When Pigs Fly: The C-130's Pork Barrel Epic

Lockheed Martin's Herculean Efforts to Profit From Defense Spending: The Epic Story of the C-130

by Jeremiah Goulka  - TomDispatch

When I was a kid obsessed with military aircraft, I loved Chicago's O'Hare airport. If I was lucky and scored a window seat, I might get to see a line of C-130 Hercules transport planes parked on the tarmac in front of the 928th Airlift Wing's hangars. For a precious moment on takeoff or landing, I would have a chance to stare at those giant gray beasts with their snub noses and huge propellers until they passed from sight.

What I didn't know then was why the Air Force Reserve, as well as the Air National Guard, had squadrons of these big planes eternally parked at O'Hare and many other airports and air stations around the country. It’s a tale made to order for this time of sequestration that makes a mockery of all the hyperbole about how any spending cuts will "hollow out" our forces and "devastate" our national security.

Consider this a parable to help us see past the alarmist talking points issued by defense contractor lobbyists, the public relations teams they hire, and the think tanks they fund. It may help us see just how effective defense contractors are in growing their businesses, whatever the mood of the moment.

Tomgram: Jeremiah Goulka, C-130 Math and a Cargo of Pork

[Note for TomDispatch Readers: As of tonight, I’ll be away on a rare vacation for 10 days. Managing Editor Nick Turse will be running the site with the help of Associate Editor Andy Kroll. You’ll continue to see some of my introductions to upcoming articles -- and a fine collection they are -- but don’t be fooled. I won’t actually be around, which means that I may be slow answering your letters or may simply not respond for a while. It would probably be better if you waited to write until I get back. Hold down the world while I’m gone! Tom]

Bipartisanship in Washington is a rare thing these days. However, no beltway battle in recent memory has been quite as partisan as the one over sequestration and its $85 billion in across-the-board government spending cuts. Yet, for all the rancor between Democrats and Republicans over that so-called meat ax or poison pill, there has been one point of unity, one response that everyone in Washington can seemingly get behind: hyperbole.

The Department of Defense has, of course, spent more than a decade fighting ruinous wars and hasn’t convincingly won a conflict over a significant foe (sorry, Grenada; sorry, Panama) since World War II. Yet the mere possibility that it would have to put its civilian employees on 22 days of unpaid leave drove Pentagon chief Leon Panetta to hit the panic button, channel Chicken Little, and declare the sequestration future “the most significant military readiness crisis in more than a decade.”

Not to be outdone, Virginia Republican Congressman Rob Whittman insisted that the budget cuts would put "men and women's lives... at stake." Representing a district heavy in defense contractors, he claimed, according to Business Insider, that, in addition to putting military personnel at risk, the sequester will “cost 200,000 jobs and create a wave of uncertainty for [his] state.” Meanwhile, two Air Force generals announced that the cuts would ripple through the entire defense establishment with dire results. “The impacts to the industrial base grow in magnitude as the reductions cascade down through the network of companies that support each program,” they told members of Congress.

About the only big-time military-industrial player who doesn’t seem worried is the one that seemingly has the most to lose: top defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Even after sequestration took effect, Lockheed expressed confidence and touted its “broad portfolio of products and technologies, a robust and durable strategy and the industry’s best team.” The defense giant further boasted that it would “continue to meet our customers’ evolving needs and generate value for our shareholders.” In fact, just weeks before, Lockheed had all but ignored sequestration worries, offering a corporate forecast that didn’t even bother to take the coming cuts into account. It projected that the company would meet analysts’ estimates for 2013 by raking in between $44.5 and $46 billion in net sales. Hardly gloom and doom.

Is Lockheed Martin a military-industrial ostrich with its head in the sand? Is it the Pollyanna of weapons makers? Or does it have an ace in the hole? In his latest piece, TomDispatch regular Jeremiah Goulka suggests that Lockheed might not just be sequester-proof, but impervious to almost any effort to even modestly rein it in. His investigation of one of the most resilient aircraft of modern times raises questions about whether Lockheed is truly interested in meeting its “customers’ evolving needs” or is simply interested in “generat[ing] value” at taxpayer expense. Nick Turse

 

Lockheed Martin's Herculean Efforts to Profit From Defense Spending: The Epic Story of the C-130

by Jeremiah Goulka

Meet the Herk

The C-130 Hercules is a mid-sized transport airplane designed to airlift people or cargo around a theater of operations. It dates back to the Korean War, when the Air Force decided that it needed a next generation ("NextGen") transport plane. In 1951, it asked for designs, and Lockheed won the competition. The first C-130s were delivered three years after the war ended.

The C-130 Hercules, or Herk for short, isn't a sexy plane. It hasn't inspired hit Hollywood films, though it has prompted a few photo books, a beer, and a "Robby the C-130" trilogy for children whose military parents are deployed. It has a fat sausage fuselage, that snub nose, overhead wings with two propellers each, and a big back gate that comes down to load and unload up to 21 tons of cargo.

The Herk can land on short runways, even ones made of dirt or grass; it can airdrop parachutists or cargo; it can carry four drones under its wings; it can refuel aircraft; it can fight forest fires; it can morph into a frightening gunship. It's big and strong and can do at least 12 types of labor -- hence, Hercules.

Too Much of a Good Thing

Here's where the story starts to get interesting. After 25 years, the Pentagon decided that it was well stocked with C-130s, so President Jimmy Carter’s administration stopped asking Congress for more of them.

Lockheed was in trouble. A few years earlier, the Air Force had started looking into replacing the Hercules with a new medium-sized transport plane that could handle really short runways, and Lockheed wasn't selected as one of the finalists. Facing bankruptcy due to cost overruns and cancellations of programs, the company squeezed Uncle Sam for a bailout of around $1 billion in loan guarantees and other relief (which was unusual back then, as William Hartung points out his magisterial Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex).

Then a scandal exploded when it was revealed that Lockheed had proceeded to spend some $22 million of those funds in bribes to foreign officials to persuade them to buy its aircraft. This helped prompt Congress to pass the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

So what did Lockheed do about the fate of the C-130? It bypassed the Pentagon and went straight to Congress. Using a procedure known as a congressional "add-on" -- that is, an earmark -- Lockheed was able to sell the military another fleet of C-130s that it didn’t want.

To be fair, the Air Force did request some C-130s. Thanks to Senator John McCain, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) did a study of how many more C-130s the Air Force requested between 1978 and 1998. The answer: Five.

How many did Congress add on? Two hundred and fifty-six.


As Hartung commented, this must “surely [be] a record in pork-barrel politics.”

Standard Operating Procedure

Lockheed made this happen by putting its lobbyists to work. They focused on legislators in key committee positions and in states where Lockheed, like others in the defense industry, had strategically located their operations and subcontracts. The company poured millions of dollars into lobbying and political donations.

Tracking lobbying is hard to do, but to give a sense of the scope of the numbers, Lockheed has reported $22,289,859 in political donations since 1990 and millions in lobbying expenses every year, peaking in 2008 at $16,181,506, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And that doesn't include what it paid its PR people or the work of defense and aerospace industry advocacy groups or the think tanks those industries fund. As an example of the latter, consider the boldly titled "research study," C-130J: How the Best Military Aircraft Became Even Better, written by Lockheed consultant Loren Thompson and published by the Lexington Institute, which was founded by a Lockheed lobbyist. Of course, the puff piece mentions no affiliations with the company. For these reasons, Dina Rasor of the Project on Government Oversight, which ranks the company #1 on its Federal Contractor Misconduct Database, calls Lockheed "the ultimate pay-to-play contractor."

Most of the dollars the company spends on lobbying are tax dollars. According to its 2011 annual report, “82% of our $46.5 billion in net sales were from the U.S. Government, including 61% from the Department of Defense.” And don’t forget that a significant part of the 17% of its sales that went to international customers in 2011 were actually paid for by Uncle Sam under the rubric of foreign military aid. Only 1% of its sales that year were to “U.S. commercial and other customers.” Its CEO made $20,538,981, while the company paid only $722 million in net federal and foreign taxes in that same year.

When it came to the C-130, the process worked like a dream. “By following this strategy from year to year,” writes a team of scholars of lobbying, “Lockheed has been able to turn what was to be the C-130's doom in the 1970s into a regularly funded military spending program, all without a single request having been sent by the administration to Congress.” Lockheed was so successful on Capitol Hill that its work even garnered a name in honor of the 50 planes bought for every one requested: "C-130 math."

John McCain complained that “we’re going to have a C-130 for every schoolyard in America before this is over.” The "add-on" legislators were unabashed. Senator Max Cleland of Georgia -- where Lockheed assembles the C-130 -- responded, “I'm for schoolyards being able to be moved anywhere in the world on a moment's notice.”

I felt that way, too -- when I was five.

How to Win Friends in the States and Influence People in Congress

So what happened to those extra planes? The Air Force didn't have the space for them, so they retired some older models that still had plenty of life in them and shunted most of the rest off to the Air Force Reserves and Air National Guard. That's why I used to see them at O'Hare.

The reason I usually saw them parked in front of the hangars is that sufficient operating and maintenance funds didn't always come with the planes, which mattered even more after Lockheed introduced a new version, the C-130J Super Hercules, in the mid-1990s.

The Air Force's approach of passing unwanted Herks off to the Air Guard and Reserves worked out nicely for Lockheed. The company allied with Air Guard and reservist advocacy groups to lobby Congress further. In an era of base closures, heavily lobbied governors would use the arrival of new planes to argue for the continuing life of bases in their states. In turn, states and their congressional delegations would fight to get new planes or hang onto existing ones. It was a veritable Lockheed feedback loop. Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus quoted a Pentagon official as seeing C-130 politics as a twist on the old military-industrial complex: "a triangle of the Guard, Lockheed, and politicians."

The result: the military was often prevented from retiring the oldest Herks, the ones that really needed to be put out to pasture. For example, as Pincus reported, the Joint Chiefs and the Air Force concluded in 1996 that they had 50 more C-130s than they needed, but Congress stymied efforts to retire any of them. One tactic used was to hold nominees hostage: a Kentucky senator repeatedly held up Air Force promotions until four Kentucky Air Guard C-130s were taken off the chopping block.

And it hasn’t ended yet. In its FY2013 budget, the Pentagon planned to retire 65 older C-130s to save a little money. However, National Guard groups successfully mobilized state governors and congressional delegations from states like Alaska to, in the words of Alaska Senator Mark Begich "fight this action every step of the way." Congress managed to save all of them for a year, and half of them permanently.

The Not-So-Super Hercules, or the Program That Just Won't Die

Air Force attempts to replace the C-130 with a new generation of transport planes also have a habit of dying or getting rerouted. The Herk’s turf has generally proved remarkably sacrosanct. The "Advanced Medium STOL" (short takeoff and landing) program of the 1970s, for instance, fizzled, possibly due to Lockheed's lobbying. The competing C-27J is being cancelled in favor of more C-130s. The C-130 Avionics Modernization Program (AMP), which in a surprise move was handed to competitor Boeing -- as one of several gifts from a senior Pentagon procurement official shortly before she took a high-paying job there (en route to prison) -- is being cancelled, too. (Though a new congressional C-130 Modernization Caucus spawned by Boeing and led by the congressman in whose district the AMP's training program is located, is doing its best to cancel the cancellation.)

Knowing that it could keep the C-130 alive through congressional add-ons and foreign sales well into the future, Lockheed took the unusual step of developing the next generation of the plane without new funding from the Pentagon. It invested $1 billion of its profits from government contracts in the new C-130J Super Hercules. This has kept the factory in Marietta, Georgia, humming, and with over 2,400 C-130s already built, Lockheed calls it "the longest continuously operating military aircraft production line in history."

Humming, yes, but not always in tune. The C-130J has been plagued by problems. In 2004, after the military had acquired 50 of the planes, the Pentagon's Inspector General found that, even while the Air Force and Congress kept ordering more of the planes, they didn't meet contracted standards. The weather chasers couldn't chase storms because propellers would crack in bad weather. The military wouldn't use C-130Js for air drops in Iraq or Afghanistan because they didn't think they were safe. 

"The design of the C-130J is not stable and the C-130J aircraft has not passed operational testing," the Inspector General concluded. It "is not operationally effective or suitable."

To fix these problems, the unit cost rapidly ran up to $81 million per plane. The problems proved so daunting that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld axed the C-130J program in 2005 -- or tried to.

For the lobbyists and the plane's fans in Congress, it was once more unto the breach. Lockheed also got help on the inside. The Air Force made up some numbers indicating that it would be far more expensive to cancel the program than to just keep buying -- overstating the possible cancellation cost by at least $1.1 billion. In the end, Rumsfeld surrendered. In 2006, in a relatively rare step, the Pentagon forced Lockheed to take a hit on its profits and negotiate a new contract reducing the sticker price of the planes by several million dollars. But that didn’t last long. The unit cost soon bounced back; the basic C-130J now costs $93.6 million.

When it comes to military contracting like this, it doesn't seem to matter which party occupies the White House or controls Congress. It doesn't even seem to matter how many planes the Air Force puts on its additional "unfunded" wish list beyond the Pentagon's official request, because Congress so often buys more. Sure, some years Congress doesn't provide. In 2010, the Air Force asked for 12 Herks in its main request and put two more on its unfunded wish list, yet Congress only gave it six. And sometimes money is pushed around from one year to another or from one bucket to another, making it challenging to track through the intentionally hard-to-understand (and not even auditable) Pentagon labyrinth.

At the present time, the military is asking both for more standard C-130Js (to replace old or heavily used Herks) and for new AC-130 gunships as well as Special Operations MC-130 variants on the plane in the questionable belief that these will be "invaluable" for fighting insurgents and terrorists. This means that the abolition of earmarks isn't all that big a deal for Lockheed.

But that doesn't stop it. Even with the threat of sequestration looming, and the Pentagon asking for seven new Herks in 2013, the House still inserted funding for 14.

What will happen in this year's request? We don't know yet, because it's late in coming thanks to sequestration. But Lockheed isn't worried: even while threatening sequestration layoffs, the company forecasts record profits this year.

And why should it worry? As of last October, it had contracts to build 337 more Herks for the Pentagon and a variety of foreign countries. In November, it scored the program's biggest foreign military sale ever, $6.7 billion to build 25 of the planes for the Royal Saudi Air Force. It has three NextGen models in the works, including a wider version (suitably named the XL) to carry oversized new Army equipment. And with the Air Force starting to think about replacing the C-130 (again), Lockheed has already secured a spot as one of the two companies developing prototypes for that future plane with its nifty "Speed Agile" design. Besides, judging by the Pentagon’s ongoing experiences with Lockheed's F-22 and F-35 advanced fighters, whose costs have hit the stratosphere, any next generation "trash hauler" is bound to carry a strikingly higher initial sticker price than the C-130J -- and that, of course, is before the inevitable cost upticks begin.

Out the Window

C-130s have a special place in my heart. The first military aircraft I got to ride in was a Coast Guard Herk. An Air Force C-130 got me out of Iraq. Now that the 928th Airlift Wing is no more, I get a little wistful when I fly through Chicago and all I see out the window are private cargo hangars.

Or at least I did before I wrote this story.

But not to worry. There are plenty of other airports around the country with excess C-130s just sitting out there on the tarmac, gathering dust.

Jeremiah Goulka, a TomDispatch regular and former RAND Corporation analyst, writes about American politics and culture, focusing on security, race, and the Republican Party. You can follow him on Twitter @jeremiahgoulka or contact him through his website jeremiahgoulka.com.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch book, Nick Turse’s The Changing Face of Empire: Special Ops, Drones, Proxy Fighters, Secret Bases, and Cyberwarfare.

Copyright 2013 Jeremiah Goulka

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Greg Palast, Kim Ives, Janine Bandcroft Mar. 11, 2013

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Pacific Free Press

Millions of citizens from across Venezuela traveled to the capital and cued for hours last Thursday in a miles-long procession to see Hugo Chavez's body as it lay in state. So many in fact, the interim government of vice president, Nicolas Maduro announced, following his funeral Friday, the "Comandante" would lie in state an extra week.

While death marked his finish, as it ends us all, the work Hugo Chavez began as South America's first modern reformist president is not over; not by a long chalk, if the cries of Venezuela's "Chavistas" are to be believed.

Listen. Hear.

The send off Chavez received in the "Western" press was decidedly unflattering; a series of black epitaphs running the A to B gamut; from the celebratory Fox, to the barely contained gleefulness of Canada's State broadcaster, whose radio news flagship reporter, Anna Maria Tremonti pronounced of his death on her program, 'The Current'

"In a country dominated by a cult of personality where information is not free, the death of the populist and polarizing Hugo Chavez leaves a gaping hole and endless questions."

Not least of those questions, for Canadians, should be: "Do we actually have to PAY for this crap masquerading as news!?"

Like Anna Maria Tremonti, Greg Palast is not a journalist, but he is an honest reporting investigator, whose peerless work for the BBC's Newsnight broke wide-open the similarly lop-sided and wrong-headed reportage surrounding the 2002 coup d'etat against Chavez and Venezuelan democracy. In an article he wrote at the Guardian about the coup almost eleven years ago, Palast observed;

"Thirty years ago, when US corporations demanded the removal of a bothersome president, the CIA thought it most important to aim propaganda at the Latin locals. Now, it seems, in the drumbeat of disinformation buzzwords about Chavez - "dictatorial", "unpopular", "resigned" - the propagandists have learned to aim at that more gullible pack of pigeons, the American and European press."

How little has changed. While still working with Newsnight and the Guardian, Palast also writes a weekly column for Vice Magazine and is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, 'Billionaires and Ballot Bandits,' 'The Best Democracy Money Can Buy,' and 'Armed Madhouse.' He's also author of the highly acclaimed, 'Vulture's Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates, and High-Finance Carnivores.'

Greg Palast in the first half.

And; while the 2002 attempt against Hugo Chavez was a rare failure of Western democracy's economic hit men, lessons learned there certainly helped guarantee the success of 2004's usurpation of Haiti's mild reformist president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The former liberation theologist priest Aristide was spirited farther out of the country than Chavez, all the way to the Central African Republic, from where there could be no triumphant return. Aristide's two short-lived administrations are contrasted by the Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier reigns of terror, together lasting more than three decades, and seeing uncounted numbers of Haitians tortured, killed, and disappeared. Baby Duvalier was too flown out of Haiti courtesy of the US government, but his exile was a self-imposed, luxurious vacation in France that only ended when the booty he looted from the treasury on leaving began running out. He returned to Haiti just over two years ago, and has danced with the judiciary there ever since. That jig picked up pace last Monday, seeing the former "president for life" in court answering questions about human rights abuses committed on his watch. Just hours after his first scheduled court appearance, the 61 year old was reported to have been hospitalized, his lawyer Reynold Georges saying only Duvalier "was sick." It's a sentiment long held in Haiti.

Kim Ives is a journalist, co-host of the WBAI radio program, 'Haiti: The Struggle Continues,' and co-founder of the international weekly newspaper Haiti Liberté. He's also a writer and editor with Haiti Progres newspaper and a documentary filmmaker who has directed and worked on many films about Haiti, including: 'Bitter Cane,' 'The Coup Continues,' and 'Rezistans.' He also works with the Haiti Support Network (HSN), has led numerous delegations to Haiti, and frequently speaks about Haiti before church, student, and community audiences, and on Haitian and U.S. radio programs.

Kim Ives and tales from the dictator's fall in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us news from our city's streets and beyond. But first, Greg Palast and the passing of a president.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Monday, 5-6pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate media.

Duvalier Deigns Appear in Haitian Court

Former Dictator, Jean-Claude Duvalier's First Court Hearing

by Yves Pierre-Louis & Kim Ives - Haiti Liberté

On Feb. 28, 2013, former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier had to show up at the Port-au-Prince Appeals Court to hear various charges against him for crimes against humanity. After not responding to three previous summonses in February, the former "President for Life" had to bow to the court’s authority or risk arrest for contempt.

Duvalier is due to report to court again on Mar. 7, but his lawyer claims that he has been admitted into an unspecified hospital with an unspecified sickness.

Nonetheless, many suspect that the hearings summoning Duvalier are nothing more than "show business" aimed at eventually rubber-stamping the Jan. 30, 2012 finding of examining magistrate Jean Carvès. He ruled that the statue of limitations has expired for prosecuting Duvalier for his human rights crimes. These hearings are for an appeal to overturn that ruling.

Duvalier ruled Haiti with an iron fist from 1971 to 1986, during which time tens of thousands were extrajudicially killed, imprisoned, exiled, or disappeared.

With many of his victims in the audience, Duvalier responded to questions from members of the Court, the prosecution, the plaintiffs, and defense counsel.

When the court asked about "repression, torture, beatings, crimes against humanity, political killings, and human rights violations" under his regime, Duvalier dead panned that "every time an anomaly was reported to me, I intervened so that justice could be done. I want to stress that I sent a letter to all department commanders, to all section chiefs, asking them to strictly apply the law around the country, and these directives also applied to the Corps of the Volunteers for National Security," better known as the infamous Tontons Macoutes, a paramilitary militia which acted as the eyes, ears, and fists of the Duvalier regime.

Asked again later about "murders, political imprisonment, summary execution under your government, and forcing people into exile," Duvalier replied: "Murders exist in all countries. I did not intervene in police activities... As for imprisonment, whenever such cases occurred, I intervened to stop abuses being committed."

Duvalier never betrayed a trace of remorse or regret, arguing that "I did everything to ensure a better life for my countrymen... I'm not saying that life was rosy, but at least people could live decently."

Returning to Haiti in January 2011, "I found a ruined country, with boundless corruption that hinders the development of this country," Duvalier said. "And on my return, it’s my turn to ask: what have you done to my country?"

He suggested that he was close to journalist Jean Léopold Dominique (assassinated in 2000), "who accompanied me often in my inspections in the provinces" and that he helped Dominique obtain his radio station, Radio Haïti.

Former soccer star Robert "Bobby" Duval, the founder of the Haitian League of Former Political Prisoners (LAPPH), was also in the courtroom as one of the plaintiffs appealing Judge Carvès Jean’s ruling. Duval spent 17 months imprisoned in the infamous Fort Dimanche prison without charges. But Duvalier claimed that Duval "was arrested for subversive activities," saying that "during a search at the François Duvalier airport, we found weapons in his possession and he was released a few years later by an act of clemency by the Head of State." Duvalier claimed that Duval’s suit against him "is a real joke" and that Duval "was treated well" and that "a family member brought him food three times a day." Duval almost died from starvation and disease in Fort Dimanche.

Asked what he thought about the charges against him, Duvalier said "it makes me laugh" because people are just "inventing fantasies."

The hearing lasted more than three hours, after which Duvalier’s victims and representatives of human rights organizations said they were satisfied and encouraged that the Appeals Court judges were not intimidated by pressure from the government of neo-Duvalierist president Michel Martelly. They said they felt more determined than ever to talk about the suffering and torment caused by the murder, imprisonment, disappearances, and other crimes committed under Duvalier’s dictatorship. They were also galled by Baby Doc’s contemptuous attitude during the hearing.

After the hearing, Bobby Duval scoffed at Duvalier’s assertion that he had been arrested for illegal possession of firearms. Of the 13 Haitian political prisoners whom Amnesty International championed at that time in the late 1970s, Duval is one of the three survivors. "Their goal was to kill me," he said, adding that he would not have survived much longer in prison.

Henry Faustin was another former political prisoner who attended the trial. Arrested on Jun. 15, 1976, Faustin spent two months in a dungeon in the Dessalines Barracks (another political prison under Duvalier, located behind the National Palace). Only 20 years old, Faustin was then transferred for another 16 months (until December 1977) to Fort Dimanche. "Fort Dimanche was not child's play," he said. "You arrived there as a prisoner, with clothes, but then they stripped you naked as a worm."

International human rights organizations are following the Duvalier hearings closely.

"If someone like Duvalier is not judged, how can one judge someone who has stolen a chicken to feed his family?" asked Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch.

"How do you establish the rule of law when he who is accused of the worst crimes gets away with it? But Haiti has always been considered an exception. Moreover it is interesting to see that the big countries like France and the United States have never requested that Duvalier be tried, because they have disdain for Haiti. Haiti is not entitled to justice. It's good enough if Haiti just gets a little to eat, or if the population has a little shelter. They don’t make the link between the lack of justice for the vast majority and the lack of social justice as well."

Ape Talks to Citzen's Forum

Citizen's Forum October 23, 2012

by Citizen's Forum

to go straight to Ape interview, click here.

Jack Etkin hosts Citizens Forum on October 23, 2012. Walter McGinnis co-hosts the first segment with discussions covering local, national, and international issues. In the second segment (starts at 26m00s) Jack Etkin interviews Chris Cook of PacificFreePress.com about local issues and how activism has changed with the arrival of new media. In the last segment (starts at 41m15s) Jack interviews John Farquharson, a local citizen of Victoria, about local issues.

Kevin Neish's Gaza Dispatches - M6, '13

Kill Zone Transformed into Food Zone

by Kevin Neish

I toured the northern border buffer zone yesterday and took a few photos.


What was a desert like waste land in November, (note the sand hill in the background),  the Palestinians have transformed into productive land.  Before the November ceasefire allowed the farmers back onto this land, all the areas in these photos was within the “shoot to kill” buffer zone. The IDF are still shooting farmers in spite of the supposed ceasefire, but the farmers are willing to take the risk to till their soil.


The Palestinians are making the desert bloom again.  You’ll notice that are few buildings or infrastructure, as that was all repeatedly bulldozed since the 2008/09 assault.  The farmers are making the bare minimum investments of just mini green houses and irrigation pipes, as the IDF is still destroying these farms, but even so the production was amazing.


Strawberries, onions and corn, altogether in one field.  The Palestinians are making the best and fastest use of the land with multiple plantings using the same little greenhouses and irrigation pipes.


Crops of potatoes, right up to the desert border area, with an Israeli base just over the hill and the smoke stacks of Ashklon Israel in the near distance.


Strawberries have never tasted so good.  Grown on newly liberated land.


The Palestinian sheep don’t know the politics involved as theynow blissfully graze right up to the Israelis’ border wall.


The Israeli border looks clearly defined but there are multiple walls, fences and perimeter roads which all eat into Palestinian farm land.


Donkeys, compost and manpower are helping to produce food once again in the buffer zone in the shadow of the IDF wall.


An automated machine gun tower, remotely controlled from Tel Aviv, looms over the Gazans’ fields.  The danger for the farmers is clear and present all the time, night and day.

The Global War on Terra Must End (and Capitalist Patriarchy with It)

Vandana Shiva on Int’l Women’s Day: "Capitalist Patriarchy Has Aggravated Violence Against Women"

by Democracy Now!

We end our International Women’s Day broadcast with the Indian feminist, activist and thinker Dr. Vandana Shiva. The author of many books, most recently "Making Peace with the Earth," Dr. Shiva discusses the impact on women by what she calls the world’s "violent economic order," and the women-led uproar over sexual violence in India triggered by last year’s brutal gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student in Delhi. A world-renowned physicist, Dr. Shiva also addresses the recent U.S. Supreme Court case pitting an Indiana farmer against the agri-giant Monsanto. "The multiple wars against the earth, through the economy, through greed, through capitalist, patriarchal domination, must end, and we have to recognize we are part of the earth," Dr. Shiva says. "The liberation of the earth, the liberation of women, the liberation of all humanity is the next step of freedom we need to work for, and it’s the next step of peace that we need to create." 

Union Maid: State of Union Working Women in Canada

State of the Working Woman

by TRNN

State of the Working Woman Jenny Ahn: Unionized women workers do better than unorganized; All working women need access to universal daycare.

Palestinian Women Call for Rights to Exist on International Women's Day

Under Siege, Palestinian Women Call for Human Rights on International Women's Day

by Eva Bartlett - In Gaza

“In Gaza we don’t lead normal lives, we just cope, and adapt to our abnormal lives under siege and occupation,” says Dr. Mona El-Farra, a physician and a long-time human rights and women’s rights activist in the Gaza Strip. On International Women’s Day, when many of the world’s women are fighting for workplace equality and an end to domestic violence, Farra and the majority of Gaza’s women fight for the most basic of rights.

“It is difficult to live in this small piece of land, where basic needs like clean water, regular electricity, proper sanitation and means of recreation are not met. Women in Gaza are particularly traumatised by the continuous Israeli military attacks,” says Farra.

A 2009 Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) report highlights the suffering of Palestinian women under the illegal Israeli-led siege imposed on Gaza for the past seven years, and under the 23 days of Israeli attacks in 2008-2009 which killed over 1,400 Palestinians, including 112 women.

The report, ‘Through Women’s Eyes’, notes Gazan women’s continued struggle “as they attempt to come to terms with their grief and their injuries; with the loss of their children, their husbands, their relatives, their homes, and their livelihoods.”

For Hiba an-Nabaheen, 24, a media studies graduate from Gaza’s Palestine University, the biggest issues facing women in Gaza are the poverty and unemployment that result from the siege.

“How can a woman whose husband has died or been imprisoned continue to take care of her children? The deadly Israeli wars we endure don’t compare to the growing poverty we face. I’m a university graduate and can’t find work, and many graduates like me face the same problem, including those with exceptionally high marks.”

From a family of ten, Nabaheen is the only child to have yet gotten a degree. “My father is disabled and cannot work, and my siblings are younger than me. Even my sister who has a 98 percent average in high school won’t find any work when she finishes university.”

Um Oday, 30, would love to work. “I have three young children to care for, but my husband is very supportive of me working, if I found work. In addition to my university education, I’ve taken different training courses in the hope that I’ll find work. But in Gaza, there is none.”

Tagreed Jummah, director of Gaza City’s Union of Palestinian Women Committees (UPWC), agrees that the siege is the main oppressor.

“The siege affects us all, but it especially affects women,” says Jummah. “In recent years, more women have been forced to become heads of the family because their husbands have been killed, are in Israeli prisons, or are unemployed as a result of the siege. But the majority of these women have no means of earning money.”

An August 2012 United Nations (UN) report, Gaza in 2020: A liveable place? cites unemployment as “higher than in the late 1990s.” The report highlights the impact on women, whose unemployment rate in early 2012 was 47 percent.

For Malaka Mohammed, 22, an English Literature graduate from Gaza’s Islamic University, and now employed at the university, higher education is both her greatest ambition and greatest obstacle.

“In Gaza, whether you are a woman or a man, you face the same consequences under the siege and the occupation. I’d like to do a Masters degree, but there is no English Masters programme here.”

For the past over ten years, Israel has banned Gazan Palestinians from studying at universities in the occupied West Bank.

“Studying abroad is very expensive, so I am searching for a scholarship, but even then I will be among thousands of people applying.”

Egypt under the Mubarak regime was complicit in preventing hundreds of Palestinian students holding places and scholarships in foreign universities from leaving the Strip.

Active in prisoners’ rights issues, Mohammed spearheaded a boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign in her university, the first on a Gazan campus. “I also head the first twinning project between a Gaza university and one in Sheffield,” she says.

Rana Baker, studying business administration at the Islamic University, and a freelance journalist, is active on numerous political issues facing Palestinians.

“To be honest, when it comes to the impact of Israel’s siege and colonial policies on the people of Gaza, indeed all of Palestine, I do not think that the experiences of men and women differ from each other,” says Baker.

“When Israel deliberately bombards schools, both males and females are affected. When talking about the limits Israel forces upon our aspirations, both genders share the same suffering. The Israeli government acts with indifference to the Palestinian population. The same lethal policies are applied to men, women and children in an indiscriminate manner.”

But women do have particular problems. The siege-manufactured poverty leading 80 percent of Gaza’s 1.7 million Palestinians to be food-aid dependent has caused increasing rates of malnutrition and anaemia in women.

A June 2012 joint report by Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) and Save the Children notes that anaemia affects 36.8 percent of pregnant women in Gaza and that anaemia can result in “poor pregnancy outcome, reduced work productivity in adults,” and “contributes to 20 percent of all maternal deaths.”

Palestinian author, journalist and activist, Laila El-Haddad, holds a Masters from Harvard University, has written for numerous established media, and keeps a running blog on the life of a Muslim Palestinian mother from Gaza.

In the description for her co-authored cookbook, The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey, Haddad writes, “even in Gaza, that most tortured little strip of land, hundreds of thousands of women every day find ways to sustain their families and friends in body and spirit. They make the kitchen a stronghold against despair, and there craft necessity into pleasure and dignity.”

Of the cookbook, a window into the hardships of Palestinian home-makers, Haddad says the Gazan kitchen illuminates “how cooks manage with extreme shortages of gas and electricity, how families reorganize to compensate for destroyed homes and near-universal joblessness.”

She notes that understanding the reality of a Gaza Palestinian women is appreciating “the strength and endurance which allows these women every day to confront a hopeless situation and to create within it small spaces of grace, beauty and generosity.”

For UPWC’s Tagreed Jummah, the Palestinian woman “represents Palestinian resilience, resistance, is strong, and is a mirror of the Palestinian struggle and steadfastness. We’ve lost families, children, and suffer under the closures and Israeli army attacks. We carry all of the suffering of our people, but we continue living and continue resisting.”

In its report on the suffering of Gazan women, PCHR highlights that prospects will not improve until the siege on Gaza is lifted and normal economic activity allowed.

“The dire economic situation means that many women and their families are sliding deeper and deeper into abject poverty. They have suffered the horrors of an illegal war, and now are struggling just to survive.”

*First Published at Inter Press Services (IPS)

Russia Needs a Wake-Up Call on Syria and Iran

by Finian Cunningham - RT

It seems that Russian leaders are befuddled by the conflict raging in Syria, sensing rightly on one hand that the Western powers and their Turk and Arab proxies are conducting a low-intensity war for regime change. Yet, strangely, on the other hand, Moscow appears apathetic or blasé about the West’s criminal geopolitical agenda.

The same applies to Iran, where Russia (and China) continues to engage in a bankrupt process of isolating the Islamic Republic through the P5+1 sham negotiations over sovereign nuclear rights.

First though on Syria, take this statement from Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov following the carnage of a massive car bomb last month that obliterated 53 lives, including women and children, near the Russian embassy in the Syrian capital, Damascus.

On 22 February, Reuters reported Lavrov as being “disappointed” by American “double standards” in not condemning the massacre. Regarding Washington’s lack of condemnation, Russia’s most senior diplomat commented:

“And we see in it a very dangerous tendency by our American colleagues to depart from the fundamental principle of unconditional condemnation of any terrorist act, a principle which secures the unity of the international community in the fight against terrorism.”

Hold on a minute. What’s this talk about “American colleagues” and “the unity of the international community in the fight against terrorism”? That atrocity in Damascus was indisputably the work of Western-backed terrorists who are funded, armed and directed by Western military intelligence to wipe out the government of President Bashar Al Assad.

This kind of indiscriminate mass murder has proven to be standard operating procedure for the Western proxy army in fulfilling long-held Western plans for regime change in Syria.

Despite cynical claims by Washington, London, Paris and Berlin of supplying “only non-lethal” military equipment to Syrian militants, Russia is well aware that these Western governments are arming this network of killers to the teeth and providing the logistics and intelligence to expedite the terror against civilians. Previously, Russia has itself highlighted and condemned the supply of American anti-aircraft missiles to the armed groups.

So let’s disabuse this notion of “colleagues fighting international terrorism”. The so-called “colleagues” are fomenting terrorism via well-worn Western channels Al Qaeda and other Saudi-backed extremist mercenaries.

Russia (and China) must be cognizant of the bigger picture by now. The post 9/11 “war on terror” charade has nothing to do with “an international fight against terrorism” and all to do with the American-led capitalist Western powers staking out new global spheres of influence. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Mali are all part of a continuum in Washington’s strategic vision of “full spectrum” dominance in resource-rich regions.

The expansion of NATO bases into former Soviet Union member states, the encroachment of missile systems on Russia’s borders, and the threatening military encirclement of China are also part this dynamic in which perceived geopolitical rivals must be thwarted, corralled and subjugated. The Western pseudo “wars against terrorism” or “responsibility to protect” that have spawned across Asia and Africa are as much about dominating those continents’ resources as usurping Russian and Chinese economic interests.

Syria provides the only foreign naval base to Russia, at Tartus, enabling access to the strategically vital Mediterranean Sea and the oil-rich Middle East. It is transparent that the Western powers want to oust Russia from this holding, by killing off the Assad government in Damascus and installing a pro-Western puppet regime.

Yet instead of condemning Washington and its allies for criminal aggression, Moscow seems to be indulging in some kind of illusion that the US and other NATO criminals are to be reasoned with. Last week, for example, Sergei Lavrov met new US secretary of state John Kerry in Berlin, while President Vladimir Putin entertained French counterpart Francois Hollande in Moscow for negotiations over Syria.

But rather than pandering to political chicanery, what Russia and China should be doing is using their combined undoubted influence on the world stage to expose and denounce Western governments for their crimes against humanity and international peace in Syria and elsewhere. Furthermore, Moscow and Beijing should be deploying forthright and unapologetic military support for Damascus.

Clearly, the only language that the criminal Western powers understand is force not diplomatic rhetoric. If the Western regimes can be so brazen as to arm and support terrorists who are detonating 1.5-tonne car bombs in downtown Damascus targeting Russian sovereign interests, then Moscow needs to be brazen back in its support for Syria.

On the issue of Iran, Russia and China also need to urgently raise their political game and get real. For more than a decade, Iran has been threatened with war and pummeled with illegal sanctions all on the back of entirely bogus claims by Western states that Iran is secretly using its nuclear program for military ends.

This Western calumny as pretext for criminal aggression towards Iran keeps being repeated like a broken record.

US secretary of state John Kerry said of the latest P5+1 talks in Kazakhstan at the end of last month:

“Iran knows what it needs to do, the president has made clear his determination to implement his policy that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.”

Kerry is either woefully briefed or, more likely, cynically spinning the propaganda wheel of fortune. The US National Intelligence Estimates, its plethora of spy agencies and its Israeli surrogates do not even pretend to believe this fairytale about Iran as a nuclear threat. Russia must know this too. It has been involved closely in developing Iran’s civilian nuclear industry at Bushehr for the past 16 years.

So why does Russia and China continue to give this mockery of international relations and sovereign rights any further legitimacy by engaging in P5+1 wrangling? This self-styled grouping comprises the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China. Who are these nuclear-armed powers to dictate to anyone, especially given the record of the Western entities for genocidal wars and international lawlessness?

This cabal would not be able to continue plying its fiction over Iran’s nuclear ambitions if Russia and China simply walked away – as they should.

Moscow and Beijing have both expressed support for Iran’s right to civilian nuclear development. Therefore, these powers should put their money where their mouths are and insist on Iran’s inalienable right, not lend legitimacy to a smokescreen for strangling Iran.

Iran and Syria are part of the same imperialist dynamic of Western capitalist powers waging wars on the world for their selfish and criminal interests. Ultimately, Russia and China are the targets of this dynamic. Even if it’s only for their own self-defence, Moscow and Beijing must adopt clearer analysis of the geopolitical context and see the Western powers for the aggressive adversaries that they are.

A military defence of Syria and an insistence on ending illegal sanctions on Iran would be a start to more realistic thinking and policy that could restore a semblance of law and order in the world.

Russia and China bear a heavy responsibility for world peace. They need to act promptly on that by forming a realistic defensive alliance with Syria and Iran.

Why talk with arsonists when the house is burning?

Finian Cunningham, originally from Belfast, Ireland, was born in 1963. He is a prominent expert in international affairs. The author and media commentator was expelled from Bahrain in June 2011 for his critical journalism in which he highlighted human rights violations by the Western-backed regime. He is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For many years, he worked as an editor and writer in the mainstream news media, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. He is now based in East Africa where he is writing a book on Bahrain and the Arab Spring.He co-hosts a weekly current affairs programme, Sunday at 3pm GMT on Bandung Radio. More articles by Finian Cunningham

Chavez Commited the Unforgiveable Sin: People Before Profits

Evil Incarnate: Putting the Poor Before Profits and Bling

by Chris Floyd - Empire Burlesque

As'ad AbuKhalil points us to this rather eye-boggling -- and revealing -- passage from AP's obituary of Hugo Chavez:

Chavez invested Venezuela's oil wealth into social programs including state-run food markets, cash benefits for poor families, free health clinics and education programs. But those gains were meager compared with the spectacular construction projects that oil riches spurred in glittering Middle Eastern cities, including the world's tallest building in Dubai and plans for branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums in Abu Dhabi.

My god, to think such evil once walked this earth!

Earlier, AbuKhalil had this take on Chavez's death:

I have never been a fan of Chavez but I am much less of a fan of his enemies and critics in the West or in the East. ... Chavez allowed opposition media (many of which were funded or supported by the US government no doubt) but the New York Times commented (in its most silly obituary of the man) that he compelled opposition media to carry his speeches. Wow. That is something that is not done in the various dictatorships that US supports and cuddles, which don't allow any vestiges of opposition media. Chavez was certainly more democratic in his rule than China, Russia, and all the Arab dictatorships and Central Asian dictatorships that the US supports, funds, and arms. but he was turned in the media as a twin of the North Korean dictator. This comes to show you that the standards of Western governments and media have nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with 1) defiance against US will; 2) with the extent to which [a] regime allows multinational corporations to exploit and steal in a particular nation. Chavez's championing of the poor was certainly offensive to Western governments and media. That we know.

We do indeed. I recall the NY Times' first story on the death (since updated), which told us that Chavez -- elected four times against full-throttled opposition in democratic elections vetted by international observers -- won his power by "tapping into the resentments of his country's poor."

Their "resentments." Obviously, the poor of Venezuela -- a vast majority when Chavez was first elected -- were full of "resentment" at their subjugation at the hands of a monied elite. They didn't feel justified anger at their plight, they were not motivated by common human aspirations to secure a better life for themselves and their children; no, it was only "resentment" at their more deserving masters that drove them to support a man who -- dast one even say it? -- did not worship at the altar of America's imperial greatness. There could no other reason for such uppity behavior.

There were also rich pickings in the NYT's many other bashings of the dead man -- such as William Neuman's declaration that Chavez left behind "a bitterly divided nation in the grip of a political crisis" or Rory Carroll's crocodile-teared lament for "the decay, dysfunction and blight that afflict the economy and every state institution" in Venezuela. One can only say that these New York sages should perhaps take a gander southward toward the Potomac if they want to see political crisis, dysfunction and blight writ far larger -- and deeper and more destructive -- than anything Chavez could have wrought in his country.

Oh well. The incessant denigration of the majority of humankind by rulers and their sniveling sycophants has been going on since the first whips were laid across the backs of slaves building dolmens and gathering flints. Maybe one day our idiotic race will get tired of it.

Or does that sound -- OMG! -- resentful?

Hugo Chavez: Remembering the Triumph that Was

Chavez’s Triumph

by Andre Vltchek - CounterPunch

Nairobi - When we lose people that are indispensible to us, nothing may change on the surface: we are still walking, eating sleeping, working, even fighting. The void, the gaping hole is what dominates our hearts and our souls.

Yesterday, the President of Venezuela and one of the greatest revolutionaries in the history of mankind – Hugo Chavez – passed away, and the world is still moving by inertia. Buildings did not collapse, continents did not sink, and the wars and misery ravaging many parts of the world did not stop.

Yet something changed. Three beautiful muses that have been inspiring so many millions all over the world, turned into widows, at least for one day or two. Their names are: Love, Faith and Hope.

Some ask: is it really wise to make an entire country, an entire revolution dependent, and reliant on one single man?

My answer is simple: people like Chavez are born infrequently, too rarely. It would be a historical anomaly for two giants of his size to live in the same period of time, in the same city, and even in the same country.

* * *

Yet his words and deeds were simple and pragmatic: poor people have to be housed, fed, educated and given medical care, and above all, they have to be armed with dignity. And the wealthy world, which became rich through plunder, colonial expansions and unmatchable brutality, has to stop terrorizing and looting; the countries of Europe and North America have to be forced to behave like members of the international community consisting of states with equal rights, instead of what they have been accustomed to for decades and centuries: a bunch of thugs living above the law.

Hugo Chavez was a man who appeared to come from a different era, where Western propaganda, indoctrination and surveillance had not yet broken the free spirit of men and women. He stood tall, spoke loudly and coherently, naming names, and pointing fingers. He was not afraid of his own people: he drank gallons of coffee and talked to them from the balcony of the Presidential Palace, and at street corners.

“And it smells of sulfur still today,” he laughed, at the UN, after George W. Bush left the stage. He was not the only one who smelt it, but he was the only one who dared to say it.

In his universe, no tyrant, no hypocrite was above the law, and immune from his attacks. He was not scared to say what he believed, publicly, even about such characters like the King of Spain, or the President of the United States of America.

* * *

Not everybody liked him, not all ‘natural allies’ stood by him.

It is mainly because he spoke the truth when others did not dare to. It is because he was constantly taking action while most of the others who were ‘resisting’ the global regime, were content with shouting at the television and exchanging conspiracy theories through electronic chats, while taking no risks. It is because, in a way, he became the bad conscience of those who have been playing it both ways: simultaneously criticizing power and collaborating with it.

Those who were morally bankrupt hated him the most. Western mainstream media, and Arab mainstream media like Al-Jazeera, detested him relentlessly.

Chavez wrote history as one writes an epic and daring poem – with his own mind, heart and flesh. He lifted the flag with his own hands; he straightened his back, shouted a few essential words to the wind, and walked forwards. He was always at the front. He never hid behind the backs of others. This is how the legendary Samurais fought, or closer home – the great warriors of the Andes.

How few, how very few now dare! One can make a list that would fit into handful of pages. And most of those who do dare –often fall, silently and anonymously. And those who fall even for one single moment, from exhaustion or suffering from wounds, are chased and bayonetted by the regime; bayonetted mercilessly, to death.

President Hugo Chavez to the people of Venezuela, or Commander Chavez to some brave men and women all over the world, wrote his poem while standing on thin ice. Decisions he made were never simple; never comfortable. His life was always in danger.

To be a young officer, a paratrooper/philosopher, and to attempt a coup in a country locked in a horrible embrace with the North was not easy. But his country, his beloved la patria, was like a woman who had been raped and then forced to offer her body to the same men who ravished her. To free her, that beloved land of his, from such misery and humiliation, one had to fight decisively, with all the means available. There was no time to theorize.

And he fought. And was captured and imprisoned. But his courage gained him admiration and support unknown in his country for centuries.

That suffering woman he was ready to die for – Venezuela – finely opened her arms; decided to believe again, to hope, to dream one more time. She embraced him, pressed him against her body with all her strength. And then, with one powerful stroke she broke the walls of his prison, and elevated him, almost literally, on the outstretched arms of her people, to the Presidential Palace.

Three muses, three celestial beings, stood by him throughout that mortal fight for genuine freedom of Venezuela and Latin America; during those endless days and nights he was locked in a dungeon:

Love – for Venezuela, for Latin America, for humanity itself.

Faith – in justice, in his strength and in the vigor and determination of his people.

Hope –which whispered in his ear, relentlessly, that the present brutal arrangement of the World is not final; that it could be fought and changed.

And they won!

Venezuela washed tears from her face; she put on her modest but clean dress, and stood up, at the northern tip of South America, stunningly beautiful and despite the past, proud and daring.

Chavez and his people won. His three Muses won. Entire Latin America fell silent. Then it cheered. Hundreds of years of servitude were over. All unified, this beautiful continent was finally liberated. Because, as we all know by now, people when united and inspired, when aiming at great goals and ideals, are always victorious, no matter how immense is the sacrifice!

* * *

Optimism, enthusiasm and determination: there could be no more dangerous or deadlier enemies to the present inhuman global dictatorship, which is imposed on the world by the Western colonial and neo-colonial nations.

The Empire is spreading nihilism, fragmentation, financial and moral corruption, fear, and compliance with mainstream thoughts and ‘ideas’, manufactured by its ideologues, propagandists and the advertising industry. Life is reduced to a form, which devours all substance. A depressing breed of individualism, egotism, passivity, and obedience is constantly promoted and advertised.

The Venezuelan Revolution offered exactly the opposite: optimism, solidarity, hope, and a great opportunity to fight for, to create and to live for humanity as a whole. Against some callous Hollywood-style horror movie, it placed simplicity and beauty, against Armageddon, a few simple flowers and the promise to return to the essence of humanism.

* * *

I write this dispatch in Nairobi, in Kenya; in Africa, which is being ravaged and chained once again. Every word causes me pain and I know that the pain is coming unmistakably from the direction of Venezuela. The pain is sharp; it is immense. Only love can hurt like this; only true love.

But there is no time for laments and tears. One false step, one month, even one day of letting down our guards, and everything that Chavez and Venezuela fought for, everything that we fought for, may disappear in one simple instant.

Evo Morales, the President of Bolivia, declared: “Chavez is More Alive than Ever”.

That is true. But our determination to support, to defend the Latin American Revolution, should also be more alive than ever. Chavez did not believe in goals only, he believed in journey, in the process – en el proceso. That is what the revolution is: determined, selfless, an optimistic journey; it is the indefatigable fight against fascism – for a better world, and for justice.

During that long but beautiful journey, some people fall, but then others rise and lift up the banners. Those who fall will be never left behind: they will be carried in our hearts and in our songs, because their achievements are everlasting.

So back from where I began: when we lose a person who appeared indispensible, we may double from pain. It is only human. But then it is our duty to straighten our backs again, remembering the way Hugo Chavez did. There is Caracas, Havana, La Paz, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Quito, Managua and so many other beloved cities behind us; depending on us for their defense. Asuncion in Paraguay has already fallen, and so has Tegucigalpa, Honduras. We cannot afford to lose more!

Human life is short, but dreams of humanism, and the love for humanity, are eternal. And one can only love humanity and fight for it with a straight back; never doubled over, and never on ones knees.

The man who freed Venezuela is no more. But she will go forward, no doubt, with him inside her heart, with his words on her lips.

Yesterday, a true hero of the Latin American Revolution, President Hugo Chavez, has fallen. And long live freedom, long live Venezuela, long live Latin America, and the Revolution, damn it!


Andre Vltchek is a novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific – Oceania – is published by Lulu. His provocative book about post-Suharto Indonesia and market-fundamentalist model is called “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear” (Pluto). After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and Africa. He can be reached through his website.

A Yearning for Human Community

The Longing For Community

by Carolyn Baker

People use drugs, legal and illegal, because their lives are intolerably painful or dull. They hate their work and find no rest in their leisure. They are estranged from their families and their neighbors. It should tell us something that in healthy societies drug use is celebrative, convivial, and occasional, whereas among us it is lonely, shameful, and addictive. We need drugs, apparently, because we have lost each other. - Wendell Berry

As I travel throughout the United States, as I engage in life coaching with clients, and as I read emails and blog comments sent to me by readers, the bedrock issue that continues to emerge is the longing for community. I often hear remarkable success stories of how a community of individuals has come together to accomplish a milestone project or support each other in disaster. And while my heart is warmed by these stories, my heart is more often broken by the litany of complaints I hear about failed attempts to create community.

I need not remind the reader of our history as inhabitants of Western civilization, founded as it was on the mythology of rugged individualism, Horatio Alger, and the American Dream. Nor is it necessary to list examples of indigenous communities where people have harmoniously lived together for thousands of years.

What may be necessary, however, is to clarify the definition of community in order to modify our expectations and strive more realistically to achieve it.

It may be useful to first notice what community is not.

• Community should not be narrowly defined as a group of people living together sharing space and resources. “Community” is not synonymous with “eco-village” although it can be.

• Community is not a context in which everyone must agree. A healthy community consists of diverse people and divergent opinions.

One’s community may be defined as a circle of close friends who over time have consistently given and received support. Likewise, a community may be a group of neighbors who care deeply about each others’ well being and who may or may not engage in community projects together. One may or may not have personal contact with the rest of the community on a regular basis but may be confident that if one is in need, the community will be there to provide support. The structure of some communities consists of an annual or semi-annual gathering in which members have face-to-face contact at those times with much more email or phone contact between gatherings.

For those readers seeking to inhabit or establish an eco-village, Diana Leafe Christian has written extensively about creating healthy living communities in her two remarkable books, Finding Community and Creating A Life Together. Her work offers magnificent tools for creating intentional communities and dealing effectively with conflict.

What I’m exploring here is not so much the exact structure of a community, but rather, the deeper sense of community that humans crave and create as a foundation for the literal manifestations of community they may ultimately devise. In other words, what does community mean to the soul, the psyche, the deeper self within us? If we do not attend to this aspect of community, for all of the ostensible successes the community may have achieved, its members may feel vaguely unsatisfied or in some cases, may divest their energy from the community and move on.

It is possible to be in agreement intellectually and philosophically on any number of issues but still not be connected. In fact, this may be one reason why many experiments in community fail. People are connected in a horizontal manner with one another, but they are not connected to the depths of something more profound and expansive than the individual ego. The issue that any community must address, consciously or unconsciously, is whether or not they desire to be connected on a soul level. In many communities such as a group of neighbors who are working together to eliminate litter and beautify their streets, the desire for soul-level connection may not be a priority. Their intention is highly focused and possibly time-limited.

In other contexts a community may consciously seek a connection with the depths. Invariably, this opens the way for intimacy through opening the heart not only to each other but to something greater than any individual or the group itself. However, a longing for connection with the depths is both enchanting and edgy because when people are interacting with one another, not to mention swimming in the depths together, they will invariably be triggered by their interactions and by whatever a connection with the deeper self evokes for them. This is another way of saying that when our hearts open, so does another part of us, the shadow.

The shadow is a word first used by psychologist Carl Jung to describe an unconscious part of the psyche that we disown or insist is “not me.” It consists of aspects of ourselves of which we are unaware—some of which may range from unequivocally repugnant to virtually angelic. A majority of communities fail because they do not grasp the necessity of doing shadow work or lack the skills for doing it. The shadow eventually emerges, or perhaps erupts, in all meaningful human relationships, and shadow work must be done both internally and externally whenever people are interacting or living in community.

When someone says or does something with which we feel some discomfort, we must check in with ourselves and first of all notice the feelings we experience—disappointment, anger, hurt, fear, or any other emotion. Before blaming the other person or becoming offended, it is useful to ask oneself what one’s own part in the interaction might be. For example: How might I have participated in creating this interaction? This requires an honest effort to look within and ponder the situation, and the answer may not come through the intellect. However, if we are willing to stay with the feelings and the question of “what is my part?” we may discover a significant piece of the shadow that is asking for our attention.

Usually, our first reaction when we experience a mis-communication or an uncomfortable exchange is to attempt to “fix” it by dialoging with the person(s) involved. While communicating directly with the other about the exchange may be necessary at some point, we rarely engage ourselves in the process first. That is to say, it is generally more useful to explore what is happening inside of ourselves first before dialoging further with the other person. We can do this by simply staying with the question: What is my part in this? To facilitate our exploration, we can journal about the interaction, we can utilize some form of art such as drawing or painting, or we can go more deeply within through meditation or some type of inner listening.

Whenever conflict arises, something is trying to be created within us and within the other person, or both. As our indigenous ancestors have always known, as painful as it may be, conflict should be welcomed as a wise teacher in our lives and our communities. Soul often generates conflict in order to create something more expansive and to empower us to become larger persons. Relationships without conflict are usually boring and lifeless whereas conflict in relationships breathes vitality and wisdom into the individuals involved, and if allowed, revered, and listened to, can transform a single life as well as an entire community.

The Earth Community

In our discourse on community we often omit the earth community as the principal ally, mentor, and role model for establishing and maintaining a community of human beings. David Korten, author of The Great Turning and Agenda For A New Economy contrasts the models of empire and earth community in his Yes Magazine article, “From Empire To Earth Community”:

We face a defining choice between two contrasting models for organizing human affairs. Give them the generic names Empire and Earth Community. Absent an understanding of the history and implications of this choice, we may squander valuable time and resources on efforts to preserve or mend cultures and institutions that cannot be fixed and must be replaced.

Empire organizes by domination at all levels, from relations among nations to relations among family members. Empire brings fortune to the few, condemns the majority to misery and servitude, suppresses the creative potential of all, and appropriates much of the wealth of human societies to maintain the institutions of domination.

Earth Community, by contrast, organizes by partnership, unleashes the human potential for creative co-operation, and shares resources and surpluses for the good of all. Supporting evidence for the possibilities of Earth Community comes from the findings of quantum physics, evolutionary biology, developmental psychology, anthropology, archaeology, and religious mysticism. It was the human way before Empire; we must make a choice to re-learn how to live by its principles.

In this reference to the earth community, Korten’s focus is on the model that the earth community provides humans who move away from hierarchical models toward partnership. Yet perhaps there is even more to glean from the earth community than the partnership model applied to human community.

Mathematical cosmologist, Brian Swimme prolifically writes and teaches the necessity of being in relationship with the earth community. What does this mean? According to Swimme:

What’s necessary is for us to understand that, really, at the root of things is community. At the deepest level, that’s the center of things. We come out of community. So how then can we organize our economics so that it’s based on community, not accumulation? And how can we organize our religion to teach us about community? And when I say “community,” I mean the whole earth community. That’s the ultimate sacred domain—the earth community.

How do you organize your technology so that as you use the technology, the actual use of it enhances the community? That’s a tough one. So long as we have this worldview in which the earth itself is just stuff, empty material, and the individual is most important, then we’re set up to just use it in any way we like. So the idea is to move from thinking of the earth as a storehouse to seeing the earth as our matrix, our fundamental community. That’s one of the great things about Darwin. Darwin shows us that everything is kin. Talk about spiritual insight! Everything is kin at the level of genetic relatedness. Another simple way of saying this is: Let’s build a civilization that is based upon the reality of our relationships. If we think of the human as being the top of this huge pyramid, then everything beneath us is of no value, and we can use it however we want. In the past, it wasn’t noticed so much because our influence was smaller. But now, we’ve become a planetary power. And suddenly the defects of that attitude are made present to us through the consequences of our actions.

A student of Thomas Berry, Swimme came to understand that the story of every human being parallels in some fashion, the story of the universe. For example Swimme notes:

Walt Whitman had an intuition about this when he said, ‘A leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars.’ And you think, how did he come up with that? Well, that’s called self-knowledge. In other words, a star gave birth to the elements that then assembled themselves in the form of Walt Whitman. So you could say that Walt Whitman had a deep memory of where he came from.

Likewise, when Einstein discovered the general theory of relativity, he discovered it from within. There was no data on the expansion of the universe or anything else. He said he just went into his own visceral movements—a strange way of thinking about creativity—and he paid attention to what was going on within, and he gave birth to the gravitational equations we use now. This is what I think Whitman did. He penetrated the depth of his own bodily reality and had this intuition about stars. And we’ve now discovered the empirical details about this. I just love that—everybody comes out of the stars.

What then is the soul of community?

It is a desire to be connected with something greater than the egos of other people and the projects in which we might engage with them. Fundamentally, a successful human community is the unfolding of a spiritual dynamic. It cannot be contrived or made to happen. Rather, it erupts from our desire for the depths, and that desire is certain to constellate the shadow in ourselves and the other. If we follow our longing for community, we must be prepared to do our own shadow work and support others as they do theirs. Ultimately, we touch the soul of community when we savor our own personal story as the story of the universe and the earth community. The journey of authentic community is also a journey of healing which is guaranteed to take us deep into the inner world of our own demons and angels as well as those in the psyches of our community companions. For as Wendell Berry notes, “To be healed we must come with all the other creatures to the feast of Creation.”

While all of this may sound tedious and laborious, and in fact it often is, the potential rewards are too momentous to ignore—being genuinely seen and lovingly held by the human and more than human community. Argue as we may that that would be too good to be true, fundamentally, this is the soul of community, and something in us refuses to stop longing for it.

Carolyn Baker, Ph.D., was an adjunct professor of history and psychology for 11 years and a psychotherapist in private practice for 17 years. (She is not, and never has been, a licensed psychologist.) Her latest book Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization’s Collapse, is unique in its offering of emotional and spiritual tools for preparing for living in a post-industrial world. Carolyn’s forthcoming book is Navigating The Coming Chaos: A Handbook For Inner Transition. Her other books include: Coming Out From Christian Fundamentalism: Affirming Sensuality, Social Justice, and The Sacred (2007) , U.S. History Uncensored: What Your High School Textbook Didn’t Tell You (2006) and The Journey of Forgiveness, (2000) All may be purchased at this site. She is available for speaking engagements and author events and can be contacted at carolyn@carolynbaker.net . Her blog is http://carolynbaker.net