changes, to the point of them becoming irrelevant or even extinct. This change is principally attributed to an increase in the importance of socio-economic factors (such as commercialisation) over time, with a decrease in the importance of agro-ecological characteristics. For example, many agro-ecological characteristics, such as low fertility, can be altered with technologies like the application of fertiliser. Scientists have voiced concerns that socio-economic changes and the related adoption of modern managerial systems bring about a negative conversion process of home gardens in this region. Studies reinforce the general fear of loss of traditional characteristics of home gardens and their gradual demise into cash crop production systems.
A large proportion of the poor depend on ecosystem services from forests and agricultural lands for their survival. In Wayanad, biodiversity and ecosystems contribute to food security and nutrition, providing the raw materials that underpin health, both formal (ayurveda system) and informal (tribal systems). For many families, agriculture (mostly subsistence) is the main occupation and these families have limited access to alternative sources of income. They inhabit marginal, less agriculturally productive land where harvests are more vulnerable to deterioration of soil and water quality. Though the nature and mode of extractive dependence have changed over time, people's dependence on forests continues. Tribal populations are almost entirely dependent on these natural resources for their survival, and any deterioration of these resources will have a telling impact on their livelihood.
The landscape of Wayanad is a mosaic of forested lands managed by the state as reserve forests or wildlife sanctuaries and agricultural lands adjoining forested areas. The favourable role of these landscapes and production systems has been receiving a lot of attention recently. It is now recognised that traditional farmers have not only conserved biodiversity of great economic, cultural, and social value, they have also enhanced it through selection and value-addition. For example, the potential of traditional land use systems to serve as sinks (soil and biomass) of atmospheric CO2 is being recognised of late.
However, agriculture in Wayanad is facing many problems today. Agricultural production and productivity have decreased drastically over the years due to various reasons. The area was in the news for the high number of suicides by farmers, attributed to losses in farming. Many micro- and macro-level factors have been cited as reasons for failure on the agricultural front in this area, including policy changes, institutional factors, socio-economic factors, geographical peculiarities, climate change effects, poor investment in agriculture, and poor infrastructural facilities.
There is potential to strengthen formal and informal institutions to save farming and traditional land use systems in the area. There exist a large number of informal institutions in the form of tribal clans that strongly influence public opinion and the political decision-making process. However, integrating these institutions with the newly-crafted formal institutions remains a challenge. The People's Biodiversity Register (PBR) is an example of one such attempt under local self-government institutions (panchayats) to document and conserve biodiversity. More efforts like these are needed to document and understand the dynamics of these landscapes for their conservation and continued maintenance.
(Published by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity as part of the technical series, 'Sustainable use of biological diversity in socio-ecological production landscapes' and as background to the 'Satoyama Initiative for the benefit of biodiversity and human wellbeing'. This study was conducted as part of the programme activities of the Satoyama Initiative, United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies)
(Dr A V Santhoshkumar is Assistant Professor, College of Forestry, Kerala Agricultural University)
(Dr Kaoru Ichikawa is a consultant at the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies)
Infochange News & Features, July 2010
Long-time economic, political and market analyst Bob Chapman publishes the International Forecaster, offering incisive analysis absent through mainstream sources, especially important now given America's deepening economic crisis getting harder to conceal as evidence mounts.
His August 25 issue says the following:
"Twenty countries (including America) are headed into bankruptcy and more will follow. That brings up the subject of state debt in the US. America has been in an inflationary depression for 18 months. States have been cutting back for two years," but still face huge budget gaps required to be closed....2011 will be a terrible year (with) 80% of states expect(ing) deficits of more than $200 billion. 2012 looks even worse." Most worrisome, "there is no recovery and there never has been....the US economy and financial system is comatose." The worst is yet to come and will hit hard on arrival.
On August 24, economist David Rosenberg said, "Now (I'll) tell you why this is a depression, and not just some garden-variety recession," what he's been repeating for months unlike few others, corporate analysts claiming the fall 2007 downturn "ended sometime last year." Not so, it's deepened, growing evidence providing more clarity.
Offering a historical perspective, Rosenberg said the Great Depression wasn't marked by declining GDP each quarter. The 1929 - 33 recession lasted four years, followed by recovery and another "deep downturn" in 1937 - 38.
During the first one, "there were no fewer than six - six! - quarterly bounces in GDP data," averaging 8% at an annual rate, accompanied by sharp market increases, then declines confirming false positives. So "guess what? We may be reliving history (now). If you're keeping score, we have recorded four quarterly advances in real GDP," averaging only 3%. The late 1930s reversal showed "how fragile the post-bubble recovery really was," a faux one again repeated in a weaker economy now than then, one headed for serious trouble ahead, harming millions more Americans as a result.
The Fed cut interest rates to near zero with no effect, at best buying time, resolving nothing. "Then the Fed tripled the size of its balance sheet - again with little sustained impetus to a broken financial system."
Weeks back, then confirmed with new data, Rosenberg stressed weakness, numerous indicators turning down, including production, retail sales, consumer confidence, and housing, a bellwether industry impacting the entire economy. New reports show it's collapsing, some readings to record lows, others disturbingly weak throughout the country.
July existing home sales dropped 25.5%, the largest monthly decline since records began in 1968, bringing annualized sales back to 1995 levels, and signaling worse trouble ahead. Other housing data confirm the malaise, including new home sales, housing starts and permits.
As worrisome were increasing layoffs and first-time unemployment claims hitting 500,000, flashing red for trouble nearly three years after the initial downturn, combined with a near-22% unemployment rate, not the bogus 9.5% headline number, the 1980 calculation reengineered to conceal weakness like all other fake economic data, putting lipstick on an economy, increasingly looking and smelling more like a pig, a sick one.
According to Rosenberg, "You know you are in a depression when:
-- "Congress (extends) jobless benefits seven times (in the past two years) when almost half (of those) unemployed have been looking for at least a half year;"
-- the adult male unemployment rate (25 - 54 years) "hit a post-WW II (high and still tops) the 1982 peak," the worst then since the Great Depression;
-- "youth unemployment is stuck near 25%," and for inner-city black youths it's 80% or higher; "these developments will have profound long-term consequences - social, economic and political;"
-- the depression's fiscal costs keep mounting, the federal deficit soaring with no end to it in sight;
-- for over a year into a supposed recovery, the Fed still contemplates new ways to stimulate growth, its tool, of course, printing money (funny money, or as one analyst calls it, "toilet paper") and quantitative easing, compounding the deficit, or the equivalent of throwing fuel on a fire instead of monetary and fiscal sanity plus sound economy policies to extinguish it;
-- after two years of record trillion dollar plus deficits to kick-start the economy, interest rates are shockingly low, flashing weakness, not strength; to wit, on August 24, the 5-year note was 1.36%, 7-year at $1.95%, 10-year at 2.50%, and 30 year at 3.57%; as well as 30-year fixed mortgage rates at record lows below 4.5% (4.42% on August 24), despite "no fewer than eight (government) programs to put a floor under the housing market;" we're in big trouble "when (Washington) can expend so many resources (on) one sector" in vain;
-- the FDIC keeps shuttering more banks; again, the carnage keeps spreading, yet most economists cling tenaciously an economic recovery theme, at most hit by a soft patch; Rosenberg's response - "Some recovery (when) the private credit market is basically defunct....what replaced it was rampant government intervention (buying time) by trying to (put) a floor under the economy;" once it stops, and it will, they'll be no hiding the dire truth, and no end of pain for growing millions.
The Worst Is Yet to Come
Financial expert and investor safety advocate Martin Weiss began warning about a major economic decline long before it began and keeps at it, citing evidence most analysts downplay or ignore, including:
-- America's worst ever housing depression showing no signs of abating; since January 2006, housing starts alone have plunged from 2.3 million annually to a recent 477,000 low that may not yet reflect a bottom because demand is so weak for this bellwether industry;
-- record long-term unemployment, its worst since first officially tabulated over 60 years ago; and
-- "the most chronic credit squeeze ever recorded....suffer(ing) its deepest plunge since WW II."
As a result, he sees deepening economic trouble ahead, no matter what steps the administration, Congress or the Fed undertake. He expects little more stimulus, just another futile central bank attempt to print money (lots of it) to buy time. "These paper dollars will not create real prosperity," just an illusory, "temporary, false prosperity," but none at all for most people, hung out to dry on their own.
He also expects a sovereign debt crisis to hammer Europe and the US, saying America's plight exceeds the dire situation of PIIGS countries (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain), citing the Bank of International Settlements (the central bank of central bankers) saying US debt will hit 400% of GDP, more than triple Greece's burden at 129% that plunged the country into (undeclared) bankruptcy. Indeed the worst for America is yet to come.
America Is Already Bankrupt
Boston University Economics Professor Laurence Kotlikoff explains it in his August 10 article, titled "US Is Bankrupt and We Don't Even Know It," saying:
"Let's get real. The US is bankrupt. Neither spending more nor taxing less will help the country pay its bills." What's needed, he says, is reengineering the economy by "radically simplify(ing) its tax, healthcare, retirement and financial systems...." Revitalization depends on it with unfunded liabilities topping $110 trillion and growing. Even the IMF is worried, saying "closing (America's) fiscal gap requires a permanent annual fiscal adjustment equal to about 14 percent of US GDP," meaning, of course, from working households, not corporate interests or national security, the most glaring areas needing reform.
The fiscal gap represents "the difference between projected spending (including debt service) and projected revenue in all future years. (It's) the government's credit-card bill and each year's 14 percent GDP is the interest on that bill."
When it's not paid, it increases the balance owed. And each trillion the Fed prints bailing out bankers compounds it. Make them pay, not the public they robbed, starting with shutting them down, breaking them up, seizing their assets, and nationalizing them for the collective good.
Kotlikoff is scary saying "Uncle Sam's Ponzi scheme will stop, (perhaps) in a very nasty manner," citing three possibilities:
(1) massive benefit cuts on retirees;
(2) huge tax increases hitting working Americans hardest, and/or
(3) printing vast amounts of money ad infinitum until debt overload crashes the economy eventually.
Calling America "Worse than Greece," he believes "Most likely we will see a combination of all three responses with dramatic increases in poverty, tax(es), interest rates and consumer prices," the path we're on heading us for the worst of all possible worlds.
Based on the latest Congressional Budget Office (CBO) data, he calculates a $202 trillion fiscal gap - "more than 15 times the official debt" because Congress "label(s) most of its liabilities 'unofficial' to keep them off the books, (out of sight) and far in the future" to concern other officials, not them. Labeling, of course, isn't fixing. It's just concealing unpleasant realities, letting others, not them, face the music in out years.
Current federal revenue totals $14.9% of GDP, the IMF saying that closing it requires "an immediate and permanent doubling of our personal-income, corporate and federal taxes as well as the payroll levy set down in the Federal Insurance Contribution Act."
Such policy would produce a 5% surplus this year, the IMF prescribing ad infinitum fiscal austerity, saying delay will make it tougher ahead. "Is the IMF bonkers?" Not at all, just preferential, wanting workers, not special interests hit hardest, the way it's raped and mauled economies for years, serving capital, not people, now aiming at America, the biggest plum of all ripe for plucking with millions of vulnerable households, easy pickings for the powerful, harming, not relieving their needs by:
-- cutting wages and benefits;
-- destroying, not creating jobs; privatizing everything for private gain; and
-- turning America into Guatemala, a corporatist's dream.
Indeed let's get real. Bad policy begets bad results, and bad solutions makes it worse. For sure, America is "broke and can no longer afford no-pain, all-gain 'solutions.' "
It needs responsible ones, too many to list, but here's a few:
-- end imperial wars and a bloated defense budget;
-- reinvent government to make it responsive to public needs and democratic values;
-- make offenders pay most, starting with Wall Street, defense contractors, Big Oil, Big Pharma, Agribusiness, and other corporate predators profiting at public expense for decades;
-- make now the time for payback, assuring their victims fair and equitable reimbursements;
-- reinvigorate industrial America;
-- end Wall Street's financial chokehold;
-- return money creation power to Congress as the Constitution mandates;
-- encourage publicly-owned state banks like North Dakota's, making it prosperous when most states are debt-strapped and faltering;
-- create full-time, good-paying jobs with benefits; don't destroy them;
-- bring back those offshored;
-- protect homeowners from foreclosure;
-- re-institute progressive taxes, including a Tobin tax (perhaps 1%) on all speculative financial transactions, a millionaire's/Wall Street bank levy generating a huge windfall, enough to smack if not close the budget gap, making those most able pay; for example, the Bank for International Settlements estimated annual 2008 global over-the-counter derivatives trading at $743 trillion; a 1% tax would yield $7.43 trillion, and if taxes curbed speculation, the take would still be enormous;
-- dismantle corporate predators;
-- think small and local, not big and global;
-- reinstitute financial, environmental, and other consumer-friendly regulations;
-- get money out of politics;
-- end the two-party monopoly;
-- institutionalize a free, open, fair media and Internet;
-- assure equitable social benefits for all, including universal, single-payer health care, government-supported public and higher education, and more; and
-- reinvigorate an eroding democracy before it's too late to matter.
Responsible policies, all of the above and more, will reinvigorate America. The unsustainable fiscal crisis is reason enough to do it.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
The Green Revolution impacted livestock-rearing as well as agriculture. Farmers were encouraged to shift from low-input backyard systems to corporatised capital-intensive systems. As a result, write Nitya S Ghotge and Sagari R Ramdas, there was an artificial divide between livestock-rearing and agriculture, leading to the further crumbling of fragile livelihoods of small and landless farmers. Organisations such as Anthra are now working with communities to revitalise and re-integrate livestock and agriculture
The conventional growth pathways recommended for globalisation are in direct contrast to what is needed to cope with global warming and climate change. For the livestock sector, several international agencies predict that global demand for livestock will double during the first half of this century, as a result of growing human populations and their increasing affluence, especially in developing countries like China and India. Global trade in livestock products is already high. India is not yet a significant exporter, but sees itself as having the potential to grow in this direction.
This demands a pattern of livestock-rearing that includes vertical integration of commodities into competitive markets, and international transport of agricultural and livestock produce from areas of cheap and surplus production to centres of demand. These patterns will be disrupted in a world of diminishing fossil fuels. On the other hand, climate change will impose fresh problems such as prolonged and more frequent drought, changes in rainfall distribution, extreme weather events, rising sea levels, increased and changing pest loads, and greater risk of heat stress in livestock farming.
Livestock-rearing along with other allied activities today accounts for around 10% of India's total emissions as opposed to a world average of approximately 6%. While this is partly because India's emissions from industry are low, the country will nonetheless have to embark on a policy of livestock development that is mindful of the effects of the sector on climate.
The poor are already disproportionately vulnerable to the effects of climate change because of their greater dependence on agriculture. Food security is becoming a major issue in many developing countries including India, with food prices spiralling upwards. According to the finance ministry's Mid-Year Review 2009-10, consumer price inflation reached 11.6% in September 2009 thanks mainly to rising food prices. Industrialised systems of livestock-rearing will also be affected as the benefits they enjoyed because of cheap energy costs and subsidies will no longer be available. The plans and polices of the past will thus no more be valid for the future.
India's livestock, by numbers
India has some of the largest livestock populations in the world. It has 57% of the world's buffalo population and 16% of cattle population. It ranks first in cattle and buffalo populations together, third in sheep, and second in goat populations in the world. Total export earnings from livestock, poultry and related products was Rs 5,120 crore in 2004-05, of which leather accounted for Rs 2,660 crore, with meat and meat products accounting for Rs 1,720 crore. The livestock sector produced 90.7 million tonnes (mt) of milk, 45.2 billion eggs, 2.12 million tonnes of meat, and 44.5 million kg of wool in 2004-05 (India is among the largest producers of milk and eggs in the world).
The development path selected 50 years ago for India drove our agriculture and livestock production systems through two predominant models: the Green and White Revolutions. The Green Revolution focused on improved seeds, irrigation, mechanisation and chemical fertilisers, and began in those areas of the country rich in natural resources. One of the results of the Green Revolution in India was displacement of the work-bullock from farming systems in these initial areas and replacing it with the dairy buffalo. What followed was the White Revolution that based its model on exotic dairy breeds, and buffalo-rearing which was based on improved fodder, increased feed, artificial insemination to upgrade our genetic material, improved health, and improved marketing. This was repeated in species after species, with mixed results.
While our cattle was replaced with the Jersey and Holstein breeds, our sheep were sought to be replaced with exotic merinos from Russia and Australia, our goats with Swiss breeds, our pigs with Yorkshires and Berkshires and our poultry with breeds that had proved successful in countries where livestock industrialisation was already under way.
Subsequently, the poultry industry took off and the dairy cooperative movement boasted a number of success stories. But there are many instances of failure too. The dismal truth in a large part of the country is the breakdown of traditional systems, loss of breeds, inadequacy of new technologies and research to address problems that challenge the poorest farmers of the country, and ultimately, the crumbling of fragile livelihoods dependent on livestock resources. One of the most devastating results was the artificial separation of livestock-rearing from agriculture, with both becoming more and more dependent on external resources and inputs.
The expansion of these programmes to drier, more marginal areas of India has been a disaster. By the Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2007-12), the Union government began to recognise that the earlier path was not sustainable. According to a report of the Planning Commission's working group on animal husbandry and dairying, there were a number of shortcomings. For instance, the efforts made during the Tenth Five-Year Plan (2002-07) in raising feed and fodder resources for livestock were not very successful. The recommendation was to target at least 10% of cultivable land for fodder crops; however, if fodder crops compete with foodgrain (and crops for biofuel) we will face many more problems.
The push to go private
India's farming strength has been the farmer's ability to recycle crop residue to feed animals. This unfortunately has not been encouraged, with farmers being forced to grow cash crops with no edible crop residue. There are many imbalances, illustrated in the ignoring of the unorganised sector in the policy space. There have been no measures to develop the unorganised sector producing dairy products, which otherwise enjoy tremendous demand in the domestic market as well as potential for export, even though the working group stated that in the first four years of the Tenth Plan the growth rate of milk production was less than 3% per annum.
Although India's cooperative milk marketing successes are well-known, global market regimes today pose new challenges for Indian livestock products. Competition from international players, multinational corporations and large private agri-business units threaten to wipe out small producers. India's inability to meet global standards of production -- especially in terms of health of livestock and quality of livestock products -- could prove extremely detrimental to small producers. Already, poultry contract farmers are crumbling under the stress of having to produce and compete with large international poultry companies.
More worrisome is whether our livestock products are safe for consumption. Along with chemical agriculture, we also ushered in the age of chemical livestock-rearing. Antibiotics, growth boosters and hormones, anti-parasiticals, urea and other chemicals have been extensively advocated in the past to boost livestock production as well as supposedly get rid of infectious disease and infestations. Anti-parasiticals and toxic chemicals like ivermectin, butox and even DDT have been recommended to keep ticks and fleas at bay. They are often used in places where animal feed is stored, to control rodents and other pests. They enter the animal's body through multiple routes and ultimately collect in the livestock products we consume -- milk, meat and eggs.
While the government may claim that rinderpest has been eradicated, new and emerging diseases continue to pose a major threat to the animal production programme. Emerging diseases like peste des petitis ruminants (PPR), blue tongue, sheep pox and goat pox, swine fever, contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, and New Castle disease (Ranikhet disease) cause substantial economic losses. Regarding diseases among small ruminants and backyard poultry, the loss is borne entirely by the owner. In most states, departments of animal husbandry and dairying are not well-equipped with infrastructure and technical manpower to carry out programmes on animal health.
The official argument is that declining budgetary allocations to animal husbandry and dairying -- Plan outlay has decreased over the past 10 Five-Year Plans from about 1.2% to 0.2% -- can be solved through privatisation. This is the position taken despite animal husbandry and dairying contributing over 5% of national GDP.
Change in livestock production systems
Farmers are being encouraged to shift from low-input systems to capital-intensive, high-input systems. Backyard poultry farmers are being encouraged to shift to commercial poultry farming or contract farming. Small ruminant holders are being encouraged to shift to dairy breeds. Most poor farmers cannot cope with these changes; they either do not shift or step out of livestock-rearing altogether. Efforts and policy directives have tried to upgrade local stock to 'high-producing' varieties or replace indigenous breeds altogether. This has had two effects. One, 'high-producing' breeds make greater demands on our resources, fodder, water, labour, capital, and healthcare. Poor families often find that between repaying loans, feeding and watering the animals, and increased healthcare, they are unable to make ends meet. The more marginalised among them soon end up selling the animals and losing their livestock assets. The second effect, which has far-reaching consequences, is the rapid disappearance of indigenous breeds and the associated genetic material. Should farmers wish to restock with indigenous breeds, quality animals will simply not be available.
There was a drastic decline of bullocks after the 1980s, with the share of farm animals as draught power declining from 71% in 1961 to less than 23% in 1991. The 59th round of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) reports that working cattle in rural areas declined by 25% between 1991-92 and 2002-03. There has been a corresponding shift in the composition of bovine populations from cattle to buffaloes. According to the 54th NSSO round, a mere 56% of households reported ownership of at least one livestock in 1998-99. Changes in livestock populations and composition vary across different landholding categories, with the decline in livestock holding being sharpest among landless households.
The 59th round of the National Sample Survey reports of 2002-03 show that the average in-milk bovine stock owned per 100 rural landless households fell from 16 in 1971-72 to just 1 in 2002-03. During the same period there was an overall decrease in in-milk bovine stock per 100 rural households; it fell from 54 to 36. This decline was observed in all major Indian states. NSS reports 402 (48th round), and 493 (59th round) reveal that the average number of sheep and goat stock per 100 households has decreased amongst landless, marginal and small farmers over the past three decades. The average number has increased only in the large landholding category (over 10 hectares of land). Micro-level studies carried out in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa confirm the broad trends that obtain in the NSSO studies. The data indicates that it is becoming increasingly difficult for poor rural farmers to keep animals.
A false shift away from livestock
There is now a decline in livestock assets amongst poor, marginal and small farmers. While the livestock economy penetrates sections of rural society both vertically and laterally, and does so more equitably than landholdings, a matter of growing concern is that despite 70% of India's livestock being owned by landless, marginal and small farmers, recent studies across India indicate that over half of all these households are now 'non-livestock owners'. While the total population and density of livestock has increased over time, the number per rural household has dropped.
Indeed, the report of the working group on animal husbandry and dairying reaffirms this decline; it records that the employment rate in the livestock sector has gone down from 4.5% to 2.52%. The report treats this decline as an "inevitable shift" out of rural areas, agriculture and allied sectors and a move towards urban areas and the services sector. The reality is that the so-called shift has been forcibly imposed on peasant/farming communities as a result of neo-liberal economic reforms and policies brought in by the Indian government over the past two decades, encouraging and nurturing corporatisation of the agriculture and livestock sectors, and making it increasingly unviable for farmers to farm and rear livestock, resulting in the collapse of these rural livelihoods and the displacement of people from rural to urban areas. It is not, as is implied, some kind of "voluntary" decision; nor is there any "evolutionary" economic and market logic therein.
For several years now, farmer organisations, scientists and civil society groups have been questioning the validity of such development and growth models of food production and food security. These models, which are capital- and energy-intensive, promote exotic hybrids and crossbreds, chemical fertilisers, pesticides and chemotherapy. They have driven farmers to despair and suicide. At the same time, experiences from different areas show that there are many alternatives to this global model of development, which posit the politics of food sovereignty: the right of people to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agricultural systems.
Rebuilding food sovereignty, coping with climate change
It is within this framework that organisations like Anthra have been working closely with farming and pastoralist communities. Anthra aims to transform the current situation with a view to addressing issues of food sovereignty and environmental justice and also the emerging challenges posed by climate change. We have worked with communities in efforts to revitalise and re-integrate livestock and agriculture. These include demonstrating concrete community strategies to conserve and rear local indigenous livestock and poultry breeds, enhancing fodder and water needs of livestock, promoting ethno-veterinary medicines, accessing preventive healthcare services from the government veterinary department, integrating livestock into ongoing ecological agriculture initiatives to improve energy efficiency (draught power), and recycling animal waste into the soil thereby returning valuable carbon to the soil and closing the carbon cycle. These experiences have formed the basis of ongoing learning as also for a proactive outreach programme to sensitise and empower communities that are involved in rebuilding autonomous food production systems. They also constitute the core of critical policy research campaigns to challenge policies that are detrimental to farming communities and offer concrete alternative strategies.
A major effort aims at enabling dialogue and conversations between farmers and scientists, and across disciplines, as many challenges lie at the interface of agriculture, forestry, commodities and trade, and health. Scientists within research institutions and animal husbandry departments have begun to unquestioningly accept certain paradigms and processes evolving in the research, development and extension fields as 'givens' --not to be questioned -- and end up conducting research within preset boundaries that have been drawn up by the State. For instance, the acceptance that there is no way forward but to privatise veterinary services due to lack of resources persuades scientists to carry out research within the framework of a privatised veterinary healthcare delivery system. Biotechnology as a quick-fix technology for all problems -- from increasing production yields, coping with climate change stresses, and disease resistance -- has begun to be accepted unquestioningly by the larger scientific community that thus abdicates its central role of critical enquiry.
In contrast, ecological agricultural practices prevent the build-up of animal waste, thereby reducing the chances of greenhouse gas emissions entering the atmosphere. Returning valuable biomass to the soil ensures water retention, reducing the risks posed by sudden periods of drought. Encouraging local crop varieties which require less water reduces the need for expensive, energy-dependent irrigated systems. Local crops that also yield crop residue provide vital feed for livestock without the need to divert land from food to fodder. Encouraging local livestock breeds promotes draught animal power, thereby reducing our dependence on fossil fuels.
Managing manure is an important piece of the whole. Manure reduces demand for fossil fuel, which is the main raw material required to produce chemical fertilisers. Finally, strengthening local markets by connecting local farming communities to local consumers reduces transportation costs, thus the food market's carbon footprint. Bio-energy generated from animal waste not only provides domestic energy to rural households, it has other multiple benefits. Methane, which is 22 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, is efficiently transformed into useful domestic energy. This, in turn, implies that rural households make fewer demands on fossil fuel energy as their energy needs are taken care of at the local level. The slurry from biogas plants is recycled into local agriculture, thereby aiding both agriculture and reducing demand for chemical fertilisers.
While the food sovereignty paradigm is the only sustainable way ahead, it has to be matched by political interventions that will force the rich to reduce their consumption, thereby freeing up vital fossil fuel resources that can be redirected towards meeting the basic needs of the poor.
(Dr Nitya S Ghotge and Dr Sagari R Ramdas are Co-directors of Anthra, a resource centre offering training, research and advocacy initiatives in the areas of livestock, biodiversity and people's livelihood)
References
Chawla, N K, Kurup, M P G, and Sharma, Vijay Paul. 2002. 'State of Indian Livestock Farmers and the Indian Livestock Sector: A Status Paper'. Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
NSSO reports (215, 338, 408, 493)
Shah, Amita. 2004. 'Changing Interface between Agriculture and Livestock: A Study of Livelihood Options under Dryland Farming Systems in Gujarat'. Gujarat Institute of Development Research
Ramdas, S. 2003. 'Strategies for Livestock Development in Watershed Interventions: A Report of a Study Commissioned by NABARD for the Indo-German Watershed Development Programme, Andhra Pradesh'
Ramdas, S et al. 1999. 'Between the Green Pasture and Beyond... An Analytical Study of Gender Issues in the Livestock Sector in Orissa', technical report No 21. Indo-Swiss Natural Resources Management Programme, Orissa, India
Via Campesina. 2007. Nyeleni Declaration. Selingue. Mali: Forum of Food Sovereignty
Ghotge, N S and Ramdas, S R. 2008. 'Integrated Local Systems for Mitigating Climate Change'. Leisa, 24:4, December 2008. p 23
Infochange News & Features, July 2010
"The ice seems to be fracturing all over the Arctic once again"
MARGARET MUNRO
POSTMEDIA NEWS
A huge chunk of ice about the size of Bermuda has cracked off Canada's largest remaining Arctic ice shelf.
The ancient slab of ice, measuring about 50 square kilometres in area and almost 400 metres thick, broke away from the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf on Ellesmere Island's northern coast last week, the Canadian Ice Service said Aug. 25.
"The whole northeast quarter seems to have gone," said Trudy Wohlleben, a senior ice forecaster at the service, who first noticed cracks developing on the shelf in early August. Satellite images over the last week have confirmed the huge chunk of ancient ice shelf has broken away, she says.
The breakup points to the profound change underway in the Arctic and the accelerating loss of a unique and "majestic" part of Canada's landscape, says John England, University of Alberta earth scientist.
The Ward Hunt is the largest of the remaining ice shelves that have clung to Ellesmere Island for 3,000 to 5,000 years. They contain the oldest sea ice in the northern hemisphere, England says, and have no counterpart in Greenland or Russia.
"They're our California redwoods, they're our pyramids, they're a really unique, intriguing aspect of our Canadian landscape," says England. "And they are disappearing."
The fracturing of such a large chuck of the Ward Hunt is one of the more remarkable changes Wohlleben and her colleagues have seen in the Arctic this summer, which has seen plenty of action.
"This year, the ice seems to be fracturing all over the Arctic once again," Wohlleben said in an interview, noting that 2009 had been quiet compared to 2008 and 2007.
Wohlleben was also the first to spot a gargantuan chunk of ice that calved off Greenland's Petermann Glacier this summer. It is about 251 square kilometres in size - four times the size of Manhattan - and is drifting toward Canadian waters.
While the Greenland iceberg is much bigger, England says the loss of such a big chunk of the Ward Hunt shelf is in some ways more significant because the ice is so old.
"It's not like these things come and go every few years or decades," says England, noting that it would take centuries of cold weather to regrow Ellesmere's ice shelves. "We can't just sweep it under the carpet and say 'It's one of nature's cycles'," he said of the disintegration that shows little sign of letting up.
There are still several weeks to go before the Arctic ice pack reaches its minimum for this year. At this stage Wohlleben says it doesn't look as if this will break the record ice retreat seen in 2007.
"But it will be close," she said.
]]> August 27, 2010
As many as one million people have been displaced in Pakistan's Sindh province since Wednesday, as the country's devastating floods sweep southward.
New flooding in the Thatta and Qambar-Shahdadkot districts, caused by a bloated Indus River, forced the mass displacement over the past 48 hours, Maurizio Giuliano, a UN spokesman, told reporters.
Though around 800,000 people throughout the country remain so isolated that they can only be reached by air, Sindh - through which the Indus flows south toward the Arabian Sea - is becoming the focus of concern.
In areas near Hyderabad, Sindh's second-largest city, the Indus has swelled from its normal width of 200-300 metres to almost three and a half kilometres, a Pakistani army spokesman said on Thursday.
The situation in Sindh "is getting from bad to worse," Giuliano said. "We are delivering [aid] faster and faster, but the floods seemed determined to outrun our response."
SPECIAL COVERAGE
Sindh is also home to historic tombs, graves and other remnants of the Mughal Empire, which during the height of its power in the 18th century ruled almost all of what is now India and Pakistan.
One new estimate suggests around 200,000 livestock animals, crucial to the agricultural communities in the southern flatland, have died in Sindh province alone, according to Al Jazeera's Imran Khan, reporting from Shikarpur.
Almost 17.2 million people have been significantly affected by the floods, the United Nations has said, and around 1,600 dead have been counted thus far.
People 'on the move'
"The crisis here is only growing," Al Jazeera correspondent Zeina Khodr, reporting from Hyderabad, said on Friday.
The flooding, indicated in yellow, is expected to spread south with the Indus River [Al Jazeera]
"The floodwaters [are] trying to make their way to the Arabian Sea. Instead, they are breaching embankments and inundating a number of villages."
Government officials said flooding has submerged 40 per cent of Thatta district, the southernmost part of Sindh, Khodr said.
Residents along the Indus "are on the move, carrying whatever they can," she said.
Those with some mode of transportation are heading to the port city of Karachi, those without are going to Hyderabad.
Government officials have extended evacuation orders to include the city of Shahdadkot, home to some 100,000 people.
On Thursday, authorities ordered residents to evacuate the threatened towns of Sujawal, Mirpur Bathoro and Daro after the swollen Indus breached an embankment near the village of Surjani. Some 400,000 people are believed to live in those towns.
The floods have already washed away at least 40 villages in Sindh and are not expected to recede for months.
Taliban threat remains
Azam Tariq, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, hinted on Thursday that the group might follow through on plans to attack foreign aid workers that the United States government had earlier warned about, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
PJ Crowley, the US state department spokesman, told reporters on Thursday that the government has "information of the potential targeting of foreign relief workers in Pakistan, as well as government ministries".
Tariq told the AP that the Taliban believed relief workers had hidden motives.
"Behind the scenes [the aid workers] have certain intentions, but on the face they are talking of relief and help," he told the AP by telephone from an undisclosed location.
"No relief is reaching the affected people, and when the victims are not receiving help, then this horde of foreigners is not acceptable to us at all".
Three protesting farmers were shot dead and more than forty others injured August 14, when police opened fire on a protest at Jikarpur, a village in the Aligarh District of Uttar Pradesh (UP).
The farmers were protesting against the land expropriations being carried out by the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) state government to build a 165-kilometer highway, the Jamuna (or Yamuna) Expressway, linking India's capital, New Delhi, with Agra, the city that is home to the Taj Mahal.
The BSP professes to uphold the interests of the Dalits (former untouchables) and all the oppressed, but it is implementing pro-market policies in tandem with big business.
Police attacked the farmers after they gathered to protest the rumored arrest of a leader of the anti-expropriation campaign. A pitched battle ensued, in which the authorities claim one policeman was killed and 15 others injured.
Farmers in UP's Aligarh and Mathura Districts had been agitating for several weeks in protest against the meager compensation they have been offered for their land. Many complain that even before agreeing to sell their plots, government agencies and private firms have set about destroying their bore-well equipment, tanks and other farm facilities.
A farmer told the Times of India, "I have not given away my land. Still they have demolished my tubewell room and uprooted constructions on my land... How can they do this?"
"There are," continued the farmer, "more than 30 villagers in this very village who are facing the same problem."
According to press reports, the UP government is seeking to acquire 10,000 acres in what is one of India's prime agricultural regions with a view to enticing businesses to invest in UP with the offer of cheap, well-connected land. Its aim is to make the Jamuna Expressway a corridor of shopping plazas, industrial estates and townships (housing developments).
Close to 1,200 villages in western UP have been "notified" by the UP government that it intends to acquire lands in their vicinity for the highway project.
Initially the government was offering farmers compensation of just 449 Rupees (less than $10 US) per square meter. Following the adverse political fallout from the Jikarpur shooting, it increased this to 590 Rupees (about $13) per square meter.
The farmers have been demanding 950 Rupees ($21) per square meter, the amount the government paid in Noida, which lies in another UP district closer to New Delhi. They also want the compensation to be tax-free.
The Monday following the Saturday evening massacre in Jikarpur, both house of India's national parliament were rocked by angry protests, as the BSP's bourgeois political opponents sought to use the farmers' deaths to score political points.
The Hindu supremacist and ardently pro-big business Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the UP-based Samajwadi (Socialist) Party or SP were especially vocal. Its name notwithstanding, the SP is a caste-based party, notorious for its close ties to the Ambanis, the billionaire family that owns Reliance Industries.
Not to be outdone, the Congress Party, the dominant party in India's United Progressive Alliance coalition government, dispatched Rahul Gandhi, son of Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi and the heir apparent to the party leadership, to visit the farmers, on August 21, a week after the police assault. He claimed he would take up their cause in all appropriate forums.
Following the August 14 shooting, Basudeb Acharia of the Stalinist Communist Party of India (Marxist), lashed out against the BSP--a party that little over a year ago the Stalinists were actively courting to anchor a "Third Front" in opposition to the Congress and BJP. Said Acharia, "Farmers who were demanding right prices for their land in Mathura and Aligarh did not get compensation, but instead had to face bullets... In the name of SEZs (Special Economic Zones), thousands of acres of land is being snatched from farmers and being given to industry."
This is pure hypocrisy and demagogy. The CPM-led Left Front government in West Bengal used deadly force in 2007 to quell peasant opposition to its attempt to seize land in Nandigram for an SEZ to be operated by an Indonesia-based multinational.
In an attempt to defuse the political crisis triggered by the Jikarpur shooting, UP Chief Minister and BSP supremo Mayawati has ordered a judicial probe into the shooting and raised the compensation for families of those killed from Rs. 500,000 (about $10,000) to Rs 1 million ($20,000). The injured are to be given Rs. 200,000 ($4,200).
The BSP government also now claims that farmers who do not wish to part with their land will not be forced to do so. But even if the government and business stop using underhanded methods to force the peasants from their lands, industrial and commercial development will quickly make farming impracticable.
Mayawati responded to the attacks from her political opponents by accusing them of having "no other work but to instigate farmers."
She also chastised the Congress for failing to replace the British colonial state's Land Acquisition Act --legislation that empowers India's Union and state governments to expropriate land essentially at will. Those affected have no recourse, although they can petition the courts to increase the financial compensation to be paid them.
Suddenly feigning concern for those whom her government is abusing and repressing, Mayawati declared, "It is most unfortunate that the central government led by Congress is still following the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 even after 63 years of independence when it should have amended [the Act] to safeguard the interests of farmers...and it is because of this that farmers all over the country are made to bear the brunt."
The forced seizure of peasants' land for capitalist development has emerged as an explosive issue across India. Peasants are given meager cash payments for the land that is their livelihood and the sole means of support for their families. Many soon find themselves forced to migrate to the cities in search of wage labor. As for the sharecroppers and agricultural laborers whose lives have been bound up with the expropriated land, they frequently receive no compensation at all.
Hoping to deflect responsibility from her own government for seizing land for big business, Mayawati went on to observe that the majority of SEZs have sprouted in states ruled by the Congress and BJP. This she said proved "their proximity to the capitalists."
The reality is that the BSP--as the Jikarpur shooting graphically illustrates--is also a tool of big business. A corrupt, caste-based political machine, the BSP has repeatedly aligned with the rightwing BJP in national and state politics. It exploits the anger of the Dalits and other impoverished Indians in the interests of a venal petty-bourgeois layer that was nourished by the Indian state's reservation (affirmative action) policy and that now seeks to use its claim to "represent" the Dalits to secure a share of the booty of Indian capitalism.
Big business, for its part, well recognizes that the BSP is a useful and pliant instrument. According to India's Income Tax Department, the BSP has close to 3 billion Rupees (about $60 million US) in assets--an enormous sum in India. Indeed, the BSP's assets are second only to that of the Indian bourgeoisie's premier governing party, the Congress Party.
August 27, 2010 "Information Clearing House" --Chuck Norris is no pinko-liberal-commie, and Human Events is a very conservative publication. The two have come together to produce one of the most important articles of our time, "Obama's US Assassination Program."
It seems only yesterday that Americans, or those interested in their civil liberties, were shocked that the Bush regime so flagrantly violated the FlSA law against spying on American citizens without a warrant. A federal judge serving on the FISA court even resigned in protest to the illegality of the spying.
Nothing was done about it. "National security" placed the president and executive branch above the law of the land. Civil libertarians worried that the US government was freeing its power from the constraints of law, but no one else seemed to care.
Encouraged by its success in breaking the law, the executive branch early this year announced that the Obama regime has given itself the right to murder Americans abroad if such Americans are considered a "threat." "Threat" was not defined and, thus, a death sentence would be issued by a subjective decision of an unaccountable official.
There was hardly a peep out of the public or the media. Americans and the media were content for the government to summarily execute traitors and turncoats, and who better to identify traitors and turncoats than the government with all its spy programs.
The problem with this sort of thing is that once it starts, it doesn't stop. As Norris reports citing Obama regime security officials, the next stage is to criminalize dissent and criticism of the government. The May 2010 National Security Strategy states: "We are now moving beyond traditional distinctions between homeland and national security. . . . This includes a determination to prevent terrorist attacks against the American people by fully coordinating the actions that we take abroad with the actions and precautions that we take at home."
Most Americans will respond that the "indispensable" US government would never confuse an American exercising First Amendment rights with a terrorist or an enemy of the state. But, in fact, governments always have. Even one of our Founding Fathers, John Adams and the Federalist Party, had their "Alien and Sedition Acts" which targeted the Republican press.
Few with power can brook opposition or criticism, especially when it is a simple matter for those with power to sweep away constraints upon their power in the name of "national security." Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan recently explained that more steps are being taken, because of the growing number of Americans who have been "captivated by extremist ideology or causes." Notice that this phrasing goes beyond concern with Muslim terrorists.
In pursuit of hegemony over both the world and its own subjects, the US government is shutting down the First Amendment and turning criticism of the government into an act of "domestic extremism," a capital crime punishable by execution, just as it was in Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia.
Initially German courts resisted Hitler's illegal acts. Hitler got around the courts by creating a parallel court system, like the Bush regime did with its military tribunals. It won't be long before a decision of the US Supreme Court will not mean anything. Any decision that goes against the regime will simply be ignored.
This is already happening in Canada, an American puppet state. Writing for the Future of Freedom Foundation, Andy Worthington documents the lawlessness of the US trial of Canadian Omar Khadr. In January of this year, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the interrogation of Khadr constituted "state conduct that violates the principles of fundamental justice" and "offends the most basic Canadian standards about the treatment of detained youth suspects." According to the Toronto Star, the Court instructed the government to "shape a response that reconciled its foreign policy imperatives with its constitutional obligations to Khadr," but the puppet prime minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, ignored the Court and permitted the US government to proceed with its lawless abuse of a Canadian citizen.
September 11 destroyed more than lives, World Trade Center buildings, and Americans' sense of invulnerability. The event destroyed American liberty, the rule of law and the US Constitution.
In 1963, the government of Maharashtra ended famine forever in the State. It did this without adding a morsel to anyone's diet. It did so simply by passing an Act in the Legislature that deleted the word 'famine' from all laws of the State. No kidding. This was called 'The Maharashtra Deletion Of The Term "Famine" Act, 1963" (And was dug up after decades by an independent researcher from Bangalore.)
The basis for this? Let the Act explain itself. It asserts that "there is now no scope for famine conditions to develop." Why so? Because "the agricultural situation in the State is constantly watched by the State government." And "relief measures as warranted by the situation are provided as soon as signs of scarcity conditions are apparent." Goodbye Famine.
The next para says the term 'famine' " has now become obsolete, and requires therefore to be deleted" (emphasis added) from "other laws on the subject in their application to the State." It decrees that "for the words 'famine or acute scarcity' the word 'scarcity' shall be substituted," in all laws of the State. Lucky Maharashtra -- it can't ever have acute scarcity either.
By slaying famine and acute scarcity on paper, a government kills its own responsibility towards citizens, mainly poor and hungry ones, in times of crisis. Its burden becomes less. It can concentrate (especially in Maharashtra) on boosting the Indian Premier League and its billionaires.
This approach essentially defines a problem out of existence. You can't fight famine -- so abolish it. It's a proud tradition the State still hews to. Can't stop farmers' suicides, so redefine who a farmer is. Then redefine what a suicide is. Maharashtra has done both. Why not have a law banning the word 'farmer' or 'suicide' or both? Solves an annoying problem in a State that has seen, in official count, over 44,000 farm suicides since 1995.
This is an Act in a State with a gosh-awful record in food production for years. That includes a 24 per cent fall in 2008-09. A rich State that has seen far more child hunger deaths than many poorer ones. A State that added greatly to its hungry with 2 million people losing their jobs between 2005-06 and 2007-08. That's over 1800 each day -- and that's before the global meltdown of September 2008, according to the State's own economic survey.
The 1963 Act casts its shadow to this day. By legal definition, we cannot have a serious crisis in Maharashtra. So when there is one, we respond to it on a much lower scale than needed. No matter how deadly the crisis, relief work will never be up to the mark because it is not required by law to be so.
The Union government and the NAC can learn from this. Why not just abolish the word 'hunger' by law? Replace it, maybe, with 'a mild craving for calories' (mild, not 'acute,'). Or words to that effect. End of hunger. We've started down that road. The NAC's idea of 'universal PDS in 150 districts" is similar. It re-defines the word 'universal.' Death by definition has been routine for decades in India -- consider the poverty line debates, for instance.
Meanwhile, say the 'experts,' the millions of tonnes of grain rotting in open yards present a "golden opportunity" for India to export this in bulk "and seize on the high prevailing global prices of grain." That is also what the government hopes to do. Its affidavit in response to a slap from the Supreme Court speaks of liquidating the excess stocks by open market sale (read exports).
Leave aside for a moment the appalling insensitivity of exporting grain when there are, as the Supreme Court says, many "admittedly starving people" at home. Just look at the logic of it. You have a gigantic pile up of grain. You have these admittedly starving people. You say the production is not enough to go for a universal system in PDS -- even while boasting we have so much grain, we can cash in on high global prices. Remember that the government has bragged of "recording the highest ever production of about 235 million tonnes of food grains in 2008-09 ..." So much so that we cannot store half of it and it is rotting.
Who will you export it to? Are there good global prices for rotting grain? Grain that even when in best condition was not of superior quality? What you will do is flog it at rock bottom prices to traders who know you won't consider any other option -- like letting the hungry eat it -- and can knock your prices through the floor. And then the traders can export it as cattle feed -- like India has done before in this very decade. About the only thing Iran and Iraq could agree on in 30 years was that the grain exported to them from India was unfit for human consumption. Both rejected shipments early this decade. But there are always, never fear, European cattle. Talk of sacred cows -- these will be subsidised by some of the hungriest humans on the planet.
The government knows this is how it will end up -- and is not at all averse to that happening. Apart from the juicy avenues of corruption it presents to many connected to the Food Ministry and the trader lobbies linked to them, it makes "sound economic sense" in their worldview. One in which the hungry count for little. The National Democratic Alliance did the same thing in 2001-03 and paid the price for it in 2004. The United Progressive Alliance feels confident the elections are far off. And there are no pesky Leftists to restrain them in this innings. This is the time to ram through 'hard decisions.'
Meanwhile, even as we talk of 'exportable surpluses,' we look around for ways to make up our production shortfall. Indian companies are buying land in parts of Africa to grow foodgrain. This finds approval with the Working Group on Agricultural Production set up by the Prime Minister and chaired by Haryana Chief Minister B.S. Hooda. Its report says "We should seriously consider these options for at least 2 million tonnes of pulses and 5 million tonnes of edible oil for 15-20 years."
Indeed, the Hooda report wants us to spread our net further. It says "Indian companies can be encouraged to buy lands in countries like Canada, Myanmar, Australia and Argentina for producing pulses under long-term supply contracts to Indian canalizing agencies." (Thereby eyeing four continents besides Africa). So even as we convert more and more food crop land to cash crop or to non-farm use at home, Indian companies (doubtless with handsome government support) will buy land and grow grain in poorer countries (which is where it will mainly happen). Why? So we can create worse food crises in even poorer nations? But what if the locals get restless? They might resent the food they hunger for being shipped to India? No worries. What are we building a Blue Water Navy for, anyway?
A dismal debate all around. Yet, in the next few weeks, the government, the NAC, Parliament, and the judiciary will all be called upon to take major decisions, even vital steps, on the food security of the Indian people. They might want to remember that there is existing legislation to draw from. Legislation far superior to and of a very different kidney from the "Maharashtra Deletion of the Term 'Famine' Act, 1963." That is, the Directive Principles of State Policy -- that give us the vision and soul of the Indian Constitution.
Of course, the moment we speak of the Directive Principles, up pops the point: "but these are not enforceable!" Yet, the very line of the Constitution which says they are not enforceable goes on to say they are "fundamental in the governance of the country and it shall be the duty of the state to apply these principles in making laws." How the state -- and others -- perform their duties will be on display in the next fortnight.
Will the courts say anything about the notion of shipping grain abroad when millions go hungry at home? Will the government say something other than 'no' to the needs of the hungry? Will the NAC rethink its stand on a universal PDS? Will Parliament accept fraudulent definitions of food security? Will anyone speak for the Directive Principles of State Policy and how policy must work towards strengthening them? It would, of course, be silly to expect a government of this sensitivity to care a fig for the Directive Principles. But perhaps we can hope that the Supreme Court does?
AMY GOODMAN: It was five years ago that Hurricane Katrina was barreling towards the Gulf Coast. Today, a Democracy Now! global broadcast exclusive: we spend the hour on the story of one family from New Orleans, the Zeitouns, not only experienced the widespread displacement caused by the storm, but they were also victimized by the so-called "war on terror." Their story forms the basis of the critically acclaimed novel Zeitoun by the celebrated writer Dave Eggers, who just won the American Book Award for his book.
Abdulrahaman Zeitoun is a Syrian-born immigrant to the United States who lived in New Orleans with his wife Kathy, an American convert to Islam, and their children. Together, they ran a successful painting and contracting business and are well known in the local community of New Orleans.
As the storm approached the city in late August 2005, Kathy and her kids fled to Baton Rouge to her sister's house. They then proceeded to a friend's home in Phoenix, Arizona, where they waited out the storm. Meanwhile, Abdulrahman Zeitoun was ready with his sixteen-foot aluminum canoe when Katrina made landfall as a Category 3 storm on August 29th.
The book tells the story of how Zeitoun spent days rescuing people stranded in the storm, until he was picked up by an armed squad who accused him of being a terrorist. He was held for three weeks without any contact with his family. They thought he was dead.
In an exclusive broadcast interview, I spoke with Abdulrahman Zeitoun and his wife Kathy yesterday, as well as the bestselling writer, publisher, Dave Eggers, whose numerous works include A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, also the founder of the independent publishing house and literary journal McSweeney's.
I began the interview by asking Dave Eggers to explain how he first came across the story of what the Zeitouns went through in the aftermath of Katrina.
DAVE EGGERS: At McSweeney's, we have a small publishing company in San Francisco, and we have a series called Voice of Witness that uses oral history to illuminate human rights crises around the world. And the first book in the series was about the wrongfully convicted and exonerated here in the US. And right when that book was coming out, Katrina hit, and so we talked to a lot of friends that we had in Houston, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Atlanta, and people fanned out and began interviewing New Orleanians who had fled the storm. And when we started getting the transcripts back and the tapes back from the interviewers, I saw the story of the Zeitouns, and I was struck by it on so many levels. And so, the next time I was in New Orleans a few months later, I met the family, and we spent many hours together, and I got to know the kids.
And I think even--you know, I was struck by it on this--on the level of--you know, I don't think many of us knew of this intersection, this improbable intersection of the war on terror and Katrina, and how the folding of FEMA into Homeland Security affected the response to Katrina. And there were so many sort of political aspects of it, and I was interested in it on a journalistic level. But it was also getting to know this family that I connected to almost immediately. And also, you know, their story goes so deep, you know, and Zeitoun's family story in Syria was so fascinating. And Kathy's conversion to Islam was, I think, a really valuable way to introduce Islam to readers that might not know too much about it.
And so, they're this all-American family. They encompass the immigrant experience, the American Dream, all these all-American values in New Orleans. And then, at the same time, you know, he was put in this moment in time where he rose to a challenge and became a hero. And then, of course, something terrible happened that I hope could never happen again in this country, that it was a moment in time when we didn't live up to our highest values and aspirations. And so, there were so many aspects of it that interested me. But again, most of it was a personal connection to the family, that, you know, now it's five years on, and we're inextricably woven together and very close. And so, it was their faith in me and their trust in me and their courage in telling their story that made it possible.
AMY GOODMAN: Dave Eggers, could you tell us a little bit of what you just told us in shorthand, where Zeitoun--where Abdulrahaman Zeitoun was born, how he grew up, how he ended up here and then went from the horror of the storm to the horror of the prison, after being considered a hero?
DAVE EGGERS: Well, you know, some of the--one of the great parts of researching a book like this was to go back to his hometown of Jableh on the coast of Syria and see this--what was, at the time, when he was growing up, a pretty small fishing village. And it's grown somewhat since then. But I was able to meet his brothers and sisters, all of whom--or most of whom are still there, and also see their--his grandmother's home town, which is on an island called Arwad Island, which is just off the coast to near Tartus, and get to know everybody and see, you know, and get to know generations of the Zeitouns. And they--it's an incredibly illustrious family that has--you know, they've achieved so many things. You know, they're professors, and they're principals of schools and doctors, and, you know, his brother Ahmed is a ship captain, and I got to spend time with him in Spain.
And so, you know, Zeitoun grew up there, and he eventually became a merchant sailor, sailing around the world on many different vessels, helping to load and unload. And he saw the world that way and finally stopped in the US. You know, he first settled in Baton Rouge, and then New Orleans. And he built this business from scratch, because he had grown up around a lot of different trades, and he got to know masonry and painting and carpentry. And he was--you know, he worked for a lot of other contractors, and he was the hardest working guy that they had ever seen. And so, pretty soon he had his own business. Soon after, he married Kathy, and they built this business together as, like, equal partners in, you know, handling different sides of the business.
And so, in every way, they really do embody the American Dream: hard work, family and a dedication to one's neighbors. You could see how one of the reasons that he stayed behind when the storm hit was to take care of his clients' homes. He has keys to every one of them. He's got, you know, hundreds of keys to homes all over the city, because he's taken care of these houses, and so--and everybody trusts him with them, so--which makes it all the more tragic, I think, and exasperating that he is the model citizen in so many ways and he was victimized this way.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about that day, September 6th, and the different men who, oh, Zeitoun had been going around with, helping others with. Talk about Nasser and Todd and, from your research, what happened that day.
DAVE EGGERS: Well, Nasser was a friend of Zeitoun's who also was Syrian, and he--they had gone back. They knew each other for many, many years. And he had been living in the city as a--you know, first came here as a graduate student at Tulane. And they ran into each other after the storm. And Nasser helped distribute supplies with Zeitoun in the canoe, and they spent many days together. And Nasser was living at that house on Claiborne, too. And then, Todd Gambino is a resident there, and he--you know, a whole book could be written about Todd, because he saved many, many lives and--going around on a motorboat. And then there was this relative stranger named Ronnie that none of them knew, but who had stopped by once or twice to use the phone.
And, you know, after all of this happened, I was sure--I got a copy of the arrest record, and I wanted to see who the officers were on the arrest record. There were two there. And so, I tracked down both of them, one of whom was a veteran officer from New Mexico who had come to New Orleans after the storm, and then the main officer was a New Orleans police officer who had been going around up and down Claiborne and had been--he says that he--in my interview with him, he said that he observed them looting, all four of them looting a Walgreens. And in the end, there was no evidence of any looting. He didn't recover any stolen goods at the house or anything like that. And so--but he went to Napoleon-St. Charles, where many military and other officers were gathered, and he got a team together, and then they came into the house and raided it and arrested all four of them. And so, I found it totally important to interview these two officers.
And I think, you know, had the whole system been working, had there been due process, had there been public defenders available and a rational bail set and phone calls available to people and people being able to be visited by or contact their relatives or family, and had any of these other things that we take for granted been in place, a lot of the injustices would have been mitigated to some extent. But none of these were--none of these systems were working. And so, once they were arrested and brought, you know, in this van, driven by our National Guardsmen, brought to Camp Greyhound, they got lost in the system. That's when the system was broken down. And even if the arrest had been wrongful and the evidence wasn't there, under normal circumstances, they would have been free on bail, and the charges would have been dropped momentarily. But in this case, because none of these other systems were working, that's how they and hundreds of others were lost in the Louisiana prison system. And, you know, Todd Gambino did many months in prison, and Nasser did many months in prison. And hundreds of others did what was known as "Katrina time," where they were lost in the system. Records weren't kept. Some people weren't allowed to make phone calls or meet with lawyers--or anyone--for upwards of a year. And so, it was a complete meltdown of the system, unfortunately.
AMY GOODMAN: In this Democracy Now! global broadcast exclusive, the first time Dave Eggers and the subjects of his book, the Zeitouns, have joined together in a studio to tell their story. It's the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. And we go to Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun themselves. Abdulrahman is known in New Orleans by his last name, Zeitoun. I spoke to Zeitoun and his wife Kathy yesterday. i
AMY GOODMAN: Describe the day that life as you know it completely changed. Of course, life had already changed. You were alone there trying to help people, your family in Baton Rouge.
ABDULRAHMAN ZEITOUN: This day, we come from around--around noon, like maybe around 3:00. And I got to the house, and I go to the bathroom, and I open the water, and I see the water running. You know, before one week, don't see water running. And I jump, take a shower right away. And I have the couple guys--there was one guy, apart from me, from other place, and I tell him, "Go ahead. Jump in the shower, because I have water running." And I got outside and start making my phone calls. And he got out, and someone started talking to him. I can't see who's talking, but I hear just somebody talking. I say, "Who's outside?" He said, "Someone ask us if we need any water." I said, "Tell him we have enough, and maybe somebody else need it more than us."
And this guy--I mean, he uses the way, if we need water, to keep coming to the house. And the guys keep talking and come closer slowly to the house. And I see five, six guys, military, with the policemen, jump in the house with all the weapon. And the guys ask us, "What you guys doing here?" I says, "It's my house." He says, "You have ID?" I say, "Yes." I show him my ID. I don't think he have enough time to see--to read my name. He just saw my picture and, like, sees a strange name, and he said, "Go to the boat." On the table in the middle of my room, I have my note with my wife--where she's staying, phone numbers. Only way in touch with--only way I can touch with her, because the cell phone doesn't work. I can ask him if I can get the note. He said, "No, just go on the boat." I tried to get it anyway, and he is appearing to shoot. And I said, "OK, this is not good."
And I got to the boat, and then he's--I have other two guys there also. Say, "All of you get on the boat now." Happened that Gambino, he's outside, coming from somewhere. And then, as I get there, he asked, "What? How? What's going on?" He said, "Who are you?" He said, "I live here." Said, "Get on the boat." And they brought him with us. And--
AMY GOODMAN: Their guns are drawn?
ABDULRAHMAN ZEITOUN: Yes, have an army ready to shoot. You know, have a, like, military, like, ready--like these guys coming for--like prepared for war. And brought us to St. Charles and Napoleon. As soon we got there, we have like, every one of us, being five, six guys jump on him and tied him down. Like I saw something like only thing you see it in the movies. Anyway, brought us to one van--
AMY GOODMAN: That they jump on each one of you and tie you down.
ABDULRAHMAN ZEITOUN: Yes. Yes, ma'am. I mean, I don't know what happens in these guys' mind. I feel something not good. And after, brought us to the van. Before that, when we were in the boat, I said, "Where are you taking us?" He said, "You know, just we take you, talk to our boss." When we got there and see this motion action, where we in the van waiting, have one guy come behind the wheel. And I ask him, "What's going on? What's wrong?" He said, "We're from Indiana. We're doing our job." That's the only thing he have to say. And I stay quiet almost like for fifteen minutes, we sitting and waiting. After that, he got the order to move. He brought us to the bus station there and processed us--
AMY GOODMAN: The Greyhound station.
ABDULRAHMAN ZEITOUN: Yes, the Greyhound station. And we stay almost like hour in the lobby there, where--and taking pictures and checking us and strip us naked and, I mean, then all the kind of--and have guys surround us like with the dog and the sort of like security, very high security, you know? I don't know how to describe it. I was just very--we can't move. We have to stand, our leg open and our foot in place and our arm on the seat. I mean, you can't have any movement.
And after we finish, brought us to the--where the bus line up, have like--been designed like Guantánamo Bay jails, you know, like wire and like fence wires and almost like, I think, fifteen-, twenty-foot-high, and we have like cages. Brought us ourself with one of the cage. The first--I remember exactly first cage, I got next to the station, next to the engine for the train. We stay next to the engine three days, right in our ears. I mean, I think I'm becoming deaf after that, because imagine you be three days next to the engine running, because the engine generates electricity for the station.
AMY GOODMAN: Zeitoun, just to understand here, you had been looking for help to save your neighbors, over these days that you were saving people. Now you were brought to the Greyhound station, and you say it was built like Guantánamo, which means they must have been spending time since the storm turning this bus station into a prison. You had been traveling a lot in your canoe. Had you seen this happening?
ABDULRAHMAN ZEITOUN: No, because I never got this close to the bus station, although what I saw over there, have not just--I mean, I spend some time. You have all kind of very high-tech equipment there, have a lifter, a crane, have a machine with big wheels to prepare to drive in the water. I mean, very high-tech equipment there, and this can be used to rescue people, better to build a jail. I mean, I was surprised. I mean, all kind of machineries you can imagine is there.
AMY GOODMAN: Why did they tell you you had been arrested, you had been detained, that you were stripped naked, that you were being imprisoned with the other men that you had been traveling around with to help others? What was your crime, did they say?
ABDULRAHMAN ZEITOUN: This is what I tried to find out. Every time we asked someone, and they start to throw a name at us: "You guys Taliban. You're al-Qaeda." I mean, each one guy is passing by, give us, like--I don't know. Is it like he throw it like a joke or like a serious? We don't know what this--you know, been telling us like that. And I finally had discovered--
AMY GOODMAN: They said you were Taliban and al-Qaeda?
ABDULRAHMAN ZEITOUN: Yes, this is what they were accusing us for at first. And this is why, when first day we In the bus station, these people called--what you call it, the Homeland Security on us, and have two guys come there, interview us inside. And this guy, like, shake his head, and he left. He said, "We don't have nothing with these people." You know, just left. That's why these guys think he have like when brothers from there have a big fish. And I don't know what this guy is thinking.
And also, after three days, we've been tranferred to Baton Rouge, also have to, after like a week from being transferred to Baton Rouge, we have FBI or some high official guys, very, very, very intelligent people come to us and interview me and other--my friends. And he tell maybe like that. He said, "Look, we don't have nothing on you. We never have anything on you. Just up to these people, you know, what they do." He asked me, "What I can do to help you?" And I request for him to call my wife, tell her I'm OK. And he did. And the people in jail in Baton Rouge--and anywhere in New Orleans, too--nobody give us chance to call or just to pass message to my wife to say I'm here or I'm alive. Every time I ask somebody, "Please call my wife," he say, "We can't do that." "Give me--let me make phone call." "We can't let you do that." And it happened almost like three weeks. I never have a chance to call my wife, let her know where I am.
AMY GOODMAN: Kathy Zeitoun, talk about this time, from September 6th, when you stopped hearing from your husband, for these weeks. Where were you when the calls stopped? And what happened to you and your kids afterwards?
KATHY ZEITOUN: At this time, we were in Arizona, Chandler, Arizona. I kept waiting for him to call. He didn't. Every time the phone would ring, I would rush to the phone hoping that it was him. It wasn't. By the next day, we didn't hear from him. Then we went to the Red Cross building, and then we put in a missing person's report. And also, we put our name over at--I think they have a coliseum over there. We had to go there and file a missing person's report over there, as well. And his brother at this point was calling, asking if I had heard from him, because he could no longer get in touch with him, as well. So then we had his brother and then the rest of his family calling, because they couldn't get in touch with him, as well. And everybody was worried about him at this point.
AMY GOODMAN: And so, at what point did you start to give up hope? And what were you telling your children?
KATHY ZEITOUN: I think by the second week, I was really horribly nervous. And I would just tell my children, when I saw that it was affecting them so horribly at this point, I was telling them--they would hear me speak with my sister, and it was affecting them, especially my youngest daughter. It affected her horribly. I mean, she stopped eating. She wasn't sleeping very well. Her hair was falling out when I would brush it. You would hear her talking to her cousins. She would say, "We have so much water in our house and in so much of the street, and we don't know where my dad is." So, finally, when I saw that my emotions are playing on my children, then we just had to tell them, "No, I heard from Daddy. Daddy is with a friend. He's going to be home soon." But maybe they believed it, maybe not. It didn't settle her nerves any. So that's--it was a really bad time for all of us.
AMY GOODMAN: You were a well-known developer in New Orleans. How is it that no one knew you, from all the houses you had built and rebuilt and rented? Who were these people who were holding you?
ABDULRAHMAN ZEITOUN: All of them not from--not from our town. I think most of them come from--what's call it?--Angola, what I heard, and other people. The military people from Indiana, that's what he tell me. Say, "We from Indiana. We're doing our"--
AMY GOODMAN: Angola, meaning the prison in Angola, Louisiana?
ABDULRAHMAN ZEITOUN: Yeah, Angola prison. Yeah, this what I heard this, the people around the prison in New Orleans from Angola, Angola prison. And also, the most of the military, the one pick me up is from--the guy tell me, "We're from Indiana." This is what he say we do. "From Indiana. We're doing our job." I don't think anybody from our city around.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the man, the old African American missionary, who was giving out Bibles at the Hunt prison, who finally you got to make the critical call to Kathy.
ABDULRAHMAN ZEITOUN: Yeah, believe it or not, anybody pass by me, I will, you know, try to just encourage him to make this phone call, not just him. I have everybody, includes, you know, the lady, she distributes the medicine for the people with the prescription or the--and also I have one lady in security. I say, "Well, man, this lady maybe have softer heart from the guys. Let her try." I try. Well, say, "No, I can't." I say, "I don't want you to--just call my wife and tell her I'm here, I'm alive. That's it." She say, "I can't do it." And we--I'm talking about we're in Baton Rouge, and I know--I heard people making calls from there. Just for us, she said, "The phone broken." Never let us--you know, every time call for phone.
After three weeks, gave us chance to make phone call, and when I go to make the call, because only number I have, my wife's cell phone--I don't know where she is. The number she's staying, the land phone, I don't have the number, because I left it on the table in the house where I used to be. And he gave me one chance to make phone call, and we can't call a cell phone. We have to be land phone. And I come back with empty-handed.
AMY GOODMAN: But this man did make the call to Kathy?
ABDULRAHMAN ZEITOUN: No, this man--yeah, this man, when he passed by, and, you know, I just--this guy, you know, giving religious advice and things, and I asked him if he can do this call for me. He say, "OK," and he writes the number. And, I mean, I've been trying everybody. I mean, I give up. Just, I keep trying. And he did. And days later, when the government official come and interview us, and he asked me if I need any help. Well, even I don't want him to take me out, I don't ask him to get me outside, I just go, "Call my wife." I mean, he's--I mean, if he want to take me out, I'm sure he can, because this is, you know, one from high position, officer. And all I ask him, just--because I know if I get out, nothing to do. All I need is to my wife to know I'm safe.
AMY GOODMAN: Kathy, when you got that call--Kathy, when you got that call, what did it mean to you? And how did you begin to track down your husband? You didn't still--you didn't know where he was.
KATHY ZEITOUN: No, I didn't know where he was at the time. When I got the phone call, it was a big relief. I didn't want to let the man off the telephone, to be honest. I tried to hold him as much as I can, ask him as many questions as I could. But in reality, I think we were only on the phone for like a few minutes. And he told me, "Don't worry. Everything is going to work itself out, and most likely the charges are going to be dropped." But not too long after that, Homeland Security called me, as well, and told me, "Look, your husband is here. Don't worry. The charges are going to be dropped. We have no interest in him. We've never had any interest in him. And don't worry. Everything's going to be fine soon. You know, just all the charges are going to be dropped. Don't worry. He's here."
As soon as I found out where he was, I called the lawyer, Raleigh Ohlmeyer. And we started trying to track him down. You know, it was really hard to track him down, even though we knew where he was, because they didn't have the names of the people in a computer. It was just on a piece of paper on the side of a desk or in a file. It wasn't--I mean, I would call the prison and try to find out what kind of rights I would have. They'd say, "He's not our prisoner." So, I guess because he wasn't their prisoner, FEMA was paying them to keep him there. He did not have the same rights as everybody else had. He didn't have the right to the phone call or medical or visitation or proper eating. So it's really sad that the system shut itself down so bad at this time of need.
AMY GOODMAN: And Kathy, your feelings today, after having gone through this experience, from your husband being considered an American hero for so many to being called a terrorist and being imprisoned? That's five years ago. This is today. How do you feel?
KATHY ZEITOUN: Well, we don't feel that he's actually a hero. We just feel that he's a man who was at the right place at the right time who did the right thing. As far as what happened to him, it's very disappointing, and it's very sad, you know? But things happen and, God willing, people will learn from them. And hopefully these mistakes won't happen again.
AMY GOODMAN: Are you suing?
KATHY ZEITOUN: We are. From the beginning. Because I was so angry. I was--I can't describe the feelings that I had. And again, I thought it was revenge that I wanted, but it really wasn't revenge. It was justice. But I think we're at peace with it now. I think--I'm not angry anymore about it. And we still don't know what's going to happen with the lawsuit anyway. I know they threw it out one time, and it was brought back in. I mean, they could still throw it out. Who knows? We don't know what's going to happen with it. It's just sitting there, just like my husband did.
ABDULRAHMAN ZEITOUN: The main reason the story got out, because our lawyer, because he wanted her--
KATHY ZEITOUN: Yes.
ABDULRAHMAN ZEITOUN: --to put everything on paper.
AMY GOODMAN: And what do you hope to accomplish with the lawsuit?
KATHY ZEITOUN: Well, I think some things have already been accomplished, thank God. I think they learned their mistakes from Katrina. I saw that with Gustav. They did things a lot of differently--a lot differently, actually. I would hope that they wouldn't stereotype as bad. I think there was a lot of stereotyping, intentionally or not, unfortunately. It did happen. And I say this because my husband was at this house, our house, and he was arrested, and our neighbor across the street, who was at his house, he was picked up and sent to a different place, wherever he wanted to go. So, unfortunately, there was a lot of stereotyping, and I hope that they learned their lessons, at least from this story, that--you know, don't judge somebody just by appearance.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Zeitoun, has it shaken your faith in America?
ABDULRAHMAN ZEITOUN: Not--I mean, the life, I think, moving forward, because now the life getting better. Now we have--we see a lot of improvement in the city. And the children--I mean, for me, like myself, I like to forget all about it now. I keep look for in the future to--with a smile, because--I mean, and the past doesn't take us anywhere. We should just go ahead, focus about rebuild, do right things and build relationship with everybody else, especially with--we have a new--a lot of new people in the city. And we have some--I mean, most of the original people back. We have, like now, in my neighborhood, we have plenty new neighbors, we have the original neighbors. We back together, and everything go back close to normal.
AMY GOODMAN: We return now to our global broadcast exclusive. We go back now to writer Dave Eggers, whose nonfiction work Zeitoun tells the story of Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina five years ago--Zeitoun going from American hero to terrorist in the eyes of the US authorities. I spoke to Eggers Thursday and asked him to describe the conditions under which Abdulrahman Zeitoun was held when he was arrested in New Orleans in the aftermath of the storm.
DAVE EGGERS: The prison had been erected by trustees of Angola, and the guards were manning it along with it being a home base for a lot of National Guardsmen. And so, once they were handed off, that was the last the arresting officers saw of them. And then they were in the hands of this whole other body that took a look at--our assumption is that they took a look at the last names and origins of Nasser and Zeitoun, in particular, and thought, "Huh, we might have something really interesting on our hands." And so, that's when there were visited by Homeland Security representatives, and that's when they had a very strange circumstance where another man was put in their cage and sort of--in an attempt, Zeitoun believes, to get them talking, would try to provoke them with anti-American rhetoric. It was very strange.
But I think that this--again, the successive nature of handing them off from one body to the next, and once they were put on a bus and sent to Hunt Correctional Facility, then they were lost even deeper in the system. No one was really tracking them and others, because very good record keeping was not being kept. And they weren't subject to the same rights of prisoners at Hunt, who had been processed adequately.
And so--and I think that, you know, you take a lot of National Guardsmen, many of whom--and military personnel--many of whom had been in Iraq and Afghanistan, and many of whom were believing the hype, that the city was out of control and that they were entering a war zone. And it's no wonder that they would say to Zeitoun and Nasser, "You guys are al-Qaeda, you guys are Taliban," and suspect them. And I think that that climate right then was very troubling, and so it led to this military solution to a humanitarian problem. And I think that there was paranoia in the air that didn't serve anybody very well. And Ralph Gonzales, one of the arresting officers from New Mexico, told me--he said he had been led to believe that they were entering a war zone and that what they were sent there to do, fully armed with machine guns and body armor and, you know, armed to the teeth, was an operation for command and control. But what they found, within hours of landing in the city, was that they were needed mostly for search and rescue. And so, I think that as much as so many agencies tried to do their best, I think that the climate and the misinformation and the misplaced priorities led to some very unfortunate results.
AMY GOODMAN: Zeitoun got very sick in the jail and in the prison.
DAVE EGGERS: Yeah, you know, first he had, you know, a very bad cut on his foot, and it was getting infected while he was at Camp Greyhound. And here's a guy--he's old school. He's incredibly resilient. He's not one to complain about an injury. But he couldn't get help. Doctors would go to and fro, and they wouldn't stop to help him. And then, once he was at Hunt, he couldn't get any help at all, and he was--he felt like he had an incredible pain in his side that was eating away at him, and he didn't know what it was. And so--but, of course, he got no medical attention there. And, you know, again, he was left there to think, because nothing was improving, he had no reason to believe that he might ever be released. If you haven't gotten adequate legal representation and you're not able to contact your family, what reason does he have to believe that he will ever get out? And I think a lot of the prisoners that did Katrina time were in the same circumstance, where none of the rights that we expect were there. And it turned into a Kafkaesque situation.
AMY GOODMAN: Dave Eggers, when Kathy finally learned that he was alive and then started to make calls and even had a lawyer and even knew he was at Hunt, but told he wasn't, how long was that time, from when he had been picked up, September 6th, to when he was finally released?
DAVE EGGERS: It was three weeks before she heard from him. That was when the missionary who Zeitoun had given his phone number to called Kathy. And that's when she first knew that he was even was alive. And what was interesting was that, even then, it was extremely difficult to extract him from Hunt. And it was only because they had means to hire a private lawyer, they had a property that they could put up against the bail and--because they had set bail for all of those charged after Katrina with minor offenses--looting or, you know, stealing a sausage in one case--the bail was astronomical in some cases, $100,000 for stealing a small piece of food. And so, this was the case with Zeitoun, too. The bail was, I think, about $100,000. And so they had to put up their office building as collateral to get him out. And even then, when there was a court hearing finally set, Kathy wasn't told where it was, couldn't find where the courthouse was, where they were holding these hearings. And when she called to find out, they told her that she couldn't be told where the court hearing would be, that that was, quote-unquote, "private information."
And iIt's interesting that what Kathy says is that after all of this and all that she went through, it was that moment that really broke her, that she knew that her husband was alive, finally, and all she wanted to do was reach him and be able to see him again. And that's when, even then, the bureaucracy and this sort of humanity and this callousness sort of prevented her from doing so, and that they wouldn't even tell her where he was, you know, where the trial would be held. And so, I think--you know, I do hope that everybody learned something from this. But I think it's a lesson in how sort of everyday inhumanity or everyday--you know, what might seem like small abuses of power or the lack of recognition of our common humanity can cause incredible suffering.
AMY GOODMAN: How is it that Todd Gambino and Nasser ended up in prison for so many more months, up to, in Todd's case, a year?
DAVE EGGERS: They didn't have the--they and hundreds of others didn't have the money to hire private lawyers. And without that, they didn't have a prayer. There were a lot of really great public defenders who took it upon themselves to search out these prisoners who were lost in the system and to try to track them and find out what they were charged with and give them representation, but that took many, many months to sort out. And the Zeitouns did what they could for their friends, but it was--you know, there's only so much that you can do, and there were so many others that wee in the same situation. So, you know, Todd is out now, and he's doing fine. He's actually working in a shallow oil rig off the Gulf, just work that he had done before. And Nasser went back to Syria. And it's a shame, but there are hundreds of other stories like it.
AMY GOODMAN: And now, the lawsuit, to--as Kathy said, to bring some kind of justice to stop this from happening again.
DAVE EGGERS: Well, what one lawyer said was that they had better get in line. There are thousands of civil suits against the city, the state, FEMA, Homeland Security, government. And there isn't a whole lot of movement with any of these civil suits. The most famous among them is the case of the two men who were shot on the Danziger Bridge and the officers who are being held responsible for that. Obviously that case is moving forward on both levels, on a criminal level and a civil level, but I don't think--I don't have--I'm not holding my breath that the rest of these civil cases are going to result in compensation or any sort of, you know, satisfaction anytime soon.
I think that the Zeitouns have put it behind them, and I think that telling their story created, I think, a sense of peace and closure, if you will, and also the fact that, you know, they helped create the Zeitoun Foundation, which has been able to give grants to a number of nonprofits all over New Orleans that, like themselves, are helping rebuild the city. And I think that that gives them some sense of wholeness, too. And so--but the civil suit, I think we could find ourselves ten years from now saying the same, and it would not have moved a great deal. But I know that Kathy, especially, wanted to do it as a gesture just to make sure that this wasn't forgotten.
AMY GOODMAN: Dave Eggers, you certainly will ensure that this story is not only not forgotten, but is learned about, is read, all over the world, both with Zeitoun and also with Voice of Witness. I'm wondering, as we conclude--we'll lose the satellite in a minute--how you fit the story of Zeitoun, of the Zeitouns, into all your Voice of Witness series--Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives, Surviving Justice: America's Wrongfully Convicted and Exonerated; Out of Exile: Narratives from the Abducted and Displaced People of Sudan, and, of course, what we're talking about today on this fifth anniversary, Voices from the Storm: The People of New Orleans on Hurricane Katrina and Its Aftermath.
DAVE EGGERS: Well, I think--I just believe in the right of people and, I think, the need for people to be able to be heard. I think that what we found with Voice of Witness is, again and again, when you give the opportunity to people to tell their story from beginning to end, from--we ask them, "Where were you born? What were you like as a child? Who were your friends? What was your family like? What was your home life like?" We go all the way from birth to where they are now. And I think that when you give people control over their story a bit and you give them a sense of ownership over their story, and that we're not going to publish it until you've approved of every word and make sure that it's completely accurate and that we fact-checked it independently, I think that, again and again, you find people that have been victimized and who have, you know, suffered a good deal--when finally they can get their story on paper, on the record, completely right, I think that there is an incredible sense of relief that comes to them. That's what we--our narrators tell us again and again. It's like finally this burden that they've felt for so long, this story that they've carried around, is finally out there. And maybe those who are responsible for this might be less likely to do it again, or the system that's responsible might be closer to being corrected or addressed, because they spoke up.
AMY GOODMAN: Dave Eggers, author of Zeitoun. It just won the American Book Award. He's also founder of the independent publishing house and literary journal, McSweeney's. The book is being adapted into an animated movie, directed by Jonathan Demme next year. On Monday, we'll continue in New Orleans to mark the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
]]>BURDWAN/MALDA: West Bengal had its first drought casualty in rice bowl Burdwan on Saturday, the day chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was visiting the district to take stock of the crisis. It was a late start by the CM who was initimated of the lack of rainfall in early August.
Yunus Seikh, a 45-year-old farmer, committed suicide because he couldn't pay up his agricultural loan. Four hours after he died at Burdwan Medical College and Hospital, the CM was in town meeting officials, who briefed him about the grim state of aridity.
On Monday, Writers' Buildings had pressed the panic button declaring 11 Bengal districts as drought-affected. On Saturday, Yunus of Basantapur village under Ausgram police station, consumed pesticide and killed himself; his family said Yunus couldn't have repaid the Rs 30, 000 he borrowed at high interest from a money-lender for kharif cultivation.
Arindam Neogi, sub-divisional officer (SDO), Burdwan (north), said the farmer was brought to the hospital on Friday night from Ausgram, about 50 km from Burdwan town, and died around 6.30 am on Saturday.
Four hours later, the CM convened his meeting to find out more about the drought that reminded one of a similar spell 15 years ago. The chief minister said this drought would lead to a rice deficit. ( Agriculture minister Naren De has predicted a shortfall of 27 lakh metric tonnes next year).
The worst affected district, the CM said, was Purulia.
"Even if there is a ceaseless week-long rainfall, nothing will change," said Bhattacharjee. The CM assured financial help to farmers for the rabi crop - maize, oilseeds and pulses.
Read more: Bengal drought drives farmer to suicide - India - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Bengal-drought-drives-farmer-to-suicide/articleshow/6390157.cms#ixzz0xrNLqcXi