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 A dozen top megadonors have pumped a combined $3.4 billion dollars into federal elections since 2009, according to new research.

The massive sum  made up almost one out of every 13 dollars raised during that time period.

The analysis, put out this month by Issue One, a nonpartisan group working to curtail the influence of money in politics, shows that the top 12 big-dollar donors were split evenly between Democrats and Republicans. 

Issue One says the research underscores the flood of money that federal races have seen since restrictions were lifted by the Supreme Court in 2009. 

The Issue One report does not include any figures for state-level races or money given to nonprofit groups involved in any elections.

Top 12 political donors accounted for almost 1 of every 13 dollars raised since 2009: study | TheHill

 While the Western powers concentrate the media’s attention on their supposed military withdrawal from Afghanistan, much less focus is upon the drought that is inflicting much of the country.

13.1 million people are grappling with food shortages

Necephor Mghendi, Head of Delegation for Afghanistan, for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) says:

“This is one of the worst ever droughts in Afghanistan and millions of people are barely surviving. People are walking long distances, as drinking water is running out and crops are failing.” She explains, “We have grave fears for more than 18 million people who will need humanitarian support in Afghanistan this year due to this drought-driven food crisis piled on top of the debilitating social and economic impacts of COVID-19 and the long-running conflict. We are appealing for urgent action to help the Afghan people in this hour of extreme need. Millions of people urgently need more food, water and cash assistance to survive…”

Afghan Red Crescent Society Acting President, Dr Nilab Mobarez, said:

“We are deeply concerned about worsening and severe water shortages in many areas, depleted food crops and crippled economic activity, such as decimated local markets and basic incomes.”

Afghanistan: 13 million lack food as drought crisis bites – Afghanistan | ReliefWeb

 A Vietnamese anarchist critique of the so-called “socialism” of Vietnam is well worth a read.

The Broken Promises of Vietnam (libcom.org)

“…As Vietnam’s economy grows by leaps and bounds, so does the chasm between the rich and the poor. And no amount of welfare and regulation can stop the accumulation of capital or reverse the flow of wealth from the hands of the many into those of a few. Nowhere does this accumulation manifest itself more pervasively than in the system of land ownership. ​This system allows control of the land to be wrested from the peasants and the common people for little compensation and given to capitalists who often make many times more profit. All across the country, luxurious residential buildings sprung up but few of those displaced by them can afford to move in. The billionaire Phạm Nhật Vượng, whose family own as much wealth as 800,000 Vietnamese, couldn’t have built his empire without public properties being handed into to his pocket in this manner…”

 As is our custom, when the blog comes across an article worth reading, it will recommend it and quote from it. This is written by Farooque Chowdhury, from Dhaka, Bangladesh and published on the Countercurrents website

The World Meteorological Organization released a report ‘State of the Global Climate 2020′  on April 19, 2021, which has warned: Time is fast running out.

In 2019, according to the UN report, GHG concentrations reached new highs:

Carbon dioxide: 410.5±0.2 ppm = 148% of preindustrial levelsMethane: 1877±2 ppb = 260% of preindustrial levelsNitrous oxide: 332.0±0.1 ppb = 123% of pre-industrial levels.

The report said: In 2020, global mean surface temperature (GMST), measured using a combination of air temperature two meters over land, and sea surface temperature in ocean areas from various databases, was 1.2 ± 0.1 °C warmer than the pre-industrial baseline (1850-1900), Despite developing La Niña cooling conditions, 2020 was one of the three warmest years on record, and the last decade, 2011-2020, was the warmest on record.

The report said:

“Since the mid-1980s, Arctic surface air temperatures have warmed at least twice as fast as the global average, while sea ice, the Greenland ice sheet and glaciers have declined over the same period and permafrost temperatures have increased.“This has potentially large implications not only for Arctic population, infrastructure and ecosystems, but also for the global climate through various feedbacks.”“Around the world”, the report said, “[r]ising global temperatures have contributed to more frequent and severe extreme weather events […].”

Extremes

As example of extreme weather incidents, the report mentioned extreme precipitation in 2020, and said:

“Regions with unusually high precipitation amounts […] included East and North-East Africa, South and East Asia, south-eastern North America and the Caribbean and North-East Europe.

“Unusually low precipitation amounts were observed in Southern and North-West Africa, South America, North-East and West Asia, south-western and north-eastern North America and northern New Zealand.”

Ocean warming

Oceans are “the destination” of around 90% of the excess energy that accumulates in the earth system due to increasing concentrations of the GHG. Ocean Heat Content (OHC), a measure of this heat accumulation in the Earth system, is measured at various ocean depths, up to 2000m deep. Ocean warming rates, according to the report, “show a particularly strong increase in the past two decades across all depths.”

The report said:

“In 2019, the 0–2000m depth layer of the global ocean reached a new record high, and a preliminary analysis based on three global data sets suggests that 2020 exceeded that record.”“In 2020, more than 80% of the ocean experienced at least one MHW, causing significant impacts to marine life and the communities that depend on it.”“Globally, sea level has been rising an average of 3.29 (+/- 0.3) mm per year, peaking in 2020. A small decrease in the latter part of 2020 is likely related to La Niña conditions in the tropical Pacific.”

Glacial loss

On glacial loss, the report said:

“[G]laciers continued to lose mass in the hydrological year 2019/2020.”“Although, mass balance was slightly less negative, with an estimated ice loss of 0.98 meter water equivalent, there is a clear trend towards accelerating glacier mass loss in the long term.”“Eight out of the ten most negative mass balance years have been recorded since 2010.”

Sea ice

On sea ice, a useful indicator of climate change particularly given the speed of change occurs at the poles and the extent of the repercussions of its cover, the report said:

“Antarctic sea ice remained close to the long-term average”.“In the Arctic, the annual minimum sea-ice extent was the second lowest on record and record low sea-ice extents were observed in the months of July and October 2020.”“Oceans absorb around 23% of the annual emissions of anthropogenic CO2 to the atmosphere, helping to alleviate the impacts of climate change but at a high ecological cost to the ocean.”

It said: “Global mean ocean pH has been steadily declining”.

The report said that increasing global warming are risking achieving of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

Displacement of people

It said:

“Over the past decade (2010–2019), weather-related events triggered an estimated 23.1 million displacements of people on average each year.”“Approximately 9.8 million displacements, largely due to hydrometeorological hazards and disasters, were recorded during the first half of 2020, mainly concentrated in South and South-East Asia and the Horn of Africa.”“Events in the second half of the year, including displacements linked to flooding across the Sahel region, the active Atlantic hurricane season and typhoon impacts in South-East Asia, are expected to bring the total for 2020 close to the average for the decade.”

Food insecurity

Food insecurity, the report said, grows out of climate variability and extreme weather incidents, along with economic slowdown and conflicts. It said:

“In 2020, over 50 million people were doubly hit – by climate-related disasters (floods, droughts and storms) and by the COVID-19 pandemic.”“Nearly 690 million people, or 9% of the world population, were undernourished, and about 750 million, or nearly 10%, were exposed to severe levels of food insecurity in 2019.”

The UN report warned: “Overall in 2020, the world remained on course to exceed the agreed temperature thresholds of either 1.5 °C or 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, which will increase the risk of experiencing the pervasive effects of climate change beyond what is already seen. Thus while reducing greenhouse gas emissions remains essential, scaling up adaptation is an urgent need.” The report has suggested massive effort from the governments of the world.

The report is a burning example of the world capitalist order – everything for profit, demolish and destroy for profit, nothing to consider, but profit…

Is there some sort of capitalism, which is non-catastrophic? And was there any phase of the system, when it was not acting catastrophic? Never and never was it…

 …the source of the crisis – capitalist system – isn’t the problem. To the part, climate crisis is a commodity connecting many, as other commodities connect. It’ll try its best to reap a higher profit from the emerging market. It’s aware of this emerging market. To reap profit, it’ll keep the profit-making system intact. So, the source of the crisis will continue hurting people as it hurts today, as it hurt yesterday, because, profit can’t be made without exploiting labor and nature.

 Farooque Chowdhury 

Full text can be read at:

Climate crisis: Time is fast running out, and World Bank changes tone | Countercurrents

The Socialist Party represent an idea which is unfashionable these days, an idea which is ignored by the media, dismissed coldly by politicians, and avoided by anyone who prefers the status quo to stay put. This idea is the cooperative commonwealth.

 You already know that in our world, private property is king, and that the rich make the rules. You probably know that only about 5 percent of the world’s population is rich, while 95 percent does all the work and lives in varying degrees of poverty, debt and stress. You may have concluded that this situation causes everything from street crime to international warfare, and you have almost certainly suffered yourself from the effects of overwork, deprivation and other people’s “anti-social” behaviour. Considering that private property society, or capitalism in its developed form, was built by human beings, it is an amazingly anti-social and unfriendly system, and it brings out the worse in us. We treat each other with suspicion and we treat the planet with contempt.  

This state of affairs is bad news all round, but what can be done?

 The politicians’ response is to ignore the problem and talk about trivia instead, hoping nobody will notice. Look at their manifestos. That’s why nothing changes. Our response is direct, and simple: the 95 percent need to sort their act out and abolish the private property principle, that mutual agreement that says one person has the right to own and keep what other people need, even if they should die because of it. And every single day, people are dying because of it. The real enemy of humanity is not a person or a group of rich people, it is simply this agreement.

Privately-owned property is an anachronism in this day and age. There is enough food in the world to make every individual fat. There are ten empty houses to every homeless person. Technology is producing abundance so fast that commodity prices keep collapsing, yet nobody has yet recognised what this all means. It means that there is a higher level of civilisation, of science, or arts, of culture, of personal fulfilment, waiting to come after capitalism—an advanced society which, because it has abolished scarcity, does not contain all the horrors that have dogged human organisation until now. From the standpoint of such a society, we in capitalism are still living in the Dark Ages, with our wars, famines, pollution and other disasters, and our outlook is suitably bleak. 

 A post-scarcity society seems a dim and distant image, a matter for the 22nd century perhaps, but not now. Lulled by the incessant idiotic chatter of politicians and their meaningless agendas, we do not notice that even now, today, we are standing on the very threshold of that post-scarcity world. All we have to do, as individuals, is take one step forward.

 Business Advice

Become a friend to the Prime Minister,

Who will be always open to offers

For contributions to party coffers,

Which are definitely never sinister,

Just free expressions of philanthropy,

Though the tax breaks are not to be ignored,

Then serve your queen and country as a lord

In the ‘other place’, where you deserve to be.

You must, of course, eschew publicity

For all of your largesse and selfless acts,

Quietly fulfilling government contracts

The electorate do not need to see.

But, if people find out more than they should,

Just insist it’s all for the public good.

D. A.

 “The government of Americans means to have its way through the use and threatened to use of superior force. It will lie. It will deceive. It will kill. It will escalate the threat and use of force to the highest level it dares. It will bluff, dangerous as that can be. It will do whatever is must to dominate. It does this in the face of the fact that its very preparation for a nuclear war may destroy all life.” –  Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, 1986

 Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islamic practice. Every adult Muslim is required to perform hajj once in a lifetime if they can afford the journey. The Saudi royal family has been  profiting from Hajj and has turned Hajj into a lucrative business. Hajj is a huge asset for the Saudi economy, bringing in about $12 billion annually, and may catch up with oil as the country’s main economic asset. Hajj revenues are expected to reach $150 billion in 2022, according to economic experts.

The Saudi authorities have been attempting to convert Mecca from just a religious capital where pilgrims visit it every year in specific times to a luxury city where people would come for commercial reasons. The House of Saud has issued licenses for the construction of 500 hotels near the Grand Mosque in Mecca. 

Mohammed roughly foretold the marketization of Hajj in one of his hadiths:

 “Near the time of Judgement Day, the rich ones from amongst my people will perform Hajj for the sake of travel and holidays. The middle class will perform Hajj for commercial purposes, thereby transporting goods from here to there while bringing commercial goods from there to here. The scholars will perform Hajj for the sake of show and fame. The poor will perform Hajj for the purpose of begging.”

“In the Land of Invisible Women”, the British-American physician Qanta A. Ahmed writes that to some Saudi women “VIP Hajj meant…being waited on hand and foot and enjoying a sense of superiority over…dark-skinned maids from Mecca, poor women who had to work for a living and chose to make a few extra riyals in Hajj season.” 

While the rich enjoy in their lavish quarters, poor pilgrims – mainly from Africa and South Asia – can be seen sitting, eating and sleeping adjacent to shopping complexes constructed near Kaaba.

Rosie Bsheer argues: “In Mecca…urban redevelopment plans centered on the complete overhaul of the city’s physical, cultural, social, and economic landscape. The multi-billion dollar mega projects have been replacing historical sites, cultural landmarks, and private properties in the neighborhoods circling Mecca’s Grand Mosque. Petro-resources, circulated through Saudi Arabian banks in the form of loans to contractors and Mecca’s real estate market, will turn Central Mecca into a collection of mixed-use developments comprising upscale international hotels and short-term and permanent residences, as well as state-of-the-art commercial facilities and markets…”

The Abraj Al Bait Complex project consists of hotels, malls and apartments, valuing $3 billion, with 15,000 housing units and 70,000 square meters of retail space. Mecca is fast becoming a “Vegas” for wealthy pilgrims, with a hotel that has four helipads, five floors for Saudi royalty, and 10,000 bedrooms on 45 levels, called Abraj Kudai. Along the western edge of the city, Jabal Omar Development has been constructed, a complex that will eventually accommodate 100,000 people in 26 luxury hotels – sitting on a large plinth of 4,000 shops and 500 restaurants, along with its own six-storey prayer hall.

Instead of making Hajj a more egalitarian experience for all Muslims, the Saudi royal family has squandered revenues on perpetrating massacres and wars in Muslim lands, such as the bombing of Yemen, the indirect attacks in Syria, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, and Sudan.

In 2019, Libya’s Grand Mufti Sadiq al-Ghariani called for all Muslims to boycott the pilgrimage and went as far as stating that anyone who embarked on a second hajj was committing a sin, rather than a good deed. 

A year earlier, the association of “Imams and Religious Leaders” in Tunisia released a statement calling upon Tunisians to boycott the pilgrimage, and urging would-be pilgrims to spend their money on disadvantaged groups in the country. The secretary general of the association, Fadil Achour, told Al-Jazeera that Saudi Arabia “spends Muslims’ money on wars against its neighbors rather than creating development opportunities.” 

Profiting from Hajj: Commodification of Spirituality | Countercurrents

101 Nobel laureates published a letter urging world leaders and governments to “keep fossil fuels in the ground” as a critical first step toward addressing the climate emergency. 

The letter notes that the climate emergency “is threatening hundreds of millions of lives, livelihoods across every continent, and is putting thousands of species at risk.” It adds that “the burning of fossil fuels—coal, oil, and gas—is by far the major contributor” to the crisis. The letter concludes. “Allowing the continued expansion of this industry is unconscionable. The fossil fuel system is global and requires a global solution—a solution the Leaders Climate Summit must work towards. And the first step is to keep fossil fuels in the ground.”

101 Nobel Laureates Urge World Leaders to ‘Keep Fossil Fuels in the Ground’ | Common Dreams News