Saturday, December 12, 2009

Food for Thought

On the environmental front, optimism seems to be fading fast on getting any meaningful controls on greenhouse gases as world leaders cop out one by one. With headlines like, "Europe, UN scale back Climate Pact Ambitions", "American Foot Dragging Leads Negotiators to Seek Political Deal Rather than a Legal Treaty" and "(PM) Harper Signals Trouble Ahead at Climate Change Conference" it appears to be same old, same old. The world is divided into many competing interests in capitalism, and no agreement is going to sit well with every capitalist group's interests for long, as we repeatedly say.

During Hilary Clinton's recent visit to Pakistan, she was confronted by locals complaining about the indiscriminate bombing and many civilian deaths from the American drones. She graciously replied, "There is a war going on." This eerily echoes former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright's infamous comment more than a decade earlier when confronted about the 1.5 million Iraqis who had died as a result of the US lead blockade on that country, "It's not a number we keep count of." They must come out of the same mould. John Ayers

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