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How Swedes and Norwegians Broke the Power of the ‘1 Percent’
While many of us are working to ensure that the Occupy movement will have a lasting impact, it’s worthwhile to consider other countries where masses of people succeeded in nonviolently bringing about a high degree of democracy and economic justice. Sweden and Norway, for example, both experienced a major power shift in the 1930s after prolonged nonviolent struggle. They “fired” the top 1 percent of people who set the direction for society and created the basis for something different.
A march in Ådalen, Sweden, in 1931.
Both countries had a history of horrendous poverty. When the 1 percent was in charge, hundreds of thousands of people emigrated to avoid starvation. Under the leadership of the working class, however, both countries built robust and successful economies that nearly eliminated poverty, expanded free university education, abolished slums, provided excellent health care available to all as a matter of right and created a system of full employment. Unlike the Norwegians, the Swedes didn’t find oil, but that didn’t stop them from building what the latest CIA World Factbook calls “an enviable standard of living.”
Neither country is a utopia, as readers of the crime novels by Stieg Larsson, Kurt Wallender and Jo Nesbro will know. Critical left-wing authors such as these try to push Sweden and Norway to continue on the path toward more fully just societies. However, as an American activist who first encountered Norway as a student in 1959 and learned some of its language and culture, the achievements I found amazed me. I remember, for example, bicycling for hours through a small industrial city, looking in vain for substandard housing. Sometimes resisting the evidence of my eyes, I made up stories that “accounted for” the differences I saw: “small country,” “homogeneous,” “a value consensus.” I finally gave up imposing my frameworks on these countries and learned the real reason: their own histories.
Then I began to learn that the Swedes and Norwegians paid a price for their standards of living through nonviolent struggle. There was a time when Scandinavian workers didn’t expect that the electoral arena could deliver the change they believed in. They realized that, with the 1 percent in charge, electoral “democracy” was stacked against them, so nonviolent direct action was needed to exert the power for change.
In both countries, the troops were called out to defend the 1 percent; people died. Award-winning Swedish filmmaker Bo Widerberg told the Swedish story vividly in Ådalen 31, which depicts the strikers killed in 1931 and the sparking of a nationwide general strike. (You can read more about this case in an entry by Max Rennebohm in the Global Nonviolent Action Database.)
The Norwegians had a harder time organizing a cohesive people’s movement because Norway’s small population—about three million—was spread out over a territory the size of Britain. People were divided by mountains and fjords, and they spoke regional dialects in isolated valleys. In the nineteenth century, Norway was ruled by Denmark and then by Sweden; in the context of Europe Norwegians were the “country rubes,” of little consequence. Not until 1905 did Norway finally become independent.
When workers formed unions in the early 1900s, they generally turned to Marxism, organizing for revolution as well as immediate gains. They were overjoyed by the overthrow of the czar in Russia, and the Norwegian Labor Party joined the Communist International organized by Lenin. Labor didn’t stay long, however. One way in which most Norwegians parted ways with Leninist strategy was on the role of violence: Norwegians wanted to win their revolution through collective nonviolent struggle, along with establishing co-ops and using the electoral arena.
In the 1920s strikes increased in intensity. The town of Hammerfest formed a commune in 1921, led by workers councils; the army intervened to crush it. The workers’ response verged toward a national general strike. The employers, backed by the state, beat back that strike, but workers erupted again in the ironworkers’ strike of 1923–24.
The Norwegian 1 percent decided not to rely simply on the army; in 1926 they formed a social movement called the Patriotic League, recruiting mainly from the middle class. By the 1930s, the League included as many as 100,000 people for armed protection of strike breakers—this in a country of only 3 million!
The Labor Party, in the meantime, opened its membership to anyone, whether or not in a unionized workplace. Middle-class Marxists and some reformers joined the party. Many rural farm workers joined the Labor Party, as well as some small landholders. Labor leadership understood that in a protracted struggle, constant outreach and organizing was needed to a nonviolent campaign. In the midst of the growing polarization, Norway’s workers launched another wave of strikes and boycotts in 1928.
The Depression hit bottom in 1931. More people were jobless there than in any other Nordic country. Unlike in the U.S., the Norwegian union movement kept the people thrown out of work as members, even though they couldn’t pay dues. This decision paid off in mass mobilizations. When the employers’ federation locked employees out of the factories to try to force a reduction of wages, the workers fought back with massive demonstrations.
Many people then found that their mortgages were in jeopardy. (Sound familiar?) The Depression continued, and farmers were unable to keep up payment on their debts. As turbulence hit the rural sector, crowds gathered nonviolently to prevent the eviction of families from their farms. The Agrarian Party, which included larger farmers and had previously been allied with the Conservative Party, began to distance itself from the 1 percent; some could see that the ability of the few to rule the many was in doubt.
By 1935, Norway was on the brink. The Conservative-led government was losing legitimacy daily; the 1 percent became increasingly desperate as militancy grew among workers and farmers. A complete overthrow might be just a couple years away, radical workers thought. However, the misery of the poor became more urgent daily, and the Labor Party felt increasing pressure from its members to alleviate their suffering, which it could do only if it took charge of the government in a compromise agreement with the other side.
This it did. In a compromise that allowed owners to retain the right to own and manage their firms, Labor in 1935 took the reins of government in coalition with the Agrarian Party. They expanded the economy and started public works projects to head toward a policy of full employment that became the keystone of Norwegian economic policy. Labor’s success and the continued militancy of workers enabled steady inroads against the privileges of the 1 percent, to the point that majority ownership of all large firms was taken by the public interest. (There is an entry on this case as well at the Global Nonviolent Action Database.)
The 1 percent thereby lost its historic power to dominate the economy and society. Not until three decades later could the Conservatives return to a governing coalition, having by then accepted the new rules of the game, including a high degree of public ownership of the means of production, extremely progressive taxation, strong business regulation for the public good and the virtual abolition of poverty. When Conservatives eventually tried a fling with neoliberal policies, the economy generated a bubble and headed for disaster. (Sound familiar?)
Labor stepped in, seized the three largest banks, fired the top management, left the stockholders without a dime and refused to bail out any of the smaller banks. The well-purged Norwegian financial sector was not one of those countries that lurched into crisis in 2008; carefully regulated and much of it publicly owned, the sector was solid.
Although Norwegians may not tell you about this the first time you meet them, the fact remains that their society’s high level of freedom and broadly-shared prosperity began when workers and farmers, along with middle class allies, waged a nonviolent struggle that empowered the people to govern for the common good.
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Show AllThe source for this article says it was written by George Lakey:
George Lakey is Visiting Professor at Swarthmore College and a Quaker. He has led 1,500 workshops on five continents and led activist projects on local, national, and international levels. Among many other books and articles, he is author of “Strategizing for a Living Revolution” in David Solnit’s book Globalize Liberation (City Lights, 2004). His first arrest was for a civil rights sit-in and most recent was with Earth Quaker Action Team while protesting mountain top removal coal mining.
Just curious-- what's the point of copying and pasting the exact blurb that appears below the article?
It wasn't there a few minutes ago. It used to have a picture of the author with a little blurb about who he writes for in place of the blurb that is there now. Something fishy is going on here. I have never read Common Dreams until today, I won't be returning! I don't need to be misinformed or lied to, they are just as bad as the main stream media now.
Don't believe me?: Here is a screen shot: http://imgur.com/11Jbz
Oh, well that certainly explains it.
I use AdBlock, incidentally, so I don't see most of the posted images and graphics.
I did check your screen shot out of curiosity. FWIW, "Nathan Schneider" has had articles published here. The "something fishy" may have been a simple error-- i.e. the article was first somehow mistakenly plugged into an existing shell or template created for Schneider's articles.
After all, it seems to have been corrected by the time I posted my comment.
There are indeed problematic methods and agendas employed at this site, but since there's nothing to be gained by mis-attributing this article, IMO this was actually just a Merry Mixup.
I believe you are correct.
Because in the article it says this:
"However, as an American activist who first encountered Norway as a student in 1959 and learned some of its language and culture, the achievements I found amazed me."
Then look at the picture of the author at the bottom of the article.
Either the Norwegians are hiding the Fountain of Youth or the guy who wrote this stole it from someone else and is full of shit. This guy should be fired for stealing other people's work.
Edit: Common Dreams has now replaced a picture of the guy who "wrote this" and who he writes for with a blurb about who the real person was that wrote the article.
You must be hell to live with. You insist on nitpicking trivialities to death. You were right the first time - go somewhere else.
This is my friend and fellow Quaker, George Lakey. He does look good for his age. And we have been awaiting this and forthcoming writing on these countries who seem to have found a balance of capitalism and socialism that serves everyone pretty well.
Thanks for examples that prove a fair society can exist and the 01% can be overcome. That it can be accomplished through non-violence.
Non-violence is the ever-rare exception to the rule only accomplished at critical mass, and even then unlikely.
Non-violent revolution is what lasts --
Violence only breeds more violence -- in war and revolution.
Pehaps that makes even clearer why our own revolution hasn't
held as well.
Rare and unlikely? Hardly.
Among 323 resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006, major nonviolent campaigns have achieved success 53% of the time, compared with 26% for violent resistance campaigns. - Why Civil Resistance Works, International Security, Vol. 33, No. 1
A Short List:
1930s – Indian liberation from Great Britain
1940 – Danish strategy of “resistance disguised as collaboration” against Nazi occupation
1944 – El Salvador student insurrection threw dictator Hernandez Martinez out
1944 – Guatemalan student nonviolent insurrection threw out the "iron dictator of the Caribbean", Jorge Ubico
1950's – Kwame Nkrumah led a successful nonviolent campaign for Ghana's independence 1960s – Kenneth Kaunda led a successful nonviolent campaign for independence in Zambia
1960s – Black college students in Nashville, Tennessee successfully desegregated Nashville’s downtown lunch counters in five months, becoming a model for the entire civil rights movement
1960s – Quakers circled and stood shoulder to shoulder to create a protective shield between Frank Rizzo's police and the Panthers, successfully preventing an assault
1979 – the Shah of Iran, who had one of the ten most powerful armies in the world and a secret police whose ruthlessness was second to none, was overthrown nonviolently
1980 – striking workers in Poland created a union, Solidarity, were driven underground by a government crackdown, but re-emerged in 1989 as Poland’s governing political party
1983 – Chilean workers initiated a wave of non violent protests against the military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet which ultimately led to defeat of Pinochet in a 1988 referendum
1980s – African National Congress plunged into nonviolent struggle – boycotts, strikes, demonstrations of all kinds – which resulted in the end of apartheid despite a very well-armed state with a brutal police force
1986 – Philippines dictator Marcos was toppled non-violently; thousands of Filipinos intervened between the Marcos loyalists and the rebels, and nonviolently immobilized the loyalist troops
1989 – the East German, Hungarian, Czech, and Polish dictatorships in were non-violently overthrown
2000 – Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic was thrown out in a nonviolent movement
2011 – citizens demonstrated non-violently and overthrew the dictators of Tunisia and Egypt, with a half dozen other Arab nations attempting to follow suit
From 2000 to 2006, organized civilian populations successfully employed nonviolent methods including boycotts, strikes, protests, and organized non-cooperation to challenge entrenched power and exact political concessions in Serbia (2000), Madagascar (2002), Georgia (2003) and Ukraine (2004-05), Lebanon (2005), and Nepal (2006).
"1930s – Indian liberation from Great Britain"
Violence and the threat of violence led the rulers of the British Empire to compromise with less radical forces. Violence and non-violence worked together synergistically in the Indian anti-colonialist resistance. To separate out one element of that synergy and give it all the credit is historically fallacious. The same with most of the other examples on your extremely misleading list. Of course, I'm just pointing out historical reality--I'm not making an argument for or against violence. (I would also note the failures of most of the movements on the list to produce lasting fundamental progressive change, but that is another issue.)
"Violence and the threat of violence led the rulers of the British Empire to compromise with less radical forces."
Excellent point. And, yes, you are "just pointing out historical reality." Others here always want to introduce this topic (but only when radical and militant politics are being successfully advanced) and then get into a debate about this issue as a matter of a belief system. They hold nonviolence as a belief system, as a creed, and then assume that all who do not see lectures about nonviolence as a proper response in opposition to those speaking for of radical and militant political action as therefore having a belief system or a creed of violence.
In fact, the more moderate the politics, the more caution, the more likely violence becomes, and the nonviolence proponents are almost always arguing for moderation, caution and for moving at a slow pace.
Nonviolence as a creed - rather than as a tactic - is too often used as a fig leaf for regressive arguments against working class solidarity and militant and radical politics.
Pondering this list, I have to say that its historical falsification and myopia is stunning.
"1944 – El Salvador student insurrection threw dictator Hernandez Martinez out
1944 – Guatemalan student nonviolent insurrection threw out the "iron dictator of the Caribbean", Jorge Ubico"
Those actions were followed by decades of murderous dictatorships and armed rebellion. They are NOT examples of successful non-violent resistance.
"1960s – Black college students in Nashville, Tennessee successfully desegregated Nashville’s downtown lunch counters in five months, becoming a model for the entire civil rights movement."
In the U.S., violent resistance to segregation and white supremacy worked synergistically with non-violent resistance. Without folks like Malcolm X, M.L. King would not have been successful.
"1979 – the Shah of Iran, who had one of the ten most powerful armies in the world and a secret police whose ruthlessness was second to none, was overthrown nonviolently."
Again, armed rebellion, threats of violence, and non-violent actions all worked together in the overthrow of the Shah. To say that the Shah was "overthrown nonviolently" is simply false. And let us not forget that as soon as the Shah was gone, Iranian Islamists murdered, tortured, and imprisoned their erstwhile allies in revolt and consolidated a highly repressive theocratic state.
"1980 – striking workers in Poland created a union, Solidarity, were driven underground by a government crackdown, but re-emerged in 1989 as Poland’s governing political party."
Solidarity--as a movement for social democracy--was almost immediately shunted aside by neoliberal and conservative forces after the Soviets left. This is a perfect example of the maxim: "those who provide the mass support for a revolution, those who lead it, and those who ultimately profit from it are very different sets of people. " (Barrington Moore, "Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy")
"1986 – Philippines dictator Marcos was toppled non-violently; thousands of Filipinos intervened between the Marcos loyalists and the rebels, and nonviolently immobilized the loyalist troops."
Once again: non-violent action against the Marcos regime worked synergistically with armed revolt. Their is no historical evidence to suggest that the Marcos regime would have collapsed in the face of non-violent resistance alone, and in any case, that is not the way it happened.
"2000 – Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic was thrown out in a nonviolent movement."
Absurd. For better or worse, the West's bombing campaign severely if not fatally weakened the Milosevic regime. You cannot eliminate that crucial factor in his downfall.
"...organized civilian populations successfully employed nonviolent methods including boycotts, strikes, protests, and organized non-cooperation to challenge entrenched power and exact political concessions in ... Georgia (2003) and Ukraine (2004-05)"
The "colored revolutions" in Georgia and Ukraine are examples of Western elite-manipulated "democracy promotion", the aims of which were far different than the aims of many who took to the streets in support of them. In Georgia, they ended up with the authoritarian jingoist Saakashvili, who subsequently led his country into murderous and disastrous aggression against South Ossetia. In the Ukraine, they got a divisive pro-Western oligarchic government which quickly betrayed the goals of the "Orange Revolution" and which ultimately was upended by Yanukovych, the very person the "revolution" sought to get rid of in the first place. The "colored revolutions" once again exemplify the maxim: "those who provide the mass support for a revolution and those who ultimately profit from it are very different sets of people. "
Furthermore, "democracy promotion" as implemented in the "colored revolutions" is just one tactic "the West" uses to effect "regime change"--other tactics used are: economic and financial strangulation via unilateral actions or international sanctions; covert actions; creation and/or support for local armed groups; low-intensity warfare; bombing campaigns; outright invasion and occupation, etc. Which tactics are used in any particular case depends on many factors-- "by any means necessary" is the guiding principle.
"Lebanon (2005)"
How can you even mention the word "Lebanon" without recognizing the central importance of the armed resistance of the Hezbollah? Twenty years of violent resistance in response to the Israeli invasion of 1982 finally ended in Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese soil. In 2006, Hezbollah had to defend Lebanon from Israeli armed assault once again.
IMO, it does a disservice to all those who have engaged in non-violent resistance to blatantly distort history and reduce its vast complexity to a simplistic moral dogmatism.
Your additions are correct. Particularly the point of non-violence and violent resistance working synergistically. Still, the list was a reply to the claim that "Non-violence is the ever-rare exception", which makes the list also true.
As the article on Scandinavia points out, there was violence and deaths in both Sweden and Norway too, during this long fight for rights. Yet the non-violent means dominated.
It would seem that at least neutrality on the part of the military is generally required to non-violently overthrow a dictatorship.
Also the synergy between violent and non-violent revolution is important, leading the tyrants to decide that negotiation with the non-violent forces is a better option than civil war. The article discusses this point very clearly in relation to the Norwegian worker's revolution.
You should look to both Gandhi and the movie Budrus (http://www.justvision.org/budrus), to challenge this view.
I'd argue that Indian liberation from Britain proves my point. Certainly there was a more violent aspect to the revolt that made Gandhian with his non-violence seem like a preferable negotiating partner. Would Gandhi's campaign have succeeded without the existence of violent Indian revolutionaries? Certainly that question is at least very open to debate.
Thank you for that very useful list.
Correlation does not mean causality.
It is more likely that success leads to less violence than it is that nonviolence leads to success.
In any case, it is a nonsensical argument. The argument for nonviolence is almost always a stalking horse for a program that is more moderate, less militant, less radical. It is used as a way to frighten people away from radical politics and to discredit and suppress left wing political views.
I don't think anyone is advocating violence as a program, yet most nonviolence fanatics want their listeners to assume that this is the case.
Nonviolence is a tactic. It is used in order to bring to bear the advantage that the working class has in numbers, and to avoid the disadvantage the working class has in weaponry.
Well stated.
It is historically rare because it has not been tried often enough. There are certainly many times when, in the short run, it does not work (Tienanmen Square, for example), but over the long run, nonviolent resistance lasts longer than violent revolutions and less people are killed, maimed, etc.
Admirable. Yet Scandinavia consumes resources and produces waste far beyond sustainability. And that will not change because large-scale conservation directly equals economic collapse. It is too late for us to become Sweden and it is too late for Sweden too. Economic justice is a side issue, population and consumption is destroying the world and there is only one cure for that: death and poverty. Our future.
Nothing cheers me up in the morning, like a little bit of realism. It smells of victory.
" Economic justice is a side issue,"
Says you, and your comment which reads like it was written by an arrogant reactionary lightly coated in a green veneer
"population and consumption is destroying the world and there is only one cure for that: death and poverty. Our future."
So please do the world a favor and kill yourself now. You'll avoid experiencing all the nastiness that you prophesize, and you'll help with the sustainable consumption problem.
Workers Revolution is the Only Solution!
You've got to be kidding! Marxist revolution made some sense early in the industrial revolution, but anachronistic and simplistic "solutions" won't stave off global climate change, the sixth great extinction, and the end of life as we know it (if not human extinction).
Though it may sound unappealing, Cornelius Agrippa is quite right. Gaia will take care of the cancer on her skin, and there's little we arrogant parasites can do about it.
The claim about Scandinavian over-consumption simply doesn't reflect human nature so it's probably false. There people must heat their dwellings, and there happen to be a number of huge exploitive enterprises there which tend to corrupt people, but the author did say it is no utopia. The dwelling size, the transport mode, the values, ways the people occupy their time, none of that reeks of over-consumption. It's likely people up there consume the most resources while traveling the world. This I would guess is their "worst crime". Can you be thankful there is an illustration of a better way? That inspires people? Why not save your ire for the thugs directly ruining your own life? I know we were taught to direct it at "foreigners".
I'm not kidding. You seem to think that environmentalism and marxist revolution are incompatible. This is a ridiculous notion, as is the notion that a worker's revolution is "anachronistic."
Worker's revolution is the only way that capitalism has ever been overthrown, and capitalism is the engine of militariam, economic injustice AND environmental destruction. It must be overthrown, and that won't happen without a workers revolution.
You attempt to discredit the notion of econmic justice and workers revolution with a malthusian argument thinly coated in a veneer of eco-radical sounding rhetoric.
In fact your arguments are regressive, elitist and aid in the oppression of the people of the world.
Pow!
Well done.
The cancer on her skin? Arrogant parasites?
This is how you describe your fellow human beings?
The question "which side are you on" springs to mind. In your case, not only are you not on the side of the working class, you are not even on the side of the human race. Aren't you a human being? Aren't you directing your remarks to other human beings? Does you hatred for the human race extend to your family, to your loved ones and to your friends? To yourself?
Yes, Riversong's misanthropy is quite hard to take, but gee it sure does eliminate all those difficult political and moral questions. No need for debate. Just condemn the entire human race and predict its imminent extinction. Worldview made simple...and hateful.
Actually, large-scale conservation, rather than leading to economic collapse, produces true, sustainable wealth... Denmark, for example, with what Forbes calls "the best business climate in the world," will also be fossil-free, carbon neutral by 2050. See:
http://solar.calfinder.com/blog/news/denmark-carbon-neutral/
Scandinavian consumption of fossil fuel and other resourses is less than half that of the US, in spite of a better living standard. And their economy is doing fine.
Now, I think that you need an adjustment on your depression medication...
No need to get out of bed today, then. Thanks for that.
Environmentalism and the fight for economic justice are for all practical purposes one and the same, just as destruction of the enthronement and exploitation of labor go hand in hand.
The right wingers present these false choices: the environment OR jobs; the environment OR a better standard of living. They are lying.
Death and poverty are what the ruling class is already dealing us, yet you call that a "cure."
The depth of the moral depravity of your reactionary, right wing and anti-human line of reasoning is difficult to fathom. Your argument is also illogical and self-contradictory.
Of course we could get rid of all of the problems faced by human beings if we just got rid of human beings. What an idiotic "solution." By the way, who is the "we" that will be getting rid of the excess human beings? You are a human being yourself, I assume. You must then think that some humans are dispensable, while others are not, and must place yourself in the latter category. There is no other logical interpretation of your argument, which means that it is dishonest and misleading, to say the least.
Then we have your argument about "consumption." In a world where so many of your brothers and sisters are struggling, are in want and poverty, are starving and going without, you lecture us that we should have less, and that the problems are being caused by us wanting more. The ruling class is working on that one, They don't need your help. Do you have even a glimmering of insight into how absurd and irrational that argument is?
I suppose you also think that the people in the general population are all stupid, as well, since they don't agree with you on this, and think that if only they did agree with you, were as "enlightened" as you are, then everything would be wonderful.
I don't think there is any other argument that is more disgusting than the one you make here. You pretend to be aware and concerned about the conditions, yet your remarks make it quite clear that you are callous and ignorant about the situation. You claim to have a solution - a "cure" - wen you have absolutely nothing but am adolescent nasty anti-social attitude toward the rest of the human race.
Cornelius Agrippa merely made the undeniable proposition that "population and consumption is destroying the world" and the very logical and value-neutral conclusion "there is only one cure for that: death and poverty". And no suggestion was made for a eugenics solution - Gaia will take care of her problem without any human intervention.
But Two Americas offered the most reactionary and over-the-top response I've ever seen in these comments: "lying, moral depravity, reactionary, right wing, anti-human, illogical, self-contradictory, idiotic, dishonest, misleading, absurd, irrational, disgusting, callous, ignorant, adolescent, nasty, anti-social..."
If that's the best you can offer to improve our world, then perhaps it's you who should sign up for the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement http://www.vhemt.org/.
Huh?
How did you manage to assign the other poster's argument to me? Very strange.
Please point out where my post was politically reactionary, or where I called for human extinction.
No Robert, every one of Two America's criticism was right on target.
How you can call Two America reactionary, and in the same thread say that Agriipa is "quite right" in his assertion that "economic justice is a side issue"?
You are an enviro-elitist. You think that because you mouth some warmed over Gaian rhetoric that this somehow makes you "progressive." You think that your malthusian bullshit puts you in a position to call the struggles of the working class for economic justice "anachronistic"
Political decisions will be at the center of our species attempts to cope with environmental degradation. If the same capitalist class and system that made this mess remains in charge, then the assault on the earth will remain.
Only a workers revolution can stop the capitalist onslaught on the environment!
Thanks for that link.. I'll take it into my considerations.. Unfortunately, I too use all those terms for the Conservative Right.. and I'm a Buddhist.
Perhaps "cure" was too ironic a word for many. Let rephrase it that that the inevitable outcome of population and consumption is death and poverty. The arctic is right now irreversibly melting due to carbon released from fuels burned in the 1970s and 80s, that is the greenhouse emission lag time, well documented. Nobody wants to talk about it. That means the fossil fuel being burned today, Jan 27, 2012, will be in place heating the earth in 2050. By then there will be no ice left anywhere, billions of tons of frozen methane will have left the polar soil and the seafloor and created a carbon surge in the atmosphere that will dwarf all human emissions. Coastal cities will be gone, deserts will have spread in all continents, prime agricultural basins will have died due to the disappearance of glacial water sources. Denmark's goal of zero fossil fuel use by that date will be difficult to assess since there will be no Denmark in the sense we now use. All this will happen even if tomorrow, Jan 28, 2012, all 7 billion people wake up and are suddenly enlightened and cease all fossil fuel use absolutely by tomorrow night. It's too late to decide between socialism and capitalism, that is no longer at issue. Move to another topic. And, yes, I am depressed. I don't think medication is going to help much either for me or the 7 billion others.
You are not alone in your opinion. See below.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
WASHINGTON—Saying there's no way around it at this point, a coalition of scientists announced Thursday that one-third of the world population must die to prevent wide-scale depletion of the planet's resources—and that humankind needs to figure out immediately how it wants to go about killing off more than 2 billion members of its species.
Representing multiple fields of study, including ecology, agriculture, biology, and economics, the researchers told reporters that facts are facts: Humanity has far exceeded its sustainable population size, so either one in three humans can choose how they want to die themselves, or there can be some sort of government-mandated liquidation program—but either way, people have to start dying.
....
"The longer we wait, the higher the number of people who will have to die, so we might as well just get it over with," said Dr. Chelsea Klepper, head of agricultural studies at Purdue University, and the leading proponent of a worldwide death day in which 2.3 billion people would kill themselves en masse at the exact same time. "At this point, it's merely a question of coordination. If we can get the populations of New York City, Los Angeles, Beijing, India, Europe, and Latin America to voluntarily off themselves at 6 p.m. EST on June 1, we can kill the people that need to be killed and the planet can finally start renewing its resources."
Thus far, humanity has been presented with a great variety of death options, among them, poisoning the world's water supply with cadmium, picking one person per household to be killed in the privacy of his or her home, mass beheadings, and gathering 2.3 billion people all in one place and obliterating them with a single hydrogen bomb.
Sources confirmed that if a death solution is not in place by Mar. 31, the U.N., in the interest of preserving the human race, will mobilize its peacekeeping forces and gun down as many people as necessary.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/scientists-look-onethird-of-the-human-race-has-to,27166/
I hope you are toying with Mr Riversong here. You know thatthe Onion publishes satire, as in theraticles are made up, pretend, not true.
Despair drains you of energy and makes you a burden on your friends.
The argument is about who will be making the political and economic decisions that will determine how nations react to environmental degradation. If you don'think that matters than you have nothing to contribute to the People's struggle except despair.
What is the point of spreading your despair? If you cannot fight on in the face of darkness and doom, then quietly go back to nature and make your peace with your perceived destiny, but stop with the life draining fatalism. I cannot see any way that it is in the least bit constructive.
If your wrong then you are needlessly spreading despair.
If you are correct, then you are still spreading despair and not contributing to a solution.
Not really, you and others are standing on the deck of a sinking ship and all you care for is arguing who was steering when we hit the iceberg and who is steering now. Who is steering this sinking ship? It does not matter, it's sinking, it will soon be at the bottom of the sea. What matters now is: get in the lifeboat. Lifeboats are an elitist proposition, yes they are, and you may rather go down into the icy waters with the ship, that is your honorable choice. But lying to people and saying: "do not use the lifeboats, we will save the ship if we all stay and pull together, we just need a new captain!" That is murder. Needless to say, once in the lifeboats we will organize them as Anarcho-Synicalist lifeboats, you get no argument from me there.
You call my course of action, workers revolution, murder; yet you have no real proposals of your own save for a silly call to "get in the lifeboat."
There are no life boats, and the masses are all in this together, whether they like it or not. Our only hope is to take control of the ship.
That one got me, too. What lifeboats?
But I was tickled by "Anarcho-Synicalist". Sounds like an intriguing political stance. 'None should rule over another, but the way people are that ain't likely to happen'?
[Yeah, I know you just missed a "d". I'm easily amused.]
There may in fact be no lifeboats, but it is also true that human beings will not become extinct as a species, so some sort of community will survive, obviously we the authors of this engaging conversation may not survive. So, what is important to at least put into the possible communities that will survive? The science-fiction theme usually looks like roving armed bands of merciless bandits fighting over a dwindling supply of canned food. That is maybe what we will end up with if we waste any more time struggling for a workers revolution that will take generations to accomplish and still will not necessarily change population and consumption, which are the prime destroyers. Who is in the "lifeboat" now? The Amish. A large, off-grid, self-supporting, highly skilled, highly disciplined agricultural community that has been completely apolitical and completely unarmed and successful for 300 years. They may not survive but, I propose that if you really care about future generations, that is the model you should be working to develop. And the correct spelling is Anarcho-Cynicalist, meaning "I'm too disorganized to care."
Okay your solution is to become Amish. Great go for it. But you may have to lose your arrogant omniscience as I don't think they'll have much use for it.
Saying that the sky is falling is a weak excuse for lack of a political program. Seems downright anti-social to me. Maybe you spend too much time at rense.com.
So just out of curiosity, are you actually building a lifeboat community or just hurling bullshit?
I thought you and I could work on it together, Joe.