Gulf Oil Spill: System Not Fit To Be Caretakers of the Planet

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New Orleans, May 11, 2010 – 12PM- For Immediate Release -Update

From Reporters for Revolution Newspaper www.revcom.us

Press Contacts:

Larry Everest 510-472-8484 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              510-472-8484      end_of_the_skype_highlighting larryeverest@hotmail.com Orpheus Reed 206-427-7695 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              206-427-7695      end_of_the_skype_highlighting  orpheus_97404@yahoo.com

Oil Spill Disaster:

Revolution Reporters Condemn and Protest Illegitimate Deepwater Horizon Project Investigation Hearing
This System is NOT Fit to Be the Planet’s Caretakers…Minerals Management Service Is Not Fit to Investigate Catastrophe It Helped Create!

Video: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1090041&id=1075626085#!/video/video.php?v=1384243320871&ref=mf

Today, the Coast Guard and Interior Department’s Mineral Management Service convened the first public hearings in New Orleans on the causes of the Deepwater Horizon Project explosion that has flooded the Gulf of Mexico with oil, threatening an unparalleled environmental catastrophe. MMS has repeatedly allowed BP to bypass safety standards and avoid environmental reviews, contributing to a criminal destruction of species and ecosystems in the Gulf.

As the hearings commenced, Revolution newspaper reporter Larry Everest stood up, holding a banner reading “Gulf Oil Spill: System Not Fit To Be Caretaker of the Planet” and condemned the fact that the public wasn’t even allowed to speak at this “public” hearing and the illegitimacy of MMS being in charge of investigating a disaster they helped create.  Another Revolution colleague unfurled a banner saying- “Stop All Offshore Drilling” and also spoke out against the hearings. Both were prevented from finishing their statements and quickly herded out of the room by Coast Guard officials and Radisson hotel security. ecurity then threatened that if they returned to pass out flyers at this “public” hearing, they would be subject to arrest for criminal trespassing.

MMS exempted BP from environmental restrictions and went along with BP’s lie that it was “unlikely that an accidental surface or subsurface oil spill would occur,” and that “no significant adverse impacts are expected” if a spill did occur.  The Center for Biological Diversity states, “MMS exempts hundreds of dangerous offshore oil drilling projects in the Gulf of Mexico every year,” and exposed on May 7 that the MMS approved 27 new offshore drilling projects since the first day of the BP spill—”26 under the same environmental review exemption used to approve the disastrous BP drilling that is fouling the Gulf and its wildlife.” Two were awarded to BP.

The Times Picayune today reported that independent investigations conducted by Robert Bea, a University of California at Berkeley engineering professor, that gas surges weeks before the explosion had forced BP to shut the well down, but that work on the rig went ahead. Bea’s investigations are compiling statements and testimony from workers present on the Deepwater Horizon at the time of the explosion and others. A further gas surge caused the explosion now wreaking destruction in the Gulf, and the release of methane gas had previously been called by BP “a negligible risk”.

BP has not been acting alone, but had the full backing of the government – the Obama administration approved BP’s Gulf drilling bid in February 2009 – and now those who responsible for this crime against the environment  claim we must rely on them not only to stop the continuing gush of oil polluting the Gulf, but also to clean this up and on top of that, investigate themselves.

This environmental disaster was not an “unavoidable accident” or an “act of god” – it’s a capitalist oil spill.  BP refused to spend money on safety and environmental measures and equipment such as a back-up “acoustic switch” to stop oil from spilling because $500,000 was too high.

The Gulf of Mexico has been turned into a vast laboratory for deep-water oil drilling to serve capitalism’s relentless drive for profit and strategic control of energy resources.  Obama and other world “leaders” are not, and cannot be, caretakers of the planet—because they are caretakers of a system that is, by its very nature, behind the environmental emergency confronting humanity.

But things don’t have to be this way. Under a radically different system, the tremendous wealth and technology that exist could be shared by all of humanity and used to meet the needs of people everywhere for decent and fulfilling lives and to safeguard the planet we live on.  See “State of Emergency: The Plunder of our Planet, The Environmental Catastrophe and the Real Revolutionary Solution,” special environmental issue of Revolution at http://www.revcom.us/environment/index.html

Revolution newspaper is part of building a movement for all-the-way emancipatory revolution and a whole new world focused now in our campaign – “The Revolution We Need, the Leadership We Have”. Everyone concerned and outraged about the state of the world should find out about this, find ways to relate to it or become part of this effort.

The Rulers have no solutions to the environmental emergency, but the Revolution Does!

We demand:
1) Permanently ban all offshore oil drilling and exploration starting now!
2) Full public disclosure of the whole story on the causes and impacts of the spill. No cover-up! “Proprietary secret” (including ingredients of chemical “dispersants” poured into the Gulf) must not stand above health and the environment!
3) Government and all oil companies must assist volunteer clean up and assistance and provide safety equipment and training
4) Mobilize all government and corporate resources to stop the spill and to clean up the damage, to
the planet must come first, not profit!                                                                                                                 5) Full compensation to the families of the workers who were killed and those injured, and to the businesses impacted by the spill.

Orpheus writes on issues of the environment and the antiglobalization movement and contributed to “State of Emergency! The Plunder Of Our Planet, The Environmental Catastrophe and The Real Revolutionary Solution.”

Larry Everest is a Revolution correspondent, and author of Oil, Power & Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda, and Behind the Poison Cloud: Union Carbide’s Bhopal Massacre. The National Academy of Engineering drew on the book’s “Design for Disaster” chapter at their 2002 Annual Symposium on Frontiers of Engineering.

Links to coverage of Protest at Hearing Today

New York Times, “Finger-Pointing, but Few Answers at Hearings on Drilling,” 5/11/2010: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/us/12spill.html?hp

UPI: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/05/11/Gulf-area-hearing-into-oil-spill-disrupted/UPI-69481273597521/

Times Picayune: http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/protesters_try_to_interrupt_st.html

WLTX.com:  http://sec.wltx.com/photo/04t7eH41IvezM?q=Louisiana

Life.com: http://www.life.com/image/98967839

earthtimes.org: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/323137,us-oil-spill-investigation-opens-amidst-protest–update.htm

The battle for China’s past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution
By Mobo C. F. Gao

The Unknown Cultural Revolution: Life and Change in a Chinese Village
By Dongping Han

A two volume biography of Mao Tsetung
By Han Suyin
Volume 1 The Morning Deluge: Mao Tsetung and the Chinese revolution, 1893-1954
Volume 2 Wind in the Tower: Mao Tse-Tung and the Chinese Revolution, 1949-75

You can read the chronology and the introduction to Some of Us: Chinese women growing up in the Mao era By Xueping Zhong, Zheng Wang, Bai Di and about 50% of the entire book Fanshen by William Hinton here below.

And an incredible ballet film here for you also:

But wait a minute…isn’t communism a totalitarian nightmare? Don’t all the textbooks and experts and memoirs agree? No, you’ve been fed distortions about communism…By the same people who told you that the war in Iraq was about weapons of mass destruction…And by liberal and even some progressive scholars who don’t want to see the world turned upside down.

This fall teams of revolutionaries will be hitting campuses around the country—challenging those who have been lied to about communism, those who have been told that the horror of this capitalist-imperialist system is “the best of all possible worlds.”

A centerpiece of these efforts to bring revolution to the campuses will be a major speech by Raymond Lotta. Lotta’s speech will be substantive and potentially transformative for all who hear it, and it must be made a VERY BIG DEAL. The buzz should spread about a revolutionary who is serious about overturning the verdict on communism and has the facts, the analysis, and the passionate commitment to humanity’s liberation to back it up. Those who are attracted to the idea of communism but who’ve been told “it can never work” should know this is the place to come and ask their toughest questions. Opposition from reactionaries should be turned around and made part of the growing controversy and sense that Lotta’s speech must be heard and engaged. All those who consider themselves progressive critics of the current order but who use their “radical” or even “Marxist” credentials to rule real revolution off the table should be compelled—by the overall atmosphere and expectations created campus-wide—to bring their best arguments and put them up against what Lotta will have to say.

Thurs. 10-8-09, 4pm-6pm, Lipman Room, 8th flr, Barrows Hall, UC Berkeley, Barrow Lane & Eshleman Road,
info: Revolution Books, 510-848-1196, revolutionbooks@sbcglobal.net, www.revolutionbooks.org

Read the editorial aboutThe Raymond Lotta Campus Tour

The material above is introductory. To get in-depth scholarly background on the subject go to the ‘SOCIALIST EXPERIENCE’ section of Ray Lotta’s website This is Communism; Set the Record Straight.

Also, on the subject of fighting against the greatest propaganda campaign on Earth to defend capitalism from being overthrown, I really like
chapter 1, “History and Responsibility”
Marxism and the Call of the Future
Conversations on Ethics, History and Politics
This link opens up the Amazon book excerpt tool which will let you read the first three pages of chapter 1.

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He was a brilliant writer, orator, educator, critic and political activist…a key figure in much of 20th century black radicalism…a brilliant intellectual…

He is at the center of the birth and development of the socialist and communist movements in America…

Here is a super list of online resources on Hubert Harrison

Here is a 1500-word description of “Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918″ by the author at Blackpast.org

Today, we got one step closer to REVOLUTION IN THE USA. A new website was just launched called Revolution Talk. Go there to start finding out

WHY IT’S NECESSARY
WHY IT’S POSSIBLE
WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT

The homepage offers four excerpts from the video that are each about five minutes long. I really like the one titled; “Imagine … a new society” which I embedded above.

Once you get done wetting your appetite with the excerpts, you probably want to take in some of the full length version by clicking on full talk which takes you to the full length 11 hour version broken down into 4 parts with an index which you will need. Just to let you know that this is not purely rigid theory and that this revolution is talking about the real issues facing people and that this is a revolution where you can have a little fun too, check out the answer Bob Avakian gives to question number one in part four of the full length version at the beginning of the clip I embedded just below here…very funny revolutionarios:

Revolution: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible, What It’s All About: a film of a talk by Bob Avakian. SESSION 4, Q&A from RevolutionTalk on Vimeo.

Soon, I will be posting about how I am getting this video around to my friends. I just got started this morning and done some work on youtube, blip, twitter, facebook and google reader.

Please comment on and discuss this post in the comments section. I am very interested to hear everyone’s thoughts on the politics and the music.

I wrote this song to encourage people to join the protest and against Dean Edley on Saturday, May 16, 2009 (details)(8-9:15am is the most important) and to help explain UC Berkeley Law School’s Dean Edley’s role and responsibility in obstructing the international movement against torture. Edley’s employee, John Yoo looms large on this planet for the damage he has done to the law of torture and the thousands of lives that have been ruined through the War on Terror torture programs – and the related effects of warping reason, ethics and behavior internationally. Dean Edley is dissembling on the subject of John Yoo’s torture positions and ideology. Dean Edley always turns the subject to “Academic Freedom”.

See the video I made with Mark K. of last years Berkeley Law graduation protest against John Yoo and Dean Edley:

Dean Edley has a right and a responsibility professionally as a lawyer and as the Dean of a law school as well as his human right and a personal responsibility to take a stand against John Yoo and the torture program of the Bush Regime. Sure, it’s complicated to maintain the academic freedom of his employee while doing that. But, Edley is a lawyer. He can figure it out. But, he will not.

Not unlike John Yoo, Edley is affable and friendly with a warm smile. This is the basis for defense of their actions by many students sprinkled vague positions on academic freedom. C’MON UC BERKELEY. DO SOMETHING WITH THAT EDUCATION! Dean Edley will not stand against John Yoo and the torture program Yoo penned and provided legal cover for. Dean Edley stands with torture and obstructs the progress of human rights and the international movements against torture.

This song is a rough job. I will probably continue the process of evolving these lyrics, music and video. You can read about the 100 year history of Guantanamera as social commentary in “The song used as social “newspaper”“. This is the most popular song of all time in Cuba. Richard Stallman wrote the first “Guantanamero” variation in 2006. Mine here is the second. I encourage all of my comrades – resisting and standing against torture and this American Juggernaught of war and repression – to learn this song, study it’s history and create your own version. This can be one of the thousands of political art forms we need to blossom in America today to “Fight the power and prepare the people for revolution!”

LYRICS

Guantanamero speak
from your cell of Gitmo lies.
with compassion for all the tortured
help us call out this complicit dean

First let me say that I don’t understand
I don’t know how I wound up here
I’ve had no trial, no justice
I’ve been here six long years
Is there anyone out there?
Is there anyone who cares.

Guantanamero speak.
John Yoo created your hell on earth.
Dean Edley pays his check
with no morals, no compassion, no truth.

They come and get me in the morning.
They make me stand until I fall.
Then angered they aproach me.
My head then hits the wall.
Is it they want me to die?
Sometimes I wish I would die.

Guantanamero speak.
Your Torture isnt just a war crime.
It’s a disgusting abomination
and a crime against humanity.

The blood is running down my face now.
But I can see that there’s a dog.
It’s getting closer to attack me.
I’ll be dead before to long.
How long can this go on?
Don’t they know this is wrong?

Guantanamero speak.
But Dean Edley stands in the way.
Freedom for John Yoo
Means Edley’s linked to your torture too.

Oh no don’t take me there now.
Don’t make me lie there on that board.
I’m gaging then I’m choking.
Please God let me have some air.
Why do they not just kill me?
How much longer will this go on?

Guantanamero speak.
It’s not only the chain of command,
the pens of Bybee and Yoo.
Torture needs friends like edley too.

I miss my children and my wife.
They do not know if I’m alive.
What evil people do this to me?
How can they think that this is right?
How can they let this go on?
How can you let this go on?

Guantanamero speak.
Some feel its wrong to blame this not-so-simple dean.
or Berkeley’s provost or the president of UC.
Where do you end complicity?

Guantanamero speak.
John is walking free.
Teaching at UC,
Dean Edley knows it gives legitimacy.