Imagining a Better 2014

2013 is winding down.  We've already posted the best news of the year, so let's imagine what 2014 might look like if peace and justice somehow overwhelmed the nations of the world.

The late Howard Zinn wrote in A People's History of the United States that the world would be a better place if  the United States chose to be a humanitarian, rather than a military, superpower - using "this wealth to improve the living conditions of Americans and people in other parts of the world."  This seems like a good place to start.  Can you imagine what the world would be like if the US military budget since the end of the Cold War was used for humanitarian purposes?  Since 1989, the United States has spent more than $13 trillion on its military budget.  The impact that this sum might have had on education, disease eradication, agricultural improvements and poverty reduction is staggering.  As Zinn notes "it was estimated by the World Health Organization that a small portion of the American military budget, if given to the treatment of tuberculosis in the world, could save millions of lives."

By implementing policies that advance the world's well-being, we would take a giant step towards reducing some of the traditional causes of unrest and war.  And in securing our own safety.  It's a myth that terrorists hate us because of our freedoms.  They hate us because of our policies.  Empire has a cost that there is no need to bear any longer.  Peacefully supporting the right to self-determination would show that our concept of democracy extends to all people.

Stopping the flow of arms and military aid would reduce tensions and the possibility of war.  Here at home, removing weapons from the streets and keeping them from the hands of felons and the mentally unstable would make our own country a safer place.  Finally, the United States and other countries with atomic weapons could provide the world with a real example of non-proliferation by dismantling its nuclear arsenals.

Pope Francis has it right.  As the dominant global economic system, capitalism should be regulated so that its benefits accrue to all, not just to a small percentage.  Economic inequality can be overcome by a just system of taxation and regulation.  Or as Nelson Mandela said, "Poverty is not an accident.  Like slavery and apartheid, it is man-made and can be removed by the actions of human beings."

That leads us to a final consideration.  What do we do about racism, sectarian violence and tribal and nationalistic hatreds?   It all comes down to fear and demonization of "the other".  In October  Pope Francis stressed the need to fight "all forms of racism, intolerance and anti-Semitism" and noted that "every time a minority is persecuted and marginalised because of his religious beliefs or ethnicity, the good of the whole society is in danger”.  [Catholic Herald] But what to do about it?  Here's Nelson Mandela again: "No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion.  People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite." 

Maybe peace and justice on earth in 2014 are too much to hope for.  But we can at least make a step forward in our own lives and behavior.  And we can recognize for what they are, those damaging and divisive ideologies and policies that move us away from a better world.

Sunday Round-Up - June 2, 2013

Syrian Peace Talks in Jeopardy

Wednesday's Guardian reported on the increasing difficulty of getting all the parties to the peace table to end the Syrian conflict: "Plans for Syrian peace talks in Geneva next month appeared in danger of being derailed on Wednesday night as the country's divided opposition movement issued a fresh demand for Bashar al-Assad's government to be excluded from the political process, while Damascus insisted the Syrian president would stay in power until 2014 and possibly beyond...Russia and France also clashed over whether Iran should be allowed to attend the talks, and diplomats suggested that the mid-June target date might have to be pushed back. Turkey warned that if the negotiations failed, it would mark the end of the road for diplomacy and open the gates to the wholesale arming of opposition forces." On the issue of Iran's participation in the talks, the May 19 issue of Al Monitor Week in Review commented: "For the Geneva II conference on Syria to have the best chance of enacting a cease-fire and beginning a transition, Iran needs to be there...It should be a no-brainer to have all parties to a conflict represented at a peace conference. There is no 'transition' in Syria absent a cease-fire, and no cease-fire without Iran, which provides the military and intelligence lifeline to the Assad regime."

A New Arms Race? A New Cold War?

Michael Klare posted an article in Thursday's TomDispatch on the international arms trade titled "The Cold War Redux?" In it, Klare provides some recent examples of "arms deals ...that suggest a fresh willingness on the part of the major powers to use weapons transfers as instruments of geopolitical intrusion and competition." Two such examples of these arms deals are:

 

"In early May, ...Russia ... supplied several batteries of advanced anti-ship cruise missiles to the embattled Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad. With those missiles, the Syrians should be in a better position to deter or counter any effort by international forces, including the United States, to aid anti-Assad rebels by sea or mount a naval blockade of Syria."

 

"In April, during a visit to Jerusalem, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced a multibillion-dollar arms package for Israel.... At least two of the items, the KC-135 refueling planes and the anti-radiation missiles,...could only be intended for one purpose: bolstering Israel’s capacity to conduct a sustained air campaign against Iranian nuclear facilities, should it decide to do so."

The recent Global Arms Treaty gave the world some hope to reducing conflict and armed violence but Klare concludes "such expectations will quickly be crushed if the major weapons suppliers, led by the U.S. and Russia, once again come to see arms sales as the tool of choice to gain geopolitical advantage in areas of strategic importance. Far from bringing peace and stability -- as the proponents of such transactions invariably claim -- each new arms deal now holds the possibility of taking us another step closer to a new Cold War with all the heightened risks of regional friction and conflict that entails."

Bachmann Won't Run

On Tuesday night, Michele Bachmann announced her intention to not seek re-election in 2014. Jim Graves, her once and (maybe*) future opponent for the job, said after her announcement: "This is a good day for America." Off-the-deep-end only starts to describe this icon of the lunatic fringe. Known for her outrageous and counter-factual claims about everything from American history to health care to foreign relations, she is "honored" in a May 30 Informed Comment postby Juan Cole titled "Top Ten Michele Bachmann Goofs on the Middle East". Cole notes that "nowhere has she left a trail of mayhem and misinformation more colorful than in regard to the Middle East." From closing the American embassy in Iran (it hasn't existed since 1979) to her "insight" into a plot to give half of Iraq to Iran to her claim that Iraq should reimburse the United States for having invaded and occupied it, the list leads us to wonder as Cole does at one point: "Why she is allowed to serve on the Intelligence Committee, none of us can understand."

* Graves announced Friday that he was indefinitely suspending his 2014 campaign.

The Recession
 

As the Occupy protests become a dim and rather fuzzy memory here in America, conditions in Europe have spawned the Blockupy Movement. As blogged in the Guardian by Graeme Wearden and Katie Allen on Friday: "Thousands of Blockupy demonstrators were out in the rain in Frankfurt to cut off access to the European Central Bank in protest at what they see as its role in imposing austerity measures on southern European nations." The protests come as "Eurozone unemployment hit a fresh record high of 12.2%. Youth unemployment was double that at 24.4%." In another Guardian post on Friday, Larry Elliott warns that "Europe now faces a triple crunch: an interlocking human, economic and political crisis that will have devastating consequences if left unattended" and that the "mistakes now being made in the eurozone mirror those in the United States and Germany early in the Great Depression." Meanwhile in the US, a Federal Reserve report Thursday states that American households have rebuilt less than half of the wealth (45%) they lost during the recession. Most of this recovery has been in the form of increased stock prices and Mother Jones quotes a Washington Post reporter: "Recent gains in the stock market mean that the recovery of wealth is nearly complete for white and Asian households and older Americans." I guess he meant older Americans who own a lot of stock. Not good news for anyone else though - especially those whose home was their sole source of wealth. "Because the housing market is improving overall, there is less of an incentive for the government to push any new measures to help underwater homeowners. Prominent economists say that allowing initiatives that would reduce borrowers' loan principle balances is the single most important thing the administration could do to help the Americans who lost all that home wealth."