IMAGINE giving peace a chance, world living as one: Lennon

Lennon 1969

Maybe not the only “Dreamers"

Excerpt, re-reporting [bracketed inserts], brief comment by Carolyn Bennett

IMAGINE…

Imagine there’s no Heaven /  It’s easy if you try / No Hell below us / Above us only sky / Imagine all the people / Living for today

Imagine there’re no countries /  It isn’t hard to do /Nothing to kill or die for / And no religion too

Imagine all the people / Living life in peace

You may say I'm a dreamer / But I’m not the only one / I hope someday you'll join us / And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions / I wonder if you can

"Imagine"
album cover

No need for greed or hunger / A [society] of [humankind]

Imagine all the people /  Sharing all the world

You may say I’m a dreamer /  But I’m not the only one / I hope someday you’ll join us /  And the world will live as one [Lennon]

PEACE

“All we’re saying is give peace a chance

Everybody’s talking about Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism

Ragism, Tagism / This-ism, that-ism / Ism ism ism

John Lennon
Yoko Ono
1980

All we are saying is give peace a chance

Everybody’s talking about ministers, sinisters / Banisters and canisters, bishops and fishops / Rabbis and pop eyes, bye-bye, bye byes

All we are saying, is give peace a chance

                       

Everybody’s talking about revolution / Evolution, masturbation, flagellation / Regulation, integrations, meditations / United Nations, congratulations

 All we are saying is give peace a chance

Everybody’s talking about John and Yoko / Timmy Leary, Rosemary, Tommy Smothers / Bobby Dylan, Tommy Cooper, Derek Taylor / Norman Mailer, Alan Ginsberg / Hare Krishna, Hare Hare Krishna

 All we are saying is give peace a chance

 All we are saying is give peace a chance [Lennon]

Apt as Washington’s War on Syria echoes

Lennon 1964

Washington’s War on Vietnam

Wars on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain, Yemen, Palestine, Sudan: Years of Moments of Madness

E

nglish musician, singer-songwriter John Winston Lennon MBE, Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (b. October 9, 1940 in Liverpool, moved to New York City in 1971 – d. December 8, 1980 in New York City, USA), gained worldwide fame as a founding member of the singing group, the Beatles. The anti-war movement adopted some of his songs as anti-war anthems.

Lennon’s father, Alfred Lennon, was a merchant seaman; his mother, Julia Lennon (née Stanley), bought her son his first guitar (1956), an inexpensive Gallotone Champion acoustic.

Lennon established his first band, the Quarrymen, in September 1956 when he was 15 years old. At the band’s second performance, Lennon met Paul McCartney and from the Quarrymen evolved the Beatles. He released the songs "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine" in 1969 and 1971. His final, award-winning album was Double Fantasy. 

Richard Nixon (left)
Resigned his presidency
August 8, 1974
J. Edgar Hoover (right)
notoriously entrenched
FBI Director 1924-1972

Today yesterday

U.S. hunt-and-destroy mission against peace, antiwar, nonviolence 

The FBI in the early 1970s conducted clandestine surveillance of musician, singer-songwriter John Lennon 

After the impact of “Give Peace a Chance” (and “Happy Xmas, War is Over”), lyrics strongly associated with the anti–Vietnam War movement, Richard Nixon, already under fire for high crimes against the U.S. Constitution and the people of the United States, determined that John Lennon’s anti-war activities could hamper his (Nixon's) re-election; and further politicizing the laws of the United States, Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond suggested in a February 1972 memo that ‘deportation would be a strategic counter-measure’ against Lennon. The next month the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) began deportation proceedings against the artist, arguing that a 1968 misdemeanor conviction for cannabis possession in London had made Lennon ineligible for admission to the United States. 

March 23, 1973, Lennon was ordered to leave the United States within 60 days (Yoko Ono, his wife, was granted permanent residence).

April 1, 1973, Lennon and Ono held a press conference at the New York City Bar Association, where they announced the formation of the state of Nutopia: a place with ‘no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people’. Waving the white flag of Nutopia (two handkerchiefs), they asked for political asylum in the United States.

Soon after the press conference, Nixon’s involvement in a political scandal (Watergate) came to light. In June the Watergate hearings began in Washington, D.C.; 14 months later, U.S. President Nixon resigned from office. His successor, President Gerald Ford, showed no interest in persecuting Lennon. The deportation order was overturned in 1975.

October 8, 1975, a court of appeals barred the deportation attempt, stating ‘... the courts will not condone selective deportation based upon secret political grounds.’

The following year, Lennon’s U.S. immigration status was resolved and he received his Green Card, certifying his permanent residency.

January 1977 Lennon and Yoko Ono attended the Inaugural Ball when President Jimmy Carter was inaugurated.

October 8, 1980, early in the evening John Lennon autographed a copy of Double Fantasy (a 1980 album released by John Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono) for Mark David Chapman. Around 10:50 p.m. that night, as Lennon and Ono were returning to their New York apartment in the Dakota and entering the building, the same Mark David Chapman shot John Lennon four times in the back. At 11:07 p.m., Lennon was pronounced dead on arrival at nearby Roosevelt Hospital. 

Double Fantasy won “Album of the Year” in the 1981 24th Annual Grammy Awards.

Sources and notes

“IMAGINE” (Lennon’s most famous post-Beatles track, 1971)

John Lennon - Imagine Lyrics: Artist: John Lennon; Album: Imagine; Genre: Rock; Songwriters: John Lennon, http://www.songlyrics.com/john-lennon/imagine-lyrics/

Read more at http://www.songlyrics.com/john-lennon/imagine-lyrics/#VTAsZJshrR7wGQ1w.99

To the religionists Lennon reportedly explains: “If you can imagine a world at peace, with no denominations of religion—not without religion, but without this ‘my God is bigger than your God’ thing—then it can be true”: the world can be as one, the world can be in peace

“GIVE PEACE A CHANCE” (recorded in 1969 during Lennon and Ono’s second Bed-In for Peace)

John Lennon - Give Peace a Chance Lyrics: Artist: John Lennon; Album: Miscellaneous; Genre: Rock; Songwriters: John Lennon

Read more at http://www.songlyrics.com/john-lennon/remember-love-b-side-to-give-peace-a-chance-lyrics/#6YI5wJV6pzyh2DDP.99

Read more at http://www.songlyrics.com/john-lennon/give-peace-a-chance-lyrics/#MdAgmO8oalu1SW5s.99

http://www.songlyrics.com/john-lennon/imagine-lyrics/

  

Hare Krishna (note)

The Hare Krishna mantra appears in a number of famous songs, notably those sung by The Beatles (in the lyrics of George Harrison and John Lennon), and has been at the number 1 spot in the UK singles charts on more than one occasion within songs such as Harrison’s ‘My Sweet Lord’.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Hare Krishnas became confused with the hippie subculture, an erroneous association as the ideals of the groups are quite different.

The mantra was popularized by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu roughly around 1500 CE when he began his mission to spread this mantra publicly to ‘every town and village’ in the world, travelling throughout India, and especially within the areas of Bengal and Odisha.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Krishna_(mantra) 

Yesterday today 

Reiteration of Madness

There is no such thing as limited warfare. 

It is endless in the heat of it and long after some politician claims its official end. 

Ask the people of Iraq and Afghanistan and any country where the U.S. has landed or sent its bombs and weapons, chemical and not, remote or from the air, sea or ground, by proxies or by whatever means.

Russia Today (RT)

“[U.S. President Barack] Obama reportedly considering two-day strike on Syria: White House officials say the United States may launch a limited military strike on Syria as early as this Thursday (August 29, 2013) as the intelligence community prepares to release a report justifying action and allies are rallied.” http://rt.com/usa/

“UK gathers warplanes, military hardware in Cyprus base near Syria – report: ‘Warplanes and military transporters’ have reportedly been moved to Britain’s Akrotiri Airbase in Cyprus in the latest sign of the allied forces’ preparations for a military strike on Syria amid bellicose rhetoric against the Syrian government.” http://rt.com/news/

Syrians opposing
foreign meddling

PressTV

Syrians opposing
foreign meddling

“U.S. begins war on Syria as early as Thursday, officials say: Senior American officials say the United States has planned to launch missile strikes against Syria ‘as early as Thursday’ in order to punish Damascus over the alleged use of chemical weapons.”  http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/27/320762/us-war-on-syria-as-early-as-thursday/

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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WMD MOMENT endlessly déjà vu

Madness incarnate

By Carolyn Bennett

Nothing is more illustrative of the fact that inbreeding (incest, entrenchment, nepotism, keeping company exclusively with a select few) breeds madness than U.S. global relations particularly with Asia, and acutely in this moment with the Near/Middle East, and with Africa.

 

In contemporary times, some of the most insane examples start with the film actor, Ronald REAGAN (U.S. president number 40, 1981-1989). Whether it is

   

Illegally arming “insurgents” (“rebels”, “militants”, “freedom fighters”, call them what you like, expediency changes the names) against rising political parties in Reagan's IRAN-CONTRA affair (the U.S. has continuously armed hostile elements against democratic governments and people’s struggles in the Americas); or

Former U.S. darling in Iraq
taken down
"taken out"

Forcing neo-liberal economics on a people as in the (1993-2001 Lewinskied) William Jefferson CLINTON/NATO war on Yugoslavia on a claim that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was “ethnically cleansing” Kosovar Albanians, a claim later altered to a U.S. war against Yugoslavia’s resistance to regional "liberalization" and deregulation of markets; or

U.S. soldiers in
chemical weapons gear

Birth defects in Iraqis

Overthrowing governments, bombing and looting cities and treasures, massacring and maiming and causing health defects in surviving men, women and children, even newborns (where were/where are the U.S. “right to lifers”?) in (George W. BUSH’s AFGHANISTAN/IRAQ and (Barack Hussein Obama’s LIBYA/SOMALIA/EGYPT/Sudan/Congo et.al., now arming, threatening, invading SYRIA, imposing deepening illegal sanctions warfare, inflicting lethal injury on Iranians for a nonexistent nuclear weapons industry); or  

U.S. drone attacks on AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN and YEMEN and on the poorest of all, SOMALIA, as some of its people commit “piracy” on the high seas (as Palestinian youth throw rocks) in a desperate and  pathetic response to the nuclear-powered rich’s ageless, unending  pillaging and plundering of their land and peoples ─

The root, branch and driving force in all of these moments and the attending unspeakable cruelty have been U.S.-initiated, U.S.-led widely publicized propagandist falsehoods about nonexistent WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION pointed at the West, its “interests” and or “allies”, stories often manufactured out of whole cloth and wrapped in contrived urgency ─

 

…often against a “Noriega,” some former U.S. allied-dictator/strongman/warlord/drug lord turned U.S.-declared “demon” or demonic terrorist depressing “women” or “killing his own people”

U.S.
Kabul
Afghanistan

Former U.S. darling
in the Americas
Manuel Noriega

U.S. education
protesters
U.S. force

U.S. surveillance
paranoia
control

U.S.
failure to care
for its own

…just as U.S. invaders in their acts of foreign invasion and occupation not only kill and repress foreigners; they simultaneously criminally neglect, kill and repress “their own people” into submission to the will of war: the manufacturers, sellers and traffickers in the materiel of war; the makers of and lobbyists and propagandists for war, the warmongers, and the office-holding (incestuously entrenched nepotistic keepers-of-company-with a select few) inbreeds who perpetrate madness.

Chemical weapons on Iraqis

ENDLESSLY déjà vu

How much will it take?

How many lives must be lost before we toss the bums and their bombs out?

A bit of liberty with my apology to Dylan

U.S. neglect
destruction of
public education

How many times must cannon balls fly before they are forever banned?

How many deaths will it take ‘til we know too many people have died?

How many times must we look up before we see the sky?

How many ears must we have before we hear people cry?

How many years can a mountain exist before it’s washed to the sea?

How many times can we turn our heads pretending we do not see?

How many years can some people exist before they can be free?

  

Notes and news

“Blowin’ in the Wind” was written by Bob Dylan in 1962 and released on his album “The Freewheelin’” Bob Dylan in 1963. In 1994, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame; in 2004 Rolling Stone magazine ranked it Number 14 in its list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” [Wikipedia note]

Dylan’s complete lyrics as written reproduced at http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/bob+dylan/blowin+in+the+wind_20021159.html

Syrians protest
foreign meddling

In today’s news from PressTV

  

The U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel today said the U.S. military was ready to take action against Syria if President Obama gave the green light to which Alexei Pushkov, head of the International Committee of Russia’s lower house of parliament, responded that the Obama government is

‘Inescapably moving towards war in Syria just like Bush was [moving] towards war in Iraq [and] Just like in Iraq, this war will not be legitimate and Obama will become a Bush clone.’

Syrians protest
foreign meddling

“Obama clones Bush in drive for war: Russian MP,” August 25, 2013, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/25/320432/us-closer-to-war-in-syria-russia-mp/

According to a statement issued today by the Syrian Foreign Ministry

‘An agreement was concluded today in Damascus between the Syrian government and the United Nations during the visit of the UN High Representative for Disarmament Angela Kane.’

The accord would ‘allow the UN team led by Professor Aake Sellstroem to investigate allegations of chemical weapons use in Damascus Province… effective immediately.’

“Syria gives green light to UN chemical weapons team,” August 25, 2013, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/25/320446/syria-allows-un-chemical-arms-probe/

“International opponents push for offensive in Syria: The international opponents of the Syrian government [France, Israel, U.S.] are pushing for an offensive against the Arab country under the pretext of an alleged chemical attack near the capital, Damascus.” August 25, 2013, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/25/320433/syria-opponents-push-for-offensive/

“Potential U.S. military intervention in Syria suicidal: Analyst,” August 25, 2013, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/25/320473/us-military-act-against-syria-suicidal/

Political analyst Webster Griffin Tarpley said yesterday in an interview with Press TV that given the “changed military landscape” surrounding Syria and “the presence of Russia on the side of Syria ... and the presence of Iran [and] other new powers,” the United States’

‘…constant adventurism that was criminal in 2003 [now becomes] suicidal adventurism’

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Orchestrators of crisis call them "uncivilized" ─ West v. East

U.S. Korean Peninsula to 

U.S. Syrian Mediterranean: Diplomacy among "equals" imperative

Editing, comment by 

Carolyn Bennett 

Whose weapons: who sought, who bought, who sold 

Whose chemical attack 

Whose provocation, prosecution of endless conflict, war 

Who benefits 

Not covered in western news sources but reported by FARS News Agency is a “militant” group in phone conversation with a Saudi financier about obtaining and having used chemical weapons against the government of Syria.

The ‘international community” (whatever that means, clearly a discredited lot) is again calling for an investigation of chemical weapons use; but before such an investigation can be undertaken, let alone an independent query into the question of chemical weapons’ use ─  western government officials who dominate and run roughshod over the UN Security Council (France, United States, England) are pushing for added foreign force (violence) in further breach of Syria’s sovereignty and the rights of its government and people.

West’s preemption

French Empire

Leaping into preemptive warfare, “France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Thursday that the international community should respond with force if allegations that the Syrian government used chemical weapons in a deadly attack on the outskirts of the capital Damascus are confirmed: ‘There would have to be reaction with force in Syria from the international community, but there is no question of sending troops on the ground.’”

Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague had the temerity to talk about “civilized,” conveniently forgetting Britain’s and the west’s centuries-old penchant for and practice of repeated and sustained barbarism.

Saying it is “not something that a humane or civilized world can ignore,” Hague, without a scintilla of evidence, made a charge, threatened and imposed sentence, saying he believed “President Assad was behind a chemical attack in Syria” and that “the UK would be ready to go back to the United Nations Security Council to secure a stronger mandate ‘for the world to speak together more forcefully about this’ if there was no movement over the next few days.”

East’s opposition to preemption, call for impartiality

 

China’s Foreign Ministry yesterday issued a statement from Beijing “resolutely opposing” the use of chemical weapons in Syria and calling for impartiality.  

As ‘the UN chemical weapons inspection team for Syria is on the ground beginning its investigations, [China] hopes that the team fully consults with the Syrian government and ─

…maintains an objective, impartial and professional stance, to ascertain what really happened.

Russia opposes further propaganda targeting the Syrian government [Serious charges]

“Against the background of another anti-Syrian wave of propaganda, we believe calls from some European countries to apply pressure on the UN Security Council and already now take a decision on the use of force are unacceptable.” Evidence is mounting that ─

 …the attack was ‘clearly provocative in nature’; and

…footage posted online claiming to incriminate the Syrian regime had been posted before the chemical attack took place.

[And insurgents] are ‘directly impeding an objective investigation’ of the incident. [Today’s statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry]

Reports of an alleged attack were conveniently issued just as a UN chemical weapons inspection team arrived in Syria. And in the response statement of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Alexander Lukashevich said, “[this makes] us think that we are once again dealing with a premeditated provocation.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had confirmed in July “that

On March 19, the foreign-backed Takfiri militants had used chemical weapons in the region of Khan al-Assal.

More than two dozen people died in the attack including 16 Syrian soldiers.

Speaking to FARS News Agency (FNA) in March, Tehran’s Envoy to Rome Seyed Mohammad Ali Hosseini called for rapid termination of foreign funding and arming of Syrian “rebel” groups and cautioned that continuation of such support would result in “spillover”: from the Syrian crisis into regional countries’

crises. Hosseini said:

Termination of financial and arms support by foreign parties for extremist and terrorist groups are the first and most important provisions for obtaining results in Syria.

Countries that are supporting these groups should know that if they maintain the present policy, unrests will spill over into their countries.

As Kofi Annan had said months ago, Hosseini repeated, that the crisis in Syria needs a “political not military” solution and that “opposition groups and the Syrian government should hold talks and find a way to end the crisis.” But there is rub.

   

UN Security Council

Chronic western obstructionism

 

On the question of chemical weapons, investigation, and obstructionism, former diplomat Vyacheslav Matuza told Press TV back in March that the United States does not want either a “real investigation” or a “political solution.”

UN General Assembly

They don’t like a real solution to the Syrian crisis. 

They are trying to achieve their egoistic political goals in the Middle East … and reaching compromise through any political solution … will be very difficult for all those who are trying to push Syrian crisis from military content to political dialogue between Syrian political sides.

U.S.
Expansionism
Obstructionism
Over-reach
Orchestrator of
incessant conflict

…The questions of the stalled investigation and the use of chemical weapons in Syria by opposition military groups obviously reflect “the stance of the United States relative to the Syrian crisis as a whole ─ because the United States is using the Syrian crisis for political purposes, not for people’s right to democracy …

U.S. UK
Allies in
global violence
barbarism

“This reflects a global approach of the United States,” Matuza said, “to the developments in the Middle East in different areas ─ regions in the Arab World, in North Africa, in Iran, in Afghanistan, in Middle Asia…

If they want democracy, if they want the rights of the people, to provide rights for people, to develop political developments, they should respond positively on the Syrian government’s making its case.

Diplomacy of equals

Political analyst Dr. Kevin Barrett in April was talking about the U. S. foreign relations with the Korean Peninsula but what he said speaks to U.S. foreign relations all over the world.

He told Press TV that we must “get out of this mindset that the U.S. Empire and its partners play by one set of the rules”; and everybody has to obey the U.S. and its partners. The “obvious solution,” he said, “is for international law and diplomacy to be invoked among equals.

“We need to have real diplomacy, which means discussions between equals; and, ultimately, the United States has to tell North Korea that ─

…we are going to get out of your neighborhood and let you (the Koreas) settle between yourselves the issue of how to re-unite North and South Korea.

T

hat critical idea bears repeating: We need to have real diplomacy: discussions between and among equals. Ditto: U.S. relations with Syria and Lebanon and the Occupied Territories, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Libya and Somalia, Bahrain and Yemen, Iraq and Iran, the United States generally with Arab and Muslim populations.

 

Is that too much to ask? 

Only with uncorrupt and uncompromised, truly progressive leaders in the west and in the United Nations (fix the UN Security Council’s composition and its structural power relation with the UN General Assembly) can we expect truly progressive thought and action in world relations: a philosophy of  and penchant for coexistence, conflict resolution without barbarism (east or west, north or south) but with nonviolence and mutual respect seeking understanding of difference.

Sources and notes

“France urges ‘force’ if Syria chemical attack confirmed, August 22, 2013,

http://www.france24.com/en/20130822-france-calls-force-syria-chemical-weapons-attack-confirmed

“William Hague believes Assad behind chemical attack ─ UK Foreign Secretary William Hague: ‘It seems the Assad regime has something to hide’: UK Foreign Secretary William Hague says he believes President Assad was behind a chemical attack in Syria, “http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23812398

“Russia slams 'unacceptable' calls to use force in Syria,” August 23, 2013, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/23/320107/russia-slams-calls-to-use-force-in-syria/

Russian Foreign Ministry said evidence was mounting that the attack was "clearly provocative in nature" and that footage posted online claiming to incriminate the Syrian regime had been posted before the chemical attack took place. It also accused the insurgents of "directly impeding an objective investigation" of the incident."

“China calls for ‘objective’ UN investigation in Syria,” August 23, 2013, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/23/320019/china-urges-objective-probe-in-syria/

“Syria opposition preventing chemical attack probe: Russia,” August 23, 2013,

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/23/320110/syria-militants-preventing-chem-probe/

On Wednesday, Syria’s opposition claimed that hundreds [had been] killed in a government chemical attack on militant strongholds in Damascus suburbs of Ain Tarma, Zamalka and Jobar before dawn. George Sabra, head of the “Syria’s opposition National Coalition, told reporters in Istanbul that more than 1,300 people were killed in the alleged attack.

“The Syrian army has vehemently denied allegations that it used chemical weapons against Takfiri militants in the suburbs of the Ghouta region, saying the accusations were fabricated to distract the visiting team of UN chemical weapons experts [the an investigating team that arrived in Syria on Sunday] and to cover up militant losses.

“Two Phone Calls Reveal Use of Chemical Weapons in Syria's Homs by Rebels,” August 23, 2013, http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13920601000443

TEHRAN (FNA) - A phone call between a militant affiliated to the so-called ‘Shuhada al-Bayada Battalion’ in Homs and his boss, called Adulbasit from Saudi Arabia, uncovered that antigovernment fighters used the chemical weapons in Deir Ballba in Homs countryside. During a phone call broadcast on the Syrian TV Channel, the militant said that his group which comprises 200 terrorists escaped from al-Bayadah to al-Daar al-Kabera through a tunnel, adding that they needed to buy weapons to attack the City of Homs, the Syrian Arab News Agency reported.

[Also] During the phone conversation, the Saudi financier who was in Cairo admitted to extending support for the rebels in Daraa and Damascus Countryside and asked the militant about details on his group and the way they intended to receive the money. In response, the militant said that one of the achievements of his ‘Battalion’ was the successful use of chemical weapons in Deir Ballba. 

“Diplomat Warns of Spillover of Syrian Crisis,” March 26, 2013, FARS News Agency.

“U.S. doesn’t seek political solution to Syria crisis: Vyacheslav Matuza,” March 22, 2013, http://familysurvivalprotocol.com/2013/03/26/warnings-of-syrian-crisis-spilling-over-to-bordering-countries-it-doesnt-seem-to-be-a-major-concern-for-those-countries-who-continue-to-aid-the-opposition-yes-the-al-qaeda-connection/

Vyacheslav Matuza is a former councilor of the Russian Embassy in Washington.

“U.S. arrogance endangers Koreas, pushes world towards destruction: Dr. Barrett,” April 6, 2013, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/04/06/296832/us-pushes-world-towards-destruction/

Dr. Kevin Barrett is an author and political commentator

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Don’t assume; TAKE ACTION toward Renewable-Energy Era ─ Klare

Oil shale
Mountain
Western Colorado

America’s Intractable Character of War lacks will to care ─ even as Planet cries for relief

Excerpt, editing by 

Carolyn Bennett

Michael Klare appeared today on a segment of KPFA’s “Upfront” program and talked about ideas laid out in his article “The Third Carbon Age.” It was my introduction to the professor and I found in his concerns mine.

Professor Michael Klare is credited with having coined the concept “extreme energy” to describe “a range of techniques for the production of energy from unconventional resources which share characteristics of being environmentally damaging or risky.”

Professor Klare

E.g., exploitation of oil sands and shale oil, deepwater drilling, hydraulic fracturing, mountaintop removal mining, petroleum exploration in the Arctic, and natural gas hydrates.

Michael T. Klare is Five Colleges Professor of peace and world security studies (PAWSS) and director of the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies (PAWSS). Based at Hampshire College, Klare also teaches at Amherst College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Among his most recent books are Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America’s Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum (2004); Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy (2008); The Race for What’s Left: The Global Scramble for the World’s Last Resources (2012). He holds graduate degrees from Columbia University (M.A.) and Union Institute (Ph.D.) and has written widely on U.S. military policy, international peace and security affairs, the global arms trade, and global resource politics. 

These are some notes edited from his article “The Third Carbon Age: Don’t for a Second Imagine We’re Heading for an Era of Renewable Energy.

Coal mining

Empire, Wealth, War: BRITAIN

First Carbon Era: Coal

Empire
Over-reach

The first carbon era began in the late eighteenth century, with the introduction of coal-powered steam engines and their widespread application to all manner of industrial enterprises. Initially used to power textile mills and industrial plants, coal was also employed in transportation (steam-powered ships and railroads), mining, and the large-scale production of iron.  What we now call the Industrial Revolution was largely comprised of the widening application of coal and steam power to productive activities.  Eventually, coal would also be used to generate electricity, a field in which it remains dominant today.

 

This was the era in which vast armies of hard-pressed workers built continent-spanning railroads and mammoth textile mills as factory towns proliferated and cities grew.  It was the era, above all, of the expansion of the British Empire.  For a time, Great Britain was the biggest producer and consumer of coal, the world’s leading manufacturer, its top industrial innovator, and its dominant power -- and all of these attributes were inextricably connected.  By mastering the technology of coal, a small island off the coast of Europe was able to accumulate vast wealth, develop the world’s most advanced weaponry, and control the global sea-lanes.

 

War, Wealth, Global expansion: USA

Second Carbon Era: Black Gold

Mountaintop
Removal

The Oil Age began in 1859 and before 1940, it was important in illumination and lubrication but after the Second World War “oil became the world’s principal source of energy.  Ten 10 million barrels daily in 1950 rose to 77 million daily global-consumption barrels in 2000.

Mountaintop
Removal

As coal had risen to prominence by fueling steam engines, oil rose to prominence fueling the world’s growing fleets of cars, trucks, planes, trains, and ships; and in 2013, petroleum supplies an estimated 97 percent of all energy used in transportation worldwide.

Agriculture and warfare drove the prominence of oil. In a relatively short period of time 

On farms around the world oil-powered tractors and other agricultural machines replaced animals as the primary source of power

Oil spill

On the modern battlefield oil-powered tanks and planes replaced the cavalry as the main source of offensive power. 

Post World War II years saw mass automobile ownership, continent-spanning highways, endless suburbs, giant malls, cheap flights, mechanized agriculture, artificial fibers, and -- above all else -- the global expansion of American power. 

The United States rose as the richest, most powerful country of the twenty-first century because it “possessed mammoth reserves of oil, was the first to master the technology of oil extraction and refining, and was most successful at using petroleum in transportation, manufacturing, agriculture, and war.”

Oil spill

Oil technology allowed the United States ─

…to accumulate staggering levels of wealth,

…to deploy armies and military bases on every continent, and

…to control the global air space and sea-lanes – thus extending its power to every corner of the planet.

But “

…As Britain experienced negative consequences from its excessive reliance on coal, so the United States -- and the rest of the world -- has suffered in various ways from its reliance on oil.” 

Shale

More War, more Global expansion, Wealth ltd: USA

Third Carbon Age

Age of Unconventional Oil and Gas

In contemporary times, humanity is not entering an Age of Renewables but “the third great carbon era, the Age of Unconventional Oil and Gas.” This a reality that should alarm all of us, Michael Klare writes.

“Hydro-fracking -- the use of high-pressure water columns to shatter underground shale formations and liberate the oil and natural gas supplies trapped within them -- is being undertaken in ever more regions of the United States and in a growing number of foreign countries.”  In Canada, Venezuela and elsewhere “the exploitation of carbon-dirty heavy oil and tar sands formations is accelerating.”

In a world where conventional oil and gas supply is rapidly disappearing and global demand for fossil fuels is rising and the world’s energy supply is increasingly provided by unconventional fuels, “one thing is guaranteed,” Klare says:

Water scarcity

…global carbon emissions will soar far beyond our current worst-case assumptions, meaning intense heat waves will become commonplace and our few remaining wilderness areas will be eviscerated.

Planet Earth will be a far harsher, possibly unimaginably harsher and more blistering place. 

As the global supplies of conventional gas and conventional oil shrink, “we are becoming increasingly dependent on unconventional sources of supply -- especially from the Arctic, the deep oceans, and shale rock via hydraulic fracturing.

In 2011, the International Energy Agency predicted that production of unconventional oil, mostly from heavy oil or oil sands in Venezuela and Canada, will reach 10 million barrels a day by 2035. [Wikipedia]

“In certain ways,” Klare says, “unconventional hydrocarbons are akin to conventional fuels but they are largely composed of hydrogen and carbon and can be burned to produce heat and energy. And in time, the differences between conventional and unconventional oil and gas will make a greater and greater difference to us.

Hydraulic fracturing
site

Unconventional fuels -- especially heavy oils and tar sands -- tend to possess a higher proportion of carbon to hydrogen than conventional oil …and so release more carbon dioxide when burned. 

Arctic and deep-offshore oil require more energy to extract, and so produce higher carbon emissions in their very production.

Unconventional fuels’ most worrisome consequence ─ that is, the distinctive nature of these fuels ─ is their extreme impact on the environment. 

U.S.
Over-reach

Because they are often characterized by higher ratios of carbon to hydrogen, and generally require more energy to extract and to be converted into usable materials, they produce more carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy released. 

Many scientists believe the process that produces shale gas (hailed as a ‘clean’ fossil fuel) causes widespread releases of methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas.

Water scarcity
Drought

Water scarcity
Drought

As consumption of fossil fuels grows, increasing not decreasing amounts of CO2 and methane will be released into the atmosphere. Instead of slowing global warming this consumption will speed up global warming.

Production of unconventional oil and gas requires vast amounts of water (for fracking operations, to extract tar sands and extra-heavy oil, and to facilitate the transport and refining of such fuels) thus creating a growing threat of water contamination, especially in areas of intense fracking and tar sands production. In addition to water contamination is the problem of systemic disruption because of for-profit competition among drillers, farmers, municipal water authorities and others.  As climate change intensifies, drought becomes the norm and competition becomes more vicious.

Water scarcity
Drought

Character of War (brute force) inside and out: domestic and foreign

“U.S. and Canadian companies are playing a decisive role in the development of many of the vital new unconventional fossil-fuel technologies [and] some of the world’s largest unconventional oil and gas reserves are located in North America” thus effecting a reinforcement of U.S. global power at the expense of rival energy producing countries such as Russia and Venezuela and energy-importing states such as China and India that lack the resources and technology to produce unconventional fuels.

“Washington,” Klare says, “appears more inclined to counter the rise of China by seeking to dominate global sea lanes and bolster U.S. military ties with regional allies like Australia, India, Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea.”

What to do

 

H

umanity’s survival, “before we burn ourselves off this planet,” Klare says, depends on our becoming “much smarter about the new kind of energy” and taking necessary steps to constrict the third carbon era and with haste usher in “the Age of Renewables.”

 

Shorten era, avert outcomes: What is required, Klare says, is “a systemic drive to identify and resist those responsible for our growing reliance on unconventional fuels.

“…Calling for greater investment in green energy is essential but insufficient at a moment when the powers that be are emphasizing the development of unconventional fuels.  

“Campaigning for curbs on carbon emissions is necessary but will undoubtedly prove problematic, given an increasingly deeply embedded institutional bias toward unconventional energy.”

Together with calling for greater green-energy investment and campaigning for curbs on carbon emissions ─ though some actions are underway, such as student-initiated campaigns to persuade or compel college and university trustees to disinvest from fossil-fuel companies, they fall short of a systemic drive to identify and resist those responsible for our growing reliance on unconventional fuels ─ more is needed, he says. 

There must be “a drive to expose the distinctiveness and the dangers of unconventional energy and to demonize those who choose to invest in these fuels rather than their green alternatives.” 

Sources and notes

“The Third Carbon Age: Don’t for a Second Imagine We’re Heading for an Era of Renewable Energy” (by Michael T. Klare), August 6, 2013, Tomgram: “Michael Klare, How to Fry a Planet,” Posted by Michael Klare at 8:17am, August 8, 2013, http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175734/tomgram%3A_michael_klare%2C_how_to_fry_a_planet

Michael T. Klare biographical notes at:

TomDispatch, http://www.tomdispatch.com/authors/michaelklare/

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Klare

Hampshire College, http://www.hampshire.edu/faculty/mklare.htm

“Upfront” at Pacifica’s KPFA, August 22, 2013, http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/94580

Hydraulic fracturing or fracking is a production-boosting technique in which large amounts of water, sand and chemicals are injected into shale (fissile rock) formations to force hydrocarbon fuels to the surface.

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