One met death by ice pick seventy years ago, and the other is a furtive, fugitive Australian, but I’m giving my votes (thanks to my hacker buddies) to the TROTSKY/ASSANGE ticket in 2012.
WTF am I talking about and how does this apply to the ongoing UNFCC "negotiations" in Cancun? You'll see...
DAILYCANCUN: Why I’m Voting TROTSKY/ASSANGE in 2012
One met death by ice pick seventy years ago, and the other is a furtive, fugitive Australian, but I’m giving my votes (thanks to my hacker buddies) to the TROTSKY/ASSANGE ticket in 2012.
WTF am I talking about and how does this apply to the ongoing UNFCC "negotiations" in Cancun? Bear with me, friends and I’ll do my best to explain. I’ll try to do this in reader-friendly timeline fashion because, well, it breaks up the text a bit.
DECEMBER 1917: Bolshevik Leon Trotsky exposes the secret treaties previously signed by the UK, France and Russia which detailed plans for post-World War One reallocation of colonies and redrawing state borders. This predictably caused outrage by many nations, yet forced a more open post-war planning process. Through exposing secret collusions, Trotsky does the world a good turn.
1919-2008: Other stuff happens, most notably the introduction of Tang, a sweet and tangy orange-flavored powdered beverage in 1959.
DECEMBER 2009: First world nations secretly collude to strong arm the developing world, side step the United Nations and sabotage climate change negotiations at COP15 in Copenhagen. Documents detailing this collusion are leaked and the world feigns shock.
NOVEMBER 2010: As part of their effort to promote/enforce global transparency and expose corruption, Julian Assange and his Wikileaks team make available additional documents that Saudi Arabia, a major influencer thanks to its (much diminished) horde of energy goo, also privately plotted to derail the Copenhagen talks. In a truly sad moment in history, President Obama argues with King Abduallah bin Abdul Aziz over which nation’s version of a toothless accord is more worthy of backing. Assange, through his efforts and timing, puts additional pressure on wealthy nation delegates to avoid similar dodgy dealings at COP16 in Cancun.
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Clear as tar sand, right? At this very moment, delegates from nearly 200 nations have gathered in Cancun to discuss various mechanisms that may among other things lower atmospheric CO2 concentrations (that these negotiations are ultimately futile due in no small part to a widespread belief that continued economic growth is not only possible but fundamental to these mechanisms is fodder for a future post). It may be naïve of me to believe this, but I do think that the Wikileaks storm is going to give these delegates, and their puppet masters (watch the vid footage of U.S. lead negotatior, Todd Stern...when the angle and light are just so you’ll see the strings...I’m fairly certain the guy is an empty-headed marionette remote-controlled by U.S. corporate interests) some pause before heading off to brutally ass rape the children of poor nations behind closed doors. You see, Trotsky and Assange made a point of revealing state secrets so that the world could make better informed decisions. Global citizens, we must not and cannot allow their elected representatives to make clandestine arrangements that work directly against our present and future prosperity.
ASSANGE/TROTSKY 2012!!
(It’s never a great idea to create an article out of a headline. You find yourself in tight corners awfully fast.)
Do I really regard Trotsky as a hero of sorts? Nah. The man was positively brilliant, but was involved with a bit too much bloodletting for my liking. But putting him in the headline brought you this far. Tethering him to Assange allows for topical attention and gives me this chance to invite those who would tear down Wikileaks and call for Assange’s assassination in the name of "national defense" to find yourselves a nice totalitarian state to live and die in. What’s that? You already live in a state where the government has virtually unlimited power and oversees/controls all communications between citizens? Me too. It’s a bummer.
"I was not the one to invent lies: they were created in a society divided by class and each of us inherited lies when we were born. It is not by refusing to lie that we will abolish lies: it is by eradicating class by any means necessary." – J.P. Sartre
I digress, as usual. Back to Cancun. I’ll go on record, and not much of a limb, by saying that very little of real substance is going to get done in Cancun. The measured, incremental "gains" that Robo-Stern and his team are aiming for will do more harm than good. We have five years, maybe ten, to make 80% reductions in our global emissions. Stern’s masters are happy to shoot for ten years before we even begin to enact far less modest proposals. In the meantime, the world burns. And drowns. And starves. And erodes. And runs out of fossil fuels (don’t tell me natural gas is a bridge, that’s bullshit and you’re relying on supply numbers provided by the natgas industry—haven’t you learned this lesson?). And, well, becomes downright unlivable within our lifetime.
Thankfully, we’re busy making giant weird looking art projects with Thom Yorke. And sending Crayola © pleas from African schoolchildren. Instead of marching on President Obama, Canadian Prime Minister Harper and the rest of the gang. Instead of gathering troops to take direct action against all those who, through their inaction, delay tactics and willful opposition, promote the continued erosion of what’s left of our natural resources—of the very stuff we need to live.
Over the next couple of weeks in Cancun, there are a handful of individuals, organizations, foundations and corporations whose interests will be far better served—despite our very best rah-rah cheering to the contrary—than those of 5.999 billion human beings. They simply must be stopped. I have two sons, Justice (8) and Archer (5 months). Just as there seem to be no barriers to how monied interests are protected at the expense of current and future generations, there are few limits to what I’ll do to proactively protect my sons. And I know I’m not alone here. You may not have any children (Lisa Hymas, I’m calling you out! Hah.) but you have family. You have community. You have pride in the world you’ve helped shape. Alongside you, there is a growing number of people all over the world who are starting to clearly see the direct connections. Who understand that their loved ones are being physically jeopardized by unquenchable greed. And if I’m the face of that greed (Charles and David Koch, I’m calling you out ☹ ), I’d be nervous. We live in a hyper-connected world. The ringleaders can’t hide anymore. They’re naked and incredibly vulnerable. I’m just saying.
"The Cancun negotiators need to remind themselves, the longer we delay, the more we will pay both in terms of lives and in terms of money." -- Robert Orr, UN Under Secretary General for Planning
Do be careful Robert. Keep putting pressure on the U.S. delegation and they’re liable to steal your laptop and credit card and harvest your DNA. What, you think I’m exaggerating? Not quite.
"We declare our right on this earth to be ... a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary." – Malcolm X