#Global Economic Action Institute

[whatisonthemoon]

Howard Wiarda on the Moonie-Organized “Global Economic Action Institute” (GEAI)

Howard J. Wiarda was an academic, associated with both Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

In the mid-1980s, I contracted with the Global Economic Action Institute (GEAI) to edit a book on development successes and democracy in the Third World. The main case studies were Costa Rica, Hungary, Ivory Coast, and Malaysia, so the project required me to acquire expertise on three countries that I didn't know well (Hungary, Ivory Coast, and Malaysia; Costa Rica I already knew well) — countries whose development I have followed closely over the years. I was not a completely independent actor in doing this small book: GEAI had given me a partially completed manuscript drafted by some of its own personnel and advisers that had a strongly pro-democracy, pro-free market slant. The draft was way too strident and conservative for me, but I could certainly support a moderate democracy/free market position. My assignment from GEAI was to take this draft, rewrite it, and convert it into prose that academics, think tankers, and policy experts could support. A handsome honorarium was involved.

So, I took the draft, started from word one to rewrite, toned down the more ideological language of the original manuscript, and introduced a tone into the report that was social-scientific and academic. The report forced me to do considerable new research; it also got me thinking seriously not just about analyzing development in the Third World but, for the first time in a policy sense, how to achieve development. Some twenty years later, I would return to these themes in my own, single-authored book on the developing nations where the main subject was what works in development and what doesn't.

I was about halfway through the project before I came to realize that GEAI was a front for the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. This was a "Moonie" project, and I was working for the "Moonie Church." I hadn't realized this before since all the officials I'd dealt with at GEAI, as well as the individuals who'd done the first draft, were all Americans. What to do? Rev. Moon, he of the karate chop delivery, the mass marriages (in the thousands in a football stadium) of his followers, and some truly bizarre religious and political beliefs, was not my favorite fellow. I didn't want to sell out my academic reputation; on the other hand, the money was good, and I had been assured of complete academic freedom. So, I finished the project. It turned out to be a respectable monograph and was published by GEAI, even though, fearing for my reputation from being associated with the Moonies, I asked that my name not be listed as the author on the front cover.

In the course of doing this project, I got invited to several Moonie events in the Washington area. One was a large, annual Moonie reception for all its friends and hangers-on at the luxurious Marriott Hotel in downtown Washington. Iêda and I were amazed to find over 2,000 people present, the cream of Washington society and politics. We were also invited to other Washington Institute (another front for the Unification Church) sponsored seminars and policy forums; there I was surprised to find such luminaries as intellectual Richard Rubenstein, former Kissinger aide Hal Sonnenfeldt, philosopher and editor Morton Kaplan, and political boy wonder, then head of the Republican Young Americans for Freedom, Ralph Reed. All of these were friends or acquaintances of mine from Washington policy circles; I was as surprised to find them at a Moonie event as they were to find me. Rev. Moon had certainly bought himself access and influence in Washington; I assumed that, like me, they were all on the Unification Church payroll.

Related

Fishing for Respectability - on the Unification Church’s “Global Economic Action Institute”

C-Span videos of Global Economic Action Institute conferences and panels - one of these videos ("Foreign Trade and Domestic Subsidy Policy") features Most Durst

Moon on why he founded the Global Economic Action Institute:

I founded the Global Economic Action Institute to help distribute and re-invest inactive, or "sleeping" money to make it work for the world. A world-level bank is necessary to go beyond the boundaries of any one nation. This bank will not lend to individuals, but only to nations. The world is coming into unity, which means that independent governments will merge into one to be more operable on a global scale. Only global thinking and institutions can solve the world's economic problems.

The Imperial Ghost in the Neoliberal Machine (Figuring the CIA)

Emperor of the Universe video.                                       

[reality-detective]

Patriots in the Netherlands are walking the streets dropping flyers at the homes of citizens in hopes of awakening the people. According to Rem64 it is having great success. He sent me the flyer and I translated it to English so everyone can read it. 👇

Message to the population The information below is distributed worldwide by hundreds of scientific, legal and political organizations to inform humanity. Evidence for the stated facts can be found in the detailed evidence reports on StopWorldControl.com

The World Economic Forum wants to shape your life The world's richest come together at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The founder of the WEF, Klaus Schwab, is known for statements such as: We determine the future and We infiltrate governments. The WEF trains Young Global Leaders who are positioned in governments around the world. French President Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau and German Chancellor Merkel are Young Global Leaders of the WEF. The Netherlands and Belgium also work closely with the WEF and serve their agenda. Part of this agenda is to replace privacy with transparency. They want every detail of your life to be known soon: what you do, who you meet with, what you eat, what you buy... The WEF announces that new technologies will record everyone's thoughts, feelings and dreams in the cloud , where governments have access to this intimate data. To combat climate change, the WEF wants to abolish all private property. You will have to rent everything: houses, cars, work tools, etc. The WEF calls for blocking sunlight by massively releasing chemicals into the air. The WEF encourages the normalization of pedophilia, while the UN and WHO instruct all schools to teach sexual techniques to small children in kindergarten, so that they start having sex as young as possible, with people of any age or gender. As absurd as these plans sound, they are promoted by the WEF, the UN, the EU, the WHO and companies such as. Google and Facebook. They are part of the sustainability goals of Agenda 2030, which are supported by governments worldwide. All evidence of this can be found on StopWorldControl.com

The World Health Organization wants to rule the world The World Health Organization is being legally restructured as an effective global dictatorship, able to impose binding mandates on all countries whenever they declare a pandemic. However, the WHO is a private organization that operates outside any democratic process. One of the WHO's main backers is Bill Gates, who has no medical training whatsoever, yet is promoted as the medical authority around the world. As the world's largest vaccine dealer, his health advice is to inject everyone all the time, making him billions of dollars. WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus also has no medical training. Yet Gates and Tedros dictate to all the millions of medical experts worldwide what they can and cannot do. Article 18 of the proposed Pandemic Treaty allows the WHO to shut down any source of information that does not align with what they want all of humanity to believe. This means censoring millions of experts in every field. Only what the WHO and Bill Gates say should be heard. Do you want undemocratic organizations to become dictators over your life and over all humanity? Do you want all objective scientific and medical information to be hidden so that you only hear what a single private institution wants you to believe? Do you want to be forced to receive dangerous injections for the rest of your life, without being informed about the risks? If you do not agree with this course of action, we invite you to inform yourself carefully at StopWorldControl.com

The news is determined by investors Many people do not know that all major news agencies are owned by a small group of investors, who determine what can be said in the news. In addition, billionaires such as Bill Gates and George Soros donate hundreds of millions of euros to news organizations around the world, to determine what they broadcast Udo Ulfkotte, an editor at one of the largest newspapers in the world, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung which is published in 148 countries well-known I have been a journalist for 25 years and I have been trained to lie, betray and never tell the public the truth, journalists) are being bribed worldwide by the CIA, billionaires and governments to manipulate the public The world's best-known political commentator, Tucker Carlson, she The news you consume is a lie of the most insidious kind CNN technical director Charlie Chester said: There is no such thing as objective news. All newsreaders are told what to say. He admitted that CNN deliberately creates fear to manipulate their viewers, whether it is about a pandemic or climate change. Texts from Matt Hancock, British Health Secretary, read: We are making everyone scared? The World Economic Forum, the World Health Organization, the United Nations and the European Union, which are owned by the same financial entities that control the news, are calling on governments worldwide to censor any information that does not follow their narrative. Any investigation that exposes their criminal operations should be labeled conspiracy theory or disinformation.

Vital information is hidden Thousands of scientists, doctors and medical organizations are sounding the alarm as millions of people have died and hundreds of millions of people have been disabled after being injected with the experimental vaccines for COVID-19. Data from the US CDC shows that in the US alone, one and a half million people suffered from side effects including death, stroke, heart failure, brain disorders, convulsions, life-threatening allergic reactions, autoimmune diseases, arthritis, miscarriage, infertility, rapid onset muscle weakness, deafness, blindness, etc. Worldwide there is an explosion of turbo cancer and sudden death. Harvard Pilgrim Health Care's famous Lazarus report revealed that overall, only 19% of vaccine side effects are reported. According to this study, the number of adverse events and deaths must be multiplied by a factor of 100 to understand the true prevalence of serious vaccine injuries. COVID-19 has a 99.7% survival rate, comparable to the seasonal flu, and there are many effective medications, such as hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, budesonide, chlorine dioxide and many more. These have hardly any side effects, are completely safe and available everywhere in the world. This means that no vaccine is needed. However, the WHO instructed governments worldwide to ban these drugs for the treatment of corona and to censor any doctor who spoke about it, that vaccines are the only answer.

What's going on in the world? Why are governments controlled by private institutions like the WEF and WHO? Why is vital information hidden? These are not conspiracy theories as claimed, but facts that can be verified on the international website StopWorldControl.com. We work with world leaders in the fields of law, science, medical care, journalism and politics. Our network consists of more than 100 organizations that jointly inform humanity. They include Nobel laureates, presidents and presidential candidates, former generals of the US army, organizations of police officers and investigators, as well as top officials of the United Nations, the World Health Organization and the European Union. We encourage every right-thinking person to inform themselves carefully Visit the website StopWorldControl.com Pass this flyer on to others.

Stand Strong! Stand United! Be Prepared!

✨ 🛡️ 🇳🇱 WWG1WGA 🇺🇸 ⚔️ ✨

[kattvez]

Heil Trump! 100 years on repeat.

This might make you pause and think, "No way—that could NEVER happen again!" But let’s look more closely, because the similarities are alarmingly real. Germany didn’t turn into Nazi Germany overnight; it was a slow descent, almost imperceptible at first. You may have heard the analogy of a frog in a pot of water, where the temperature rises so gradually that the frog doesn’t realize it’s being boiled alive until it’s too late. That’s what happened in Nazi Germany—and it’s what we risk today in the United States if we don’t pay attention to the warning signs.

In the early 1930s, many Germans, including Jewish citizens, dismissed Hitler as a passing phenomenon. They thought he was just a fringe figure—a "spook" who would fade away. They believed his extremist views wouldn’t gain traction. But Hitler’s appeal grew as he presented himself as a charismatic leader promising to restore Germany’s glory. His message was simple: make Germany great again. Sound familiar?

With the world reeling from the Great Depression, Hitler gained widespread support through his protectionist economic policies, offering a vision of economic relief and national revival. Many Germans, desperate for stability, ignored the darker, insidious rhetoric that came with his promises. Today, millions of Americans, feeling left behind by globalization and the rise of the tech economy, similarly turn to promises of economic revival and national pride. Like in 1930s Germany, the allure of quick fixes to complex problems can make people overlook the dangerous ideologies lurking beneath the surface.

One of Hitler’s key strategies was to undermine core democratic institutions, eroding public trust in Germany’s legal and political framework. We’re seeing echoes of this in Donald Trump’s actions. As both a candidate and a former president, Trump has repeatedly undermined the credibility of institutions when they don’t align with his interests—the courts, the electoral process, even the certification of an election. His rhetoric suggests that any institution not serving his goals is suspect, creating a divide in the public’s trust in these democratic systems.

A hallmark of Trump’s approach has been his relentless attack on the media, branding it as “fake news” whenever it criticizes him or his policies. The Nazis used a similar tactic, calling independent journalists the “Lügenpresse,” or "lying press." In both cases, this tactic seeks to sow doubt about any information that challenges the leader’s narrative. By discrediting the media, both Hitler and Trump attempt to shape reality to fit their own agendas, isolating their followers from independent sources of truth.

Scapegoating minorities has also been a disturbing common thread. Hitler blamed Jewish people for Germany's economic problems, stirring up public resentment against them as the "internal enemies" of the nation. Trump has similarly focused on specific groups, notably undocumented immigrants, portraying them as the root of America's economic and social issues. He has created a crisis around illegal immigration, expanding the role of ICE to target this group, often painting them as threats to safety, jobs, and stability. Today, similar tactics are being used against transgender individuals, who represent a tiny fraction of the population but have become a focal point of political and social resentment. Trump's rhetoric fuels these hostilities, using marginalized communities as scapegoats to rally support and divert attention from more complex issues.

Furthermore, Hitler relied on affiliated militias like the SA and SS to intimidate opponents and enforce Nazi ideology. Trump, while not formally organizing militias, has encouraged self-recruiting groups and militias, famously asking them to “stand by” during moments of tension, as seen during the January 6th Capitol riot. His cozy relationships with authoritarian leaders, like Putin, echo the alliances between Hitler and Mussolini, reinforcing the dangerous allure of authoritarianism.

The situation today may even be more dangerous because of technology. In the past, hateful rhetoric and propaganda required physical presence at rallies or the reading of pamphlets. Now, hateful content—whether anti-Semitic, anti-trans, or racist—finds its way to people’s screens, reaching millions in an instant. Algorithms amplify divisive content, pushing more extreme narratives into the mainstream, often without individuals even seeking it out.

It’s easy to believe that “it could never happen here,” but history shows that democracy is fragile, and small shifts in public sentiment, unchecked power, and targeted scapegoating can lead to devastating consequences. The parallels between Germany’s descent into Nazism and aspects of today’s political culture are a reminder of the importance of vigilance, empathy, and a commitment to protecting democratic values before it’s too late.

[therainbowwarrior4]

Project 2025 is a plan to, in the words of project Director Paul Dans, "...march into office and bring a new army of aligned, trained, and essentially weaponized conservatives ready to do battle against the Deep State".It is organized by the Heritage Foundation, to "muzzle woke propaganda at every level of government", "gut the administrative state" (HUD, FEMA, DOJ, DHS, the Federal Reserve, CDC, FDA, EPA, etc.) and concentrate power into the hands of the President (Leeja Miller, in a video that is linked below, goes into detail on how this would work).Their claim is that "Only through the implementation of specific action plans at each agency will the next conservative presidential Administration be successful".The plan includes a [180 Day Playbook](https://www.project2025.org/playbook/), described as "...a comprehensive, concrete transition plan for each federal agency."

The plan is "the conservative movement's unified effort to be ready for the next conservative administration to govern at 12:00 noon, January 20, 2025".Project 2025 promises to "rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left" and to "unite the conservative movement and the American people against elite rule and woke culture warriors".Project 2025 lists problems with America such as:* The breakdown of the family* Immigration* The "totalitarian cult known today as The Great Awokening"* The erosion of constitutional accountability in Washington* Children suffering the "toxic normalization of transgenderism with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries"* An "overseas, totalitarian Communist dictatorship" that is "not a strategic partner or fair competitor" and is "engaged in a strategic, cultural and economic Cold War against America's interests, values and people"* "Low-income communities" that are "drowning in addiction and government dependence"* "America's elites have betrayed the American People"* The left using climate change "to scare the American public into accepting their ineffective, liberty crushing regulations"They believe that "These are problems not of technocratic efficiency, but of national sovereignty and constitutional governance. We solve them not by trimming and reshaping the leaves, but by ripping out the trees -- root and branch."

Their broad goals are to:1. Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life, and protect our children2. Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people3. Defend our nation's sovereignty, borders and bounty against global threats4. Secure our God-given individual rights to live freely - what our constitution calls "the Blessings of Liberty"Dans states that "The long march of Cultural Marxism through our institutions has come to pass. The federal government is a behemoth, weaponized against American citizens and conservative values, with freedom and liberty under siege as never before".Project 2025 is, in my words, a distinctly terrifying and highly detailed roadmap for:* Installing a Chriso-fascist oligarchy* Rolling back civil and human rights* Removing bodily autonomy from women and transgender individuals* The systematic eradication of minorities and other vulnerable groupsI don't use the words "systematic eradication" lightly or with hyperbole.

They obviously don't come right out and say it, but they state that:* Pornography should be outlawed* The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned* Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders* Telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shutteredThe real problem with the above, apart from the obvious, is that they label the existence of LGBTQIA+ people as "inherently pornographic". They say that pornography is “manifested today through the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology".They say that the fix "starts with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity ('SOGI'), diversity, equity and inclusion ('DEI'), gender, gender equality, gender awareness, gender sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists".They also state that "The president should direct agencies to rescind regulations interpreting sex discrimination provisions as prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, sex characteristics, etc."

They want to "maintain a biblically based, social science-reinforced definition of marriage and family" which would remove protections for same-sex marriage.Leeja Miller helpfully points out that the above language does not simply include transgender individuals, it includes cis women as well. I'd argue that removing the DEI language also allows them to target anyone that isn't a white, cis, heterosexual, evangelical (or other approved flavor of Christianity) male.Some other points of note:* They want to eliminate the Department of Education* They want to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory* They want to bring back the practice of impounding funds

**References*** A direct link to a PDF copy of the project's Policy Agenda, aka their "Mandate for Leadership": [https://thf\_media.s3.amazonaws.com/project2025/2025\_MandateForLeadership\_FULL.pdf](https://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf), this can be found on the Policy page of the Project 2025 website.* A video from Leeja Miller: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k3UvaC5m7o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k3UvaC5m7o)* An NPR article focusing on the climate policy aspect: [https://www.npr.org/2023/08/08/1192634090/if-republicans-win-the-white-house-in-2024-climate-policy-will-likely-change](https://www.npr.org/2023/08/08/1192634090/if-republicans-win-the-white-house-in-2024-climate-policy-will-likely-change)* A UC Berkeley write up: [https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2023/11/17/project-2025-democratic-doomsday/](https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2023/11/17/project-2025-democratic-doomsday/)* An article from the NECC Observer: [http://observer.necc.mass.edu/blog/2023/11/20/the-danger-of-project-2025/](http://observer.necc.mass.edu/blog/2023/11/20/the-danger-of-project-2025/)* An article from PBS: [https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/conservatives-aim-to-restructure-u-s-government-and-replace-it-with-trumps-vision](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/conservatives-aim-to-restructure-u-s-government-and-replace-it-with-trumps-vision)

[gothhabiba]

As noted in post-colonial and gender studies, there has long been a pattern of homogenizing and victimizing discourses, particularly in international agencies and NGO’s, that highlight the need of Western nations to intervene on behalf of “third-world women” and “save” them (Spivak 1988; Wood 2001). Robinson-Pant [notes] that it is common for women’s literacy programs, in particular, to become the gateway for other development interventions such as family planning or child nutrition. Collins and Blot note that literacy projects are not power neutral and argue that,

the interconnectedness of literacy, power and identity formation are unavoidable in thinking about relationships between colonizers and colonized. Colonized discourses often emphasize the “inherent” goodness of bringing education, enlightenment and civilization to formerly savage peoples – literacy becomes a legitimizing narrative for other colonial projects (2003:21)

Such positions were evident in U.S. government discourses about literacy and development during the time the Passerelle program was being developed [in Morocco]. This can be seen for example, in a speech made in 2006 by Dr. Paula Dobriansky, the former U.S. Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs, in which she advocated for better education for adult women in developing contexts. In her speech, Dobriansky argued that women and girls should be viewed as “untapped resources” and “vital sources of human capital” for future economic and social growth (Dobriansky 2006).

Thus, in addition to gender, of central importance to understanding the power structures and ideologies underpinning USAID’s Passerelle methodology[] is a consideration of how discourses about literacy often link it up to notions of social and economic development. Collins and Blot (2003) identify these discourses as forming the “Literacy Thesis” [...]. They explain that,

the central claims of the [literacy] thesis are that writing is a technology that transforms human thinking, relations to language, and representations of tradition, a technology that also enables a coordination of social action in unprecedented precision and scale, thus enabling the development of unique social and institutional complexity (Collins and Blot 2003:17)

Numerous critiques of the literacy thesis [...] have since questioned whether literacy can in fact be viewed as a universal, unitary skill that is determinate of social realities or if it is rather embedded in and shaped by the particular, historically contingent cultural contexts in which multiple literacies can occur. [...] Despite [...] challenges to the literacy thesis, its pervasiveness in academic literature, development agendas and the pedagogy of local literacy programs in Morocco is striking.

Given the 2004 Free Trade agreement between the U.S. and Morocco, the emphasis on relationships between literacy and economic forces by U.S. officials, such as [...] Dobriansky, is not unexpected. Prendergast (2003) for example, has argued that since literacy is usually acquired in relation to institutions, it is necessary to consider what other functions these institutions serve. A significant portion of American financial and pedagogical support for adult literacy education in Morocco is funneled through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), as illustrated by the Passerelle program. Among USAID’s “strategic objectives and goals” in 2006, was the goal of “Democracy and Economic Freedom in the Muslim World,” a plan, which “[confronts] the intersection of traditional and transnational challenges… [combining]… diplomatic skills and development assistance to act boldly to foster a more democratic and prosperous world integrated into the global economy.” Thus, any literacy promotion by USAID in Morocco should be considered in light of its broader mission statements and how increased literacy in Morocco is being imagined to align advantageously with them. USAID’s role and interest in promoting literacy in Morocco, can also viewed as a form of literacy sponsorship (Brandt 2001). Brandt explains that sponsors of literacy should be understood as “any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach, and model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold, literacy – and gain advantage by it in some way” (19). [...] Furthermore, Brant notes that, “in whatever form, sponsors deliver the ideological freight that must be borne for access to what they have” (20). In addition to transmitting ideological freight, perhaps indirectly, regarding language varieties and scripts, USAID also explicitly imposes ideological frameworks regarding notions of gender roles and human rights through the inclusion of Moudawana [Moroccan Family Legal Code] content in the Passerelle classroom.

— Jennifer Lee Hall, Debating Darija: Language Ideology and the Written Representation of Moroccan Arabic in Morocco (PhD dissertation), 2015, pp. 76-9.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from EcoWatch:

A new report has found that climate lawsuits being filed against companies are on the rise all over the world, and most of them have been successful.

The report by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) — Global trends in climate change litigation: 2024 snapshot — said that roughly 230 climate cases have been brought against trade associations and corporations since 2015, more than two-thirds of which have been filed since 2020.

“Climate litigation… has become an undeniably significant trend in how stakeholders are seeking to advance climate action and accountability,” said Andy Raine, the United Nations Environment Programme’s deputy director of law division, as The Guardian reported.

One of the fastest growing types of litigation concerns “climate washing.” According to the report, 47 of these lawsuits were filed against governments and companies last year.

The report stated that there had been “more than 140 such cases filed to date on climate washing, making this one of the most rapidly expanding areas of litigation,” a press release from LSE said.

Of the almost 140 climate-washing cases between 2016 and 2023, 77 had reached official decisions, with 54 being found in favor of the claimant.

Most climate cases that have been filed in the past have been against governments. In the United States, 15 percent of climate cases filed in 2023 were against companies, while 40 percent of cases in the rest of the world involved companies.

In 2023, more than 30 “polluter pays” lawsuits filed worldwide sought to hold corporations accountable for climate harms allegedly stemming from their production of greenhouse gas emissions.

Six “turning off the taps” lawsuits challenging the funding of activities and projects not in line with climate action were identified in the report.

The report’s analysis was based on more than 2,600 climate cases compiled by Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change. Approximately 70 percent of these lawsuits have been filed since the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015, with 233 having been filed in 2023.

Climate lawsuits have been brought in 55 total countries, with cases having been filed in Portugal and Panama for the first time.

The authors of the study confirmed that climate litigation has been increasing in the Global South, noting that “over 200 climate cases from these countries are recorded in the Global database, comprising around 8% of all cases.”

The U.S. had the most climate litigation cases filed last year with 129. The United Kingdom had the second highest number with 24, followed by Brazil with 10, Germany with seven and Australia with six.

The U.S. also had the most documented climate cases with a total of 1,745. Australia has had 132 overall, with just six filed in 2023.

[zvaigzdelasas]

Joe Biden campaigned in 2020 on the promise of new ideas, more competence, and a “return to normality.” But when it comes to economic sanctions, President Biden has chosen instead to maintain the path that his predecessor set. From Venezuela to Cuba to Iran, the Biden administration’s approach to sanctions has remained remarkably similar to Trump’s. On the campaign trail, candidate Biden promised to rejoin the Iran deal and to “promptly reverse the failed Trump policies that have inflicted harm on the Cuban people and done nothing to advance democracy and human rights.” Yet two and a half years after taking office, the Biden administration has made little progress towards fulfilling these promises. While economic sanctions may not seem important to the average American, they have strong implications for the global economy and America’s national interests. President Biden initially showed promise by requesting that the Treasury Department conduct a swift review of U.S. sanctions policies. However, the review’s publication in October 2021 was underwhelming. It produced recommendations such as adopting “a structured policy framework that links sanctions to a clear policy objective,” and “ensuring sanctions are easily understood, enforceable, and, where possible, reversible.” If the U.S. was not already undertaking these measures, it is fair to ask what exactly was taken into consideration when prior sanctions were implemented. The failure to reenter the Iran deal is the most egregious error of Biden’s sanctions policies. Apart from harming American credibility and acting as a strong deterrent to any future countries looking to enter diplomatic agreements with the U.S., Trump’s “maximum pressure” strategy has been a complete failure. As the United States Institute of Peace notes, Iran’s “breakout time” —the time required to enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb — stood at around 12 months in 2016. As of today, Iran’s breakout time stands at less than a week. It did not have to be this way. Although Iran violated segments of the JCPOA after American withdrawal, it never left the deal completely, signaling potential for a reconciliation. Yet the Biden administration declined to lift sanctions initially. As Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, told CNN in early 2021, “It was the United States that left the deal. It was the United States that violated the deal.”[...]

Biden has shown similar hesitancy on Cuba. Although the administration has taken certain steps to undo Trump’s hardline stance, there remains much room for progress. Six decades of maximum pressure on Cuba have failed completely, serving primarily to harm Cuban civilians and exacerbate tensions with allies who wish to do business with Cuba. The U.S. embargo of Cuba is incredibly unpopular worldwide. A U.N. General Assembly Resolution in support of ending the embargo received 185 votes in support, with only two against — the U.S. and Israel. Steps such as reopening the American embassy in Havana and removing restrictions on remittances are positive developments, yet the Biden administration could do much more. Primary among these are removing Cuba from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list and ending the embargo once and for all. This would not only improve daily life for Cuban civilians, but increase business opportunities for Cubans and Americans alike. Trump also attempted his maximum pressure strategy with Venezuela, but failed to achieve anything resembling progress. In one of his final actions in office, he levied even more sanctions on Venezuela, further isolating one of the region’s largest oil producers. Venezuela is another country where the Biden administration has taken mere half-measures. Easing some sanctions in late 2022 is a positive sign, but there is no serious justification for keeping any of the Trump-era sanctions in place. All of these actions have had major consequences, not only for the citizens of the sanctioned countries, but also for Americans. As oil prices spiked following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the fact that Iran and Venezuela, two of the world’s largest oil producers, were unable to sell on the U.S. market no doubt led to higher gas prices for American consumers. And the millions of Americans with family in sanctioned countries face serious difficulties in visiting and sending remittances to their family members. Despite these measures, none of these countries are considered serious threats to the U.S. In a March 2023 Quinnipiac poll, Americans rightly ignored Iran, Venezuela and Cuba when asked which country “poses the biggest threat to the United States.” Just two percent chose Iran as the biggest threat, with zero choosing Cuba or Venezuela.

These sanctions are unpopular, ineffective and quite often counterproductive to American interests. While changing the course of U.S. foreign policy can take quite some time, the dangers of hesitancy are quite clear. Rather than maintaining the Trump status quo on sanctions, which saw record increases, President Biden should fulfill his campaign promises and end the ineffective and costly sanctions on countries such as Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela, and return to the use of diplomacy to further American national interests.

You know things are bad when The Hill is coming after you as a democrat (note the lack of mention about sanctions on China or DPRK)

22 Jun 23

[mariacallous]

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’s selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate was met with enthusiasm from Democrats across the party, including from the party’s left wing. A big part of this is Walz’s solidly pro-labor governing record and his appeal to working-class voters, which was on display on Wednesday when he spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Although his championing of working Americans’ jobs, pay, and rights has obvious and important domestic appeal, it also has a potentially significant implication for foreign policy under a Harris-Walz administration.

One of the Biden administration’s most important projects, sometimes summarized as “post-neoliberalism,” has been the move away from unfettered so-called free trade—the pro-corporate theology that dominated the past few decades of economic policymaking. The government is now fully back in the business of investing in U.S. workers and communities. (A 2023 report tracking this progress was published by the Roosevelt Institute, a think tank helping to drive this transformation.)

As vice president, Harris has played a key role in this pivotal project, and selecting one of the  most pro-worker governors in the country as a running mate signals that she is all-in on this shift. This is great news, because not only is this post-neoliberal, pro-worker agenda likely where the election will be won, but it is also central to the larger goal of defending global democracy.

Conservatives have noticed. “By picking Tim Walz as her running mate, Harris has gone a long way toward bolstering her left-populist flank and neutralizing [Republican vice presidential candidate J.D.] Vance’s potential appeal,” wrote Sohrab Ahmari, the founder and editor of the conservative nationalist magazine Compact and a leading voice of the populist new right, when the pick was announced. “Walz can’t be framed as a neoliberal Democrat in the Clinton-Obama mold.”

Vance’s own speech at the Republican National Convention in July was billed as foreign policy-focused, but it was really all about how U.S. elites had failed the country’s struggling workers. Playing up his family roots in a small Ohio town—“a place that had been cast aside and forgotten by America’s ruling class in Washington”—Vance attacked U.S. President Joe Biden for his past support of the North American Free Trade Agreement, for China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, and for “the disastrous invasion of Iraq.”

“At each step of the way, in small towns like mine in Ohio, or next door in Pennsylvania or Michigan, in other states across our country, jobs were sent overseas, and our children were sent to war,” Vance said. While larded over with common right-wing tropes and xenophobic invective, the speech sounded like a road map for how the Republican Party intends to capture the working class.

In its own way, Vance’s speech was a darker, divisive version of a more affirmative and unifying  address that U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan gave in April 2023, which laid out the Biden administration’s global economic agenda. Confronting the flawed assumptions that dominated U.S. statecraft in the past 40 years—“that markets always allocate capital productively and efficiently”—Sullivan rejected the philosophy that “championed tax cutting and deregulation, privatization over public action, and trade liberalization as an end in itself.”

Like Vance a year later, Sullivan acknowledged that elites had failed working people in the United States. He said that not only had an economic integration approach failed as a geopolitical strategy—not stopping China from military expansion or deterring Russia from invading its neighbors—but it also radically increased economic and political inequality, both globally and domestically. The speech marked an important step forward in Washington’s thinking.

However, much less noticed was a speech that Sullivan gave a week later at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which showed how the Biden administration still had one foot in the previous era. In that speech, Sullivan laid out the administration’s plan to maintain U.S. hegemony in the Middle East by buttressing relationships with various repressive, undemocratic regimes and stitching together an alliance intended both to contain Iran and box China out of the region.

I noted to administration colleagues at the time that the second speech was a formula for squandering the opportunities of the first. While the Biden administration had discarded some of the flawed foreign-policy assumptions of the past, it continued to hold fast to the idea that Washington can purchase security and prosperity for U.S. workers by exporting insecurity and repression to others, whether in the Middle East, China, or anywhere else. The past 10 months of catastrophic war in Gaza should have discredited that notion, if it wasn’t already.

The United States can build a more equitable global order, or it can frantically try to maintain global primacy, but it can’t do both. The Harris-Walz team has an important task and a big opportunity to diminish this contradiction and complete this transformation. Just as the neoliberal era proved that giving carte blanche to big corporations—whether they’re car companies or weapons manufacturers—is not a means for achieving broad economic progress or security, the past 20 years of the “war on terror” showed that a heavily militarized foreign policy feeds global insecurity and shreds the fabric of international norms.

As outlined by Trump and Vance, the Republican vision is essentially zero-sum: The United States and its workers only win by others losing, and vice versa. The Harris-Walz team can offer a vision of contrasting solidarity, which doesn’t seek to build political consensus by vilifying the foreign enemy of the moment but rather seeks ways to uplifts workers and their communities in every country.

The U.S. public needs to hear more about how diplomacy and cooperation—including with China, can provide other benefits for Americans, as evidenced recently when China imposed new controls on fentanyl precursor chemicals—and about how the issue of irregular migration, which has been a driving force in far-right populism, can only be addressed by improving conditions and reducing violence in the home countries of those migrants—a shared struggle that the labor movement understands and embraces.

A real pro-worker foreign policy doesn’t pit the security and prosperity of Americans against workers in other countries but recognizes that our security and prosperity are bound together. We saw the outlines of that in the speech from Walz, the good neighbor and the inspiring coach, on Wednesday. That is the winning global vision that he and Harris should embrace.

[quixoticanarchy]

what is the connectography book and why is it so terrible?

Sorry this took a while to collect my thoughts! where do I start.....

tl;dr it's a paean to enlisting every corner of the earth in the global neoliberal economy so that each can maximize their natural role in the supply chain and achieve Development™. All resources feasible to extract should be extracted, "connectivity" is the most important goal and value and metric in the world, supply chains matter more than nations, globalization is an inexorable force for good, we should focus on mass infrastructure projects to speed development (including a bizarre amount of fossil fuel infrastructure projects). yes there are downsides and yes there's a climate crisis going on but don't mind that, it'll actually be quite profitable

long answer under the cut:

Connectography is a book by Parag Khanna - CNN consultant, Brookings Institute guy, former Special Ops embed, National Intelligence Council advisor etc. So off the bat he’s quite embedded (so to speak) and aligned with the US military and national security apparatus, although the focus of the book is economic. The main arguments are that the world can no longer be thought of as a discrete set of countries setting and fighting over national policies, but an interconnected “supply chain world” where systems of production, transportation, and consumption drive policy and development in and of themselves. Consequently he argues for the diminishing importance of the nation-state and an increasing importance of smaller units of power geography like cities as well as broader ones like regions. He then argues that authority will and should devolve from centralized states to smaller units, and that global conflict would diminish or disappear if we could just give every tribal group its own state or at least autonomy within a larger state. Which is..... already quite a take.

His other main contention is that investing in mass infrastructure projects (oil pipelines, trains, highways, ports) is the best way to maximize "connectivity" and speedrun modernity and urbanization and development and industrial exploitation of poor countries. Demands that everyone and everything serve the market's invisible hand have become demands to bow to the needs of supply chains - which despite being quite based in the material world, are often invoked as something of a mystical force with their own whims and desires, uncoupled from human action.

In a way, there are principles that I also hold which show up in a strange twisted mirror version here. He isn't interested in preserving the nation-state as a form - but it's bc he prioritizes transnational supply chains and rule by corporatocracy. He would like to see a more borderless world - but he's also in favor of more borders (give every ethnic group a state, but also states don't matter anymore?), which counterintuitively he says would lead to a more interconnected and frictionless world. He's pro-immigration and freedom of mobility - but elsewhere it's made clear that he's also invested in blocking undesirable "flows" across borders, and is pro-mobility of people just as long as they enhance economic productivity. He makes some cogent critiques of maps and what is obscured by treating political maps of country borders as true and absolute, for instance - but the ways in which he would re-map the world are all to reflect and further the hyperconnected hypercapitalism he applauds. He would rather see structural adjustment programs prescribe infrastructure investments than austerity - but he still supports "developing" countries being forcibly drafted into the global economy and structured according to the (politely vague and innocuous-sounding) demands of supply chains.

The cheerleading for infrastructure projects, which might be mistaken for a benevolent interest in public spending, is much less "repair bridges so they won't collapse and kill people" and much more "repair and build more and bigger bridges so that more and bigger trucks can carry more cargo across them faster". His rather unoriginal instruction to "developing" countries is to accept globalization is inevitable so it's best to get yours where you can: start by selling off your resources and turning them over to private industry, open SEZs (Special Economic Zones, aka Free Trade Zones) and let the corporations use your cheap labor until you ‘develop’ enough to move up the value chain and those industries depart for cheaper and more lawless shores. He's really into SEZs. It's the classic race to the bottom, except he does not dwell whatsoever on that bottom and its conditions, nor its necessity - someone somewhere will always have to be the cheapest, the most exploitable, the most business-friendly. Instead we get, predictably, the argument that the race to the bottom actually lifts all boats bc corporate investment through SEZs teaches backwards countries how to develop faster and better.

Nothing makes me see red like considering how the version of the future which to me is a nightmare - a fully urbanized integrated modernized hypercapitalist corporate-run world of endless growth and consumption and extraction and waste mediated by advanced technology and surveillance, all consequences be damned - is seen as good and desirable and inevitable by various political and military leaders, economists, think tanks, corporations, etc.

It's also kind of sickening how incredibly out of touch all these visions are. There is no discussion of resource scarcity or limits. There is no discussion of waste. My guy Khanna's acknowledgments of climate change are so blasé and opportunistic I would rather he were a rabid climate denier. How do you acknowledge the destabilizing and deadly effects of climate crisis and yet promote and lionize policies that ensure more of those effects? How are mass scale infrastructure projects supposed to knit people together though lasting physical and supply chain interdependence when so fucking many of them are fossil fuel infrastructure projects?? I cannot emphasize enough how much he gushes over countries and companies building ever more oil pipelines, opening up new deposits for drilling (including in the arctic), and putting aside border disputes to transport oil faster and faster to the biggest consumers.

Well, don’t worry - he’s got the climate-meltdown world all figured out. No mention of cutting emissions or keeping temperature rise down or even many mentions of "green" energy; it's still drill baby drill til we die. Most coastal cities will drown and most latitudes will become uninhabitable but it’s ok, Canada and Russia can become the breadbaskets of the world and we’ll tap all those good good arctic basin resources as the ice melts. Probably throw in some geoengineering too. Climate migrants can move north in their millions, and Canada and Russia will welcome them; really, it's convenient, bc they’re too sparsely populated up there anyway and could use some fresh blood.

There are many other ridiculous or appalling things here I could go into if this post weren't already too long - the statement that colonialism is over, inequality is inevitable and a worthy price to pay, antiglobalization activists are naïve and basically a dying breed anyway, the world has gotten so good at controlling desirable flows and preventing undesirable ones--in particular, we're soo good at controlling infectious disease these days (lol. lmao even), the discussion of Dubai and Doha as prime examples of interconnected hyperglobal cities without going into like. human trafficking, the mocking of countries that tried to choose a third way decades ago and were brutally punished, the disparaging of swana/african countries as weak and crisis-ridden (seemingly idiopathic idk. funny), the shameless extolling of the lovely resources found in war zones which sadly preclude their needful exploitation.. etc. Etc.

I hated this book and would only recommend as a know-thine-enemy exercise; I did get a fair bit out of it from that perspective, and it's worthwhile to consider the implications of the worldview that people like this espouse. But it's incredibly depressing and infuriating that the admitted endgame of all this really is to consume everything there is on this planet to squeeze out every drop of profit, and then flee to the poles when it all comes crashing down.

[dailyanarchistposts]

Introduction

If ecology is being in a mutually beneficial relationship with the land that we live on, rather than forcing the land into subservience to us, it would mean challenging our entire notion of what society is.

What would our planet look like if industrialism were not in place? Could experiments in living be the solution to the social crises facing humans and to the ecological crises engulfing practically all life-forms? Isn’t access to land a necessary condition for any self-organized, self-directed group of people? Will anarchist rebellion naturally lead to a society of free people living in conjunction with healthy habitats? If not, what sorts of natural and human relationships might arise from, and sustain, an ecologically-informed anarchist rebellion? These were the types of questions I was considering when I began writing the articles found in this book.

Digressions make conversations interesting, the adage goes, and so it was with my investigation and research. Along the way I learned that theories are most often just opinions and ideologues are imprisoned by ideas. I learned that assertions are generally less interesting than questions explored among friends. I learned that jargon is a sign of weakness, and that a manifesto yells while a romance whispers.

I have been inspired by the specific martial skills used by countless generations of people and communities resisting conquest and how those people kept martial approaches from dominating their social fabric. The essay Of Martial Traditions grew out of this interest. We need as many skills as possible to be successful and we needn’t fear that studying martial abilities leads inevitably to leftism. Martial skills can be used by individuals or by groups, as part of a push toward the acquisition of land or to attack an institution or individual. I was originally inspired by their potential for emerging communities of resistance, but discovered that these are skills that are useful generally.

I also discovered the historical existence of a band of escaped indentured servants in 18th century Newfoundland, Canada who successfully evaded authority by living in the wilderness for nearly four decades. You can read about this in The Society of Masterless Men.

Complete transformation, of our relationships with each other and with our natural environments, is both possible and urgent. The more widespread the participation in the thrust toward transformation, the quicker and more likely it will happen. Ultimately, it means overturning and dismantling the global grid of authoritarian and capitalist institutions that dominate us. If having a reciprocal relationship with a natural environment is inherently healthy because this creates habitats, which in turn sustain their living inhabitants, then a focus on occupying a land base would seem always positive. Local or regional undertakings in acquiring these bases seem the most sensible. Actions around re-appropriating land, because they undermine the state and the market’s control over our shared environment, help destroy the global institutions which prevent us from having land in the first place.

Isn’t it likely that the planetary network of authority and economics can only be defeated through multitudes of local and regional uprisings, ruptures and occupations, coalescing in an organic way? A single, overarching, world-wide movement would require complex international organizations to coordinate and manage, and this would open up the possibility and even likelihood, for new global institutions to form and dominate our lives in different ways. At the very least, the less diverse a movement, in terms of means and participants, the less diverse will be the resulting outcome, in terms of possible social relationships, should it succeed.

If we envision global revolution as the merging of countless numbers of local ruptures and rebellions, we can help prefigure this diversity by making our practice conform to our vision. ■ The essay Land and Liberty fleshes out some possible answers and approaches to questions of habitat and resistance, of the dynamic between local and global.

I looked into one of the main solutions environmentalists have been pursuing, i.e. the creation of parks and conservation areas. One of the many things I learned from this research is that the healthiest natural environments, often called wilderness areas, were not necessarily without human occupation. I share some of this research in the article On Parks. The first parks were indigenous peoples land bases. Many conservation areas are chosen because they appear pristine and untouched, but their very health, diversity and even sometimes beauty are often the result of generations of occupation by people who tended and protected and interacted with them, and this trend continues today. Hopefully this fact will help counter some of the misanthropy prevalent in certain environmentalist circles.

A while ago, many anti-authoritarians were reading and excitedly sharing a book called Temporary Autonomous Zones by Hakim Bey. This book spoke to investigations into what kinds of activities are not only worth initiating, but, given our lives within capitalist civilization, are possible to accomplish. My piece Permanent Subsistence Zones addresses those questions with a different answer, positing permanence and subsistence as the groundwork for the possibility of lives based around freedom and pleasure. While the specific actions in that article didn’t endure, it is the type of experimenting we need to engage in as part of our attempt to create ecological relationships with the places where we live.

Ponds and Oceans, a collection of simple phrases and proverbs, offers a different way of expressing some of my ideas. They are also a nod to the game of Go, an ancient board game or mental martial art widely played in most eastern countries and which uses proverbs as a teaching tool. In that collection, I use the noun federation and the verb tofederate. I do not intend these in the leftist sense of a formal organization with members, policies, a programme, etc., that seeks to take on a political or representative role. Tofederate, in my usage, means to not be afraid of collective power or will. Dismantling the institutions that prevent us from re-appropriating our lives means exploring ways in which to band together. We do this in order to more successfully protect each other from, and to take offensive actions against, those institutions, but as well to practice mutual aid and to cooperate on a larger scale than say within a group of friends or a single occupation site.

I also include a series of phrases in that piece based around the concept of withdrawal. While I question civilization, as I understand it, generally, the civilization which dominates us today is capitalist civilization. This specific civilization relies on statist and economic institutions which in turn rely heavily on technological means to maintain and advance its control. I refer often to secession and withdrawal, but I do not encourage these activities as a form of dropping out, but as a strategy for healing, for regrouping, for training, etc. Furthermore, I recognize that to simply withdraw and try to defend a place might lead to a series of losing battles, but I don’t think that this is the obvious or predictable outcome. I see withdrawal as a form of rebellion, as a way of weakening the existing order by withholding participation in it and ultimately as a way to better prepare ourselves for attacking its institutions from a place of communal strength.

Of course, not everyone can do this. I speak from my particular geographical and cultural place. I’m not trying to advance a universally applicable approach to rebellion. Where ever one finds oneself, whether it is in a prison or a city or a religious cult or a factory or whatever, one does one’s best to fight against the immediate experience of living under the civilized order. We need to attack and not just withdraw, but we also need to withdraw and not just attack. A dynamic between the two seems most promising.

As it stands now, some prioritize attack (black bloc, demos, strikes, sabotage, etc.) then disperse and disappear, which is ineffectual, while others withdraw (form communes, co-ops, community gardens, avoid wage labor, etc.) and never attack, which is equally so.

With the wisdom of hindsight, we can see that certain permutations of human organization are inherently destructive, both to our individual existences and to the environments that sustain us. These are the urban and authoritarian arrangements. The controlled existence of mass society is simply harmful and unnecessary.

There are infinite variations on how humans can organically self-organize in much healthier ways, so there is no need for blueprints or proposals to present that might detail such anarchic arrangements. However, I do allow myself to take a brief speculative stroll into the immediate future of a city following the destruction or collapse of urban society in my opening essay, An Open Offer. This might give the impression that I am arguing for transitional time periods. But this is not the case. Clearly cityscapes can be re-naturalized to some extent, but urban living itself is antithetical to anarchic ways.

Therefore, I would argue for the abandonment of cities and against the herculean efforts which would be necessary to redesign, reform and rehabilitate them. But there might be places where rehabilitation is necessary, for many reasons, and I am using this essay to point out that in these areas a transition from city to autonomous clan or village, from atomized urban dweller to free, wild being is possible.

The means of production did not have to develop from empire and conquest, through primitive accumulation to feudalism and on through to industrialism on a long painful path to utopia, a belief touted by both the lords of capitalism and the Marxist prophets of socialism. All that blood and exploitation and sacrifice have causes located in domination, not in any inevitable or desirable direction toward the positive achievements of something called “progress.” Partly because of this, you will find within my meta-narrative a great admiration for many of the cultures of land- based peoples, which I find consistently superior to urban/civilized ones. I believe that many primitive people consciously refused to allow institutions of domination to take root in their societies. This is an important difference from others who believe that because the non-civilized never had authoritarian institutions which they destroyed and dismantled, we can’t consider them examples of authentic anarchic cultures.

Urban societies are founded on constraints, on maintaining their regimes by suppressing the individual not only through laws but through the generalized fear of ungoverned individuals. But political authority and institutional bullying are inherently weak or non-existent in small-scale cultures. Therefore, free individuals have a far greater chance of surviving and thriving outside of urban (massified) existence. Or to put it another way, within small scale sets of social relationships constraints on the individual are much more difficult to establish.

Society, in the sense of that which is hostile and oppressive to the individual, has as a precondition: urban life.

Small bands of friends or even the human relationships which exist in small villages are not societies. Of course, I am talking about voluntary associations between people on a small scale. I’m aware that authoritarian cults, for instance, exist regardless of their size. I look at de-massifying our lives as important not only as a way of healing the environment through the eradication of industrialism, but because the more massified our settlements, the more human freedom is reduced.

Individual freedom thrives within a group of other free individuals, but the larger the group, the greater the depth and width of the constraints and the more impersonal the control mechanisms. Small groups of free individuals do not seem to legitimately constitute societies. One can be embedded in a group (which in turn is embedded in a place) and not experience any inherent antagonisms with the relationships that together constitute the collective. A group of people sharing agreements and practicing subsistence together does not establish a society. It is in this sense that the ungoverned, nature-loving individual is at the heart of my conception of an ecologically minded anarchism.

A group of friends who have been exploring many of the same proposals in this collection have recently begun using the expression “insurrectionary subsistence”as a way to summarize their ideas. Keep an eye out for pamphlets, magazines and essays with this headline in it if you are interested in broadening your understanding or participating in associated activities. I have been using “organically self-organized subsistence movements”, which also grew out of our discussions and actions, as an encapsulating phrase. Both of these give an idea of the direction some of us believe rebels should be going in.

It is my hope that these articles contribute some original thought, but I would be most pleased if they helped foster a new spirit.

[whatisonthemoon]

Fishing for Respectability - on the Unification Church’s “Global Economic Action Institute”

Washington City Paper Vol. 13 No. 22 | June 11-17, 1993 Fishing for Respectability by Alan Green and Larry Zilliox Jr.

The Rev. Sun Myung Moon has dominion over three separate worlds - the religious, the nonprofit, and the entrepreneurial. But in the Unification Church, worlds collide.

▲Sun Myung Moon and Rev. Yang Hur

Yamano Hana APPEARS to be no different than any other Japanese restaurant in Northern Virginia. It's in a nondescript strip mall on Leesburg Pike, halfway between Seven Corners and Baileys Crossroads. It has a sushi bar, a cocktail lounge, and a favorable mention from Washingtonian displayed out front. You can get salmon teriyaki there for $7.20, and among the chef-created specials is a crab stick and fried flower dish called the Full Moon. Lunch is served beginning at 11:30 a.m. Reservations are not required.

But if Yamano Hana is indistinguishable from other area Japanese eateries, one thing sets it apart: This restaurant is at the tail end of a vast, vertically integrated fishing operation whose components are all tied to the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. Identifying the players in this network is like trying to navigate without a compass - and that's obviously the way Moon's followers want it because they've taken great pains to obfuscate their ties to one another and, most important, to the church itself.

Dig deep enough, however, and this elaborate connect-the-dot game yields a picture with at least a few clear edges.

Annual reports and other corporate records show, for example, that Yamano Hana is owned by Hana Enterprises, a Maryland company whose officers and directors have all been affiliated with other commercial enterprises run by Unification Church members. As recently as 1990, Hana Enterprises' corporate secretary was a director of New Wave Seafood, a Beltsville wholesaler that supplies Yamano Hana with its fish. New Wave's treasurer was at one time an officer of U.S. Marine Corp., a commercial fishing company whose catch ends up at church-affiliated wholesalers. Among U.S. Marine's wholly owned subsidiaries is Master Marine, which builds the boats used by the church-aligned fishing fleets. U.S. Marine is, in turn, under the corporate auspices of One Up Enterprises, a Virginia-based holding company whose president, R. Michael Runyon, is a longtime Moon confidant and an officer of other businesses controlled by Moon's followers. Virginia state corporate records also show that Runyon's wife, another Unification Church member, is a director of Hana Enterprises.

Keep following the serpentine paper trail, and you learn that the Washington-area seafood operations are just one part of an umbrella organization that includes some 65 Japanese restaurants across the nation - including Niwano Hana, on Rockville Pike - and at least a dozen seafood wholesalers in such cities as Philadelphia, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Bayou LaBatre, Ala.

There's even the tax-exempt Ocean Church, supposedly created to give young Unification Church members the experience of spending time at sea. Not surprisingly, Ocean Church branches are based at commercial fishing businesses run by Unification Church members. One Ocean Church branch even lists its address as a Gloucester, Mass., restaurant whose owners are part of Moon's octopan fishing enterprise.

These operations - and other marine-related ventures - are collectively referred to within the Unification Church movement as the "Happy Group," which derives its name from Moon's large Japanese trading company, Happy World Inc. Not officially part of this conglomerate - but nonetheless part of Moon's business network - is the Happy Mind Shop at Home Service, a catalog company in the 3500 block of V Street NE that sells everything from hardware and over-the-counter drugs to produce and, not surprisingly, fresh seafood.

This agglomeration of interlocking enterprises is just one component of a gargantuan corporate empire that includes hundreds of businesses and organizations around the globe. Moon may be well known for having founded the Washington Times and Insight magazine, which have bled his bank accounts of perhaps a billion dollars over the last decade, but these publications are just two pieces of an expanding international media conglomerate that includes foreign and domestic newspapers and newsletters, book publishers, video production companies, and a major interest in an American cable network.

Moon and his associates own travel agencies and health food stores, real estate agencies and office cleaning services, an equestrian center, and a company that bottles ginseng soda. In addition, Moon has financed the creation of dozens of religious and political organizations, including two benign-sounding groups headquartered here: the American Conference on Religious Movements and the American Freedom Coalition.

In Moon's world, however, nothing is benign, nothing is as it appears. Privacy may be universally valued, but Moon and his followers are so intent on keeping their affairs shrouded that even something as commonplace as selling fish becomes mired in a clandestine web.

Trying to trace this corporate lineage is an extraordinary challenge. Interlocking structures make ownership and control of businesses run by church members nearly impossible to figure out. Those who work for these operations will say little, if anything, about them. And the landscape is further blurred by an entanglement of nonprofit organizations, whose finances are subject to less governmental scrutiny than their for-profit counterparts, and whose affairs are therefore even harder to decipher.

The affairs of the Global Economic Action Institute (GEAI) provide a telling illustration of this.

GEAI is a 10-year-old nonprofit organization whose creation was inspired by Moon, supposedly to foster cooperation among nations in their efforts to achieve a stable international economic order. Over the years, GEAI has attracted an impressive collection of politicians, economists, and business leaders. It has published position papers and hosted international conferences, with support from the likes of the United States Information Agency and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. It has received virtually no media recognition - and in fact has never sought any - but from all appearances, it has helped promote the sort of dialogue that might ease the world's economic problems. Finally, GEAI has received financial support from a wide array of corporations, foundations, and other institutions - the Unification Church among them. But it has always been widely believed that the church's contributions were not particularly significant, its influence on the organization tenuous, at best.

In truth, documents obtained by Washington City Paper show that GEAI has been used by Moon and his associates to facilitate contact with high-level executives around the world and advance the church's political and business agendas. GEAI's key staffers - all Unification Church members - have used the organization's resources to run their own for-profit corporations. Documents also reveal how GEAI's employees tried to recruit more than 100 of the nation's wealthiest individuals - including some well-known Washingtonians - into supporting an operation that appears to exist primarily to further Moon's goals, rather than the noble policy objectives outlined in the organization's charter.

But GEAI and the guileful manner in which the fishing operation is managed are not aberrations within the Unification movement. Relationships seem to be purposefully obscured.

The convoluted ownership of U.S. Marine Corp. is typical. According to a Dun & Bradstreet commercial credit report, 83 percent of the fishing operation's voting stock is controlled by the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (HSA) - the nonprofit, religious component of Moon's empire usually referred to as the Unification Church. That part of the ownership picture is simple and straightforward.

But the remainder of U.S. Marine's stock is controlled by One Up Enterprises, the Virginia-based corporation that controls Moon's fishing businesses. One Up is in turn a subsidiary of a for-profit, Virginia-based holding company called Unification Church International (UCI), which operates a slew of firms whose owners are also followers of Moon.

UCI is so closely affiliated with Moon that the organization's amended articles of incorporation list as its operational purpose "To serve as an international organization assisting, advising, coordinating and guiding the activities of Unification Churches organized and operated throughout the world." What's more, UCI shares corporate offices with News World Communications Inc., the Moon-controlled company that owns both the Washington Times and the McLean home that Moon occupies when in Washington.

Despite this, HSA spokesman Peter Ross insists that the church is entirely separate from UCI, GEAI, and other ventures Moon has inspired or helped fund. "Rev. Moon is the leader of a religious movement," says Ross. "But he's free to engage in all sorts of activities. He's a patron of the media. He's an industrialist. That's all true, but that shouldn't mean the Unification Church is involved."

Ross' statements notwithstanding, additional documents obtained by City Paper tell an entirely different story. These documents, which chronicle GEAI's activities for 1990 and part of 1991, show that church money was sometimes keeping GEAI afloat. They show that GEAI's staff members sought to control the organization. They show that these same staff members aimed to convince GEAI's leadership to accept Moon's vision for the organization. Finally, the documents reveal that the church was so concerned about GEAI, members were actually instructed to pray for its success.

Since his release from prison eight years ago, Moon has been a shadow of his previously public self. But if he's kept a low profile, the founder of the Unification Church has only stepped up his campaign to expand his worldwide influence.

From all indications, his efforts have been successful, although the self-proclaimed messiah is now facing trouble anew.

On June 1, 1976, the Unification Church took over Yankee Stadium for its so-called Bicentennial God Bless America Festival, the highlight of which was supposed to be an address by the Rev. Moon. At the time, Moon was endlessly portrayed in the media as a cultist who enslaved young people and used their free labor as a means to amass a fortune for his church.

The Yankee Stadium speech, delivered in Korean and translated by longtime Moon confidant.

The Yankee Stadium speech, delivered in Korean and translated by longtime Moon confidant Bo Hi Pak, did little to quell the anxieties of nonbelievers. A wildly gesticulating Moon laid down his own version of divine law: America had been invaded by Satan, and God had dispatched Moon here to set things right. Moon's disciples were clearly enraptured by this homily, but spectators by the thousands stampeded for the exits. There was pandemonium, as the inclined rampways behind the stands swelled with a descending tide. Halfway through the speech, the stadium had the look of a visiting-team blowout in the bottom of the ninth: Down the lines and in the upper decks, only the die-hards and dreamers remained in their seats.

It would be another 17 years before Moon would venture on another national speaking tour, his 12-city roadshow having rolled through Washington on May 15. In the interim, he increasingly de-emphasized his religious pursuits, instead focusing his attention on politics and profit-making ventures. During this time, church real estate holdings increased. Moon's tangled web of businesses, once located primarily in Korea, Japan, and the United States, took root throughout Europe and eventually began creeping into Africa, South America, and even the Cayman Islands.

For his troubles, in '78 Moon faced a civil lawsuit brought by the U.S. government, but he escaped unscathed. His luck ran out in May 1982 when a New York jury found him guilty of four counts of conspiracy, including conspiracy to obstruct justice and conspiracy to file false income tax returns. The felony offenses brought a sentence of 18 months in federal prison, and on July 20, 1984, Moon began serving what would ultimately be a 13-month term.

Since his release, Moon has rarely been seen in public. But behind the scenes, he's been all business. In fact, the aging industrialist has not only increased the pace of acquisitions by his front organizations, but he's tried to establish a business/religious/political foothold in Russia and China. He's even negotiated deals with the governments of Vietnam and North Korea.

These days, the 73-year-old Moon has lost any charisma he may once have had. His recent Washington speech, at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, was a rambling, 75-minute patois that lacked the histrionics of years past. Moon delivered the address in halting, at times incomprehensible, English, repeatedly stumbling over words and stopping in mid-phrase, as if he were reading a phoneticized version of a text whose meaning he couldn't fathom. Occasionally, Moon almost seemed unaware that he was addressing an overflow crowd of nearly 3,000: Early in the speech, for example, he paused a full 10 seconds, and when he resumed, a mint in his mouth clacked against his teeth. The sound reverberated over the room's speakers, but Moon seemed either unaware or unconcerned. Instead, he just kept reading, poking at his eyeglasses every so often.

The speech itself, called "True Parents and the Completed Testament Age," amplified some of the same peculiar themes introduced in Moon's Yankee Stadium address - in particular, that America's role as a world leader hinges on its spiritual well-being, and God has dispatched Moon here to ensure that the country does not go off course.

"In these chaotic times," he told a rapt audience, which interrupted him with applause 25 times, "humankind is longing for a true direction and purpose, yet America and the churches have no confident answer. God has granted me an understanding of the forces involved in his providential history. Thus, I know the direction that humankind must go, and I, with the help of God, will lead the world there."

This time around, no one was fleeing for the auditorium doors. The room had been filled with invited guests instructed to RSVP. Business attire was required for admission. The audience was read letters of welcome from Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly and Sen. John Warner (R-Va.); a proclamation from Maryland Gov. William Donald Schaefer declaring May 15 "Family Day" in honor of the event was also broadcast to the crowd.

Moon slowly made his way through the lecture, as onlookers unable to comprehend his broken English followed along with a printed text. As the speech progressed, it became more muddled and self-aggrandizing. Moon chastised Korean religious leaders for failing to believe that he was the Second Coming of Christ. He blamed the Cold War on the failure of the United States and worldwide Christianity to unite with him after World War II. And the self-proclaimed messiah railed against the media and other detractors.

"Can anyone disagree when I say that Reverend Moon is among the most persecuted religious leaders in the world?" he asked.

Not far away, a process server lay in wait, hoping to heap yet more bedevilment on Moon. A day earlier, a suit had been filed in a California federal court alleging that Moon and his associates had concocted an unlawful scheme to gain control of cable television's Nostalgia Network. In essence, the suit alleges that Unification Church International, One Up Enterprises, and other related businesses are all secretly structured to achieve Moon's objectives.

These charges are similar to others that have been leveled against Moon, and in each instance, the church has dismissed them as further examples of the religious persecution that Moon must endure. But the affairs of the Global Economic Action Institute may suggest otherwise.

The Global Economic Action Institute was founded in the summer of 1983, ostensibly to help promote policies that would foster world economic stability. The organization was incorporated in Washington on Dec. 1 of that year, with former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Anderson among its board members. A few months later, the IRS granted GEAI nonprofit status—important for the organization because would-be contributors could be promised that their gifts would be tax-deductible.

Much of GEAI's initial funding came from HSA, the religious component of Moon's operation, although in recent years dozens of foundations and corporations have signed on as benefactors. GEAI's membership roster includes individuals in some 75 countries, among them former heads of state, members of national cabinets, academics, and business leaders. Only one person on GEAI's original board of directors—Mose Durst—was affiliated with the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, thereby creating the appearance of autonomy from Moon. Former Sen. Eugene McCarthy was even enlisted as GEAI's chairman emeritus.

GEAI's headquarters are in New York, and until last year, the group maintained a Washington office. Copies of tax returns provided by the IRS show that GEAI's 1990 budget was nearly $1 million, about 59 percent of which was spent on producing a series of national and international conferences.

These same 1990 tax returns show that GEAI's three highest-paid employees - all Unification Church members - were Garry Barker, Jeremiah Schnee, and Laurence Baer. Together, this trio ran GEAI's affairs.

But that's not all they ran.

The Unification movement typically portrays its involvement with nonprofit organizations under its control as that of a beneficent donor supporting worthy causes. Unification movement members insist that the church exerts no influence over groups such as GEAI - that Moon has no personal involvement in the direction of their operations, for example.

But documents reveal that the Unification Church was attempting to use GEAI to advance Moon's vast business empire. Other documents show that Barker, Schnee, and Baer conducted for-profit consulting work out of GEAI's Washington offices; in effect, the three men attempted to create business partnerships among GEAI contributors, for which they would receive finder's fees or commissions. The evidence also suggested that GEAI was not reimbursed by these for-profit companies for the use of its resources, as IRS regulations require.

Answers about GEAI's affairs were not forthcoming. Schnee, who apparently now runs the organization with one assistant, did not return phone calls. Durst, former president of the nonprofit Unification Church of America, who two years ago severed his affiliation with GEAI, willingly volunteered information about Moon's original vision for the organization but would say little else. Durst did insist that Barker, Schnee, and Baer never ran businesses out of GEAI's offices. He also maintained that he didn't own the building from which GEAI conducted its activities, then admitted that he "might have."

In fact, District of Columbia property records show that Durst was a longtime owner of the townhouse at 821 Massachusetts Ave NE that once served as GEAI's Washington address. Records from D.C.'s Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs and elsewhere also show that at least three for-profit corporations were conducting business from the Massachusetts Avenue address: RFR International, whose president was Jeremiah Schnee; Barker International Associates, headed by Garry Barker; and L.H. Baer International, run by Laurence Baer.

Although Barker, Schnee, and Baer were listed on GEAI's tax returns as full-time employees of the nonprofit organization - their annual salaries ranging from $36,049 for Baer to $57,251 for Barker - they were simultaneously conducting the business of their own companies. Internal memoranda obtained by City Paper show that the three men were trying to consummate more than 30 high-stakes business deals around the globe - from the sale of rare paintings to funding a Broadway musical to the sale of Nigerian light crude oil. In a number of instances, their would-be partners in these deals were the same people they had recruited - or were trying to recruit - for GEAI membership.

On Feb. 1, 1991, for example, Barker's daily agenda lists both GEAI activities and various for-profit undertakings, including a local real estate development project called Stafford Place that the GEAI staff had been trying to fund for at least eight months. The previous July, an internal memo describing the trio's ongoing business opportunities included an entry about Stafford Place and referred to a New York meeting with officials of some of Japan's leading banks. Among the banks represented that day was Fuji Bank and Trust, one of GEAI's corporate contributors.

A GEAI document detailing possible meetings in Washington on Aug. 1, 1990, once again lists both nonprofit and for-profit activities on the day's agenda. Among those whom GEAI staff members hoped to meet with that day was Richard Allen, national security adviser in the Reagan White House and now chairman of Federal Capital Bank, formerly Credit International Bank.

Allen was being actively targeted for a leadership role with GEAI, and the memorandum outlining the Aug. 1 meeting makes reference to discussing such a position with him. In addition, the memo says: "Explore likelihood of possible business ventures with Credit Int'l Bank customers."

The July '90 internal memorandum listing current business opportunities reveals that Barker, Schnee, and Baer hoped to include Allen in at least seven of their projects around the world. These included an overseas office/hotel complex, a European golf course, and a state-of-the-art jet-maintenance facility - a multimillion-dollar project that promised a 100 percent return on investment.

Other business projects that RFR, Barker International, and L.H. Baer were trying to develop from the GEAI offices included a Caribbean resort development, and the business opportunities memo notes that Abe Hoppenstein, a member of GEAI's international steering committee who worked for a New York investment banking firm, might be of help. Still, another project that GEAI's triumvirate hoped to involve Hoppenstein with was a Northeastern gold and ski resort. According to the memo, the investment banking firm was willing to give RFR a one percent commission. "Daiwabo director is interested and might want to visit," the memo added.

Sure enough, the Japanese textile firm Daiwabo was also a corporate contributor to the nonprofit organization, and GEAI's staff intended to take full advantage of their contacts. According to the July 18 summary of potential business opportunities, the Daiwabo connection was particularly promising: "Chairman Satoru Arinobe visited the U.S. in April. Likes [Jeremiah Schnee]. We get a 3% commission on the monthly volume of sales of the company's textiles. Possible Central American/Caribbean contacts. Possible buyers are Danskin, Fortunoff, Members Only, J.C. Penney, Phillips-Van Heusen, John Weitz Co., Donna Carron [sic]. Private arrangement where he helps us with Japanese companies and split commission 80/20 between RFR and Daiwabo."

Fortunoff's inclusion on the list of potential buyers was not just happenstance. Documents show that Elliot Mayrock, a principal of the Long Island-based M. Fortunoff of Westbury Corp., which manufactures such things as draperies and garden furniture, had pledged money for GEAI's upcoming conference in China.

This is the way Barker, Schnee, and Baer went about their business: Those who pledged money for GEAI programs were then targeted as potential business partners. According to a May 5, 1990, document detailing the fundraising efforts for "Campaign 21" - an effort by the staff to quickly raise $21 million - Mayrock had pledged $80,000 for a conference in China, $30,000 of which had been received. The memo notes that Mayrock had agreed to join GEAI's international advisory council as chairman of Fortunoff, and he referred his cousin, Josh Green, to Schnee.

Schnee was obviously glad to have such a referral. A document created by him and his two cohorts called "Individuals to Include in Various Business Deals" features this entry: "Children's Video/Animation. Josh Green. Connect him to animators in communist countries. RFR gets 50% of the difference in cost between U.S. animation costs and local costs."

John Haley, chairman of the board of Pace University, was another contact who Barker, Schnee, and Baer found valuable. A July 1990 confidential memo from GEAI President Lev Dobriansky to the organization's officers noted, among other things, that Haley had joined GEAI's international steering committee.

Other documents show that by the time Haley had been awarded his place on that committee, GEAI's staff had already tagged him as a possible participant in two business deals, including one involving a Midwestern chemical manufacturer. The chemical company's president was not only working with Schnee, Barker, and Baer on various for-profit schemes, including a Moscow office/hotel complex, but the three had also enlisted this corporate executive's counsel for GEAI's chairman search committee - even though he wasn't even a member of the organization.

There was a good reason why this person's counsel was being sought: Edward Kime, another member of GEAI's international steering committee, confided that the would-be business partner had "definitely decided" to give money for the organization's upcoming conference in Moscow. The May 18 documents detailing GEAI's fundraising efforts notes about this person: "Ed Kime says, 'The more active, the more $$.'"

And was he ever kept active. The July memo from Dobriansky to GEAI's officers reported that a delegation had recently returned from Moscow in preparation for the organization's upcoming conference there. Among the "prominent Americans" joining the GEAI group were this same chemical company president and J.B. Fuqua.

Fuqua is the chairman of the Atlanta-based sporting goods and garden products manufacturer Fuqua Industries. According to the May 18 fundraising memo, Fuqua was "very interested" in the U.S.S.R. and was looking for joint ventures there. The memo also states that the GEAI staff offered Fuqua the opportunity to be the international chairman of the organization's Moscow conference - for the sum of $75,000. According to this same memo, Fuqua's response when presented the deal was: "I'm listening."

And so it went. The men who piloted GEAI activity recruited high-level business leaders from around the world to make tax-deductible contributions to the organization. The next step was to get these donors to participate in GEAI's policy seminars. Finally, Barker, Schnee, and Baer tried to marry these same people in business deals, for which the trio was promised hefty commissions or finders' fees.

Such dealing raises questions about compliance with IRS regulations. IRS spokesman Domenic LaPonzina would not comment specifically on the activities of GEAI or its three employees, but he would say that, in general, the government requires that there be an "arm's length relationship" between nonprofit and for-profit activities and that individuals not receive "personal inurement" from their affiliation with a nonprofit organization. "Generally, if someone is benefiting personally from the equipment, facilities, or resources of a nonprofit, that's prohibited," said LaPonzina.

The law also says that a nonprofit organization may permit its employees to use the group's facilities for personal profit-making activities but only if those employees pay a fair market rental rate. If the organization doesn't comply, it can lose its nonprofit status - meaning, of course, it can kiss those tax-deductible contributions goodbye. In addition, there may be tax consequences for anyone who used those facilities and didn't pay for them.

There's little dispute that Barker, Schnee, and Baer ran their for-profit businesses from GEAI's offices. The address and fax number on both Schnee's RFR business card and Baer International's letterhead matched those on GEAI's stationery. Facsimile transmissions sent by the three are identified on the top as having been sent from GEAI's machine.

But if the three men were using GEAI's facilities to run their own for-profit businesses, there's no evidence to suggest that the organization required them to pay for these services. Neither is there evidence that the men voluntarily reimbursed the organization. Attempts to reach the three men for comment were unsuccessful.

An internal GEAI document detailing the group's finances for '90 and the outlook for '91 lists outside income from various sources, including corporate membership payments and rental income from a company called MVA. Nowhere in these documents are RFR, Barker International Associates, or L.H. Baer International listed as having made any payments to GEAI in '90, nor is there anything to indicate that GEAI anticipated income from the three firms in '91.

Related links and notes below

Chicago Tribune: Unification Church Invests Heavily Uruguay (December 1994)

Emperor of the Universe video ‘Privatizing’ covert action: the case of the UC / FFWPU

The Imperial Ghost in the Neoliberal Machine (Figuring the CIA)

C-Span videos of Global Economic Action Institute conferences and panels - one of these videos ("Foreign Trade and Domestic Subsidy Policy") features Most Durst

Moon on why he founded the Global Economic Action Institute:

I founded the Global Economic Action Institute to help distribute and re-invest inactive, or "sleeping" money to make it work for the world. A world-level bank is necessary to go beyond the boundaries of any one nation. This bank will not lend to individuals, but only to nations. The world is coming into unity, which means that independent governments will merge into one to be more operable on a global scale. Only global thinking and institutions can solve the world's economic problems.

[whencyclopedia]

Smoke and Ashes: Opium's Hidden Histories

"Smoke and Ashes: Opium’s Hidden Histories" is a sweeping and jarring work of how opium became an insidious capitalistic tool to generate wealth for the British Empire and other Western powers at the expense of an epidemic of addiction in China and the impoverishment of millions of farmers in India. The legacy of this “criminal enterprise,” as the author puts it, left lasting influences that reverberate across cultures and societies even today.

Written in engaging language, Smoke and Ashes is a scholarly follow-up to the author’s famous Ibis trilogy, a collection of fiction that uses the opium trade as its backdrop. In Smoke and Ashes, the author draws on his years-long research into opium supplemented by his family history, personal travels, cross-cultural experience, and expertise in works of historical verisimilitude. Composed over 18 chapters, the author delves into a diverse set of primary and secondary data, including Chinese sources. He also brings a multidimensional angle to the study by highlighting the opium trade's legacy in diverse areas such as art, architecture, horticulture, printmaking, and calligraphy. 23 pictorial illustrations serve as powerful eyewitness accounts to the discourse.

This book should interest students and scholars seeking historical analysis based on facts on the ground instead of colonial narratives. Readers will also find answers to how opium continues to play an outsize role in modern-day conflicts, addictions, corporate behavior, and globalism.

Amitav Ghosh’s research convincingly points out that while opium had always been used for recreational purposes across cultures, it was the Western powers such as the British, Portuguese, the Spaniards, and the Dutch that discovered its significant potential as a trading vehicle. Ghosh adds that colonial rulers, especially the British, often rationalized their actions by arguing that the Asian population was naturally predisposed to narcotics. However, it was British India that bested others in virtually monopolizing the market for the highly addictive Indian opium in China. Used as a currency to redress the East India Company (EIC)’s trade deficit with China, the opium trade by the 1890s generated about five million sterling a year for Britain. Meanwhile, as many as 40 million Chinese became addicted to opium.

Eastern India became the epicenter of British opium production. Workers in opium factories in Patna and Benares toiled under severe conditions, often earning less than the cost of production while their British managers lived in luxury. Ghosh asserts that opium farming permanently impoverished a region that was an economic powerhouse before the British arrived. Ghosh’s work echoes developmental economists such as Jonathan Lehne, who has documented opium-growing communities' lower literacy and economic progress compared to their neighbors.

Ghosh states that after Britain, “the country that benefited most from the opium trade” with China, was the United States. American traders skirted the British opium monopoly by sourcing from Turkey and Malwa in Western India. By 1818, American traders were smuggling about one-third of all the opium consumed in China. Many powerful families like the Astors, Coolidges, Forbes, Irvings, and Roosevelts built their fortunes from the opium trade. Much of this opium money, Ghosh shows, also financed banking, railroads, and Ivy League institutions. While Ghosh mentions that many of these families developed a huge collection of Chinese art, he could have also discussed that some of their holdings were most probably part of millions of Chinese cultural icons plundered by colonialists.

Ghosh ends the book by discussing how the EIC's predatory behaviors have been replicated by modern corporations, like Purdue Pharma, that are responsible for the opium-derived OxyContin addiction. He adds that fossil fuel companies such as BP have also reaped enormous profits at the expense of consumer health or environmental damage.

Perhaps one omission in this book is that the author does not hold Indian opium traders from Malwa, such as the Marwaris, Parsis, and Jews, under the same ethical scrutiny as he does to the British and the Americans. While various other works have covered the British Empire's involvement in the opium trade, most readers would find Ghosh's narrative of American involvement to be eye-opening. Likewise, his linkage of present-day eastern India's economic backwardness to opium is both revealing and insightful.

Winner of India's highest literary award Jnanpith and nominated author for the Man Booker Prize, Amitav Ghosh's works concern colonialism, identity, migration, environmentalism, and climate change. In this book, he provides an invaluable lesson for political and business leaders that abdication of ethics and social responsibility have lasting consequences impacting us all.

Continue reading...

[balkanradfem]

I know that's a really dumb question, but what exactly is female separatism? Is it like building a country just for women, or just avoiding men in general? A clear definition of female separatism would help me understand better a lot of stuff here on radblr

Sorry for my -100 IQ :')

It's not a dumb question at all! And the answer isn't simple, it's actually in many layers, and I'll try my best to explain each one.

Separatism can be described as a desire, intention, and direct action to depend, communicate, interact and bond with males as little as possible, or not at all. For a lot of us, this simply isn't possible, especially not immediately. Lots of women have male family members, friends, children, spouses, relatives, who they cannot just abandon for the political goal, and that's perfectly fine, because we can practice separatism only as much as it is practical, nobody should have to do extreme things that damage their social standing, just for the sake of politics.

So in this situation, separatism would just be to depend on the m*n in your life as little as possible. To have your own income, your own living space, to prioritize interactions with women, to not financially depend on m*n, to work with women, to choose female doctors, cashiers, service workers, mechanics, roommates. This also includes avoiding male-made writings and media, and as much as it's practical, consuming female-made entertainment and education. This is done with the goal of being safer from violence, to form a strong female community and class-consciousness, to be somewhat protected from the brainwashing effects of the male perspective, and to have more free space in your social life to express what you think, how you feel, and what would benefit you, without m*n talking down to you and explaining to you why you're dumb and have to do things the way they think is right. I mean, I'm sure you'll run into this issue with women who parade the male perspective as well, it's not a 100% sure fix every time, but being in a female-company often enough will enforce our class consciousness, even if we don't feel it happening. It will also point out to us just how labour-intensive and draining it is to be in male company, and how unsafe, shut down, and objectified we are in their presence.

Being financially independent and having a strong support system of women would function as a great protection from being trapped in domestic violence and isolated abuse situations, which are very prevalent in the current society and within the heterosexual marriage institution. So this helps us keep safer, together.

Now a stronger layer of separatism would be to go a step further, and start building female-only spaces, and female-only businesses. This also, is something that can be done when possible and practical, and it means female-only gyms, female only bath-houses, buses, trains, grocery stores, companies. This still works under the current system of capitalism, but having a business or a company with only women leading and using it, creates a safer space, with less exploitation, less danger from abuse or harassment, and more benefit to women. There are currently many spaces, organizations, businesses and political powers, that are male only, and they disproportionately benefit m*n. They might employ women, but only to keep them doing the most difficult ground work, and to be underpaid and used as entertainment and a service; they do not benefit women in almost any way, and globally, we're at a great disadvantage economically and politically without owning and benefiting from at least half of businesses existing. Having more female-owned spaces and businesses would tilt the power in our favour, and grant us more political and economical power as well. This is also why all such businesses and spaces are heavily opposed by the males, and are seen as a threat (though they present it as emotionally wounding, they're fighting against a political threat).

For some women, who have been thru extensive abuse and sexual violence by the hands of m*n, this isn't enough, and for us, just being in presence of m*n is draining and difficult, and being aware that we're a part of a system that brought us into this state, and is now trying to depict us as insane and hysterical, feels awful for us. So we want to go another step further, and create spaces where we could live our entire lives without having to interact with m*n. This is completely by our own will, and for our own fulfillment. A few of these spaces already exist, though not on a very large scale.

There's a village in Kenya, named Umoja, where m*n are not allowed to live, though they're allowed to visit, they can never sleep over. The women there work together and create jewelry and ornaments to support themselves and keep themselves independent, so they would not have to suffer thru forced and abusive marriages or sexual violence. I know of another separatist space with lesbians who own several houses on the beach, and they work electronically, so they're safe economically, and can keep the entire area male-free, because it's their private property. I also know of a few separatist spaces where women have taken refuge in nature and organized a way of life that is self-sustainable, they've been regenerating the nature and creating livable spaces in forests and mountains, accepting only other women to live there.

I'm sure there are plenty more, I haven't looked it up in a while, and I believe some are doing this a bit more secretly and aren't interested in being broadcasted online, because this puts them in danger. Being a living proof that women can survive, and happily so, without m*n, creates a hole in their forced perspective. They have convinced us they're somehow necessary, as if we couldn't possibly do without them, and absolutely have to accept the drawbacks of living among them (domestic violence, sexual violence, loss of last names and matrilinear identity, living within an exploitative system, tolerating terrorism, wars, celebrations of violence, damage to the environment, loss of human rights for certain groups, constant danger, constant harassment, objectification, pay gap, loss of independence, pedophilia-dominated entertainment, women being tortured for fun, abuse of female children, homophobia, human trafficking, pornography, life of servitude, life of vigilance, low social value and self-objectification). Once women have established that on their own, they can build stronger community, resolve all big social issues by the mutually benefiting each other, sharing resources and relying on each other for support and survival, it will start looking transparent that we don't exactly need to keep sustaining the male-led world, and that we only do it because they're keeping us in constant fear of violence and retribution if we attempt to defy their rule.

Currently all that is practical for most to do is to avoid and live as independent from m*n as possible, and that in itself is a strong force of separatism, that will benefit women in every way it can. I'm the most extreme kind, who has already lost all her bonds to any male in her life, and I want to go and build a separatist community out in the wild. These communities can function in any way the women inside them decide; for instance, I know there are women longing for childless communities, some women would want to have lesbian-only, or women-attracted only communities, some would like for these communities to be inside of cities, and that's possible too! A woman can obtain enough buildings and space to create an area where only women live, where they have their own grocery stores, gyms, libraries, workplaces, communal spaces, and since it's their own property, they can make the rules and decide whether m*n are allowed to walk in their spaces or not.

The all-female cities or countries are a dream that would only work if we really had limitless resources, and if big majority of women were wanting it. Currently this is not possible or practical, since very few women are in favour of female-only spaces. A lot of backlash to separatism comes just from the idea of these idealistic, utopian cities and countries, because there's fear of women not being able to see m*n anymore, or form relationships or be romantically or sexually fulfilled by m*n. While any of this is already difficult to achieve in male-dominated spaces, it would still be fully possible in separatism, because anyone can leave separatist space at any time, and be in presence of any m*n they want to. Separatist spaces will never force women in, or keep them from getting out, and it will never be hard to simply go out in the male-dominated world again, and do whatever they need to do with m*n.

I actually like the theory presented in the 'Who cooked the last supper' book, where she describes women who lived as the heads of villages, marriage didn't exist, and they simply took to bed any m*n they wanted to, and bore children when they wanted to, which would then be tended to by them and other women in the village. This seems like a very reasonable way for a woman to not have to depend on a m*n to provide, and she has all the support and care she needs after undergoing something as traumatic as pregnancy. Male children were raised, but chased out of villages as they turned adult, and were told to fend for themselves, because they simply weren't useful in the village, because women understood m*n had a greater like for violence and physical assault than women were ready to tolerate in their midst.

I wouldn't want male children to be free to abuse female children, so I'm against keeping them in separatist spaces, and it's something that still needs to be worked around, because it potentially limits the life of separatism to women with male children, so there might be necessary spaces exclusively for women with male children, who still need to be safe from violent husbands, fathers, relatives, bosses, traffickers, and whoever else would wish harm on them and their children. Completely separatist spaces are imagined as safe havens from women who are in danger of abuse, or are running from abuse and seeking refuge. It's also a space imagined to be free of homophobia and safe for lesbians and bisexual women, who would be able to express their attraction freely, without fearing repercussions or violence for the nature of their healthy and normal sexuality.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that separatist life would be ideal, there’s a lot that would have to be figured out, since women too can be mentally unhealthy, abusive, emotionally unwell and in need of more support than others can easily provide, but statistically, overall danger of assault, rape, objectified harassment, terrorism, murder, torture, war, and other life threats, would go down by more than 90%. A lot of us would feel safer in this environment, even with the potential threat of women not responding perfectly, and we would in any case, have the authority to decide what measures are to be taken, and how to minimize and reduce any additional abuse of power. This is not something the current system discourages or reduces.

Separatism is a very broad topic and a lot of the details still need to be discussed! Really only thing the separatist spaces have in common is that they center women, women's safety, survival, women's interests, desires, accommodations. They are systems built to benefit and serve women above all, and everything else is something to be discussed and decided by the group who is building and creating it. Separatism can be 3 lesbians on a farm, it can be 20 women living in a forest or a beach, they decide themselves who they let in, and how life is led in there. Freedom and safety of women are the pillars of separatism, and it's existence can benefit women currently in danger, need of survival resources, and in need of community. It's only controversial because in the current society, there isn't even one system that benefits primarily women at all.

[kdurose]

WEEK 11

Questions based on the article Classifying Forms of Online Activism by Sandor Vegh

What are three forms of online activism that Sandor Vegh identifies in the reading? Vegh puts online activism into three primary categories, action/reaction, mobilization, and awareness/advocacy. The goal of awareness/advocacy is to educate the public and gain support via websites, blogs, and social media. By providing information, mobilization encourages individuals to participate in rallies. Action/reaction requires the direct interaction of disruptive strategies like hacking, cyber-vandalism, or attacks involving denial-of-service.

Why is the World Bank used as an example for cyberprotest? Because the World Bank has been the focus of worldwide activist groups who criticize its policies, especially those about social justice, economic injustice, and destruction of the environment, Vegh uses it as an example. The World Bank is a prominent target for activists seeking to highlight the detrimental effects of neoliberal economic practices because of its position in global banking.

What is the highlighted difference between action/ reaction and mobilization? What do they mean? Vegh breaks down the differences between action/reaction and mobilization based on their direct interaction. Key components include Developing networks, arranging events, and inspiring others to participate in campaigns or protests without physically upsetting the target. Action/reaction, on the other hand, includes more aggressive strategies like online sit-ins that aim to interfere with the target's operations. Action/reaction also attempts to directly interfere to place immediate pressure on institutions such as the World Bank, whereas mobilization looks for support.

Why/how does Vegh suggest cyberprotests will advance in the future? According to Vegh, cyberprotests could grow more complex and common as digital technology develops. More widespread availability of hacking methods and international communication channels may make it possible for activists to carry out more well-planned and significant Internet campaigns. Additionally, he expects activists to keep integrating digital tools with other protest strategies, developing further strategies that make it more difficult to control and monitor activity. This also may increase the effect against international organizations like the World Bank.

#WGST320F24

[0hellifiknow0]

Today, November 29th, is a global day of action!

The BDS Movement has asked us to intensify all strategic economic boycott and divestment campaigns against complicit corporations, and escalate campaigns to cut all ties to apartheid Israel and its complicit academic and cultural institutions as well as sports teams.

DO NOT BE SILENT! SPREAD THE WORD! FREE PALESTINE! 🇵🇸 🇵🇸🇵🇸

[beardedmrbean]

A government agency created five decades ago to boost the fortunes of minority-owned businesses discriminated against whites and must now serve all business owners, regardless of race, a federal judge in Texas ruled Tuesday.

Siding with white business owners who sued the Minority Business Development Agency for discrimination, Judge Mark T. Pittman of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas said the agency’s mission to help disadvantaged businesses owned by Blacks, Hispanics and other racial and ethnic groups gain access to capital and contracts violates the rights of all Americans to receive equal protection under the constitution.

“If courts mean what they say when they ascribe supreme importance to constitutional rights, the federal government may not flagrantly violate such rights with impunity. The MBDA has done so for years. Time’s up,” Pittman, who was named to the federal bench by President Trump, wrote in a 93-page decision.

Pittman directed the Nixon-era agency to overhaul its programs in a potential blow to other government efforts that cater to historically disadvantaged racial and ethnic groups.

The ruling marks a major development in the broader legal skirmish over diversity, equity and inclusion that is likely to fuel a re-energized conservative movement intent on abolishing affirmative action in the public and private sectors. 

Last summer’s Supreme Court decision on race-conscious college admissions has increased scrutiny of government programs that operate based on a presumption of social or economic disadvantage.

Conservative activists have peppered organizations with lawsuits claiming that programs to help Black Americans and other marginalized groups discriminate against white people. 

In a statement proclaiming “DEI’s days are numbered,” Dan Lennington, an attorney with Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, the public interest law firm that sued MBDA, hailed the decision as a “historic victory for equality in America.”

“No longer can a federal agency cater only to certain races and not others,” Lennington said. “The MBDA is now open to all Americans.”

The MBDA, which is part of the Commerce Department, could not be immediately reached for comment.

Justice Department lawyers who represented the agency declined to comment. They argued in court filings that the agency’s services are available to any socially or economically disadvantaged business owner. They also pointed to decades of evidence showing that certain groups suffered – and continue to suffer – social and economic disadvantages that stunt “their ability to participate in America’s free enterprise system.”

Alphonso David, president and CEO of the Global Black Economic Forum, said the court’s decision acknowledged this disadvantage.

"Despite this recognition, the court somehow argues that a program created to remedy this discrimination must be dismantled. That makes no sense,” David said in a statement. 

What’s more, David said the ruling is limited to one federal agency.

“We can expect right-wing activists to conflate the issue and confuse people into thinking it applies to any public or private program that fights discrimination, but that is not the case," he said.

Established in 1969 by President Richard Nixon to address discrimination in the business world, the MBDA runs centers across the country to help minority owned businesses secure funding and government contracts. The Biden administration made the agency permanent in 2021. 

Three small business owners sued MBDA in March, alleging they were turned away because of their race. “The American dream should be afforded to all Americans regardless of skin color or cultural background. But what we have is a federal government picking winners and losers based on wokeism – enough is enough,” one of the plaintiffs, Matthew Piper, said at the time.

National Urban League president Marc Morial urged the federal government to appeal the decision.

"The work of the MBDA to concentrate on the growth of businesses that remain substantially locked out of the mainstream of the American economy is needed and necessary," Morial said.