Lynas: China Rigged Copenhagen For Failure So As To Pin The Blame For It On Obama

This doesn’t surprise me one bit, really:

Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about
what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and
inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the
talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful
“deal” so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I
know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.

China’s strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two
weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if
the west had failed the world’s poor once again. And sure enough, the
aid agencies, civil society movements and environmental groups all
took the bait…

…. Even George Monbiot, writing in yesterday’s Guardian, made the mistake of
singly blaming Obama. But I saw Obama fighting desperately to salvage
a deal, and the Chinese delegate saying “no”, over and over again.
Monbiot even approvingly quoted the Sudanese delegate Lumumba
Di-Aping, who denounced the Copenhagen accord as “a suicide pact, an
incineration pact, in order to maintain the economic dominance of a
few countries”.

Sudan behaves at the talks as a puppet of China; one of a number of
countries that relieves the Chinese delegation of having to fight its
battles in open sessions. It was a perfect stitch-up. China gutted the
deal behind the scenes, and then left its proxies to savage it in
public.

And they did it pretty much because they could — and because even with their glaciers melting, the glaciers that supply their rivers, scoring points off the US is far, far more important than making sure the world as a whole survives.

The one thing, besides Lynas’ presence, that kept the Chinese from getting clean away with it: Obama’s breaking into one of the secret meetings the Chinese were holding; the cat started to get out of the bag at that point.

(Crossposted at The Seminal.)

UPDATE: I for one should have known something was up when a bunch of nations that turned out to be China’s proxies started hollering over draft documents that were months old and no longer part of the discussion. But of course Obama is pure evil even when he’s trying to cut emissions or rid the world of nuclear weapons, so we should all cheer the fact that the Chinese tried to game him. Yippeeeee!

Honduras Coup, Act VI, Day 22

It’s always interesting what one learns from reading what one’s opponents put before one. A defender of the dictatorship put forward a State Department report from February 2009 on human rights in Honduras. The writing is awful, such that one cannot make any comparisons between time periods to get a sense of what is happening in terms of violence. But one sentence in particular was of interest:

In the run-up to the November 30 primary elections, there were several politically motivated killings, which analysts interpreted as a “message” from organized crime for the Liberal Party and President Zelaya in particular to stop maneuvering to remain in power.

This implies that the dictatorship and organized crime in some degree coincide. That would not surprise me in the slightest, since the methods used against Zelaya are those of criminals.

Channel 36: The taxi drivers are on strike, demanding their bonus. They argue that they are more deserving than anyone because they are poor. The teachers are also demanding to be paid.
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Update:
Pretend Minister of Finance, Gabriela Nunez, says that the dictatorship has three months of monetary reserves (roughly $100M), so there’s no need to devalue. Reserves have fallen 20%.

Colombian paramilitaries from the AUC were used in Honduras. Nice guys:

Dole Food Company and Chiquita Brands International paid a Colombian terrorist organization to perform protection services that included murdering trade unionists, demobilized paramilitary José Gregorio Mongones said in an affidavit released December 6.

The testimony is the centerpiece of two civil lawsuits against Chiquita and Dole filed by family members of victims of paramilitary violence in Colombia. Both lawsuits accuse the companies of funding the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (Colombian United Self-Defense Units, or AUC), the country’s largest paramilitary organization, formally demobilized in 2006.

Radio Globo. Rafael Alegria. Demo on the 7th, supporting ALBA and human rights. The dictatorship is planning to not pay back money they received from ALBA.

Lisa Sullivan, SOAW:

The shy and serious faces of sustenance fishermen and farmers slowly opened up as we asked them to share their stories of recent months and days. There was one word that was repeated by every single one of them, old and young, men and women: fear.

Most of those present had been put on a list of resistance leaders, created by local mayors on orders of the coup regime. They had been targeted after walking 6 days into the capital to greet President Manuel Zelaya who was trying to re-enter the country. Zelaya had promised these communities that they would be given titles to the lands. Outside investors were claiming the rights to these lands that had birthed generations of their ancestors, but whose stunning views of mountains and seas made them desirable as sites of future resorts. They openly wondered if one of the reasons for the coup was the fact that Zelaya was overthrown was the fact that he had consistently defended the interests of poor farmers and fishermen over those of the corrupt elites who had ruled this small nation for centuries.

Since appearing on “the list” police have been entering their homes, demanding knowledge of their whereabouts from their families, following them to fields and fishing posts. One fisherman after another shared how they were not sleeping in their homes, how they feared leaving their wives and children alone as they tended to fishing traps, how they wondered if they would be the next ones to be found in a field and without life.

Reason Versus Emotion: HCR

A funny thing about the persons who back the “any HCR bill’s better than no HCR bill” concept is that many of them are pushing the meme that those who want to kill the Senate bill are doing it out of sheer emotion-laden spite, when they’re the ones losing their Pooh over it.

Case in point: Nate Silver’s increasingly bizarre and histrionics-fraught responses to Jon Walker, as detailed here.

Honduras Coup, Act VI, Day 21

Update2:

Food First Information and Action Network says on Vos that the kidnappers of two land rights activists were employees of Miguel Facussé, René Morales and Reynaldo Canales

I have been meaning to read Honduras Caritas documents that Brother John has posted and am just now reminded of my failing by seeing them on Adrienne’s site. Anyway, Caritas condemns the brutal murders of Walter Trochez, Ángel Salgado, Nicolle Cabrera, and others.

Mariano Castillo of CNN finally admitted that the TSE made up (my term, definitely not his) turnout numbers, but said we should trust them that they didn’t fiddle the ballots in the nearly three weeks it took them to count.

Quixote Center:

We are receiving alarming reports from partners in Honduras. Emboldened by the United States endorsement of the November 29th “elections,” the state terror apparatus in Honduras has ramped up its grisly repression.

There has been a spike in targeted murders and abductions following the November 29th “electoral event” which was massively boycotted by the people of Honduras. This escalation of human rights abuses is especially alarming because the judicial system is on holiday until January 2nd. People are terrified and are leaving the country.

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Update:

Apparently it’s official that in Honduras, the number of votes exceeds 100%:
2,300,056……….Total votes examined
2,143,012……….Valid votes
61,740……….Blank
92,604……….Spoiled
2,700……….Werevotes, which vanished upon addition

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The resistance is on holiday until January 7. The second demo for 2010 is scheduled for Pretend Inauguration Day, January 27th. While the pretend government has managed the external debt, the internal debt has exploded, with $130M in bonds having just been issued. 13% of GDP is internal debt. The one advantage of internal debt is that you can default with fewer consequences, but it also raises the cost of credit. Food supplies fell. Grain dropped 1.4% and frijoles are down 25%. But the imagined yield of corn for 2010 is up by 9.3%.

Zelaya is on Radio Globo. Thanks to Llorens for the visit. The US is saying the right things, that Zelaya remains the legitimate president and that the elections are not a sufficient condition. Marisol salutes Zelaya.

(Via BoRev) Human Rights Watch condemns the violence against LGBTs in Honduras:

(New York) – The killing of an HIV/AIDS outreach worker on December 14, 2009, is part of a pattern of violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Honduras that seems to have accelerated in the turbulent months since the June 28 coup, Human Rights Watch said today.

“Seems to have accelerated” as in “murders of LGBT people are up at least 5- and perhaps 12-fold.” Barely noticeable, at least if you’re not one of those being threatened, beaten, or murdered.

Blizzard paralyzes Wales

No Comment

(Image from BBC)

High finance

From Yves Smith (ultimately from Rajeev Syal at The Observer):

Wow, so it wasn’t Turbo Timmy, the AIG rescue, the alphabet soup of Fed currency facilities or the currency swaps that saved the global banking system. The marginal suppliers of capital, according to the UN, were drug lords. That means that the UN is saying that the banks went into the money-laundering business on a much greater scale than before as a matter of survival.

Honduras Coup, Act VI, Day 20

Radio Gualcho says it might be off the air tomorrow. Now talking about Llorens’s visit to Zelaya.
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(Image from La Tribuna. Who’s the criminal? 21 year-old Hermes Tercero has been accused of the drive-by assassination of Nicolle Cabrera).

HondurasCoup2009 says that 100.07% of the vote has been counted, and they’re still at it. Now they’re up to 100.09%. Of 2,298,080 votes, there are 153.6K blank/spoiled ballots, leaving 2.1 M votes: a 49% turnout. There was 55% turnout in the 2005 presidential elections (only 46% for Congress). HC2009 also links to a story in La Tribuna about Ambassador Hugo Llorens visiting Zelaya. Last time Llorens went on vacation, the repression went way up. Interestingly, Tiempo isn’t covering this at all.

Via Adrienne, the non-profit May I Speak Freely? Media says:

A report, slated for release Dec. 17, by the Honduran Women’s Rights Center and other rights’ groups documented at least 235 separate human rights violations—the group had to stop counting—during the 10-day period immediately before and after election (Nov. 25-Dec. 5). Cited abuses included illegal searches of alleged resistance members’ homes, illegal detentions, police and military surveillance of resistance members, voter deterrence efforts in resistance-heavy neighborhoods, and five confirmed resistance-related deaths.

In Case It Wasn’t Clear To You That The GOP Is The Party Of Racism

Piggybacking on Charles’ discussion of the intellectual and moral death spiral of the modern conservative movement, I would like to pass on this recent example of racist-directed dogwhistling, courtesy of nepotism beneficiary Jonah Goldberg, an example which is tucked into the body of a column ostensibly about Those Filthy Modern Celebrities And Athletes (emphases added):

It’s not all bad news, to be sure. The elite minority’s general acceptance of racial and sexual equality as important values has been a moral triumph. But not without costs. As part of this transformation, society has embraced what social scientist Charles Murray calls “ecumenical niceness.” A core tenet of ecumenical niceness is that harsh judgments of the underclass — or people with underclass values — are forbidden. An added corollary: People with old-fashioned notions of decency are fair game.

Long before the rise of reality shows, ecumenical niceness created a moral vacuum. Out-of-wedlock birth was once a great shame; now it’s something of a happy lifestyle choice. The cavalier use of profanity was once crude; now it’s increasingly conversational. Self-discipline was once a virtue; now self-expression is king.

And just in case you didn’t get the point, he throws in a zinger at Tiger Woods at the end (as if the sport of golf didn’t have any white sinners before Tiger came along — John Daly, anyone?).

Setting aside the irony that the only reason Jonah Goldberg has a paying gig is because of his mother’s celebrity among the get-Clinton wing of the conservative movement, or that most of the states with the highest divorce and teen pregnancy rates happen to be in the “old-fashioned notions of decency” Bible Belt and Confederacy areas, let’s look at the guy Goldberg cites as an expert in cultural values, Charles Murray.

Y’all remember who Charles Murray is, right?

The guy who gave us The Bell Curve?

The guy whose racism and academic quackery has kept him largely ostracized even by the mainstream of the GOP/Media Complex, yet is still worshiped in conservative circles like Jonah’s? (And especially so at openly-racist sites like VDARE’s? )

The guy who burned a cross in front of his hometown police station in Newton, Iowa?

Yeah, that guy.

That should tell you something about Jonah Goldberg and his conservative readership, that he could cite someone as vile as Murray despite Murray’s being debunked to hell and back.

NJ Gov-elect, Sean Hannity, the neo-Nazi, and the FBI. PLUS: Sarah Palin and the John Birch Society

Max Blumenthal always has a tale worth listening to:

The trials of [radio personality Hal] Turner might not have invited any media interest had he been another lone wolf howling into the night about the swarthy evildoers supposedly destroying America. After all, white supremacists across the country are persistently prosecuted for activities ranging from criminal littering to murder. But Turner has been an insider both in the New Jersey GOP and in a controversial federal anti-terror program designed to “flush out” violent far-right plots, making him a treasure trove of information on the many prominent Republicans he has associated with over the years. These characters include Turner’s former friend Sean Hannity, who allegedly counseled him on overcoming his cocaine habit and homosexual urges, and New Jersey Governor-elect Chris Christie, whose alleged involvement with Turner may result in the first scandal of his term.

Speaking of which, Rachel talked about the merger of CPAC and the John Birch Society.

And just to show you that we must be in the End Times, Little Green Footballs says that the John Birch Society is nuts and has a picture of Sarah Palin reading the John Birch Society magazine.

Honduras Coup, Act VI, Day 19

A point for Micheletti. In the face of evidence from the DNIC (Honduran cops), he has admitted that his accusation against the resistance for the murder of Nicolle Cabrera may not be correct. And a point against him: he said he had to make the accusation because Carol Cabrera told him that she had been threatened by the resistance. The resistance believes that the deaths of several of their leaders are a consequence of Micheletti’s accusation. And they are very likely right.

(Image from El Libertador)

BoRev has some fun with a very real and very bad Guardian headline:

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Update: RNS analyzes State Department human rights policy. According to a speech by Hillary Clinton, there are four elements:
1) stick to universal rights with accountability (though sometimes accountability in private)
2) pragmatic, case-by-case applications
3) support citizens in their attempts to change their communities
4) include both places formerly abandoned as intractable and reinforce places where “hope is on the rise.”
So, does the State Department record support having done any of this with respect to Honduras? In a word, no. In public statements, they’ve barely mentioned human rights, and have done so only in the vaguest of terms. For the most part, they’ve denied knowing about human rights violations, and they’ve always denied knowing about murders and kidnappings. They claim to only know about disproportionate use of force and restriction of freedom of expression. Murder and kidnapping could, I suppose, be called either disproportionate use of force and restriction of freedom of expression, but a better term would be “completely unacceptable.”