http://www.earthportal.org/

From Democracy Now:

We go now to John Perkins, in this clip from The End of Poverty?, interviewing Bolivia’s vice president, Alvaro Garcia Linera, for the film The End of Poverty?

JOHN PERKINS: [translated] Bolivia is a country with so many natural resources. Why does a country like this have so many poor people?

VICE PRESIDENT ALVARO GARCIA LINERA: [translated] I think this has to do with what we call the colonial condition of our societies. Countries that have a collection of natural resources, renewable or nonrenewable, seem to be condemned to be poor countries. It’s paradoxical, isn’t it? Unfortunately, colonialism is always a part of the development of capitalism. There is an emancipation process that happens through the implementation of a different global economic order than the current one. That’s why a total, simple and definite break with colonialism allows us to imagine a world economic order, globalized in a different way than that which is driven by the accumulation of capital.

JOHN PERKINS: [translated] What things can Bolivia do, or should they do, to bring about necessary change?

VICE PRESIDENT ALVARO GARCIA LINERA: [translated] This is a country of nine million inhabitants, where 62 percent of the population is indigenous, both in the cities and the farmlands. Bolivia is a country with mestizos, Aymaras, Quechas, Guaranis, Mojenio, Trinitarios, Irionos, thirty-two indigenous groups and nations. But, unfortunately, in the 181 years of the republic’s political life, the indigenous people were never recognized as citizens with collective rights. Never. This continent is waking up. I like the idea of “a continent in movement” as a synthesis of what’s been happening during the past five to six years in Latin America. There’s a movement developing of world citizenship and planetary responsibility. There is something beautiful happening in these countries which makes them get involved in the situations of countries like Bolivia, a country that wants to live a better life, where 58 percent of the people live on less than $2 a day.

When Galeano speaks of Latin America, I think of Lebanon and the Arab World…

“…Latin America is still an engima in its own eyes. What image does the mirror reveal? A broken one. Pieces. Pieces disconnected from each other: a mutilated body, a face to be put together. And we are trained to spit in the mirror.” (Galeano. ‘We Say No‘ page 214.)

Excellent issue from the Adbusters

 

Check it out: Kick It Over

 

“The government and former rebels in Ivory Coast have repeatedly violated a U.N. arms embargo — and a ban on diamond exports is being flouted with help from many countries, according to a report by U.N. exports. … The experts recommended that the Israeli government investigate the possible involvement of Israeli nationals and companies in the illegal export of Ivorian rough diamonds, and they called on Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates to regulate and monitor diamond polishing activities to deter the illegal import and processing of stones from Ivory Coast.”

yes – the problem is structural.

yes – the problem is collective.

yes – the scientific and ecological and basic human issues are intrinsically tied to economic structures.

Try to wrap your mind around this statement: Global hunger already at an unprecedented level is growing. Those who are the most hungry are the farmers who produce our food

and this statement: Corporations now own 98 per cent of patents in agriculture, own seed monopolies, and are extending their control of genetic stock (plant and livestock)

read the article in full: Response to the FAO: How to Feed the World in 2050

FYI, here’s the link to the “Middle East Today” program in which Jennifer Loewenstein and I were interviewed.  We’re in the second half of the one-hour show.

So, Sunday I was struck with a headache that grew mean and dug its roots into my eyes. Thus, the pain prompted me to walk (quite slowly) to a pharmacy for medication (i.e an injection). Two hours later, my headache receded and I had an intense craving for a hamburger. So, I ordered one from Roadster.  It was mediocre. … But at 5 am the next day, I awoke with food poisoning.  Quite intense, violent food poisoning.  At 3 pm, I called Roadster to let them know and they said: “I’m sorry. Salemtik.”  Pathetic, eh?

So, I’m telling you all now.

For your information – I will be on ‘Middle East Today’ (8 pm, live, on Press TV) to talk about the Goldstone Report and the UN General Assembly.  The other guest will be Jennifer Loewenstein, Associate Director of the Middle East Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Here’s a link to her January 2009 article on the Israeli war  – If Hamas Did Not Exist. (Note: we won’t be debating.)

Read the article in full and see the map

“A nightmare in the not-very-distant future: the map below shows the enormous temperature rises which British scientists believe the planet may be experiencing in as a little as 50 years from now if global warming remains unchecked.  Released by the [UK] Government today, the map illustrates... a rise in global average temperature of four degrees Centigrade by 2060, and as such represents a dramatic acceleration of previous forecasts made as recently as 2007 by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). …. Britain may see an average rise of three degrees – which itself would have very damaging consequences in terms of drought and extreme heatwaves – Siberia and northern Canada may experience an immense rise of 12 degrees or even more. Scientists believe this may trigger a climate “tipping point” – the melting of the permafrost under the northern tundras which, if it happened, would release large amounts of trapped methane gas, which in turn would boost global warming yet further. … Over the Arctic Ocean in the far north, the rise might be a colossal 15 or even 16 degrees, which would mean the complete disappearance of all the Arctic ice in summer and spell extinction for ice-dependent wildlife such as polar bears and walruses.

The map shows rises of five degrees in Asia, seven degrees in Africa and parts of the US and eight degrees in the Amazon rainforest, all of which will have devastating consequences for some of the world’s poorest people. Rises like this are likely to lead to maize and wheat yields falling by 40 per cent across the world, and rice yields in China, India, Banglasdesh and Indonesia falling by 30 per cent – all at a time when world population is expected to grow from 6.9 billion today to more than 9 billion people.

Water resources are likely to be severely affected by a 70 per cent reduction in run-off around the Mediterranean, southern Africa and large areas of South America, forest fires are likely to be much more dangerous everywhere and warming-induced sea-level rise will affect millions more people in low-lying nations such as Bangladesh.”