Can we live without progress?

SUBHEAD: Living without the hope of progress didn't stop the ancient Greeks from creating great art and philosophy.

By Kurt Cobb on 2 July 2017 for Resource Insight -
(http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2017/07/can-we-live-without-progress.html)


Image above: Painting by Raphael of "The School of Athens" done in for Vatican 1509-1511. The most obvious characters are in the center, Plato and his student Aristotle, founding figures of Western philosophy. From (http://study.com/academy/lesson/the-school-of-athens-by-raphael-description-figures-analysis.html).

[IB Publisher's note: The question works better upside down. "Can we live with progress?" The answer appears to be "No!" It's been our excuse to chew op the world. Remember General Electic. The corporation that devised and built Fukushima Daiichi and put the reactors almost at sea level and the placed backup generators in the basement? Their adage delivered on TV by Ronald Reagan was "Progress is our most important product".]

To a person alive today it is hard to fathom that the ancient Greeks regarded themselves as living in an age of decline.

These are the people who gave us the philosophers Socrates and Plato, the playwrights Sophocles and Euripides, the mathematician Pythagoras, the scientist and polymath Archimedes, and the first person to formulate atomic theory, Democritus.

These are the people who designed and built the Parthenon and created the sculpture we so admire today in our museums. And yet, the ancient Greeks believed that the Golden Age, a period of unprecedented peace, prosperity, and cultural achievement, already lay deep in the past.

A friend recently asked if we who are alive today could bear to live in such an age. Our modern lives are premised on the idea that tomorrow will not only be different, but also better. He said this attitude has made us inattentive. We feel we don't have to pay attention to the details of life because we know their destination in advance, namely, progress.

In the sciences we speak of progress--greater knowledge, better instruments, new investigatory techniques, more comprehensive theories. But we rarely speak of progress in the arts. We tend to believe that art changes, while science advances. We do not think of James Joyce's novels as new and improved versions of Thomas Hardy's. We simply say that they are different.

Can we imagine an existence in which tomorrow may be different from yesterday, but may not necessarily represent an advance? Can we imagine a whole lifetime of such days? And, perhaps the most vexing question of all: Is it possible that we have actually been living in such a world without knowing it?

This question, of course, begets another one: What do we mean by progress? Generally speaking, we are offered the following metrics: more people living longer, healthier lives and enjoying greater material prosperity year after year (that is, ever increasing per capita consumption).

We may also be told that our knowledge of the natural and social worlds is growing rapidly and that this knowledge is part of the reason for our prosperity.

When speaking of progress, we tend to leave out the side effects--some of them very dangerous--such as climate change, toxic pollution, soil erosion, fisheries collapse, species extinction, and myriad other ongoing environmental cataclysms that have the potential to destroy our civilization.

To contain our anxiety we tell ourselves that this is the price of progress. The politicians ask,"Which would you rather save, your jobs or some obscure species of fish?" Of course, the predicament we face is not so easily dismissed.

Another friend pointed out the disconnect between the United Nations' recent announcement that world population will reach 9.7 billion by 2050, up from 7.5 billion today, while the organization also warns of the devastating consequences of climate change for world food supplies in the future.

Might not billions die of malnutrition and hunger before 2050 arrives as climate change continues to move faster than we have previously estimated?

And yet, the news is filled with predictions of fantastic leaps forward in artificial intelligence, robotics, and biotechnology without reference to the dangers we face--both from these fields themselves and from our environmental problems--that could put an end to and even reverse what we call progress.

One of the world's most prominent climate scientists, Tim Garrett, believes that our economic system simply cannot bring about the emissions reductions needed to stop climate change. Economic activity and carbon emissions are too closely linked.

This is just another way of saying that the idea of progress is embedded in the social and economic system, and that we cannot attack carbon emissions without attacking the idea of progress itself. Here is the question Garrett is really posing: If the progress we've made since the beginning of industrial civilization only leads to a complete reversal of all our supposed gains in the long run, can we really call what is happening progress?

And so, we must ask: Could we live in a world in which the idea of progress is abandoned?

Could we stand the thought that tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that might feel endlessly the same, our personal power neither increasing nor diminishing--or worse yet, possibly diminishing somewhat over time.

Living without the hope of progress didn't stop the ancient Greeks from creating art, architecture, literature and philosophy that we still admire and learn from today. Could humans once again learn to value change without demanding that it be progress? In truth, our fate depends on the answer to that question.

 • Kurt Cobb is an author, speaker, and columnist focusing on energy and the environment. He has been a regular contributor to the Energy Voices section of The Christian Science Monitor and is author of the peak-oil-themed novel Prelude.

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New sail power in Mediterranean

SUBHEAD: In Europe cargo sail ships are making inroads replacing bunker fuel burning dinosaurs.

By Jan Lundborg on 15 June 2017 for Sail Transport Network -
(http://www.sailtransportnetwork.org/node/963)


Image above: Painting of sailship Perama over map of Mediterranean  by Chryssa Dellapporta. From original artical.

In a fast changing world, it is no longer possible to automatically assume that what one is used to will endure. People want stability and predictability, but, as they say, good luck with that.

We are witnessing out-of-control evolution of a rapid, uncertain sort. Fortunately, there are pro-active initiatives that have seized the imagination of thinking people who think of the Earth as a community to share.

They look ahead in terms of decades and even centuries instead of mere days or quarterly periods.

As an environmental activist looking for answers to pollution and disastrous land use, after 1988 when I left the service of the oil industry and government, I eventually came upon the revival of sail transport as a most promising potential sector.

That was in 1999. Fast forward to 2017, and much progress has been made by the sail transport movement, especially since 2008.

The outstanding success that has endured since then has been that of the Fairtransport organization in the Netherlands. Their first ship was the Tres Hombres, a 32-meter brigantine, built by volunteers. It has now completed ten transatlantic voyages carrying cargo from the Caribbean back to northern Europe, without an engine.

Among several other sail transport projects, Timbercoast’s Avontuur cargo schooner, at 44 meters long with a cargo capacity of 70 tons, is the other standout. Since last year it is operating from Germany to the Caribbean and back.

This year is now seeing — as I write these lines — another step forward: like Fairtransport and Timbercoast, it marks a noteworthy and practical embrace of sail power for moving cargo via clean, renewable energy known as the wind.

In the eastern Mediterranean, Aegean Cargo Sailing is a demonstration project now underway (June 2017) to highlight high quality island products for a broadened market that caters to the ecologically sensitive. This niche market for food and beverage items, like in northern Europe, is growing and worth pursuing.

Furthermore, with an eye to the future, when climate change and the energy mix will be sure to challenge today’s unconscious shopping within the corporate consumer economy, solutions must also promise local economic health and meaningful work for the new generation.


Image above: Sailship Sailship Pelago off town of Karystos on island of Euboea beginning of Aegean Cargo Sailing voyage. From original article.

Aegean Cargo Sailing visits six islands as well as the Greek mainland province of Attica, spreading the word and the tastes of a sustainable future. (See the voyage blog).

The current vessel the for project, the sloop Pelago, only carries one tonne [one metric ton, or 2,204.6 pounds] of cargo. But it serves as sufficient “proof of concept” for motivating people from various walks of life who have become, or may become, involved as supporters or self-starters of similar efforts.

Defenders of the status quo, however, resigned to the immense trade volumes (and pollution) of the 90,000 oil-burning cargo ships operating today, are correct that sail transport trade amounts to just a drop in the bucket.

Yes, for now. However, an historic trend starts with one small step. Think of many sailboats eventually commencing cargo transport, whether small sloops originally designed for recreation of living aboard, or larger vessels approaching clipper ships of 150 years ago that sailed faster than today’s modern cargo vessels. The drop in the bucket is no longer a drop in the bucket.

The island stops on the current route starting from the port of Lavrio, are Kea, Andros, Tinos, Mykonos, Ikaria, and Samos. The end of this voyage is a marina near Athens, enabling us to get the products to a cooperating health food store to display sail transport’s potential for bringing goods to customers without oil and its inherent pollution.

Organic and fair trade are wonderful developments, but what good are they if the transport is filthy and unsustainable?

On land, pedal power and animal power, combined with proximity, are the way to go, and we are intensifying of efforts in this regard. But the need for long-distance transport has been a fixture of human society, and this need will only grow as local ecosystems are discovered to inadequately provide for huge populations.

By now most of us have learned that unending oil dependence and its attendant harms is no answer, if long-term survival is to be planned rationally and honestly.


Image above: Valia Stefanoudaki, products coordinator Aegean Cargo Sailing with customer. From original article.

Valia Stefanoudaki, coordinator of Aegean Cargo Sailing products, is shown here with owner of the many traditional local-product shops on the Aegean island of Andros This shop is called “Biologos” ("organic"), and was one of the first collaborative shops visited in the debut voyage.

Valia wears the SAIL MED t-shirt of the Aegean Cargo Sailing crew. She and her mates report that shops and suppliers are reacting enthusiastically over clean, attractive sail transport for their goods, perceiving enhanced value generated.

Since oil-burning cargo ships kill around 60,000 people a year with sooty emissions, and the total annual global CO2 emissions from 90,000 motorized ships constitute what would be the sixth largest-ranking nation in the world, it is high time to adopt means of low-cost, clean, renewable energy that are here and now.

Considerations include food security, local development, the idea of a Blue Economy, and healthy seas (each of which is examined below). Addressing the issues raised can help counter the global, haphazard practices and systems threatening life as we know it.

Unfortunately, faith in government and industry has meant unending, unchecked emissions that the United Nations and its International Maritime Organization have done next to nothing about in the 20 years since the Kyoto Protocol. The slow pace along with greenwashing aids only entrenched industry.

But can we all just keep shopping, and assume that Mother Nature will keep providing, keep forgiving, and allow us to just wait until modern society is good and ready to make more intelligent innovations that secure a livable future?

A recent news item: "Cargo Shipping Market to Witness an Annual Growth Rate of 3.45% from 2017 to 2023".

This projection is possible only if there are no major events in the world oil market to significantly curtail supplies. Additionally, as oil products are hugely subsidized — with "externalities" of pollution, etc., paid for by the rest of society, such as those buying food — this state of affairs would need to remain unchanged. Never mind the impossibility of endless growth on a finite planet.

Food security

Local food production for food security and for avoiding long-distance oil consumption for transport is a crucial foundation for our common future. How can this be achieved under the corporate economy that rewards large economies-of-scale trade and distribution via dwindling fossil fuels?

Sail transport has potential as a vast, low-tech, albeit lower-volume means of bioregional and trans-ocean sharing of surpluses. A given ecosystem diminished by harmful development and loss of arable land can rarely provide all the food or kinds of food that a population needs for survival.

Indeed, the secure exchange of surpluses via sailing between coastal and island communities enhances the quality of nutrition for populations who have become distanced from local self-sufficiency.

One Greek island is known, for example, for potato production, while another is known for split peas — both enjoyed by most of the whole nation. It makes sense for any surpluses to be exchanged — in a sustainable fashion that won’t be affected by the next geopolitical oil supply shock.

For those of a mind to consider coffee and chocolate part of food security, they are welcome to this charming mindset as long as there is sailing from the tropics to the high-populated temperate regions that cannot grow those addictive, sensual crops.

Local development
Local development for a sustainable economy closely depends of food security. However, employment and the vital use and revival of skills for a community’s general resiliency are related requirements, and are addressed by sail transport and the cargo sailing sector’s future.

Also, a resilient economic system, sometimes called the Blue Economy, must be local-based instead of a U.N.- or E.U.-driven system out of reach of the average citizen.

Jobs today are primarily in the service of the corporate consumer economy. While this serves many workers, and especially benefits the few who profit greatly on the fossil-fuel based system of energy, transport, and agriculture, the fact remains that unemployment and a poor outlook shared by millions of citizens of developed economies are preventing uncounted working-class people from thriving or getting by with dignity.

Fortunately, the history and legacy of traditional sailing networks and shipbuilding have not disappeared from memory. Examples through successful, small-scale project have been reviving the sailing of cargo, primarily in northern Europe.

SAIL MED is tapping into young persons’ desires to work at meaningful positions that are not limited to serving drinks to tourists or vending souvlakis to increasingly cash-poor consumers.

While the older generation’s strengths and knowledge for community-based trades and services are still present — but being inexorably lost day by day — young people in search of work and convivial, meaningful activity can anticipate finding or creating jobs or small businesses.

Additionally, growing numbers of people find air travel to be unjustifiable due to inefficient, wasteful, toxic fuel consumption. Some of these folk wonder about sailing as the long-term answer for travel across oceans. But, for now, it is the moving of cargo and building local self-reliance that emerge as the priority.

The prospect for greater local development depends on nurturing today’s established home-production, for example of wines, olive oil, olives, and produce — typified by much of Greece.

These highly prized but common items are primarily traded or gifted on a person-to-person basis. This can be enhanced and expanded in order to encourage greater local food sources’ availability through interdependency and cooperation, rather than everyone's waiting for a job-opening involving impersonal, distant employment and the unlikely return of debt-related economic growth.

Additional benefits of local development include more feasible protection of the environment than from top-down policies and regulations that only serve out-of-touch, distant corporations and government technocrats who seldom have any role in enhancing sustainable, non-fossil fuel, local development.

The Blue Economy
Thus far, the Blue Economy is mostly limited to an NGO-oriented and government-agency initiative, promoted via conferences and technical papers.

Many of the “Blue” principles of cleaner seas and appropriate industry are within reach, but limiting and overriding the vision are entrenched business interests; they stand for the status quo of unsustainable development, emitting regulated but massive pollution, and unending industrial growth on a finite planet.

Clean, renewable energy has yet to include sail power for a Blue Economy, so today’s small sail transport movement needs to pursue on all levels the kind of growth that helps people and the environment. Solar panels have a place, but few people look at the issues of questionable net-energy-yield and the limitation of generating only electric power. Two approaches are complementary:

• establishing local or regional, small scale cargo and passenger trade utilizing sail power;
  
• following through with the “Ecoliner” approach for higher-volume cargos, to utilize modern ports currently given over to massive ships and high-tech dock complexes for recently constructed, modern harbors. Such facilities are no longer part of historically established cities or real communities.

The chief reasons for modifying the present fossil-fuel dominated economy, as to transport, are long-term oil supply and climate-protection considerations:

• Conventional crude oil reserves have been on a depletion trajectory worldwide since 2005. Supplies of oil for ships, planes and trucks, agriculture, etc., have had to rely on increased subsidies. As higher-cost, lower net-energy-yield oil is counted on to stretch supply indefinitely, via fracking and deep water, frozen-environment extraction, the domination of oil and its refined fuels for transport makes less and less sense. To address this requires sound planning, innovative policies, and better technology, to be understood and pursued by the citizenry instead of technocrats and corporate-bottom-line careerists. A sudden oil supply crisis can threaten today’s commerce and consumers’ tenuous security. The 90,000 “oil boats” moving cargo will someday be lamented as non-renewable-energy dinosaurs.
  
• CO2 emissions from shipping have been growing out-of-control, and are set to continue doing so. Up to 250% greater emissions have been forecast to occur by 2050. This state of affairs is due to the lack of regulations and pro-industry allegiance by the International Maritime Organization, which has not followed UNFCCC guidelines for protecting the climate. As extreme weather continues to worsen and exact exponential costs, and climate-change related migration accelerates, people will look to clean-energy transport that sail power offers.

Healthy Seas
In addition to species impacted directly by oil spills, the related crises of the plastic plague, poison runoff, and improper disposal of toxics call us to take action.

Some 20% of sea pollution comes from the deliberate dumping of oil and other wastes from ships, from accidental spills and offshore oil drilling.

But of all the sources of marine pollution, the discharge of oily engine wastes and bilge from day-to-day shipping operations may be the worst, because it is steady and occurs everywhere.

Instead of trying to solve the ongoing oil pollution crisis long-term, by reducing oil demand (see WorldOilReduction.org), the Obama administration mainly promised to fine the perpetrators and achieve a “clean energy economy” (some day).

Petroleum refineries keep producing toxic, non-biodegradable plastics, as part of the facilities’ requirement of high utilization of refining capacity. The oil and natural gas industries rely mainly on gasoline and diesel for profits, but to maximize those products, the manufacture and distribution of other products such as plastics, pesticides, dyes, asphalt, and more, must be maintained at all costs.

One result is that plastic particles are increasingly supplanting plankton in terms of volume. This was discovered almost 20 years ago by Capt. Charles Moore, author of Plastic Ocean. He is an active supporter and promoter of Sail Transport Network (SAIL MED’s parent organization).

Since conventional cargo shipping is guilty of more oil spillage on a daily basis, from emptying bilges, than all the high-profile wrecks of tankers and other ships, the poor performance needs a remedy such as sail power and a reduction in much consuming of unessential products. Unreported “accidents” not only harm sea life, but are destroying tourism potential. This recurring disaster is what the public is usually aware of.

However; the use of engines and propellers must be questioned, from both an animal-rights perspective and looking ahead to inevitable changes in technology in a post-peak oil world threatened by accelerated global warming.

Engine noise is extremely damaging to sea creatures, such as whales that depend on quiet seas for their communications that stretch for thousands of kilometers under water. This crisis is akin to land birds’ inability to find mates when motor vehicle noise and other disturbances are prevalent.

Propellers chop up sea creatures, particularly when oil-burning cargo ships travel at high rates of speed (e.g., 18 knots per hour). Slower species such as manatees are often bloodied and killed by propellers.

Additionally, collisions with ships — likely not the case with sailing ships that go slower — kill whales and many other species on a regular basis. The carnage is not quantified, nor banned in any way. This is akin to roadkill by motor vehicles. Species extinction cannot be allowed to continue to rage in our oceans and other bodies of water, and must be made as well-known as land-based species extinction.

The sail transport movement, while not exclusively engine-free and propeller-free, promises much healthier seas. Expansion of our sector as well as general education will help our fellow creatures and the species that they coexist with and rely on for food.

Conclusion:
The crew and management of Aegean Cargo Sailing, part of SAIL MED and the Sail Transport Network, welcome questions, participation, support, and publicity.

One project at a time, building into an ever stronger, growing movement, means sail transport will prevail not just as an interesting, romantic initiative; it is here to stay. A change in thinking is underway, that of placing sail power among the pantheon of (truly) renewable, (truly) clean forms of energy.

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: New Sail Power in Mediterranean 6/15/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Larry Ellison - Oracle 6/21/12
Ea O Ka Aina: Our Brave Experiment 6/13/12
Ea O Ka Aina: Hokulea sister ship Hikianalia 10/10/12
Ea O Ka Aina: Moving local goods by boat 3/7/12 
Ea O Ka Aina: Polyneisans again tour the Pacific 8/15/11
Ea O Ka Aina: Clear Sky over Polynesian canoes 7/12/11
Ea O Ka Aina: The Sail Transport Network 6/4/11
Island Breath: The future of ocean sailing 8/15/08
Island Breath: Sail Technology Reemerges 12/25/07
Island Breath: Rethinking the sail 12/25/07
Island Breath: THe Polynesian Package 8/24/07
Island Breath: The Future of Ocean Sailing 8/15/06 

The SYRIZA Experience

SUBHEAD: Entering the ominous battlefield of the 21st century, the left will either be relevant or it will be obsolete.

By Andreas Karitzis on 17 march 2106 for Open Democracy -
(https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/andreas-karitzis/syriza-experience-lessons-and-adaptations-0)


Image above: During the sovereign debt crisis European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker leads Greek Prime Minister Alex Tsipras by the hand to his unhappy ending. From original article.

The impact of the strategic defeat of last year is still very strongly shaping various reactions within the Greek left. Some people seem content with superficial explanations of what happened and return to habitual ways of thinking and acting; others sense the strategic depth of the defeat and turn inwards to disappointment and demoralization.

Still others are trying to learn from the “SYRIZA experience” in order to make themselves more useful to people in the future. All of us sense the dangers lurking in front of us but we are far from having a common and feasible strategy.

In a situation like this, political priorities change and ‘novel’ tasks emerge. For example, people far beyond those affiliated with the traditional left are scattered and in disarray, but also full of energy, determination and skills. What should they do?

Another urgent task is how to transmit the 'SYRIZA experience' abroad, facilitating the left in other countries in the fight against neoliberalism and increased hostility of the elites. ‘Novel’ tasks require a different mentality and operational qualities from the ones we used to deploy through traditional political action.

But first we need: (i) a thorough understanding of the positive and negative aspects of the 'SYRIZA experience', and (ii) an open, bold and innovative process of arriving at the new conditions of doing politics. These are some preliminary thoughts in this direction.

The failure

SYRIZA failed to stop austerity and neoliberal transformation in Greece. One could argue that SYRIZA also betrayed the hopes and aspirations of the popular classes and those fighting against financial despotism. It chose to remain in power, thereby ‘normalizing’ the coup we witnessed last summer and accepting neoliberal coordinates that shape governmentality today in Europe.

SYRIZA's choice deprived the people of a crucial ‘tool’ in this fight by its painful defeat: the political representation of non-compliance with financial despotism. SYRIZA eliminated the chance of a ‘tactical withdrawal’, a collective process of reassembling our forces that could take into account the escalation of the fight provoked by elites - and forming a more effective and resilient ‘popular front’ that would build its resources to challenge neoliberal orthodoxy in the future.

The experience of the SYRIZA government in the months after the agreement, shows that there is no middle ground between financial despotism and democracy and dignity; if you try to reach such middle ground, you are quickly converted into an organic component of the biopolitical machine aimed at dehumanizing our societies. Arguing that the implementation of the agreement is the only way out of the present situation is just a reformulation of the neoliberal core-argument that There Is No Alternative; no strategy for continuing the fightback against financial despotism.

However, there is a danger of underestimating the brutal strategic defeat that we all suffered in 2015, hiding from ourselves the extent of our current impotence as regards any serious challenge to financial despotism. We must dare to perform an extensive reassessment of our methodology and tools if we want to be relevant in these new conditions.

And to do so, we should not preoccupy ourselves with the self-evident negative nature of SYRIZA's choice and comfort ourselves that this is the source of our  problems. The choice SYRIZA made is – among other things – a symptom of the deeper, structural weaknesses of the left.

Today in Greece a ‘Left government’ is implementing austerity, leftwing people are confused and ‘The Left’ is turning into a pro-memorandum political force in people's minds. Nationalists and fascists have remained the only "natural hosts" of popular rage and resentment, the expected emotional outcomes of the burial of hope we witnessed last summer. Greeks are sensing that the future of their society is severely compromised.

The majority of Greeks have been sentenced to misery and despair through the imposition of newer harder austerity measures without any real hope for the future. If we add to the economic and social disaster that austerity is inflicting on us the huge waves of refugees that are entering Greece - especially the complex and contradictory ways in which their drama impacts on the abused psychic economy of the Greek population - and add also the fear of increased geopolitical instability in the region, then it seems certain that prosperity, stability and peace has left Greece for the identifiable future.

These are exactly the suffocating conditions that prevail in a society before it explodes – due to a random incident – deepening even further the decline, and plunging existential depths. It is like we are walking on thin ice from now on in Greece. In moments like this we have to remain calm and think clearly if we want to arrive at what is needed to adapt and to be effective.

The sad case of Europe

The neoliberal EU and Eurozone has transferred a bundle of important policies and powers that once appeared to belong to the nation state out of the reach of the people. At the same time, a vast array of neoliberal regulations and norms govern the function of the state. In the EU and Eurozone today, the elected government is no longer the major bearer of political power. In the case of Greece, democratically electing a government is like electing a junior partner in a wider government in which the lenders are the major partners.

The junior partner is not allowed to intervene and disturb decisions on such crucial economic and social issues as fiscal policy, banks, privatizations, pensions etc. If it does intervene and demand a say on these issues, then the people who appoint it are going to suffer the consequences.

The elites – by extracting important powers and decisions on crucial issues from the democratically structured institutions of the bourgeois state – have managed to gain unchecked control over the basic functions of the society. It is up to their anti-democratic institutions to decide whether a society will have a functional banking system and sufficient liquidity to run or not.

That's what happened to Greece; that's the core argument of the president of Portugal behind his initial decision to appoint a pro-austerity minority government: ‘I am preventing unnecessary pain.’ Pain that will be caused by the naivety and dangerous ignorance of the people and political powers that still insist on people's right to have access to crucial decisions, while at the same time they do not have the power to shape these decisions.

It is evident today that the EU is an openly anti-democratic institutional structure. The left must embrace the crude reality: in Europe a new kind of despotism is emerging fast.

The time lag of the left

In western societies, the left, but not only the left, of a robust democratic constitution has been trained to do politics within the coordinates of a post-war institutional configuration. We assumed that the elites were committed to accepting the democratically shaped mandate of an elected government.

If they did not like the policies that it promoted, they had to engage in a political fight; opposition parties must convince the people that this policy is neither desirable nor successful and use the democratic processes for a new government of their preference to be elected.

But was this ever truly the case even for western societies after the Great War? This is surely a debatable issue. However, it is sufficient to assume that this was at least the dominant conception of political functioning that shaped the methodology and strategy of political agency over the last decades, even if it does not correspond fully to reality.

According to this conception, the post-war global balance of forces inscribed in state institutions a considerable amount of popular power, so that people without considerable economic power nevertheless have access to crucial decisions. Of course, the quality and the range of the access was a constant issue of class struggle.

The elites were obliged to fight according to the rules (or at least to appear to do so) and at the same time they were working deliberately to diffuse a kind of institutional configuration contaminated by popular power. In recent decades (not accidentally after the fall of the Soviet Union) they made decisive steps towards diffusing this kind of power and hence limiting the ability of the popular classes to influence crucial decisions. Today the elites feel confident enough to openly defy democracy. Democracy is no longer a sine qua non.

Based on the premise that the framework in which politics is being performed hasn't changed significantly, SYRIZA did what the traditional way of doing politics dictates: supported social movements, built alliances, won a majority in the parliament, formed a government. We all know the results of such a strategy now. The real outcome was totally different. There was virtually no change of policy.

Prepare for landing

A strategy that wishes to be relevant to the new conditions must take on the duty of acquiring the necessary power to run basic social functions.

Mo matter how difficult or strange this may sound in light of the traditional ways of doing politics, it is the only way to acquire the necessary power to defy the elites' control over our societies.

Is this feasible? My hypothesis is that literally every day human activity – both intellectual and practical – is producing experiences, know-how, criteria and methods, innovations etc. that inherently contradict the parasitic logic of profit and competition. Moreover, for the first time in our evolutionary history, we have so many embodied capacities and values from different cultures within our reach that we are bound to progress our collective intelligence in this regard if we put our minds to it.

Of course we are talking about elements that are not developed sufficiently yet. Elements that may indeed have been nurtured in liberal or apolitical contexts often functionally connected to the standard economic orthodoxy. However, the support of their further development, their gradual absorption in an alternative, coherent paradigm governed by a different logic and values, and finally their functional articulation in alternative patterns of performing the basic functions of our societies is just a short description of the duty of any left that wishes to take up a clear, systematic and strategically broadbased orientation.    

Based on people's capacities, proper alignment, connection and coordination it is possible to acquire the necessary power to at least be in a position to assume the basic functions if needed. We can do this by ‘extracting’ the embodied capacities of the people and putting them into use for the liberation of society.

For those who are frankly skeptical of the possibility of laying the groundwork for such a process, let's see the potential in the stark case of Greece.

SYRIZA at its peak had approximately 35,000 members, the various solidarity networks included thousands of people and from experience we know that plenty of people were available to help SYRIZA with their expertise if there had been suitable processes to “extract” their embodied capacities in an efficient way (which was not the case).

Furthermore, massive unemployment provides us with huge numbers of people who would be willing to participate in networks of a different nature as long as we can build and expand processes of this kind in a systematic way. So, it is possible to pursue such a path as long as we apply the proper methodological and organizational principles in our way of doing politics.

In the worst case scenario, we will achieve some degree of resilience; people will be more empowered to defend themselves and hold their ground. In the best case, we will be able to regain the hegemony needed: people could mobilize positively, creatively and massively, even decisively to reclaim their autonomy.

Redesign the 'operating system' of the left

We know that the popular power once inscribed in various democratic institutions is exhausted. We do not have enough power to make the elites accept and tolerate our participation in crucial decisions. More of the same won’t do it. If the ground of the battle has shifted, undermining our strategy, then it's not enough to be more competent on the shaky battleground; we need to reshape the ground. And to do that we have to expand the solution space by shifting priorities: from political representation to setting up an autonomous network of production of economic and social power (NESP).

We must modify the balance between representing people's beliefs and demands and coordinating, facilitating, connecting, supporting and nurturing people's actions. Instead of being mainly the political representative of the popular classes in a toxic anti-democratic European political environment designed to be intolerant to people's needs, we must contribute heavily to the formation of a strong 'backbone' for resilient and dynamic networks of social economy and co-operative productive activities, alternative financial tools, local cells of self-governance, democratically functioning digital communities, community control over functions such as infrastructure facilities, energy systems and distribution networks. These are ways of gaining the degree of autonomy necessary to defy the control of elites over the basic functions of our society.

It is not only in Greece that there is a growing exclusion of people from having a job or a bank account, having a ‘normal life’. Modern society in general is in decline. From history we know that societies in decline tend to react in order to survive. It is up to us to grasp this and start building networks that can perform basic social functions in a different way – one that is democratic, decentralized and based on the liberation of people's capacities.

First, this would allow people who are being excluded today to survive.
Second, this could begin a transition towards a better and more mature society.

And last but not least, there are no empty spaces in history, so if we do not do this, the nationalists and the fascists – with their own militarized ways of performing these basic functions – may step in to conclude the decline.

Shifting the battlefield

Our opponents have already spotted the shifting nature of the battlefield and have moved to new unclassified ways of organizing and acting. They develop new kinds of institutions (a Greek example http://www.corallia.org/en/) compatible with the emerging environment of fast flows of information, digital frameworks of action and production etc.

They also explore new methods and models; for example, “open innovation” models have emerged in the last few years to enable the R&D departments of big multinational companies to cope with the current distributed nature of knowledge and expertise that exceeds past means of control and usurpation of human intellectual creativity and innovation.

We have to create new popular power if we want to bring about substantial change or make ourselves resilient instead of just handling the remaining, seriously depleted if not already exhausted popular power inscribed in the traditional institutions.

The question is what does it look like to do politics in order to produce popular power without presupposing traditional democratic functioning – to restore it by newly transforming it? In other words, what are the modifications needed in our political practice for the constitution and expansion of NESPs?

What about political representation?

The function of political representation is a fundamental one in complex societies. It's the function that political parties mostly perform and that shapes everyday thinking regarding what ‘politics’ is about. The task here is not to revive neglected aspects of politics - like building popular power - or to reinvent collective and individual qualities; the aim is to explore novel ways of performing the function of political representation in order to upgrade significantly the political leverage of the people.

Of course, building popular power will also invigorate and possibly transform the institutional framework, giving substantial meaning back to political representation. But, the expansion of a network of the sort we are discussing here and the changes it could generate at various levels of the social configuration must be reflected on the function of political representation itself. We need to evaluate and explore concepts like the “commons”. Advancing a project to shape political representation as “commons” could give us valuable insights into new ways of performing vital functions that transcend the traditional, institutional framework of representative democracy.

Democratising the state?

The left talks too much about the democratic transformation of the state. In practice, the driving concept is the restoration of state functions as they were before the neoliberal transformation. But the expansion of a network of economic and social power under people's control could unlock our imagination towards more advanced and better targeted reforms of state institutions. In theory this is an old idea: the transformation of the state is a complementary move to the self-organized collectivities of the people outside it, driven by these forms of self-governance.

These modifications may be classified in three categories: political imagination, methodology and organizing principles. From my experience, the very same people who energetically claim that we need to be more innovative, better adapted and more efficient, when they actually do politics, reproduce priorities, mental pictures, methods and organizational habits that they already know are insufficient or inadequate.

There are ingrained norms in terms of methodological guidelines that decisively shape the range of our collective actions, rhetoric, decisions and eventually strategy. In the same vein, we believe in and fight for the promotion of the logic of cooperation and democracy against the logic of competition, but in practice our organizations suffer severely in terms of cooperation and democracy on the operational/organizational level.

We need to recognize these blind spots and set up a process of identifying best practices, methods and regulations – both from the experience of our collectivities and from expertise in management, leadership, organizational complexity and network systems theory etc. – in order to operationally upgrade our forces.

Furthermore, our actions and initiatives are not properly connected up, but fragmented and isolated, destined to face the same difficulties again and again. We need to upgrade our operational capacities through appropriate nodes of connection, facilitating smooth flows of know-how and information, transferring best practices, building databases and accumulating knowledge and expertise in an easily retrievable and useful way.

Actually, this is the advantage of multinational and large corporations in general, in comparison to others: they have a vast social network and powerful databases that gives them the necessary tools to plan and pursue their goals while their smaller competitors seem in disarray in a global environment of rapid changes. We need these qualities if we want to be really useful today.

Actually, this is exactly what our opponents did consistently and persistently during the last decades: they were designing and implementing reforms in various levels of state institutions based on the methods, the criteria and the functioning of their own “social agents”, namely the corporations and their own understanding of the nature of public space, namely the market. This is exactly the “mechanics” of transformation that various intellectuals and leaders of the left described in detail a long time ago. Perhaps, by shifting our priorities we will be able to revive old but useful ideas that have been forgotten in practice.

Mind the gap

The “SYRIZA experience” will be worthless if we do not resist the temptation to replace one mistake with another. The failure of SYRIZA - the failure of focusing solely on traditional electoral politics to radically change the dominant neoliberal framework - creates favorable conditions for notions like “self-referential alternativism” and “vanguard isolationism” to emerge and preoccupy the minds and hearts of those who are willing to continue fighting.

But choices like these just repeat what SYRIZA did, justifying fully the threat of our opponents: either you will be marginal or you will become like us! The existential threats and crucial questions regarding their future that our societies face today have nothing to do with a strategy of building “arcs” that aim to safeguard the “Left” or any other identity.

Entering the ominous battlefield of the twenty-first century, the left will either be relevant and useful for the defense of human societies, or it will be obsolete.








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Lebanon is being forced to collapse

SUBHEAD: Lebanon cannot stand on its feet, anymore. It is overwhelmed, frightened and broke.

By Andre Vltchek on 9 April 2016 for Counter Currents -
(http://www.countercurrents.org/vltchek090416.htm)


Image above: These Lebanese army soldiers are ready to defend Lebanon. From original article.

Lebanon stands on the front line, facing the ISIS in the east and north, a hostile Israel in the south and the deep blue sea to the west. 1.5 million (mostly Syrian) refugees are dispersed all over its tiny territory. Its economy is collapsing and infrastructure crumbling.

The ISIS is right at the border with Syria, literally next door, or even with one foot inside Lebanon, periodically invading, and setting up countless “dormant cells” in all Lebanese cities and all over its countryside.

Hezbollah is fighting the ISIS, but the West and Saudi Arabia apparently consider Hezbollah, not the ISIS, to be the major menace to their geopolitical interests. The Lebanese army is relatively well-trained but badly armed, and like the entire country, it is notoriously cash-strapped.

These days, on the streets of Beirut, one can often hear: “Just a little bit more; one more push, and the entire country will collapse, go up in smoke.”

Is this what the West and its regional allies really want?

Top foreign dignitaries, one after another,are now paying visits to Lebanon: the U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim and the EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini.

All the foreign visitors are predictably and abstractly expressing “deep concern” about the proximity of the ISIS, and about the fate of the 1.5 million Syrian refugees now living in the Lebanese territory. “The war in the neighboring Syria is having deep impact on tiny Lebanon”, they all admit.

Who triggered this war is never addressed.

And not much gets resolved. Only very few concrete promises are being made. And what is promised is not being delivered.

One of my sources that attended the closed-door meeting of Ban Ki-moon, Jim Yong Kim and the heads of the U.N. agencies in Beirut, commented: “almost nothing new, concrete or inspiring was discussed there.”

The so-called international community is showing very little desire to rescue Lebanon from its deep and ongoing crises. In fact, several countries and organizations are constantly at Lebanon’s throat, accusing it of ‘human rights violations’ and of having a weak and ineffective government. What seems to irritate them the most though, is that Hezbollah (an organization that is placed by many Western countries and their allies in the Arab world on the “terrorist list”)is at least to some extent allowed to participate in running the country.

But Hezbollah appears to be the only military force capable of effectively fighting against the ISIS - in the northeast of the country, on the border with Syria, and elsewhere. It is also the only organization providing a reliable social safety-net to those hundreds of thousands of poor Lebanese citizens. In this nation deeply divided along the sectarian lines, it extends its hand to the ‘others’, forging coalitions with both Muslim and Christian parties and movements.


Image above: The once lavish streets of of Beirut are getting ready for war. From original article.

Why so much fuss over Hezbollah?

It is because it is predominantly Shi’a, and Shi’a Muslims are being antagonized and targeted by almost all the West’s allies in the Arab world. Targeted and sometimes even directly liquidated.

Hezbollah is seen as the right hand of Iran, and Iran is Shi’a, it stands against Western imperialism determinedly, alongside Russia, China and much of Latin America – countries that are demonized and provoked by the Empire and its ‘client’ states.

Hezbollah is closely allied with both Iran and with the Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria. It combats Israel whenever Israel invades Lebanon, and it wins most of the battles that it is forced to fight. It is openly hostile towards the expansionist policies of the West, Israel and Saudi Arabia; its leaders are extremely outspoken.

“So what?” many people in the region would ask, including those living in Lebanon.

Angie Tibbs is the owner and senior editor of Dissident Voice who has been closely watching events in the Middle East for the last number of years. She believes that a brief comparison between events of 2005 and today is essential for understanding the complexity of the situation:

“In a country where, since the end of civil wars in 1990, outward civility masks a still seething underbelly wherein old wounds, old wrongs, real and imagined, have not been forgotten or forgiven, the military and political success of Hezbollah has been the most stabilizing influence. Back in 2005, following the bomb explosion that killed former Premier Rafic al Hariri and 20 others, the US and Israel proclaimed loudly that "Syria did it" without producing a shred of evidence. The Syrian army, in Lebanon at the request of the Lebanese government, was ordered out by the US, and UN Resolution 1559 stated in part that all Lebanese militias must be disarmed. The plan was clear. With Syrian forces gone, and an unarmed Hezbollah, we had two moves which would leave Lebanon's southern border completely vulnerable, and then -- well, what would prevent Israel from barging in and taking over?”

Ms Tibbs is also convinced that the so-called international community is leaving Lebanon defenseless on purpose:

“A similar devious scenario is unfolding today. Hezbollah is busy fighting ISIS in Syria; the Lebanese army, though well trained, is poorly armed. Arms deals are being cancelled, the UN and IMF, and, in fact, the world community of nations are not providing any assistance, and little Lebanon is gasping under the weight of a million plus Syrian refugees. It's a perfect opportunity for ISIS, the proxy army of Israel and the west, to move in and Lebanon's sovereignty be damned.”

Indignant, several Lebanese
leaders are snapping back.The Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil even refused to meet with Ban Ki-moon during his two-day visit of Beirut and the Bekaa Valley.

One of Lebanon’s major newspapers, the Daily Star, reported on March 26th, 2016:

“Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil Saturday accused the international community of approaching the Syrian refugee crisis with a double standard; hours after U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon departed Beirut following a two-day visit.

“They create war, and then call on others to host refugees in line with human rights treaties,” he said in a televised news conference from his residence in Batroun.”

Image above: Northern city of Tripoli will soon be a war zone again. From original article.

Lebanon is collapsing. Even its once lavish capital Beirut is experiencing constant blackouts, water shortages and garbage-collection dramas. Economically, the country is in a sharp decline.
Dr. Salim Chahine, Professor of Finance, at the American University of Beirut, is usually at least moderately upbeat about his country. Developments of recent years, however, wear off his optimism.

“Although the Coincident Indicator issued by the Lebanese Central Bank, BDL, has recently suggested a slight enhancement in economic activity, several officials are sending clear warnings about further deterioration of the situation. The regional geopolitical tensions, the civil conflict in Syria, as well as their implications internally have impacted tourism, trade, and the real estate sectors. According to HSBC, deposits from Lebanon’s largest expatriate population – that usually provide the necessary liquidity for government’s borrowing – may grow at a slower rate in the near future given the worsening conditions in the Gulf. As the country enters in its sixth year of economic slump, HSBC remains skeptical about a short-term recovery. The public deficit is currently rising by around 20% per year, and the GDP growth rate is close to zero.”

Yayoi Segi, an educationalist and the Senior Program Specialist for UNESCO’s Arab Regional Office based in Beirut, works extensively in both Syria and Lebanon. The education sector is, according to her, struggling:

“The public education sector is very small in terms of its coverage in the country, reaching only about 35 percent of the school age population. The state allocation to education is less than 10 percent while the world average or benchmark is 18-20 percent. The situation is further compounded by the currently ongoing crisis in the region whereby Lebanon has had to accommodate a large influx of refugees. The public provision of education has expanded and continues to expand. However, it is impacting on quality and contributes to an increasing number of vulnerable Lebanese students dropping out of school, while it can only reach 50 percent of Syrian refugee children.”

Nadine Georges Gholam (not her real name), working for one of the UN agencies, says that lately she feels phlegmatic, even hopeless:

“What has been happening to Lebanon particularly these past five years is really depressing. I used to actively take part in protests to voice my anger and frustration. But now I don't know if they make any difference or change anything at all. There is no functioning government in sight. 300,000 tons of unprocessed trash accumulated in just 8 months. There is sectarian infighting. Regional conflicts... What else? Lebanon can't withstand such pressure, anymore. All is going down the drain, collapsing...”

But worse is yet to come. Recently, Saudi Arabia cancelled a US$4 billion aid package for Lebanon. It was supposed to finance the massive purchase of modern weapons from France, something urgently needed and totally overdue. That is, if both the West and the KSA are serious about fighting the ISIS.

The KSA “punished” Lebanon for having representatives of Hezbollah in the government, for refusing to support the West’s allies in the Arab League (who define Hezbollah as a terrorist group), and for still holding one of Saudi Arabia’s princes in custody, after he attempted to smuggle 2 tons of narcotics from Rafic Hariri International Airport, outside Beirut.

The story of the Saudi prince is truly grotesque but ‘explosive’. Lebanese authorities found some cocaine on board his private jet, most likely for the personal use of his family and friends. But most importantly there was an industrial quantity of Captagon,which is not some recreational drug, intended for the underground nightclubs of the Gulf in general, nor for the notorious private orgies in Saudi Arabia in particular.

It is, as I was told by several local experts, a “drug that makes one extremely brutal; a drug, which destroys all fear. It is a ‘combat narcotic’, which has been given mainly to the ISIS fighters.It could have been destined for Iraq and the ISIS cells there, but most likely the Saudi Prince was carrying it for the Saudi allies in Yemen. Or both… or most likely, for both.”

Lebanon obviously “crossed the line”. It refused to play by the script painstakingly prepared by the West and its partners. And now it is being slapped, brutally punished, some even say: “sacrificed”.

These are of course the most dangerous times for this tiny but proud nation. Syrian forces, with the great help of Russia, are liberating one Syrian city after another from the ISIS and other terrorist groups supported by Turkey, KSA, Qatar and other Western allies.

The ISIS may try to move into Iraq, to join its cohorts there, but the Iraqi government is trying to get its act together, and is now ready to fight. It is also talking to Moscow, while studying the great success Russia is having in Syria. For the ISIS or al Nusrah, a move to the weak and almost bankrupt Lebanon would be the most logical step.

And the West, Saudi Arabia and others, are clearly aware of it. In fact, the ISIS is already there; ithas infiltrated virtually all cities and towns of Lebanon, as well as its countryside. Whenever it feels like it, it carries out attacks against the Shi’a, military and other targets. Both the ISIS and al Nusrah do.

And the dream of the ISIS is blatant: a caliphate with access to the sea, one that would cover at least the northern part of Lebanon. If the West and its allies do nothing to prevent these plans, it is because they simply don’t want to.

There are several scenarios how the “fall of Lebanon” could occur. The simplest one is this: Israel could execute another invasion, or even a “mini-incursion” into Lebanon. It periodically does, anyway. And it keeps threatening, warning that it will again.

The Lebanese army is too weak to do anything to defend the country. Hezbollah would throw its forces from the battlefield with the ISIS (in the northeast) down to the south. There they would be tied down for at least several weeks. And that would allow the ISIS to move in, across the border, almost unopposed. Dormant cells - “5th columns” - would be immediately activated. The country could collapse within just a few days.

Now Lebanese leaders should be talking to Teheran and Moscow, immediately, while there is still at least some time left to avert absolute disaster. They should be openly asking for help. There are alwayswide-open channels with Iran.

But instead of hosting a delegation that would try to prevent imminent collapse of Lebanon, Russia had to dealwith a recent visit of Saad Hariri, former PM and the leader of “Future Movement”; a man who is openly anti-Hezbollah and, like his (assassinated) father Rafic Hariri, a staunch ally of the KSA, and on top of it, a Saudi Arabiancitizen! ‘Coincidentally’, Robert Fisk wrote, sarcastically, about Mr. Hariri, for

The Independent on 3 March 2016:

The Sunni Lebanese Future Movement’s leader and former Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, is a Saudi citizen – as was his assassinated ex-prime minister father Rafic – and is now quite taken aback by the willful actions of a nation to which he has always given as much allegiance as he has to Lebanon. The Future Movement, it seems, did not try hard enough to ameliorate Lebanon’s official criticism of Saudi Arabia in the Arab League and should have prevented Hezbollah from destabilizing Yemen and Bahrain – even though there is no physical proof that either Hezbollah or Iran have actually been involved in the Yemeni war or the Shi’a revolt against the Bahraini autarchy, where a Sunni king rules over a Shia majority.

Tiny Lebanon is finding itself in the middle of a whirlwind of a political and military storm that is consuming virtually the entire Middle East and the Gulf.

In the last decades, Lebanon has already suffered immensely. This time, if the West and its allied do not change their minds, it may soon cease to exist altogether. It is becoming obvious that in order to survive, it would have to forge much closer ties with the Syrian government, as well as with Iran, Russia and China.

Would it dare to do it? There is no united front inside Lebanon’s leadership. Pro-Western and pro-Saudi fractions would oppose an alliance with those countries that are defying Western interests.

But time is running out. Just recently, the Syrian city of Palmyra was liberated from the ISIS.

Paradoxically, the great Lebanese historic cities of Baalbek and Byblos may fall soon.

• Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest books are: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. Discussion with Noam Chomsky:On Western Terrorism. Point of No Return is his critically acclaimed political novel. Oceania - a book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about Indonesia: “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Press TV. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter..

IMF plan to crash Europe

SUBHEAD: Wikileaks reveals IMF plan to "Cause a credit event in Greece and destabilize Europe".

By Tyler Durden on 2 April 2016 for Zero Hedge -
(http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-02/wikileaks-reveals-imf-plan-cause-credit-event-greece-and-destabilize-europe)


Image above: IMF negotiator Poul Thomsen. From (https://medium.com/mosquito-ridge/imf-plots-new-credit-event-for-greece-534b4b300318#.jdum3i3z0).

One of the recurring concerns involving Europe's seemingly perpetual economic, financial and social crises, is that these have been largely predetermined, "scripted" and deliberate acts.

This is something the former head of the Bank of England admitted one month ago when Mervyn King said that Europe's economic depression "is the result of "deliberate" policy choices made by EU elites.  It is also what AIG Banque strategist Bernard Connolly said back in 2008 when laying out "What Europe Wants"

To use global issues as excuses to extend its power:

• environmental issues: increase control over member countries; advance idea of global governance
• terrorism: use excuse for greater control over police and judicial issues; increase extent of surveillance
• global financial crisis: kill two birds (free market; Anglo-Saxon economies) with one stone (Europe-wide regulator; attempts at global financial governance)
• EMU: create a crisis to force introduction of “European economic government”

This morning we got another confirmation of how supernational organizations "plan" European crises in advance to further their goals, when Wikileaks published the transcript of a teleconference that took place on March 19, 2016 between the top two IMF officials in charge of managing the Greek debt crisis - Poul Thomsen, the head of the IMF's European Department, and Delia Velkouleskou, the IMF Mission Chief for Greece.

In the transcript, the IMF staffers are caught on tape planning to tell Germany the organization would abandon the troika if the IMF and the commission fail to reach an agreement on Greek debt relief.

More to the point, the IMF officials say that a threat of an imminent financial catastrophe as the Guardian puts it, is needed to force other players into accepting its measures such as cutting Greek pensions and working conditions, or as Bloomberg puts it, "considering a plan to cause a credit event in Greece and destabilize Europe."

According to the leaked conversation, the IMF - which has been pushing for a debt haircut for Greece ever since last August's 3rd Greek bailout - believes a credit event as only thing that could trigger a Greek deal; the "event" is hinted as taking place some time around the June 23 Brexit referendum.

As noted by Bloomberg, the leak shows officials linking Greek issue with U.K. referendum risking general political destabilization in Europe.


Image above: IMF official Delia Velculescu. From (https://medium.com/mosquito-ridge/imf-plots-new-credit-event-for-greece-534b4b300318#.jdum3i3z0).

The leaked transcript reveals how the IMF plans to use Greece as a pawn in its ongoing negotiation with Germany's chancelleor in order to achieve the desired Greek debt reduction which Germany has been pointedly against: in the leak we learn about the intention of IMF to threaten German Chancellor Angela Merkel to force her to accept the IMF's demands at a critical point.
From the transcript:

THOMSEN: Well, I don't know. But this is... I think about it differently. What is going to bring it all to a decision point? In the past there has been only one time when the decision has been made and then that was when they were about to run out of money seriously and to default. Right?

VELKOULESKOU: Right!

THOMSEN: And possibly this is what is going to happen again. In that case, it drags on until July, and clearly the Europeans are not going to have any discussions for a month before the Brexits and so, at some stage they will want to take a break and then they want to  start again after the European referendum.

VELKOULESKOU: That's right.

THOMSEN: That is one possibility. Another possibility is one that I thought would have happened already and I am surprised that it has not happened, is that, because of the refugee situation, they take a decision... that they want to come to a conclusion. Ok? And the Germans raise the issue of the management... and basically we at that time say "Look, you Mrs. Merkel you face a question, you have to think about what is more costly: to go ahead without the IMF, would the Bundestag say 'The IMF is not on board'? or to pick the debt relief that we think that Greece needs in order to keep us on board?" Right? That is really the issue.

VELKOULESKOU: I agree that we need an event, but I don't know what that will be. But I think Dijsselbloem is trying not to generate an event, but to jump start this discussion somehow on debt, that essentially is about us being on board or not at the end of the day.

THOMSEN: Yeah, but you know, that discussion of the measures and the discussion of the debt can go on forever, until some high up.. until they hit the July payment or until the leaders decide that we need to come to an agreement. But there is nothing in there that otherwise is going to force a compromise. Right? It is going to go on forever.

The IMF is also shown as continuing to pull the strings of the Greek government which has so far refused to compromise on any major reforms, as has been the case since the first bailout.

As the Guardian notes, Greek finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos has accused the IMF of imposing draconian measures, including on pension reform. The transcript quotes Velculescu as saying: “What is interesting though is that [Greece] did give in … they did give a little bit on both the income tax reform and on the … both on the tax credit and the supplementary pensions”. Thomsen’s view was that the Greeks “are not even getting close [to coming] around to accept our views”. Velculescu argued that “if [the Greek government] get pressured enough, they would …

But they don’t have any incentive and they know that the commission is willing to compromise, so that is the problem.”

Below is Paul Mason's summary of what is shaping up as the next political scandal.

The International Monetary Fund has been caught, red handed, plotting to stage a “credit event” that forces Greece to the edge of bankruptcy, using the pretext of the Brexit referendum.

No, this is not the plot of the next Bond movie. It is the transcript of a teleconference between the IMF’s chief negotiator, Poul Thomsen and Delia Velculescu, head of the IMF mission to Greece. 

Released by Wikileaks, the discussion took place in Athens just before the IMF walked out of talks aimed at giving Greece the green light for the next stage of its bailout.

The situation is: the IMF does not believe the numbers being used by both Greece and Europe to do the next stage of the deal. It does not want to take part in the bailout. Meanwhile the EU cannot do the deal without the IMF because the German parliament won’t allow it.

Let me decode. An “event” is a financial crisis bringing Greece close to default. Just like last year, when the banks closed, millions of people faced economic and psychological catastrophe.

Only this time, the IMF wants to inflict that catastrophe on a nation holding tens of thousands of refugees and tasked with one of the most complex and legally dubious international border policing missions in modern history.

The Greek government is furious: “we are not going to let the IMF play with fire,” a source told me.

But the issue is out of Greek hands. In the end, as Thomsen hints in the transcript, only the European Commission and above all the German government can decide to honour the terms of the deal it did to bail Greece out last July.

The transcript, though received with fury and incredulity in Greece, will drop like a bombshell into the Commission and the ECB. It is they who are holding E300bn+ of Greek debt. It is the whole of Europe, in other words, that the IMF is conspiring to hit with the shock doctrine.

The Greeks are understandably angry and confused; As Bloomberg reported earlier, "Greece wants to know whether WikiLeaks report regarding IMF anticipating a Greek default at about the time of the U.K. June 23 referendum on its EU membership is the fund’s official position" government spokeswoman Olga Gerovasili says Saturday in e-mailed statement.

For its part, an IMF spokesman in e-mail Saturday said it doesn’t "comment on leaks or supposed reports of internal discussions."
Two side observations:

1. has a "Snowden" leaker now emerged at the IMF; if so we can expect many more such bombshell accounts in the coming weeks; or perhaps the reason for the leak is less nuanced: a bugged hotel.
2. it may be another turbulent summer in Europe.

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Pesticides are killing bees in Greece

SUBHEAD: It seems that Greek people have a place in the colony collapse disorder puzzle, too.

By Maryam Henein on 2 August 2015 for TruthOut -
(http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/32138-bees-in-greece)


Image above: Abandoned bee hives boxes lay in the grass near an ancient trail that connected the port of ancient Kirra with the Oracle of Delphi. Photo by Jan Wellmann. From original article.

The hot topic across global financial markets at the moment is Greece. People there are experiencing monetary woes, but it seems like their honeybees aren't doing too well either. Systemic pesticides are increasingly causing bee losses, and many would argue that the country now suffers from colony collapse disorder as well.

The air smells of smoke and lemons, and the cicadas chirp steadily as I come upon 16 beehives clustered together in a dry field. What I've just discovered is mere steps away from Demokritos, the National Centre for Scientific Research in Athens, the largest multidisciplinary research institute in Greece. Every so often, pagoda, pine and olive trees sway gently in the breeze, but overall the climate in Attica, the historic region that encompasses the capital, is hot and arid.

The scent in the air is coming from lemon balm leaves, which associate researcher and apiculturist, Dr. Sofia Gounari, has placed in her smoker to calm the bees. It's an attractive aroma to the virgin sisters of toil because it's similar to the secretions they give off when communicating with one another, she explains. No wonder lemon balm's official name is Melissa officinalis; Melissa is Greek for "honeybee."

"In the past, beekeepers added lemon juice in melted wax to attract swarms," says the 52-year-old. Working at the Institute of Mediterranean Forest Ecosystems, Gounari has agreed to rendezvous with me as I explore the state of bees and beekeeping in Greece. It's the day of Greece's ultimately pointless referendum, and Gounari remarks that it's actually good to be in the bee yard today, thinking of nature rather than the country's future and the terms of Greece's EU bailout deal.

When I ask her if we can look at the bees, she expresses concern about my attire: a casual combination of shorts and a tank top.

But I assure her that I will be fine with only a veil and actually welcome a sting or two as I regard the venom as medicinal. I just don't like getting stung in the face since my face swells up beyond recognition.

With the help of a hive tool, she pries a few frames out so we can observe the capped brood and honey flow. She gestures for me to try some honey and before I gently poke my finger in the sticky wax, I silently thank the bees.

Unfortunately Gounari, who has been beekeeping for three decades, didn't harvest much honey this year due to bee losses.

"We've had a lot of problems with pesticides these last two years in all of Attica, mostly in the south," says Gounari, who also transported another 10 beehives on fir trees in Menalo Mountain in Central Peloponnesus. Incidentally, this year's crop from Menalo, near Tripoli, was the worst in many years, due to the poor weather in the mountains.

"Because of systemic pesticides?" I ask. She nods. The pesticides are just one of the challenges troubling beekeepers in Greece, who are struggling to carry on the country's ancient legacy of apiculture in the face of modern toxins.

The Ancient History of Beekeeping in Greece
Apiculture in Greece dates back to antiquity and is part of the country's legacy.

Legend has it that the Greek god of apiculture, Aristaeus, was the son of Apollo and the huntress Cyrene. According to Greek mythology, Aristaeus was born in the palaces of Libya, North Africa, where nurses dropped nectar and ambrosia on his lips, turning him into an immortal. Nymphs taught him useful arts and mysteries like how to curdle milk for cheese and tame the Goddess' bees to stay in hives.

In the ancient city of Knossos a sign reads: Pasi Theis Meli - "Honey Is Offered to All Gods." Honeybees were so revered that they were even etched on Greek coins.

In 322 BC, Aristotle, the Greek philosopher and scientist, was the first person recorded as having studied bees, and it is said that Pythagoras and his followers used honey as their main source of food. Meanwhile melikraton - a thick mixture of milk and honey that's been mentioned in the Odyssey - was viewed as sacred and imbibed on special occasions. The carved stone that channeled the vapors of the Oracle of Delphia was dome-shaped like a beehive, and legend even asserts that the second temple at Delphi was constructed entirely by bees.

Contemporary beekeepers in Greece are keeping alive the country's reverence for honey and hives. There are a total of 1.5 million beehives in all of Greece. In fact, the country ranks second in the world (after Hungary) when it comes to apicultural density: about 11.1 beehives per km.

Meanwhile, golden liquid flows in abundance in this country, free of genetic modification and gleaned from vast, uncultivated lands. All Greek honey is, by default, GMO-free, given that genetically modified crops are prohibited from being grown in the country.

And, I'd venture to say that every Greek home has honey. Greeks consume the largest amount of honey per person in all of Europe - 1.620 kg per year. The country produces about 15,000 to 16,000 tons of honey annually, making it the second-largest honey producer in Europe, after Spain.
"Honey is part of the Mediterranean diet," said Katerina Karatasou of the Federation of Greek Beekeepers' Associations. "It's a superfood with many advantages for health."

In Greece, more than 60 percent of the honey comes from pine and fir (pefko and  elato), and what is fascinating here is that an insect called Marchinalia hellenica feeds on the trees by sucking the sap, and then the excess sugary substances that are produced are then collected by bees (honeydew honey). Once processed by the bees, it is almost indistinguishable from other honey, apart from the ratio of different sugars, plus it has a stronger taste and darker color.

Another 10 percent of the country's honey comes from thyme, which is rich in copper and boron and considered to have tonic and antiseptic properties, wonderful for the prevention and fighting of infections from peptic and respiratory diseases.

The rest comes from chestnut, cotton, heather, oranges and a great variety of wild herbs and flowers. The aroma, the taste, and the viscosity of Greek honey are superb.

An Unexpected Effect of the Athens Olympics
Back in 2004, as Athens prepared to host the summer Olympics, organizers decided to go all out by importing Canary palm trees from North Africa for decoration and shade.

Unfortunately, the red palm weevil - an insect that slowly munches on the palm until it kills its host - hitched a ride to Greece as well. Soon after that a horticulturalist spotted the first unfamiliar weevil in a palm tree all the way in Hersonissos, Crete. By 2006, the red palm weevil had infested palm trees across Greece, from Crete to Rhodes to Attica and beyond.

As a result many hotels and municipalities went mad and started spraying chemicals at will, including neonics, Gounari said.

Eventually all the trees died, including many of the indigenous palm trees like the endangered Cretan Palm. But it got worse: The neonicotinoids also caused huge bee losses, especially to honey producers in the region of Attica. The die-off cost local beekeepers losses of around 50 percent.

"I lost many beehives from the spraying of palm trees with neonicotinoids in the area around the institute," Gounari said. "Now that all the trees are dead, there's some relief from the toxins directly in the city."

Greece Says "Oxi" to a Ban on Neonics
It's 2012, and based on an assessment by the European Food Safety Authority, the European Commission decides to temporarily restrict the use of three neonicotinoids - clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam, which are considered harmful to bee health. At the time, 15 member states - including France and Germany - vote in favor of the restrictions, four abstain and eight vote against the ban, including the UK, Italy, Hungary and Greece.

"The Greek vote was a major disappointment to us and we fail to understand it," stated the Federation of Greek Beekeepers' Associations, which is made up of about 65 beekeeping associations.

According to Andreas Thrasivoulou, a professor of beekeeping at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, the Ministry of the Environment was informed of the damage due to the use of the harmful pesticides by both professional and scientific organizations, as well as ordinary beekeepers and political parties.

"The ministry was fully aware of the problem," says Thrasivoulou. "However, instead of listening to us, they preferred to listen to the companies that produce the pesticides."

Undoubtedly, the decision had to do with dollar bills and keeping the pharmaceutical companies happy, says Gounari. Meanwhile, honeybees and human beings are defenseless victims of the profiteering of large agricultural companies.

"Not banning the pesticides does not help agriculture. It does not help biodiversity, it does not help humans and insects. No one benefits from bees dying," says Elena Danali of Greenpeace Greece.

To defend their position, sources from the Ministry of Agricultural Development maintained that the European Food Safety Authority report did not contain sufficient data and that a mass extinction of bees, due to the use of the specific systemic pesticides, had not been registered in Greece.

As far as data: Based on the results of more than 1,000 international studies, scientists with the Task Force on Systemic Pesticides have concluded that neonics are a major factor in bee mortality. The pesticides disorient the bees, making it more difficult for these flying insects to navigate, forage for pollen and reproduce in the hives.

In the end, a ban was instated for the treatment of seeds, soil (granules), and foliar applications for a period of two years on corn, cotton, sunflower and rapeseed, but not including individual use in gardens and orchards, e.g. oranges. It expired in December of 2014. Ironically, manufacturers Bayer and Syngenta are now suing the European Commission and asking for reimbursement for lost profits. (Because apparently a gazillion dollars just isn't enough.)

"We are also trying to defend our reputation, which was significantly harmed, particularly considering the significant investments we have made over a number of years in bee health and sustainable agriculture in general," added a Bayer company spokesman, defending the use of legal action for a temporary measure that has since expired.

Still, many groups are hoping to renew the ban, this time attempting to restrict all six systemic pesticides rather than the aforementioned three.

Unemployed Youth Turn to Beekeeping
Greece has an estimated 25,000 beekeepers; about 1,500 of them make their living solely from the trade while about 85 percent use it to supplement their income. Meanwhile, about 7,000 beekeepers own more than 150 hives.

According to Gounari, there's also been a wave of young adults taking up the profession, as of late.
"That's great," I respond with enthusiasm.

"No, it's not great," she interjects. "We have an economic crisis, and people think they can earn money easily because they've seen beekeepers go on TV, saying that you can collect 30 to 50 kilos of honey and sell it for 10 to 15 euros per kilo. Beekeeping is not easy and it's not for everyone. Money is not a reason to become a beekeeper."

Currently, the unemployment rate for Greek youth hovers around 53 percent, so naturally, some are seeking solutions in more creative ways, said Karatasou of the Federation of Greek Beekeepers' Associations. She tells wannabe beekeepers that they can't be allergic, they can't be afraid, and most importantly, they can't expect to make any money … at least not for the first three years in the business.

Beekeeping is indeed not easy. In Greece, beekeepers have to move their hives four to six times a year following the nectar or honeydew flow and the harvests are poor: 12-15 kilos on average, nothing near the 30-40 kilos we hear in other European countries.

Are Bee Deaths the Beekeepers' Fault?
Systemic pesticides, especially Gaucho (imidacloprid), have been used in Greece mainly on cotton, sunflower and oranges for the past five or six years. While varroa destructor, a parasitic mite that attacks honey bees, is certainly an issue, many contend that nicotine-based pesticides are the main problem, compromising the bees' immune system so that they cannot fend for themselves. (Incidentally while Greece's economy is anchored in tourism and shipping, its main exports are fish and cotton).

"We never had losses of more than seven to 10 percent, which is considered acceptable. But now with the advent of neonics, the losses have increased considerably, and they are high in specific periods of the year, not only just after winter," explains biologist and researcher Dr. Fani Hatjina of the Division of Apiculture, of the Hellenic Agricultural Organization DEMETER. Hatjina has been studying the effect of pesticides and bee losses since 2007.

Together with other researchers, she has concluded that imidacloprid in sub-lethal doses has a significant detrimental effect in different aspects of bees' physiology, behavior and health (e.g. in orientation, respiration, cardiac rhythm, food glands' size, thermoregulation, immune system and hygienic behavior).

Since the country has lost bees due to neonics, I asked whether beekeepers have witnessed colony collapse disorder (CCD).

"No, we don't have CCD, we have bad beekeepers," insists Gounari. While she agrees that neonics are slowly killing bees, she believes that the main issue is overworking the bees and abusing hives by treating them as a commodity.

Another beekeeper I spoke to claims Greece doesn't have colony collapse disorder because the country is still void of genetically modified foods.

This idea that beekeepers - rather than colony collapse disorder - are to blame for the rising losses in the bee population was also prevalent in France, circa 1995, and the United States, circa 2006. When bees in those countries first started dying en masse, the first culprit was the beekeeper.

Colony Collapse Disorder
Many beekeepers and scientists don't agree with Gounari about the cause of bee deaths in Greece.
"It's easy to assume that it's bad beekeepers, but there are signs of CCD. No doubt about that," says John Phipps, editor of The Beekeepers Quarterly. In 2010, Phipps went from 40 to 28 hives and has witnessed very unusual bee behavior as well as "typical signs of CCD," like abandoned hives, with only a small batch of brood left behind and sometimes a queen.

Hatjina has also gotten increased reports of colonies disappearing and the life spans of queen bees dropping to as low as two weeks, instead of two to three years, and these events are increasing year after year. However due to being short-staffed, she is unable to keep tabs on the losses. Her studies have also shown that when bees come into contact with neonics, they are more vulnerable to diseases such as Nosema and AFB.

One significant difference is that the failing hives in Greece can recover more easily than those in the United States because they can be easily moved to areas without poisons. Keep in mind that only 29 percent of Greece land is farmed. Greece doesn't have huge monocultures, so wild flora around the contaminated cultivations acts as a sort of 'saver' for the bees; therefore, sometimes the adverse effects are diluted. Hatjina's new research also shows that the colonies are trying to detoxify themselves. Their success depends of the dose of the neonicotinoid used.

With all this said, beekeepers can do a better job of keeping bees. While an increasing number of young and old beekeepers use nontoxic oxalic acids and essential oils against miticides, many others still use toxins such as pyrethroids, even though varroa mites have grown resistant to it. They are advised to follow proper instructions and only treat during brood-less periods, but still even limited use of the toxins filter into the wax and honey. Meanwhile, Phipps has noticed that many Greek beekeepers buy Chinese wax, because it's cheap.

Raising Consciousness on the Importance of Bees
During the last 10 years, official beekeeping seminars have proved very helpful in passing new knowledge and methodology to Greek beekeepers, says Hatjina.

Meanwhile, organizations like the Federation of Greek Beekeepers' Associations, the Division of Apiculture in Chalkidiki, and Greenpeace Greece are also actively attempting to link farmers with beekeepers and teach them about the detrimental effects of neonics and the importance of honeybees. But unfortunately, many are not so sympathetic to the cause. They don't realize the extent of the damage because the effects are sub-lethal.

"Unfortunately not all of them can hear that bees are the solution and not the problem," says Delani. "Some farmers, the more conventional ones, don't like bees or don't understand their vital role in pollination. … Of course, there are also organic and progressive farmers that are making positive contributions."

Greenpeace Greece also has a current campaign that aims to educate people about the importance of bees and the dangerous repercussions of systemic pesticides.
So it's not just about farmers and beekeepers.

"I think that people in Greece are aware that the honeybee is a central pillar of the ecosystem," says Karatasou.

It seems that Greek people have a place in the colony collapse disorder puzzle, too. Will the country befriend the bee? We'll have to wait and see.

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