In this possibly terminal phase of human existance, democracy and freedom are more than values to be treasured, they may well be essential to survival. -Noam Chomsky

'Imagine the Unthinkable'
By Ruth Rosen
FromCommon Dreams
2004

THE PENTAGON has warned that global warming is a serious threat to our country's national security.

No, this is not an April Fool's Day joke, though it may seem like one.

Dryly entitled "An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for U.S. National Security" (October 2003), the Pentagon report first appeared in the British press, Fortune magazine, a small number of American newspapers and then began circulating on the Internet.

Andrew Marshall, a highly respected 82-year-old defense adviser in the Department of Defense, commissioned the Pentagon study. He also led the sweeping review of the military ordered by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and runs a little known Pentagon think tank, the Office of Net Assessment, which has evaluated risks to national security for four presidents.

The authors of the study -- Peter Schwartz, a CIA consultant, and Doug Randall of the Global Business Network in California, are tough-minded analysts, not your stereotypical tree-hugging environmentalists.

Their report, however, reads like the script for a horror flick. "The purpose of this report," they begin, "is to imagine the unthinkable." To accomplish this goal, they "interviewed leading climate-change scientists."

Extrapolating from the present, they predict that dramatic climate changes may lead to rising seas, mega-droughts and famine within 20 years. Some European coastal cities, such as The Hague, could sink under the ocean, Britain could be plunged into a semi-Siberian climate, Bangladesh could become uninhabitable and drought could destroy the American breadbasket.

California would be especially hard hit. "Failures of the delta-island levees in the Sacramento River region in the Central Valley of California" could create an inland sea that would "disrupt the aqueduct system that transports water from Northern to Southern California because saltwater can no longer be kept out of the area during the dry season . . ."

In response to such catastrophic changes, the authors argue, some regions or countries will defend dwindling supplies of water, food and energy with all kinds of military strategies, including nuclear weapons. Widespread rioting and regional conflict could even push some areas of the planet to the edge of anarchy.

Global warming, they conclude, must "therefore be viewed as a serious threat to global stability and should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a U.S. national security concern."

So far, the reframing of global warming as a national security threat has fallen on deaf ears at the White House. But what would you expect? The Bush administration, after all, has said that "the jury is still out on global warming," suppressed scientific data on global warming in a 2002 annual report on the state of air pollution and published a 2003 "comprehensive" report on the environment without including any information at all about climate change.

Jeremy Symons, a whistle-blower at the Environmental Protection Agency, told the British newspaper the Observer, that "This administration is ignoring the evidence in order to placate a handful of large energy and oil companies."

Symons's desire for scientific impartiality is shared by many respected scientists who have protested the Bush administration's manipulation or suppression of scientific evidence.

Robert Watson, now chief scientist for the World Bank, has also warned that the Bush administration must not ignore the Pentagon's dire warnings.

For decades, human-rights proponents have been advocating an expanded definition of national security -- one that includes the health and welfare of citizens. With both the World Bank and the Pentagon worried about global warming, President Bush now has an opportunity to broaden his militaristic view of national security and include climate change as well.

If he doesn't, Sen. John Kerry, who does believe in the reality of global warming, should use his presidential campaign to challenge Bush's narrow definition of national security.

The Pentagon's report is already breathing new life into the McCain- Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act that was narrowly defeated last year. A staff member of Sen. Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Indiana, chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, says that he plans to hold hearings on global warming and the national security.

The Bush administration says it was shocked when the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks occurred. Now, the Pentagon is predicting an eventual environmental Armageddon.

Don't say we weren't warned.



Amnesty International Canada's Consultations Regarding Sexual and Reproductive Rights

From Amnesty International Canada
2006

Since Amnesty International began its global work to stop violence against women, we have documented the experiences of women who have lived through grave human rights abuses during armed conflict, violence in the home, rape and other forms of sexual violence.

These issues of concern raised questions about Amnesty International’s ability to prevent human rights abuses and address its impact on women. It was apparent that Amnesty International needed to determine a policy on sexual and reproductive rights through discussions with its membership across the world.

Amnesty International Canada met at its Annual General Meeting in Winnipeg in May 2006 to discuss sexual and reproductive rights with regard to three specific areas of abortion.

They are:

Decriminalization of abortion – this means that individuals will not be jailed for seeking an abortion or performing an abortion

Access to quality health care services. This is to ensure that mothers will not die from complications that arise as a result of an abortion, be it legal or illegal

Access to abortion in cases of rape, sexual assault, incest and when the continuation of the pregnancy will risk the life of a woman.

Each participant at the meeting voiced their opinion about the development of policy in these three areas. The result indicated that a sizable majority of members attending the Annual General Meeting do support the development of policy regarding these three aspects of abortion.

A significant number of members are also either opposed to or have serious concerns about Amnesty taking up these issues.

Amnesty Canada’s delegation will be participating in further discussions at an international meeting later this summer. A third international meeting will be held in August 2007 to determine Amnesty’s overall policy regarding access to abortion services.

Delegates made the following recommendations that:

Amnesty International's policies are in keeping with international legal standards

Amnesty International's work focus on the gravest of abuses

Amnesty International must consult further with the membership

Amnesty International develop expertise in these issues

Amnesty International is receiving suggestions and recommendations from a number of external stakeholders, interested organizations and individuals. Ultimately, the policies will be defined based on decisions taken by bodies elected by Amnesty members around the world.


Ten Reasons Why the Wal-Mart Pundits Are Wrong

By John Cavanagh & Sarah Anderson
2006

On September 11, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley used his veto power for the first time in seventeen years to block a measure that would have given Wal-Mart employees and workers at other "big box" stores at least $10 per hour plus benefits worth at least $3 per hour. The City Council had passed the bill by a 35-to-14 vote margin. Daley's brash act was a temporary victory for the chorus of conservative pundits and corporate flacks who have been singing Wal-Mart's virtues for the past year. Here's what they claim and why they are wrong:

1. Wal-Mart's low prices save American consumers $263 billion a year (cited by syndicated columnists Robert Samuelson, Sebastian Mallaby, John Tierney and George Will):

The Economic Policy Institute has ripped apart the methodology Wal-Mart's consultants used to come up with this most popular claim of the Wal-Mart pundits. The consultants based their finding on an analysis of the effect of Wal-Mart expansion in a locality on overall consumer prices in that area. The problem, as EPI points out, is that 60 percent of the consumer price index is made up of services like transportation and housing that Wal-Mart doesn't provide. Therefore, the $263 billion figure is wildly exaggerated.

Even Wal-Mart's recent announcement that it will sell generic drugs for $4 is mostly hype. According to the New York Times, the plan will only cover about 124 medicines (out of 11,000 generics on the market), and Wal-Mart was careful not to include relatively expensive but widely used drugs like the high-cholesterol treatment Zocor. In her forthcoming book Big-Box Swindle, Stacy Mitchell cites surveys in several states that have found it was independent pharmacies--not Wal-Mart--that had the lowest average prices on drugs.

While Wal-Mart's consumer benefits are clearly overrated, it's hard to dispute that the company sells a lot of cheap stuff. The question, then, is at what price? Slavery kept cotton prices low in the United States for centuries and saved consumers countless dollars. But it was wrong. Likewise, Wal-Mart's strategy of keeping costs down by exploiting sweatshop suppliers abroad while undermining unions and paying less than living wages in this country should be deemed unacceptable in the twenty-first century.

2. If Wal-Mart increases wages, it will have to increase prices (various pundits):

Wal-Mart knows, despite all the bluster to the contrary, that there is ample space in its profits ($11.2 billion in 2005) to increase wages without raising prices. According to the Economic Policy Institute, Wal-Mart could have raised the wages and benefits of each worker by more than $2,000 last year without raising prices--while still maintaining a profit margin substantially higher than Costco's. A key competitor, Costco pays its workers an average of $17 an hour. Wal-Mart claims it pays its full-time employees $10.11 per hour but refuses to reveal average pay for its part-time workers.

3. "When Wal-Mart opened a store in Glendale, Ariz., last year, it received 8,000 applications for 525 jobs, suggesting that not everyone believes the pay and benefits are unattractive" (Sebastian Mallaby):

In a global economy whose rules are rigged in favor of highly mobile global corporations, US workers have precious few choices in the job market. The country has hemorrhaged 3.4 million manufacturing jobs since 1998. Of the ten occupations projected to have the largest growth in coming years, five (retail sales, cashiers, food preparation, janitors and waiters) have median pay that is below the poverty line for a family of four. And even in this job market, more than half of Wal-Mart workers turn over every year, according to the group American Rights at Work.

4. If cities raise minimum wages, Wal-Mart and other big-box stores will go elsewhere:

This was Wal-Mart's top argument against the Chicago bill. In some instances, Wal-Mart has cut and run to escape pesky unions or regulations. In Quebec, where labor laws are stronger than in the United States, Wal-Mart closed down one store after workers dared to vote in a union, and the company has fought in the courts (albeit so far unsuccessfully) against unionization of a second store. In Germany, Wal-Mart withdrew completely, mostly because of low profits, but the firm had also chafed under the country's stringent labor and environmental regulations. And yet Wal-Mart has also demonstrated that it will bend when it deems the benefits outweigh the bottom line. For example, when British distribution center workers at Wal-Mart's Asda chain threatened to strike this spring, Wal-Mart chose not to bolt but to grant large concessions. Asda makes up 10 percent of the company's global sales.

In the United States, Wal-Mart has virtually saturated rural America. Thus, its future profits depend in good part on breaking into US urban markets. The only question is what standards will the world's largest retailer be asked to meet?

5. "Wal-Mart's health benefits are about as generous as those of comparable employers" (Sebastian Mallaby):

"Wal-mart doesn't pay high wages and benefits mainly because it's in an industry (retailing) where those are rare," notes economist Robert Samuelson. And Wal-Mart isn't the only employer with crummy wages and benefits. Pressure to compete with the Wal-Mart goliath makes it hard for everyone else to gain better wages and benefits. That was one of the tough lessons learned by the California grocery employees during the failed strike of 2003-04.

6. "Wal-Mart costs about 50 retail jobs among competitors for every 100 jobs Wal-Mart creates" (George Will):

Not so fast, George. Numerous studies indicate that Wal-Mart is a net job-killer. The Public Policy Institute of California found that Wal-Mart stores reduce employment in their local county's retail sector by 2 to 4 percent. A widely cited study by Iowa State University documented that rural communities (the focus of Wal-Mart's initial expansion) lost up to 47 percent of their retail trade ten years after the discount giant's arrival. A University of Illinois study forecast a likely net job decrease in Chicago's West Side if Wal-Mart came in.

7. "Wal-Mart has helped poor and middle class consumers--in fact, more than anybody else" (Richard Vedder):

This hyperbole comes from the American Enterprise Institute, one of four pro-Wal-Mart think tanks that have received grants from Wal-Mart's foundation. In fact, what Wal-Mart has helped to do is lower the earnings of poor and middle-class consumers. Studies by the University of California-Irvine and others show that when Wal-Mart enters a region, the area's overall wages tend to decline as competitors' higher-paying jobs are wiped out. This wage depression has been most severe in the southern United States, where Wal-Mart stores are most prevalent.

8. "The notion that a job is worthless without benefits is like saying a car is useless without a sunroof" (Tim Kane, Heritage Foundation):

Is healthcare really a frivolous "option"? According to an internal company memo, 46 percent of Wal-Mart workers' children either have no health insurance or are on Medicaid. The same memo reveals that less than half of Wal-Mart's associates are enrolled in the company health insurance plan, compared to the nearly 70 percent enrolled with most national employers.

Wal-Mart encourages its 1.3 million US employees to enroll in taxpayer-funded health programs. A number of studies have demonstrated the way Wal-Mart shifts its employee expenses onto taxpayers. A 2004 Congressional study estimated that taxpayers subsidize an average Wal-Mart store to the tune of more than $420,000 a year, or more than $2,000 per employee. This takes the form of government-funded food stamps, housing subsidies and health insurance programs. Another study found that the state of California spent a total of $86 million a year on public assistance for Wal-Mart workers, or more than $1,900 per worker. Wal-Mart employees were the largest users of state healthcare programs in eleven out of thirteen states that reported employer usage.

9. Wal-Mart is now "the green machine" (Fortune magazine):

In an apparent attempt to peel off some of its critics, Wal-Mart has announced a long list of environmental commitments. It has jumped into the organics market and set up a series of "sustainability" groups to get environmentalists' help on specific challenges, like reducing packaging and boosting truck fuel efficiency. The problem is that it's simply impossible for a business model so dependent on a fossil fuel-driven global supply chain to be sustainable. With more than 60,000 suppliers, Wal-Mart's supply chain emits 200 million metric tons of global warming pollution a year.

10. "Wal-Mart coming into a community expands the tax base and boosts overall community development" (various pundits):

It's just the opposite. Wal-Mart gets local and state taxpayers to provide substantial subsidies to Wal-Mart stores in the form of real estate development funds and reduced property taxes. One Good Jobs First study found that 90 percent of Wal-Mart distribution centers received tax breaks and other subsidies, valued at an average of $7.4 million per distribution center. Wal-Mart sought and received subsidies averaging about $2.8 million at 1,100 of their locations, about one-third of its US stores.