CC Newsletter 30 Dec - Climate Chaos: What to Learn From 2021

 

Dear Friend,

To keep acting as if there wasn’t war declared against the planet and humanity is to accept we are already defeated. Continuing to play their game can only guarantee collapse. It’s time to flip the table.

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In Solidarity

Binu Mathew

Editor

Countercurrents.org

Climate Chaos: What to Learn From

2021

by João Camargo

https://countercurrents.org/2021/12/climate-chaos-what-to-learn-from-2021/

To keep acting as if there wasn’t war declared against the planet and humanity is to accept we are already defeated. Continuing to play their game can only guarantee collapse. It’s time to flip the table.

Climate Mitigation: ’21 into ’22

by Bill Henderson

https://countercurrents.org/2021/12/climate-mitigation-21-into-22/

Climate wise it’s clear that as we limp from ‘21 to ‘22 those who want to protect the economy from needed climate mitigation are still firmly in control.

Killing Nature Must Be Treated as a Crime on a Par with Genocide and War Crimes

by CJ Polychroniou

https://countercurrents.org/2021/12/killing-nature-must-be-treated-as-a-crime-on-a-par-with-genocide-and-war-crimes/

Ecocide must be elevated into an international crime—on a par with genocide and war crimes—and fall within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.

Odisha

Millets Mission- a step towards combating climate vulnerability and promoting sustainable food systems

by Geeta Sinha

https://countercurrents.org/2021/12/odisha-millets-mission-a-step-towards-combating-climate-vulnerability-and-promoting-sustainable-food-systems/

The launch of Odisha Millets Mission is  a flagship programme of Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment, Government of Odisha that has the propensity to contribute substantially to some of the interlinked core goals of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – climate action, good health and well-being and responsible production and consumption.

Russia’s shadows in Sahel region

by M K Bhadrakumar

https://countercurrents.org/2021/12/russias-shadows-in-sahel-region/

This is not to suggest that Russia and China are acting in concert in Mali, although it is conceivable that they could be coordinating and are, most certainly, on the same page. The stakes are high insofar as Mali sits on great untapped

mineral wealth.  Unlike China which sticks to business deals, Russia does not shy away from declaring its unflinching support for the struggle against all neo-colonial tendencies in Africa.

Christians on Edge – Spike in Attacks

by Suresh Mathew

https://countercurrents.org/2021/12/christians-on-edge-spike-in-attacks/

There was a spate of attacks on Christians during the Christmas celebrations

A Short History of RSS

by Masidur Rahaman

https://countercurrents.org/2021/12/a-short-history-of-rss/

Here in this article, Masidur Rahaman discusses the role played by the RSS during India’s colonial struggles and how it influences Indian politics, social, cultural and religious structure today.

“Three Movements and The Dynamics of Indian Democracy” Political Scientist Zoya Hasan’s Analysis

by K M Seethi

https://countercurrents.org/2021/12/three-movements-and-the-dynamics-of-indian-democracy-political-scientist-zoya-hasans-analysis/

There really is a silver lining in

political cloud and the farmers’ movement is certainly the finest case. This was the thrust of analysis on “Three Movements and the Dynamics of Indian Democracy” by Zoya Hasan, Professor Emerita, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi while delivering the Annual Lecture of the Vakkom Moulavi Memorial and Research Centre (VMMRC) in Kerala.

Neo Hindus – Ain’t No Black In The Union Jack

by Supratim Barman

https://countercurrents.org/2021/12/neo-hindus-aint-no-black-in-the-union-jack/

This term, Neo Hindus, is a very recent phenomenon, perhaps in the last twenty-five years or so. It was always sort of hanging around amongt us; like an optical illusion, lurking like a thief who is unable to make that final reach to grab the handbag, (so near; yet so far).

Birth Defects and Stunted Development: Role of the Students Movement

by Syed Ehtisham

https://countercurrents.org/2021/12/birth-defects-and-stunted-development-role-of-the-students-movement/

Pakistan, ostensibly

created to safeguard the interest of the Muslims of India, but in actual fact to save the Muslim landowners of West Pakistan from land reforms which were on the plank of Indian National Congress platform, had a large impact of the more reactionary of the Muslim clerics. Main-stream Maulanas, not recognizing nationalism as a driving force in Islam, had actually opposed it.

Dalit agricultural labour wage qualitative protests for rights in Punjab

by Harsh Thakor

https://countercurrents.org/2021/12/dalit-agricultural-labour-wage-qualitative-protests-for-rights-in-punjab/

A qualitative protest of around 500 workers was staged at Rampura Phul today in front of the office of the State district magistrate. The agricultural workers vociferously raised slogan condemning the government betraying their promises. In the last few months through united activity they have waged a sustained struggle for their demands.

I’m also hurt

by Naheeda Naseem

https://countercurrents.org/2021/12/im-also-hurt/

Undoubtedly I am a wife, but…

I can be hurt.

I can be sad.

I can be angry.

I can be anything like you.

Because I too am a human being.

A Sense of Proportion

 

TomDispatch 

The Nation published this piece of a favorite author of mine (now long dead), Jonathan Schell, on September 20, 2001. What's striking about it (see the last paragraph) is that, in response to the attacks of 9/11, only days later he laid out the dangers of what the U.S. might do and how much worse that could prove to be and almost alone in this country, was calling for "restraint." Sadly, no such luck. Tom

"The blow against the United States has landed. As we go to press, the counterblow is awaited. Those deciding what it will be face a devilish conundrum. A great injury seems to call for a great response–a “response commensurate to the horror,” in the words of Cokie Roberts of ABC News. Unfortunately for the satisfaction of this impulse, a proportional antagonist is not always available. It is a perplexing but inescapable fact of our time that great crimes can be committed by puny forces. The obvious example is assassination–an experience branded in American memory by the assassination of President John Kennedy. The gigantic shock of that event seemed to require a gigantic explanation. The mind recoiled at the idea that a single anonymous person could affect the lives of so many so deeply. Many found their satisfaction in conspiracy theories. The government of the day, however, felt it had to resist these temptations. It was the office of the Warren Commission to tidy up the affair, even at the cost of many overlooked suggestive facts, many unpursued leads. During the cold war, the stakes were judged too high to indulge in endless investigations that might undermine the already tense relations of the two hostile superpowers, ready and able to blow each other up in half an hour.

September 11 also presents a maddening disproportion between cause and effect. To be sure, the assault was not the act of an individual; yet at most a few score were directly involved. Behind them–if current speculation is correct–might be a few hundred potential co-conspirators; and behind them, perhaps, some thousands of active supporters. These forces present a dim, vague target. A direct, immediate response against them cannot possibly be “commensurate” with the horror–not only because they are few but because they are dispersed and hidden. That has left the Administration searching for larger targets, and it appears to believe it has found them in its determination to, in George W. Bush’s words, “make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.” The deliberate erasure of the distinction between perpetrators and supporters obviously has opened the way to an attack on one or more states–targets that, whatever their level of responsibility, would indeed be commensurate in size with the horror. It was in pursuit of such a target, of course, that the United States in effect dispatched a team of Pakistanis to the Taliban government of Afghanistan to persuade it to yield up its “guest” Osama bin Laden, who is suspected of masterminding the attack.

The Taliban have indeed sheltered bin Laden, and an effort to end that support makes sense. However, a military strike against the Taliban or any other regime is full of perils that–hard as it is to imagine in the wake of the recent tragedy–are far greater than the dangers we already face. Civilian casualties, even in retaliation, stir indignation, as we now know so deeply. Anger is the best recruiter for violent causes, including radical Islam. There is a distinct danger of self-fulfilling prophecy. By striking indiscriminately we can create the “commensurate” antagonist that we now lack. The danger takes many forms. In the first place, moderate Muslims who now dislike US policy toward their countries but who also oppose terror may begin to support it. In the second place, by attacking radical regimes we may undermine other, conservative regimes. One is the repressive, monarchical regime of Saudi Arabia, possessor of the world’s oil supplies. Another is Pakistan. Its leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is a military dictator with a tenuous grip on power. His most powerful opponents are not the democrats he overthrew in his military coup but Islamic militants, who honeycomb his army and could, if angered enough by the humiliation of his regime by demands from the United States, possibly overthrow it. Pakistan, of course,has been a nuclear power since May 1998. Will the United States,in its fury at a terrible attack that was, nevertheless, on the “conventional” scale, create a fresh nuclear danger to itself and the world?

It’s rightly said that in the face of the attack, America must be strong. Its military strength is beyond doubt, but strength consists of more than firepower. The strength now needed is the discipline of restraint. Restraint does not mean inaction; it means patience, discrimination, action in concert with other nations, resolve over the long haul. We live, as we have since 1945, in an age of weapons of mass destruction–nuclear, chemical and biological. During the cold war there was one ladder of escalation that led to oblivion. Now there are many. Now as then, escalation is “unthinkable.” It must be avoided at all cost."

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/sense-proportion/

THENATION.COM

A Sense of Proportion

The blow against the United States has landed. As we go to press, the