What Is UN Reform?

Reforming the United Nations is an idea whose popularity has been waxing and waning for several years now, but what exactly does it mean? The Bush administration has said very little in the way of detailing what it wants to see changed and the corporate media does not seem interested in clueing the public in either. The Bush administration has been vocal in suggesting that the UN might become nothing more than a debate society when the body has not approved of that administration’s policies, particularly towards Iraq. The idea here is that when the UN supports US policy it is effective and relevant, but when it opposes US policy it becomes an organization in crisis, lacking a raison d’etre. I suppose it would be bad form to suggest that the United Nations’ success in securing peace, human rights, and development is sometimes best manifested when it successfully resists the power and influence of the global superpower.
The most in depth statement from Washington D.C. that I could find regarding UN reform comes from a speech by Assistant Secretary of State Kim Holmes at a luncheon hosted by the UN Foundation. Holmes lists many generic and vague goals for UN reform such as efficiency and effectiveness while noting that the “United Nations works best when its member states and the United States work together.” She goes on to say that “this requires US leadership.” So the message here is when we are the boss, the UN “works best.”
The Assistant Secretary of State vaguely addresses the draft resolution put to expand the Security Counsel to include Brazil, Germany, India and Japan. Holmes never mentions that a draft resolution exists, but does offer support for Japan’s inclusion in the UN Security Counsel. Presumably, the US is looking for a state that won’t leave the US vetoing resolutions all by itself, as is usually the case. It’s sensible for the US to oppose bringing Brazil, Germany, and India into the picture. Brazil and Germany were both vocal opponents to the war on Iraq and all three states represent serious economic and political challenges to US hegemony. Brazil and Germany have the two biggest economies in their respective continents. If India could halt the brain-drain to the United States, it conceivably could become the technology capitol of the world. Kim Holmes offers no reason for admitting Japan into the Security Counsel in the speech, but has some condemnation for the unnamed others. She states “many proposals have more to do with enlarging the voice of certain nations in the UN than in making the institution itself more effective, efficient, or capable of dealing with some the world’s largest problems.” How insidious, to want to have a larger voice. Apparently the idea here is only the victors of World War II which currently constitute the 5 permanent members of the security council plus Japan, deserve a large voice.
For Holmes, the US voice is not large enough though. One of the reforms proposed by the Assistant Secretary would give the US even more power in the UN by “weighted voting of UN members in deciding budgets.” The weighting would be determined by the size of the dues that states are required to contribute to the United Nations. The US being the wealthiest country is required to pay the most. Imagine if this proposal was adopted in the US. When you go to the polls, you would get to cast one vote while Bill Gates would get to cast 1,000. I guess that idea of one person, one vote is old fashioned. Every institution is in need of constant tweaking to adjust to changing circumstances. Large institutions being more prone to ossification are in particular need, because they will always lag behind the changing times. The US proposals to reform the UN however are nothing more than thinly veiled attempts of the global superpower to throw its weight around in an attempt to gain more weight to throw around.
There are other proposals for UN reform many of which are concerned with the UN Security Council. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has revived a proposal to eliminate the veto power of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. The US is in the lead in use of the veto among the five permanent members including a veto of Resolution 44/29, which in part “calls upon all States to fulfill their obligations under international law.” A comprehensive listing of US vetoes is available at http://www.krysstal.com/democracy_whyusa03.html. What is telling is that so many of the US vetoes are applied to resolutions which condemn the US for breaking the law. Perhaps this is precisely what the US and the other four victors of World War II (France, Britain, Russia, and China) had in mind when they conceived of the UN Security Council which elevated them alone above all others.

What Is Being Done

For those who suffer the short end of the stick or who are in solidarity who those who do, the troubles of the day are no mystery and scarcely need mentioning. On the small possibility that some other class of men or women are reading this column let me briefly mention a few; war, poverty, environmental destruction. The eternal question is ‘what is to be done.’ No doubt the men and women of letters follow behind the men and women of action in answering such a question. After all, science is much involved with observation of action and the a priori determinations of philosophy are just best guesses. So it is appropriate to mark May Day, the International Workers Day since the Industrial Revolution began, not by a lengthy exposition on what is to be done, but rather a useful notation on what is being done.

The anti-war movement has coalesced through an umbrella coalition called United for Peace and Justice (UNPJ). Working with over 1,300 member organizations UNPJ has been organizing some of the biggest public demonstrations in decades focusing on seven campaigns; Iraq, counter-military recruitment, global justice, nuclear disarmament, Palestine/Israel, civil liberties/immigrant rights, and faith based organizing. These public demonstrations are critical in such an atomized society as ours where majority opinion appears to most individuals within that majority to be only the idiosyncrasy of their own mind.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union has called for the first industrial action in the US to oppose a US war in decades. The ILWA will be shutting down ports on the West Coast for May Day to temporarily block participation in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Similarly, for two weeks in November 2007, the Olympia Port Militarization Resistance interrupted the flow of military weapons and cargo at the Port of Olympia where US Naval ships dock. Over the two-week period intermittent Sit-ins and barricades stopped the flow of military equipment for as long as 17 hours in one instance. Professor Peter Bohmer from the nearby Evergreen State College noted that this stoppage was longer than the street closings at the 1999 WTO Conference protests (Battle in Seattle).

In the last several years the most dynamic actor in the labor movement has been from the most challenged sector. In Florida the Coalition of Immolakee Workers has overcome difficulties such as workers lacking residency papers, limited English skills, and lack of National Labor Relations Board protection. Farmworkers were excluded from the National Labor Relations Act which created the NLRB, therefore the federal government does not recognize farmworkers rights to union representation and collective bargaining. None-the-less, the CIW has won major concessions from Yum! Brands which owns Taco Bell and McDonalds. Concessions won by the CIW include both wages and work place conditions. The Student/Farmworker Alliance’s role in the CIWs campaigns was surely crucial as 22 Taco Bells were either removed or prevented from locating on high school and college campuses in the Boot the Bell campaign.

Again in Florida, decades of organizing and pressure from the environmental movement have created a situation where a conservative state has elected Green Elephants, Republicans committed to environmental protection. In Orange County, Major Richard Crotty is converting the counties fleet vehicles to hybrids, proposed to put solar energy panels on the county convention center, and endorsed a regional smart growth plan. In the governor’s office, Charlie Crist has blocked the de-listing of the manatee from the states endangered species list and directed state agencies to adopt energy practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Florida to 80% of 1990 levels. Environmental activists in Florida have pushed Republicans in the state to more progressive environmental policy positions than most Democrats in the country.

This is a small sampling of what is being done. Although the successes mentioned here are profound, the day-to-day struggle to achieve these victories is not. The day-to-day work is making phone calls, planning, sending emails, making websites, organizing events, talking to people and a host of other unspectacular activities. This is good news! It means that we need not wait for the politicians or scientists or men and women of any special class to rescue us from society’s troubles. It seems that we would be waiting for a long time! May Day or International Workers Day is an opportunity to remind ourselves and others of our own powers and capacities to make positive social change when we work together in solidarity.

A Dangerous Game

With the farcical declaration of independence in Kosovo, US foreign policy may be embarking on a quite dangerous game with potentially serious consequences. If you are not familiar with this sham spanning two decades, Diana Johnstone’s article in Z Magazine and others provide good background. The short version of this history begins with conflict and tension between ethnic Albanians and Serbs. Usually ignored is the fact that before the bombing their were more Serb deaths than ethnic Albanians. Serb deaths were at the hands of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Regardless of the legitimacy of their cause, the KLA qualifies as a terrorist organization by any standard. We now know that the KLA was receiving CIA assistance likely with the implication that if the stir up enough trouble, the US will intervene on their behalf. These two facts destroy the myth of a genocide and of a humanitarian war. How can there be genocide if the purported victims are doing most of the killing? That’s like the US claiming to be victims of genocide at the hands of Native Americans because they dared to shoot back. Before the bombing, NATO Commander Wesley Clark correctly predicting that the NATO bombing of Serbia/Kosovo would escalate the violence in the region, and so it did. The crimes that Serb forces have been prosecuted for all took place after the NATO bombing. As Johnstone’s article points out the “negotiations” were designed to fail and the US manufactured a war to give NATO a raison d’etre in the post-Soviet world. Their mission was no longer to counter the now non-existent Warsaw Pact, but rather humanitarian intervention.

Fast-forward to the present and you have the most dependent and underdeveloped province of Serbia with a post-war economy and polity dominated by mafia, gambling, and prostitution interests declare independence. No one in the corporate media or government blushed at saying so despite this “independent” state hosting a large US military base, Camp Bondsteel, and being “UN-administered.” Practically speaking Kosovo will remain dependent on the US, UN, and/or NATO as it has always been dependent on Belgrade. Jane’s Intelligence Review states that “Albania has become the crime capital of Europe. The most powerful groups in the country are organized criminals who use Albania to grow, process, and store a large percentage of the illegal drugs destined for Western Europe... Albanian criminal gangs are actively supporting the war in Kosovo.”

It seems that the US has successfully declared a portion of another country independent; A form of annexation with the trappings of independence and self-determination. This is similar to what empires have long practiced. Here-to-fore empires have usually invaded a country, overthrown their leadership, and set up a client government to manage the country in its entirety in the interest of the empire. Perhaps the more nuanced imperialists of the Clinton administration saw this as superfluous and decided they would manage just the small portions of states which served their needs.

If this nuanced tactic continues to be successful, we can imagine where else it may be employed. It is already rumored that the CIA is working with disgruntled ethnic minorities in the oil rich provinces of Iran. Also, it is know that the US Agency for International Development (US AID) is conducting educational programs concerning regionalism, decentralization, and local autonomy in the hydrocarbon rich areas of Bolivia. Local autonomy is now US AID policy in Bolivia since the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party won the presidential election. This should not be seen as a principled position in the spirit of American Federalism. If that were the case, the US would be supporting the much more legitimate cause of local autonomy in the oil producing regions of Nigeria. Locals in Nigeria suffer severe damage to agricultural and fishery resources at the hands of corporate oil companies without receiving any of the benefits of the extraction. Rather than promote federalism in Nigeria, the US has long supported the corrupt central government that has used heavy-handed tactics to suppress both violent and non-violent opposition groups in the oil producing regions.

This tactic of global control could prove to be quite dangerous for the interests of peace and justice because it is based on a principle hypocritically applied. Unlike controlling the biggest army or the best bombs, a principle can be adopted by anybody. Unpopular militants like ETA in the Basque region in Spain can claim independence and launch a new round of violence in the name of this noble principle of local self determination just as easily as more legitimate claims such as the Palestinians under Israeli occupation. In fact, the Hamas government has threatened to unilaterally declare independence following the Kosovo announcement. It is possible we could see a great number of small militant groups like the KLA and ETA declare independence and start bombing until some regional or global power finds a self-interested reason to support the claim. This would likely cause great suffering for the people caught up in the violence as small militant groups go bombing for dollars waiting for one or another power to move in to grant them “independence.” The ETA/Spain example is very pertinent, as Spain has worked hard for many years to peaceably negotiate autonomy deals with the Basque, Galician, and Catalonian regions. All that could be undercut by the Kosovo example.

Again, because this tactic of partial annexations is based on a hypocritically applied principle rather than a physical weapon, it can be employed readily by others. Russia too has already threatened to support breakaway regions in Georgia. The Georgian government is now headed by a pro-western president who is seeking NATO and EU membership. If this tactic is vigorously pursued by the great powers, it may lead to a modified Cold War scenario. Rather than a bipolar conflict, there may be several poles; Russia, China, India, etc. Also, the pawns will not be whole countries, but rather strategic regions which coincide with racial, ethnic, or political minorities. And finally, the battle cry will not be ‘freedom’ or ‘anti-communism’ but rather self-determination and autonomy.

Like the US Cold War escapades in Latin America, the first enemy to subdue in this dangerous game is domestic public opinion. The public must be made to believe not that we are annexing a part of another country in violation of the law, but rather that we are benevolently aiding some oppressed people in achieving self-determination and independence. It is at this point the social movements can intervene and work to subvert this imperial tactic. The first task for those who seek to organize the world on the basis of civilized behavior as opposed to force and violence is to lay bare the hypocrisy in the application of these abused principles.

Free Trade vs. Fair Trade

Free Trade and Fair trade are both market based economic systems. Both rely on a market place where producers may bring products for sale and consumers may choose just what they want when they want provided they can pay for it. The similarities end there though. Examining who organizes and benefits from each rubric goes a long way to explain the modes of each system.

Free Trade is organized at trade conferences and negotiations, many of which are conducted in secret. That fact is suggestive for reasons that should be obvious. Where these proceedings are more or less open, they are attended by the political elite. Presidents and ambassadors who have varying degrees of accountability to the publics they represent. These proceedings are heavily influenced by the play of power, regardless of the intentions of the participants therein. States with great militaries or strategic resources have great influence over others. One might say diplomacy is practiced, but not democracy. Other loci of Free Trade organization and planning are the secret meetings and judicial proceedings of global organizations such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Bank. While these organizations have had a great degree of secrecy from their inception, secrecy has become even more important since their meetings attract protest crowds numbering in the thousands. The “Battle in Seattle” is the most significant US example. In these secret meetings corporate and political elites decide how to dismantle tariffs, price supports, social spending, subsidies, and other “barriers to trade.” What is usually unstated is how they decide NOT to dismantle these modes. While all preach the “neoliberal free trade” gospel, the most radical free trade ideology, those that sing the loudest are often the most hypocritical. For instance, the US and to a lesser degree Europe, still maintain many tariffs and subsidies on steel and agricultural products. This fact exposes these proceedings as little more than the imposition of power, not principles.

The organization of the Fair Trade rubric is derived from completely different sources serving different interests. Fair Trade is organized by consumers and producers working through non-profit organizations. Non-profit and stakeholder organizations such as Transfair and Fair Trade Labeling Organizations International (FLO) establish environmental, labor, and democracy standards which producers may choose to meet to receive the Fair Trade Certified label. The certification provides the producers with minimum price guarantees and help with global marketing. It also allows consumers to choose products made under the conditions just stated and avoid supporting slave labor, child labor, sweatshop labor, and environmental harm. While consumers have a role in the labeling organizations, their most crucial role lye in the decentralized, networked advocacy groups who promote Fair Trade as a consumer option and work to establish Fair Trade purchasing policies in their popular institutions like governments, schools, churches, and social clubs. The multiplicity of networked voluntary associations working to organize Fair Trade demonstrates a far more democratic mode of economic activity.

The resulting values of the Free Trade and Fair Trade rubrics are determined by the organization modes previously noted. Free Trade, organized by the Corporate and Political elite, values ever increasing profits. The profit seeking compulsion will suffer no borders and so must expand world wide, often with the assistance of state violence threatened or realized. Free Trade also values oligarchic political-economic decision-making. Recall that you don’t get a vote, a delegate, or even a representative at secret meetings. Free Trade values investor and corporate rights. NAFTA is mostly an investor’s rights agreement. Unless you are willing to consider GM moving a car from a GM factory in Mexico to a GM factory in the US trade, NAFTA has not and was not designed to increase trade. It simply allowed the previously mentioned action to be conducted with more ease to the detriment of workers in both the US and Mexico since, under the new rules, high paying union jobs in Michigan could be outsourced to union busting countries such as Mexico. Finally, Free Trade values commodification. Commodification is the process of turning something not previously considered in economic terms into another product to be bought and sold under free market conditions. Nothing is sacred. Everything from genes to workers are commodified and therefore subject to the demands of the most powerful players in the market. Traditions and rights have no place here unless they can be put on a t-shirt and sold.

From Fair Trade flows a wholly different set of values. Traditional knowledge and creativity are given an opportunity to flourish in the world market. Human rights such as the right to organize labor unions are part of the Fair Trade rubric. While solidarity at the loci of production is valued, a new kind of solidarity is developed by Fair Trade. Solidarity between the producers and the consumers. Producers and Consumers in the global market under conditions of Free Trade are narrowly concerned only in one’s profit and the other’s price. The Fair Trade rubric develops mutual concern for the interests of both producer and consumer. While the international union movements have encouraged concern between union producers in one country and union consumers in another, the expansion of this global solidarity outside of union circles maybe a novel development in human affairs. Environmental protection and sustainable development as well as democratically organized workplaces are values specific required by Fair Trade Certification. Many Fair Trade producers also contribute to community development. Producers are encouraged to set aside some income for education, transportation, housing, and health care.

The different values realized under Fair Trade conditions and the democratic organizational forms that give rise to these values and are desiderata themselves are the reason Fair Trade sales, like certified organic sales, continue to rise rapidly. The embrace of these values and the global solidarity built outside of the working class labor movments signifies a new era of civilizing tendencies that is both product and accelerant, a positive feedback loop.

Compulsions to Urban Sprawl

While the public seems to be opposed to urban sprawl and strongly in favor of smart growth principles, municipalities have been uninterested in the problem. Urban sprawl is likely to cause severe problems for municipalities in terms of providing services for less dense, distant communities in terms of providing services such as transportation, fire, police, sewer, water. The burdens sprawling developments are likely to place on municipalities would logically precipitate grave concern for planners, but concern about urban sprawl seems to exist only in the social movements and in the unorganized population.

The reason for this is certainly not stupidity on the part of elected officials. Even at the local level, political offices tend to be occupied by career politicians with degrees. If one considers the likely political ramifications of shifting away from urban sprawl policies to more homeostatic urban economic policies, the cause for the continuation of urban sprawl policies becomes evident.

The US has been able to maintain continuing urban sprawl policies far longer than Europe simply because, after the majority of the prior inhabitants of this continent were exterminated or extirpated, there has been a ready supply of open space on which to build. Big green lawns have long been the epitome of housing in the US. Crowded tenements in a concrete jungle is for the Old World. It is important to know which is the horse and which is the carriage here. Surely, the capacity to create a housing infrastructure dominated by single family residences and big lawns came before the idea that this mode is the most desirable or most "American." The Europeans who came here certainly were either city dwellers or peasant farmers. They could not conceive of a sparse suburban subdivision. This is important when considering the main compulsions of of urban sprawl. Again, the public is opposed to more urban sprawl as polls such as the one conducted for Smart Growth America demonstrates (http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/poll.pdf). People will certainly say they want big lawns if asked, but put the question in context of larger issues such as urban sprawl and smart growth and the answers start changing.

The short term, localized impetus for urban sprawl is of course profits for businesses and tax revenues for politicians. Land at the periphery of urban centers can be acquired at a far cheaper price than land near the urban center. This increases the profits that can be gained by new construction. For politicians, an increase in the number of businesses and homes provides greater tax revenues with which to pursue pet projects for personal aggrandizement. The burden mentioned above in terms of providing sprawling communities with services is circumvented by simply resisting demands to provide services, and not just to the sprawling communities, but to the whole municipality. Public transportation, health care, homelessness services are all underfunded in the US.

The more significant and deep seated compulsion for continuing unsustainable urban sprawl policies is class based. It is part of a larger program to quell the 'levelling tendencies' of the lower classes by 'making the pie larger,' or as George W. Bush put it, making "the pie higher." The idea is to keep the public satisfied and complacent by giving them an ever larger slice of pie by making the whole pie larger, but without changing the grossly disproportionate sizes of each slice of the pie.

With respect to urban sprawl, just imagine if every municipality in the US drew a line around their jurisdiction and said 'thus far and no more.' With the supply of cheap homes at the urban periphery drying up, rental and purchase prices for homes would increase precipitously. The higher costs would demand significant wage increases if not a complete restructuring of the home market away from free market priciples. Probably both. The ramifications of this development should be immediately clear. Higher wages equal lower profits. Its an inverse relationship. Business is sacrificing our last green spaces to keep home prices and thereby wages low to keep profit margins high. Politicians are collaborators in this effort to increase their tax revenues for public expenditures that interest and benefit themselves. No doubt, they also seek to avoid a fundamental restructuring of society since the current distrubution of wealth and power is what has delivered them into public office with all of its privileges.

Fair Trade for a Greater Orlando Coalition Announces World Fair Trade

Fair Trade for a Greater Orlando Coalition (FTGOC) will be presentingthe second annual World Fair Trade Day in Orlando on May 12, 2007.The theme of this year's celebration is "Take the Initiative". Theevent will feature fair trade and local vendors, local musicians, anda renewed advocacy campaign by FTGOC organizers. Music performancesand informational presentations will begin at noon on Saturday.FTGOC is working to build public support for fair trade purchasingpolicies for the cities and campuses in the greater Orlando area.The event will be hosted by Dandelion Communitea Café at 618 ThortonAve. from noon – to sunset in downtown's Thorton Park neighborhood.Take the Initiative: turn out to support Fair Trade at the SecondAnnual World Fair Trade Day in Orlando.FTGOC is a broad based community coalition united in support of FairTrade.For more information visit www.ftgoc.org.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairTradeOrlando/

US-Iran Crisis Wrong Direction for UN and Non-Proliferation

The US is laying the groundwork for war with Iran (with ample assistance from The New York Times once again) by making two completely unsubstantiated claims. The first is ironic to the point of laughter and warrants little consideration. That claim is that Iran is supporting militants by supplying weaponry. The announcement was made in a press briefing where the reporters were only allowed in if they agreed to leave all recording devices outside the room and not to name any of the sources. I trust I don't need to explain the irony of criticizing Iran for meddling in Iraq's internal affairs. The claim is stupid since Iraq already has a Shia dominated government that Iran is close to. Why would Iran want to stir things up? Coincidentally, Iran has accused the US of supporting anti-government militants in Iran. The militants happen to live in the oil producing areas of Iran.

The second claim the US is making while offering no evidence is that Iran is working to build nuclear weapons. The US is using this claim to compel the UN to impose economic sanctions on Iran and is using it to lay the groundwork for a new war. A few basic questions immediately come to mind when considering how to act with respect to the US claims. First; has Iran violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? Signatories to the treaty such as Iran are obliged to refrain from developing nuclear weapons. The treaty specifically authorizes the development of nuclear energy technology. Iran has announced that it has enriched uranium to 3.5%, enough for nuclear energy but not the 90% needed for nuclear weapons. The IAEA states there is no evidence Iran has a nuclear weapons program. They are still looking. A second question that comes to mind, which is absolutely out of the bounds of what can be published in a corporate newspaper, is; has the US violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? The treaty obliges states that already have nuclear weapons to do two things. The first, to refrain from disseminating technology which may lead to more nuclear weapons in other states. The US just signed a nuclear technology deal with India, a state that has not singed on to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The second obligation, to reduce existing stockpiles of nuclear weapons. The Bush administration has made several announcements about intentions to fund the development of a new generation of "mini-nukes,"usable nukes," and "bunker busting nukes."

The fact that the US would make false claims such as those that preceded the Iraq war and ignore its own treaty violations is not surprising. As the famous journalist I.F. Stone stated, "all governments lie." The disturbing part is that the US is being helped along by the United Nations. Both the UN Security Council and the Atomic Energy Institute are participating in the diplomatic campaign against Iran which even mainstream commentators are saying looks like a buildup to a war on Iran. The IAEA has set a deadline of February 21 for the cessation of all nuclear enrichment in Iran despite the fact that the only evidence of nuclear enrichment in Iran is quite within legal bounds for energy production. Given the fatwa issued by Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, it seems most likely that Iran seeks Japan's "paranuclear" status. That is, they acquire the materials and technology to build nuclear weapons, but stop there. This would provide an elevated level of deterrence from US invasion.

That the IAEA would be concerned with Iran's growing nuclear capabilities is worthy outside of context. In context, specifically in juxtaposition to the US's existing and proposed nuclear arsenals, the IAEA's concerns are silly. The US doesn't just have more nuclear weapons than anyone else, but they and Russia maintain their stockpiles ready to fire with only minutes notice. Worse than silly, the UN and IAEA's concerns place the UN in the role of servant to US ambitions. The most serious nuclear proliferation problem in the world isn't the US or Russian government's nuclear stockpiles. It's not the proliferation that the US has just signed a deal to participate in with India despite the tense relations with Pakistan. States operate fairly rationally. They have wealth, power, and territory at risk. The "loose nukes" of the former Soviet Union, however, could end up in the hands of state or non-state actors. Crazed terrorists, unlike states, have only their own lives to risk and do so readily. For the right price, the wrong people could acquire these loose nukes to disasterous effect.