is this Islam?

What other religion allows its clerics to preach the death of non-believers in the name of God? What other religion condones the murder, mutiliation and torment of children? Moderate Muslims will tell you such outrages are contrary to the Koran and the teachings of the Prophet. But moderate Muslims lack the organizational werewithal to deal with the extremists. There is no centralized hierarchical structure. There is no equivalent to excommunication, and no consensus as to what constitutes heresy.

It is time for moderate Muslims to change this. They need to establish their own transnational conference to undermine the legitimacy of the preachers of murder and hate. Their continued failure to do so forever condemns them to share the blame for the acts of their evil bretheren.

Such a conference also needs to re-evaluate the role of women in Islamic society. Muslim men respect women who are chaste and reverent. But segregating them and hiding them behind a veil limits the possibilities for both romance and friendship. The non-availability of women is frustrating for single men and leads to resentment. When men marry they want complete control and dominance. Long-standing resentment, or a wife's failure to live up to her husband's ideal, can lead to violence and cruelty. So often justified by religious teaching. Any woman who seeks an education, or a role outside the home, is often seen as a whore. So many women in Tahrir Square in Cairo were turned upon by their male fellow protestors. It is an ongoing recipe for social and economic disfunction. And the frustration and resentment of young Muslim men makes them ready recruits for acts of terrorism.

going through the motions

Does President Obama seriously believe the Israelis and the Palestinians can achieve a peace deal? I doubt it. So what can he possibly hope to achieve by the planned year long peace talks? If the talks fail, as they almost certainly will, Obama will look even lamer than he does now. The only way the talks can succeed is for the US to threaten to dump Israel, by cutting off military and financial aid, unless and until Israel curtails its expansionary settlement building. I just don't see that happening. Obama backed off when Netanyahu called his bluff on settlements last year, and his entire Presidency is characterized by a general lack of backbone.

Unless the Israelis get a super push from the US they will happily continue down the expansionary path. The Israelis will talk and talk and talk. And as they talk the settlements will expand, and more and more Palestinian territory will be occupied and annexed. It's a wonderful stalling tactic for them. If the Palestinians walk out they will say they tried. If the Palestinians make concessions, as they always have, Israel will eventually renege on its part of the bargain. Just as the US broke just about every treaty it ever made with the Indians.

In the unlikely event that Israel's negotiators make concessions, either the Israeli parliament will reject it or the government will have to make war on the settlers. Why should they give up anything when they are winning, with America's continued backing all but guaranteed?

So why are the Palestinians there at all? Well it is only Fatah for a start, the party that lost in the Palestinians' last democratic election. Because Fatah relies on the limited foreign aid it gets to prop itself up. If Fatah walks out that aid is in jeopardy. But even Fatah has its limits. If the temporary partial freeze on settlements is not extended there is no way they can save face with their people. They would be conceding defeat before the process is even begun.

How can there be peace talks when one party continues to wage war? Israel's illegal occupation and annexation of Palestinian territory is what the hostilities are all about.

Only the US can put a peaceful stop to Israeli expansion and it simply won't. Israel intends to continue its unrelenting 60 year expansion until every Palestinian is either dead, permanently exiled or confined to concentration camps. The final solution to the Palestinian problem. The Palestinians only hope is for enough foreign military intervention to do at least some damage to Israel. If these hostilites do break out the US will find itself hopelessly trapped in the Israeli camp, and will pay ever more dearly for it.

a tragic figure

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

William Shakespeare 1564-1616: Julius Caesar (1599)



How could we better summarize the unfolding drama of the Obama presidency? Here is a man who held the nation in his hands on the night of his election. But in failing to seize that moment he has condemned his Presidency to limp from disappointment to tragic disappointment.

Certainly he was right to hold out the offer of bipartisanship until his inauguration. But once the Republicans showed their true colors he should have trampled them down and dispatched them with all guns blazing. And a man with his oratorical powers could have scattered them to the far corners and kept them hiding under their rocks for one, if not two congressional terms.

These were the stooges of the disastrous Bush presidency. The cowards who failed to speak up when conservative principles were discarded to the trash. The ignorant who didn't know any better. And the populists who didn't care. In a breathtaking political instant it was they who claimed the mantle of fiscal responsibility, and stole the moral high ground. Emboldened by Obama's weakness they managed to pull off the greatest "flip-flop" in American history. The people who all but bankrupted the country were suddenly the champions of government restraint. Not content with that, they painted their President as a Fascist and a Nazi, and made him the scapegoat for all the nation's ills. Like Dr Goebbels they succeeded in their "big lie" because they had the ruthlessness that Obama lacked, reinforced by a complete lack of moral responsibility, and aided and abetted by a servile media. How else could we have gone straight from Cheney's "deficits don't matter" to cries of "we'll all be ruined"?

As soon as these reptiles poked up their heads Obama should have hammered them down. They were the ones who lead the country into an ill conceived and disastrous war, who dragged down America in the eyes of the world, who decreased taxes while escalating spending, who mismanaged government, who failed to address the health care shambles, and who dared not burst the economic bubble. These disasters should have been labelled Republican disasters, as they truly were. And if at first the message failed to resonate with the American psyche, the accusations should have been repeated over and over until the reality sank in. The sudden conversion back to conservative values should have been ridiculed for the joke it was, and the Republic Party made to re-earn the respect of the American people.

But it wasn't just a matter of letting the Republicans off the hook. The instinct for seeking bipartisanship was a good one, but the way to realize it was to hammer the Democratic Party with the same, if not greater ferocity. The Party has been morally neutered and leaderless for over a decade. There is no unity of vision and nothing resembling a backbone. The Democrats dance to the tune of the same vested interests as the Republicans and are equally despised by the American public. Obama had the same mandate from the American people that Bush had. Reform the electoral system, clean up the corruption and drive the lobbyists out of the temple. And this is what he had promised to do. He had the people with him. He could have gone over the heads of Congress to the people, and shamed both parties into accepting his leadership.

He continued talking like a Washington outsider, but his actions contradicted his words as they began to do in all other areas. Rather than take Congress by the horns he chose to hand over the initiative for vital health care reform to a hopelessly ill-equipped committee of insiders. Perhaps he saw advantage in later playing the knight coming to the rescue of the maiden. But it looked more like Pontius Pilate not wanting to get involved with anything messy. Whatever his thinking, it proved a disastrous miscalculation. He was barely able to rescue himself. He has been playing catch up ever since. For the rest of his term he looks condemned to wade through "shallows" and "miseries". With astonishing rapidity the Democrats lost their Senate "super majority". But even a Democratic minority would have been enough for a President who had the option of appealing directly to the people.

If Obama had chosen to ride the tide in those early days his could have been a great presidency. But there is no recovering from a lost opportunity of this nature, as Shakespeare well knew. Like Hamlet, crippled by his early indecision, Obama can only earn his place in history now by sacrificing himself for the greater good.

ban bio-fuels now

America has a new weapon of mass destruction. And it is being used to inflict increased suffering, misery and death on the world's poor.

The last twelve months have seen massive rises in the prices of staple cereals and grains culminating in the spectre of widespread famine. For the billions who already spend more than half their income on food, the price rises spell malnutrition at best, and eventual starvation. The world's big food producers are banning exports, governments are exhausting precious reserves to subsidize food prices, armed guards protect food warehouses, and protests and food riots are breaking out everywhere.

The production of bio-fuels is not solely responsible for these price rises, but it has been a major factor. Things can only get worse if present expansion plans continue. The evidence against bio-fuels is now overwhelming. What seemed like a good idea has proved to be a disaster. It is time to admit it was all a mistake and dismantle the infrastructure.

All the touted benefits of bio-fuels have failed to materialize:

• It was never environmentally significant to begin with. It might be clean burning, but its contribution to air quality will be negligible.
• At best it can be argued that it is carbon neutral. Carbon is fixed from the air in ethanol production and released on burning. But this ignores the fact that energy is used in its manufacture. And the fact that ethanol does not burn as efficiently as gasolene, results in more carbon exhaust per mile driven.
• The only way to make up for the lost food production capacity is to cultivate more marginal lands and destroy more rainforest. There is already powerful evidence of these disastrous environmental consequences. Poor farmers world wide are abandoning food production to supply the more lucrative bio-fuel market, and rainforest destruction is accelerating. The latter tips the carbon equation further in the negative.
• That leaves energy independence. But even if present plans to boost production are realized, the overall impact on fuel supplies will not be significant.
• Economically the initiative is a dead set loser. Ethanol is heavily subsidized and the need for subsidies is likely to continue indefinitely. Now add to that the costs of increased emergency food aid to poor countries like Haiti. Better to invest the money in solar, wind and nuclear power.

At the end of the day the only beneficiaries of the whole sorry mess are America's over subsidized, and mostly wealthy farmers, and the politicians they control. One United Nations envoy called it a "crime against humanity". Make no mistake. We are party to this crime so long as we allow these criminals to get away with what is, literally, mass murder.

There are two other factors driving food price rises. One is adverse weather conditions. The devastating drought which destroyed Australia's wheat crop may well be a hint of things to come. The threat of climate change is no longer something Americans can ignore.

The other major factor in the price rise equation is increased meat consumption. The Indians and the Chinese have not dramatically increased their caloric intake. But they are eating more and more meat. That means calories which were feeding people have been diverted to livestock. It takes four times the calories to feed a meat eater. If Americans drastically reduced their animal food intake, it would free up enough grain to feed more than half a billion people. If China and India forego increased meat consumption as well, the crisis would be well and truly over. One year ago meat eating was simply a luxury the planet could not afford. Now it will directly cost millions of lives. And condemn hundreds of millions to the devastating physical and mental effects of malnutrition.

it's not about him

Electing a President is like buying a car. We have a list of all the things we hated about our last car, and we look for a model that has none of those annoying features. Trouble is, after a few months of driving, we find the new car has a whole lot of annoying features of its own.

In 2000 all most Americans wanted was a President who would remain faithful to his wife. The number one reason people gave for electing George W Bush in 2000 was "moral values". It was still the number one reason in 2004, though the percentage was not as high.

So, in 2008 what do people hate about George Bush? The answer is, just about everything. Republicans and Democrats are both looking for a candidate who is as different from Bush as they can be. So we have maverick Republican and outsider, John McCain on one side. And a major Democratic contest for the title of "Least Bush" on the other.

But the voters' assessments have little to do with policy. Even if people were willing and able to analyze the policies of each candidate, there is very little to distinguish one candidate's policies from another. Instinctively people know the larger question is, who is best able to implement policy, and effect results? As with cars unfortunately, this assessment is mostly based on "look and feel", rather than substance. The whole contest comes down to one of presentation and marketing.

For a long time Hilary Clinton was the Democratic front runner. Being a woman made her very different from George Bush. More importantly, people had seen her perform under all sorts of pressure. She was a great debater and could take on any of the men, and she had survived 17 years of tough public exposure. But when husband Bill took on an attack dog role, it brought her leadership into question, apart from waking the "moral values" ghost.

Obama did not perform as well in those early debates, but he did have a lot of non-Bush credentials. Apart from being black, he was younger. Hilary might have had proven experience, but his very lack of experience was also an asset. He was a fresh face, untainted by past scandals and relatively uncorrupted by the party machine. He successfully marketed himself as the candidate of change. What would he do differently to George Bush? Answer. Everything. More importantly, everything you wanted. "It's not about me" he said "it's about you". I'm your candidate and I will do whatever I can to deliver the America you want.

That's clever marketing. And young people buy that sort of rhetoric. The young and the internet savvy formed his base. He was one of them and they went out and told their friends. That gave him momentum and he started to nip at Clinton's heels. When she tripped up and went negative, he gained further momentum and became a phenomenon. When Edwards pulled out Obama seems to have picked up most of Edward's supporters. Now, the thing about band waggons is that most people jump on them, just because they are band waggons. Looking like a winner is all it takes to be a winner. No one wants to be left standing alongside the loser.

But is Obama capable of effecting real change? How competent is he? What does he really stand for? How will he fare when his honeymoon period ends, as it surely will? Will he be able to stand up to the Republican attack machine, or will he crumple?

From what little we have to go on, these are a few of the things of importance to me I have distilled:

• The thing I seek most in a candidate is someone who is willing to take the side of law and justice in the Israel-Palestine conflict. America's unconditional support for Israel is morally indefensible. It is the main cause of Arab and Muslim hatred and suspicion, and costs US taxpayers billions in aid and wasteful and ineffective anti-terrorist campaigns. How surprising that a black candidate, a self-proclaimed champion of those without a voice, barely acknowledges the existence of a Palestinian grievance in his Foreign Policy statements. His website devotes several paragraphs to continued over the top support for Israel, notwithstanding that country's appalling human rights record. He voices support for a Palestinian state, like everyone else, but shows no intention of giving Israel the push it needs to get there. He talks of beginning "to lay the stones that will build the road...." How timid and non-committal is that?
• This issue raises further questions of credibility. Some time back Mr Obama let slip his view that no one has suffered more than the Palestinians. That little indiscretion unleashed a full scale Zionist attack, with the usual anti-Semitic smears. Obama has been working hard to restore his pro-Israel credibility ever since. The first question is, does he have a hidden pro-Palestinian agenda? Can he be taken at face value? Or second, has he surrendered what he believes in, just to win votes and campaign contributions. If he thinks he can change policies once he gets into office he is naive. If he is willing to compromise his principles for the sake of electoral success, he is not the force for change he claims to be.
• The other big issue for me is the environment. Like most Americans, Mr Obama seems completely unaware of the world's number one environmental problem, namely America's unsustainable diet. He supports efforts to address climate change, but he also seems to think bio-fuels are some kind of a solution. His careful wording does emphasize "Next Generation Biofuels". This at least suggests he is well aware of the growing scientific evidence against the proclaimed benefits, not to mention the horrifying consequences for world poverty. But at this stage he continues to lead on America's corn growers.
• Mr Obama's voting record places him squarely on the left wing of his party. How good is his grasp of economics? And what major economic changes may he attempt if he gets into office? How acceptable will his policies be to middle America?
• Mr Obama's foreign policy statments place heavy emphasis on diplomacy? This is well and good. But what if diplomacy fails? This is an option his statements simply do not contemplate.

On the things which matter to me, Clinton and McCain are no better. Indeed, when it comes to Palestine, they are both as bad or worse than Bush.

But for me there is a bigger issue, and it is this. Anyone who claims he will do whatever people want is no leader. It is about him, and it's all about him! A true leader is someone who knows what needs to be done, how it needs to be done, and persuades the public to follow. What Americans need today is someone of courage to tell them that they are the ones who need to change.

Americans cannot go on gobbling up the world's resources, and tell the rest of the world that they need to do more to limit their populations and their carbon footprint. They cannot return to protectionist policies which will perpetuate world poverty and limit everyone's economic growth. And they cannot lecture the world on freedom and democracy, when they support so many regimes that are less than shining examples.

So far the only candidate I see saying exactly what he thinks is John McCain. He was brutally frank about the loss of jobs in the car industry, to his detriment. Unfortunately he failed to point out the upside of free trade, possibly due to his self-confessed weakness when it comes to economics. His support for addressing climate change is commendable, in the face of conservative opposition. But he voices the same pre-conditions which make American action dependent on other countries. Either way he sees little need for America to change.

Mrs Clinton probably has a better grasp of what needs to change and how to make it happen. But she won't speak her mind for fear of alienating more voters. Unfortunately, clever marketing can no longer do it for her.

Mr Obama is now the Democratic front runner. He got there by promising everything to everyone. He now carries the hopes of millions of Americans. But what evidence is there, at this stage, to suggest that those hopes might be fulfilled?

If Americans ultimately chose the Obama model, what faults might they find when they drive it home?

updates

Zardoz is becoming quite prolific of late!

Future topics planned:

The real principles underlying American foreign policy
Ethanol and the bankruptcy of environmental policy
Working with the market not against it
The promise of child care

Enjoy the new format. I hate Blogspot! Can't work out why it chooses to ignore my paragraph breaks sometimes and not others. At least now it is showing my bullet points.

The results of the 2006 survey of political bloggers are now available. Use the following link to get there; http://www.doleinstituteblog.org/survey.pdf .

footprint 1 or footprint 2 ?

The concept of the ecological footprint was a great invention, providing a comparative measure of ecological sustainability. Unfortunately the inventors of the original concept took it upon themselves to improve upon it. The goal was admirable. But in my view the academics responsible merely succeeded in butchering the original idea. The result, Footprint 2, is likely to do real harm and sends out the wrong message.

Footprint 1 was better described as a food footprint. It focused on unsustainable agriculture as the primary threat to the world's eco-systems. It may not have been academically perfect but it was a very useful measure. Footprint 2 expanded the base from a defined biologically productive area (about a third of the world's total surface) to the whole of the world's surface. No problem with that. Nor do I have a problem with other relatively minor changes, like the inclusion of a space allocation for other species. My issue comes with the introduction of a carbon footprint component. This new component massively dwarfs all the others.

I have no issue with a carbon footprint as a separate and distinct ecological measure. But attempting to roll the food and carbon footprints together is logically flawed and highly misleading. The flaw lies in the method chosen to convert units of energy into units of land. It equates carbon output with the area of forest which would be required to absorb that amount of CO2. This premise is scientifically indefensible. There are numerous alternative ways of reducing atmospheric carbon that have minimal implications in terms of land area. In the real world, it is also wrong to equate a negative on one side of the equation with a positive on the other.

Here's an example of the math. With Footprint 1 you could reduce your footprint from about 5 acres to less than 3 acres by switching from a diet high in animal foods to a vegetarian or vegan diet. That is a 30-40% reduction. With Footprint 2 the saving is still about 2 acres, but out of a total average global footprint of about 54 acres. Minimal. You could make the same savings by things like growing your own food, living closer to work, or riding a bicycle or taking a bus rather than driving. All very commendable. But here's the lie of it. The only thing you reduce is the need for more forest, to absorb all that CO2. In terms of actual forest nothing changes, unless you can achieve reductions of the order of 80%. Indeed, if you chose to continue eating meat you must continue to hasten the destruction of real rainforest.

Reducing the need for a second or third earth is meaningless if you continue to gobble up the real one. That is what Footprint 2 encourages. It completely plays down the importance of diet, the one thing people can change to really make a difference (see my post for April 2007 in my Archives). It must also increase people's sense of hopelessness. Because most of the things which contribute to our carbon footprint are beyond our personal control. The size and structure of our cities, with their dependence on the car. The climatic zone in which we live. The ability to live closer to our work. And how can we grow more of our own food, and live in a smaller house on a smaller block at the same time?

This is the way we should be approaching it. We face two catastrophic ecological challenges. One has to do with climate change. The other has to do with the biologically productive capacity of the land and the sea. The two are inter-related but each calls for its own separate set of policy solutions.

Fossil fuels will eventually run out. Before that happens they will become prohibitively expensive. By introducing a carbon tax today we can accelerate this inhibitory process. We can increase our efficiency of carbon use and develop viable alternatives including nuclear and solar. The limits on the supply of productive land are more absolute. With the notable exception of becoming vegetarian, there are few options left for increasing efficiency. And no alternative sources. Once we destroy the last rainforest and overfish the sea we face mass extinctions, land degradation on an incomprehensible scale, and seas in which only jellyfish survive.

Keep the math real and let common sense prevail.

about this weblog

Our present path leads to global self-destruction. But the solutions remain within our grasp. Technically the solutions are easy. Our only problems are problems of attitude. Our present public policies, both moderate and conservative, are a recipe for social, economic and environmental disaster. It's time to start thinking outside the box.

My goal is to outline the solutions and to change attitudes. I believe in peace, progress, prosperity and the pursuit of happiness. But to get there we need to move quickly. If we fail to seize the present opportunity our children, and our children's children, if they survive, will never forgive us. I want our legacy to be one of hope and promise. I don't want to see the last tiger die in my lifetime, knowing there is something I could have done to prevent it.

This weblog works much like a website. There are a number of solution based themes. These themes are set down in my early posts, "for a better america" and "for a better world" (go to July 2006 in my Archives). New posts flesh out these themes and old posts will be continually updated in the light of developments. Constructive feedback is encouraged. Anonymous comments are accepted by this weblog, or you may e-mail me personally at zardoz2000@verizon.net.

five good reasons for legalizing drugs

Here's five reasons why it's time to legalize drugs:

• Prohibition doesn't work. Never has. Never will.
• Drug laws make criminals out of the victims, mostly poor, and rich men out of the operators.
• Save billions in wasted public spending. Money better spent on counselling, rehab and fighting poverty.
• Reduce funding for terrorists. The Taliban earn an estimated 40% of their funds from the illegal drug trade.
• Put an end to organized crime and a lot of disorganized crime. End prison overcrowding and make the streets safer. Not just in the US, but in countries like Mexico, Columbia and Afghanistan.

Moral principles are all very well, but you cannot make people good by passing laws. We can no longer afford to pay the price of this moral righteousness.

Legalizing drugs and liberalizing the supply is not going to lead to an increase in problem drug taking or a massive descent into addiction and depravity. All the evidence points the other way. Most drug takers are people who are isolated and unhappy in their lives. That's the real problem we should be addressing.

And legal drugs do not need to be heavily regulated. No more than alcohol or tobacco.

Drug laws are just another example of the triumph of ideology over good sense.

can't we draw the line at genocide?

The world's liberal democracies all pay lip service to human rights, but there is precious little consistency in addressing violations. Whatever principles we say we apply in foreign policy, human rights rank well down the list when it comes to meaningful action. And the targets are so selective it is impossible to discern any principles at all when the record is looked at objectively. Sins that are so glaring in the case of Cuba, are hardly noticed in Israel or Saudi Arabia.

The West simply doesn't have the resources to police all the world's human rights violations. But couldn't we set priorities for action based on clear, consistent, moral principles? Shouldn't the number one priority be intervention to prevent genocide? The Nuremburg trials of the immediate Post-War period relied for their legitimacy on this fundamental principle. That the world has a right to intervene in the affairs of individual nations when it comes to genocide. Indeed, it is more than a right. It is a moral obligation.

Isn't this the answer to China every time it trots out it's "internal affairs" slogan? Genocide is more than an internal affair. To deny the Holocaust is a crime in many countries. In France it is also a crime to deny that Turkey was guilty of genocide against the Armenians 90 years ago. The Democratic controlled US Congress now agrees. Which is all very well and good, except that America still denies its own genocide against the American Indians. America, and the rest of the world, also refused to acknowledge the genocide in Rwanda until well after it was obvious from the intelligence. Just as today governments stop short of acknowledging the glaringly obvious in Darfur. Because if it is genocide, there is an international obligation to act.

Look at all the excuses for inaction governments come up with. "We need to give diplomacy time to work." "The situation is complex. We need to tread carefully." "There is no point intervening without the full support of the UN Security Council." But those things never stopped us going into Iraq and Afghanistan.

Surely in the case of genocide, individual countries do have an obligation to act, with or without a Security Council resolution. It is true those countries who oppose intervention can undermine the efforts of those who act. But that is no excuse for not doing everything reasonably possible.

Which brings us back to China. Any country that does not subscribe to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights doesn't belong in the United Nations, let alone be entitled to a seat on its Board. Look at China's record, in Tibet, Cambodia, North Korea, Burma, and Sudan. China, in its search for business opportunities, has been quite transparent in its policies. "What you do to your own people is none of our business." China not only refuses to place economic sanctions on other countries for human rights abuses, it usually profits from sanctions busting.

When China does bring pressure to bear on nasty regimes, it is usually only where things are so bad Chinese interests are threatened as well. These interests now include a desire for an international leadership role. It's this, not an awakening conscience, that now guides China's diplomacy.

By all means do business with China, but that does not mean we defer to them when it comes to genocide. China needs the West as much as the West needs China. China not only wants our trade, it wants our acceptance as well. That's why it is pinning so much on the success of the Beijing Olympics.

And there lies our historic opportunity. A boycott of the Beijing Olympics can help drive the message home, without running a serious risk of economic retaliation. I would not stop the athletes from attending, but spectators should stay away. And so should George Bush.

if I was Hamas

My advice to Hamas:

• Declare independence! No one is going to give the Palestinians their independent state. Do what Israel did. Create it yourself.
• Renounce indiscriminate attacks on civilians (ie, terrorism). But reserve the right to attack legitimate military targets in self-defence.
• Negotiate a ceasefire to create space in which to build a strong economy.
• Reign in the militias who will not tow the line and discourage the suicide bombers.

The Palestinians have to learn something from history. What would Lenin have done? What would Mao have done? What for that matter, would Bill Gates have done? Make concessions, surrender territory. Whatever you need to do to buy time. Then use the time to build strength and consolidate.

Declare independence from both Egypt (Gaza) and Jordan (West Bank). End the sham that Israel forced upon Egypt and Jordan after the 1948 war. Israel got its state by declaring independence. Why can't you? Most of the countries in the world would probably recognize you. But you have to force their hand. Even the Arab states fear the Palestinians achieving statehood.

This is the only way out for you. Hamas is the legitimate, democratically elected representative of the Palestinian people. But your support and legitimacy will be eroded away as Israel strangles Gaza and talks up Fatah. A bold initiative is your only hope. You have to seize the high ground.

Call Israel's bluff. Agree to put an end to terrorism and see how they respond. You know they will never give up an inch until America forces them to. And this isn't going to happen under this US President or the next. The current round of peace talks can only end in humiliation for Fatah and deeper despair for all Palestinians. Only Israel wins from playing the stalling game. The best way to defeat Israel and Fatah is for you to give the Palestinians their own state. Now!

now here's an even more inconvenient truth

A simple lifestyle change could reduce your ecological footprint by two to three acres, your greenhouse gas emissions by 20%, and your water consumption by several thousand percent. It costs you nothing, and actually improves your health and well-being.

What do you do? You give up, or substantially reduce, your consumption of animal foods. The harvesting of animals for food is the single most unsustainable of all human activities. It causes more environmental degradation than heavy industry, urban expansion and automobiles, combined.

A 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned:

"Livestock's contribution to environmental problems is on a massive scale and its potential contribution to their solution is equally large. The impact is so significant that it needs to be addressed with urgency."

In the United States raising animals for food consumes:

• 80% of all agricultural land
• 50% of all freshwater
• 30% of all other raw materials, including fuel

In addition, our billion plus farm animals produce 130 times as much excrement as the entire human population. Some of that is recovered as fertilizer, but enough of the remainder escapes to significantly pollute our soil and water. In total, agriculture accounts for 70% of our water quality problems. Better treatment of urban sewerage, and reduced urban runoff, won't save our estuaries and offshore marine environments, if the animal waste problem isn't addressed. Amazingly, farmers are exempt from most of the regulations which apply to other industries.

By far the resource most severely impacted is land. 80% of all agricultural land in the USA is taken up by animal food production. It takes anything from four to six times as much land to feed a meat eater as it does to feed a vegetarian. If we reduced animal food consumption by 80% in this country we could get by using less than half the land area. That's a bigger chunk of land than the Louisiana purchase.

If the freed up land were used to produce food and timber for the rest of the world, there would be no need to clear another acre of rainforest until the year 2060. This figure is based on the present rate of rainforest destruction. Of course if China's meat consumption continues to increase, as it has been, the world's rainforests will disappear at an increasingly rapid rate. China has less agricultural land than America but has four times its population. In the US, livestock consumes two thirds of all grains and hay grown on its farms. Livestock in the rest of the world consumes only 21% of grain production. If the Chinese were to eat like Americans, the math becomes truly frightening.

Whether it is beef, pork or chicken, the figures are much the same. And it makes no difference whether the animals are free range or housed in feed lots. It's growing the feed for the animals which takes up all the land. It takes six to ten calories of grain to produce one calorie of meat. The ratio varies depending on the edible proportion of the animal and, more critically, the age of the animal when it is slaughtered. Whether the animal is two years old or four, it yields about the same amount of meat, but the four year old will have consumed twice the amount of calories.

The type of animal does make a difference however, when it comes to water consumption. Beef production consumes massively more water than any other meat product, at around 18,000 gallons per pound. Other meat products in turn consume massively more water than grains, fruits and vegetables. All told, production of food crops consumes four times more water than industrial, commercial and domestic users combined. The amount of water saved in the home by recommended water saving measures is insignificant in terms of the savings which could be achieved by reduced beef consumption. Eat one less pound of beef, and you save as much water as your family consumes in seven weeks. Eat eight pounds less, and you have saved a whole year's consumption.

If Americans alone were to reduce their consumption of meat, seafood, eggs and dairy their would be a massive positive benefit to the entire planet. Land savings would be global. Locally wildlife, forests, rivers and marine ecosystems could recover and thrive. Huge acreages would become available for wildlife habitat, recreation, and food and timber for export. If the Canadians and Europeans did the same, and China kept much to its traditional diet, the health of the global environment would be greatly assured. More would still be needed with respect to climate change, but even there we would be better able to deal with the consequences. More land for example would be available to facilitate wildlife migrations.

Think of all the expense and inconvenience that goes into sorting paper and plastic for recycling, cutting down on gas, or reducing household water consumption. All for relatively miserable benefit. All we are talking about here is a change of diet. And changing to a demonstrably healthier life extending diet at that. How hard is that?

No sacrifices are necessary in terms of gross domestic product, or living standards. Quite the contrary, there would be a net improvement in living standards and productivity. Vegetarians are healthier and live up to three years longer. In distribution terms the worst affected, farmers, make up only a tiny proportion of the population. The government could buy up farms instead of paying farmers to overproduce. Additional revenue should also be realized from savings in health costs.

No one has to give up meat entirely, or dairy, or seafood. But these should be substantially reduced in quantity to provide flavor rather than bulk.

Will it happen? Not until the reality begins to displace the deep seated myths about meat as a measure of status, affluence, strength and machismo. By which time it will probably be way too late. Look how hard it is for people to give up smoking, something that is even more demonstrably harmful to health. And we haven't even begun to achieve the necessary awareness we achieved with smoking in the 1960's. Blame no doubt will be laid at the feet of the meat and dairy industries, but the real problem is a public which doesn't want to know. Talk about an inconvenient truth. All that is required is a change of attitude. How tragic it will be if that failure to change costs us the earth.

Most of the figures quoted above will be found in the publication, "Six Arguments for a Greener Diet" published by the Center for Science in the Public Interest. This is no radical vegetarian group. It is an independent organization, entirely funded by member subscriptions, and it accepts no advertising. And while it favors a greener diet, it does not advocate a completely vegetarian or vegan diet. The six arguments it puts forward are:

• less chronic disease and overall health
• less food borne illness
• better soil
• more and cleaner water
• cleaner air
• less animal suffering

The case made is overwhelming, the figures staggering.

I also did research and calculations of my own, mostly from internet sources. The above publication lists some of these websites, in addition to its extensive bibliography. Where I came across differences in figures for such things as land requirements for meat eaters and vegetarians, I traced the figures back to the basics. Calculating how many calories a typical steer consumes, how much they weigh at slaughter, and how many calories their carcasses provide. It all checked out and the differences can be explained by different assumptions about the age of the animal at slaughter, and the yield in terms of edible protein per animal.

In the light of all this, how insane is the current rush to produce ethanol for fuel? This initiative can only increase the rate of rainforest destruction. Either that, or we make do with the land we have and grow less food. The policy has already placed pressure on food prices. So here we are subsidizing an economic activity that increases total demand for energy, creates pressure to expand the amount of land under cultivation, increases economic inefficiency and hugely exacerbates our environmental problems.

What does that say about our political progress in addressing environmental problems? Why are we doing this? Because we are worried foreigners will start restricting our oil supplies, and we want to throw even more money at our inefficient farmers. The oil is going to run out anyway folks. And we're burning it faster to produce the ethanol! Can't we start looking at options that make economic and environmental sense?

what liberal means

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines a liberal as a person "who is open-minded or not strict in the observance of orthodox, traditional, or established forms or ways". The Compact Oxford English Dictionary defines a liberal, in a political context, as "favouring individual liberty, free trade, and moderate reform". Liberal also means "willing to respect and accept behaviour or opinions different from one's own" and "favourable to individual rights and freedoms".

Isn't this the very essence of what it means to be an American? Wasn't this what the founding fathers fought for? America was the world's first liberal democracy. Liberalism was offered as the rational alternative to hereditary despotism, and corrupt government on behalf of vested interests and the privileged few. It subsequently lead to the birth of republics and constitutional monarchies all over the world.

A classic liberal was someone who believed in free markets, personal freedom and the rule of law. All the things the Republican Party says it stands for. But American government, under both Democrats and Republicans, has come to stand for political patronage, pandering to vested interests, gerrymandering and blatant vote buying at all levels. More alarmingly, we are now seeing serious erosion of individual liberties, and challenges to the separation of church and state.

At the same time the political hate-mongers have changed the meaning of the word. Liberal has become a derogatory term for the "looney left". Liberals are demonized, variously, as academics who are completely out of touch with ordinary people, wealthy intellectuals who champion the poor but refuse to give up anything of their own, or anyone who favors tolerance to an extreme, or political correctness over common sense. Liberals, collectively, are blamed for everything that is wrong with America.

Is this distortion of the language the result of ignorance, or is it part of a campaign to undermine and corrupt America's ideals? It is probably a combination of both. I doubt that any of the "liberal bashers" have any idea of the dictionary definition. But in the result they have made intolerance acceptable, fostered hatred and division, and diverted attention from the evils of corruption and abuse of power.

Most of those who claim to be liberal do not know what the word means either. Most are not champions of free markets or free trade, quite the contrary in many cases. A true liberal believes in reform of institutions that no longer work, not in socialism or paternalism.

For the record, Thomas Jefferson was a liberal, Benjamin Franklin was a liberal, John F Kennedy was a liberal, and Martin Luther King was a liberal. And so were most great Americans between.

quick bites

• Better a tax and spend Democrat than a spend and spend and spend Republican.
• How can the United Nations function as a police force, when the world's biggest criminals sit on its Board of Directors?
• Whoever you vote for, the lobbyists win.
• You can't pass laws to make people good.
• If the planet has a future, it is a vegetarian future. A meat eating planet has no future.
• Native Americans tried to end illegal immigration too.
• Intelligent Design. It's not even a theory. If we are the product of intelligent design, how come men have nipples?
• If they really trusted in God, they wouldn't have a military.
• If God had meant us to rely on faith, he wouldn't have given us brains.
• My message to America on September 11, 2001.....Get over it! We need to move on.

for a better america

Here are eight things America can do to save its people and strengthen its great institutions:

• Distance Israel. America's support for Israel's expansionism makes a lie of everything America says it stands for. If America stopped trying to defend the indefensible it would virtually cease to be a terrorist target and save tens of billions of dollars. Israel has weapons of mass destruction and permits no inspections. Israel invaded neighboring countries, drove out the existing inhabitants, condemned most of them to live out their lives in refugee camps, annexed their land, razed their villages, denied them their human rights, destroyed their economy and brutally put down the slightest resistance. None of this could have happened without massive, unconditional and unquestioning American support.
• End censorship. America's media is 99% dependent on private and corporate funding. Nothing that is critical of the policies supported by the rich and powerful gets any meaningful air play. America needs a viable public broadcasting network modeled on Britain's BBC or Australia's ABC. It doesn't have to be perfect, so long as it has broad programming appeal and is independent of government and business pressuring. At present the primary role of America's media is to keep the public ignorant.
• End corruption. American democracy cannot survive without the reform of political campaign funding. The power of lobbyists has to be watered down and gerrymandering has to come to an end. The practice of electing judicial officials in some states is also highly questionable. If judges have to raise large amounts of money to be elected, and play to the crowd, the process is inevitably corrupt.
• Keep church and state separate. This was one of the founding principles of America and a distinguishing feature of its constitution. Jesus himself said "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's." The government has no business interfering with people's individual moral choices. Different faiths have to live with each other and all beliefs must be respected. Political decisions must be based on reason and evidence not on voices from God or personal interpretations of the Old Testament.
• Take a reality check. American patriotism is blind. America continues to support some of the most questionable regimes in the world (like Israel, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia), as it has so many times in the past. American history has been sanitized. As long as we deny the past we will continue repeating our mistakes. It's no coincidence that Israel today is doing to the Palestinians exactly what America did to the Native Americans.
• Legalize drugs. At least 80% of America's crime is drug related. The devil in decriminalizing drugs will be in the detail, but any alternative has to be far and away better than what there is now. Safer streets and huge savings in public spending, not to mention human lives. Minimal effort should be sufficient to assist the drug dependent. If history is any guide, drug addiction is unlikely to increase. The repeal of Prohibition did not lead to an increase in alcoholism. Quite the opposite.
• Invest in child care. The best way to end endemic poverty is to provide universal child care for pre-school children. The research shows, almost beyond argument, that the benefits are enduring. It gets disadvantaged kids out of their deprived environment and teaches them essential life skills at the right stage of their development. The price is nothing compared to the price of having to deal with the problems when they emerge in adulthood.
• Reform, reform, reform! America is a world leader in technology but clings to antiquated institutions like it's system of weights and measures, and it's land title system. Not to mention it's health care mess. Time for America to become a progressive country once again. Go metric for a start. Other countries have shown that the transition brings profits as well as costs. And the long-term benefit is a more efficient, user friendly system. Why persist with a British anachronism which even the British have abandoned?

for a better world

Only five things are necessary to end poverty and hunger and solve most of the world's environmental problems:

• Go Veg! This will make the biggest difference and it's something you can significantly impact on your own. No governments have to be changed and no laws need to be passed. Simply cut your meat consumption by 80%. Or better still give it up altogether. It takes four times the land area to support a meat eater. If America were to give up meat tomorrow deforestation would come to a grinding halt, worldwide. Cut down on seafood too, or our oceans will also die.
• End agricultural subsidies in rich countries. America and the European Union in particular. That will make it economic for farmers in poor countries to produce sufficient food for local populations.
• Bring about land reform and land redistribution in poor countries. This has been the first step in achieving near miraculous economic growth in almost all previously impoverished nations. Examples include land reform under General Macarthur in Post-War Japan, through to South Korea and China in more recent times.
• Reform markets in poor countries. Let markets work and people will be free to improve their own lives. The distribution of all resources should largely be left to market forces, including water.
• Create wildlife corridors. We need corridors to link up existing islands of wildlife habitat. This will allow flora and fauna species to migrate and adjust to climate change. If wildlife is confined to isolated pockets mass extinctions are inevitable.

on palestine

So long as America continues to support and reward Israel's expansionism, the world is going to become an increasingly dangerous place. America's stance makes a lie of everything it says it stands for, from weapons of mass destruction to championing freedom. It is contrary to both justice and international law.

At the core of the problem is Israel's dispossession of the Palestinians. The Palestinians are being driven out of their homeland as surely and relentlessly as the Europeans dispossessed the American Indian and the Australian Aborigine. America officially opposes illegal Jewish settlements on occupied land, but hasn't the slightest intention of holding Israel to account. It is a fundamental principle of international law that no country may annex and colonize land belonging to another country. That was the whole justification for the first war with Iraq.

For decades America has joined with the rest of the world in demanding an end to the illegal settlements. Israel not only failed to curtail the settlements, it expanded them again and again. America did not simply stand by. It continued to pump billions of dollars in military aid into Israel. Now President Bush says it would be unrealistic to expect Israel to return to its legal borders. He gave his unofficial endorsement to the Sharon plan, which would make half of the West Bank permanently part of Israel.

If America, Britain and the other world powers wanted to create a Jewish homeland they should have offered land which they owned. Palestine wasn't theirs to give, and everything that has happened since flows from that.

I'm not saying the clock can be turned back. Every Jewish child born in Palestine has as much right to be there as a Palestinian child. They are as much innocent victims of their parents' crimes as the Palestinians are. But the continuing land theft has to stop and some restitution has to be made. The starting point for any lasting peace has to be Israel's acceptance of its 1967 borders. That does not mean that all Jewish settlements on the West Bank have to be abandoned. But those that choose to stay must become citizens of Palestine. The Palestinians have a right to self-determination and they are entitled to a real state, not some captive Bantustan.

Nor do I support random acts of violence against non-military targets. There are other options for resistance, all of which would be unnecessary if America withdrew its support for the continuing outrages inflicted on the Palestinian people. As long as the US continues to defend the indefensible, there will be no shortage of fanatics wishing to inflict harm upon America and its people. Israel's latest excursion into Lebanon will spawn a whole new generation of suicide bombers and Muslim fanatics.

American foreign policy should be made in Washington, not Tel Aviv. In one fell swoop Israel shot to pieces America's attempts to convince the Arab world that it had their best interests at heart. Those were American bombs falling on Lebanon, paid for by the American taxpayer. The Arab world knows it. The Muslim world knows it. The American public doesn't. And nothing infuriates the Arab world more than America's refusal to listen.

Israel has no intention of negotiating peace, or abiding by a single concession, so long as it has a blank check from America.