Morales: 'The Central Enemy of Mother Earth is Capitalism'

[defendandprotect]

Morales: 'The Central Enemy of Mother Earth is Capitalism

Bolivian President Blames Capitalism for Global Warming

COCHABAMBA, Bolivia, April 20, 2010 (ENS) - Bolivian President Evo Morales said capitalism is to blame for global warming and the accelerated deterioration of the planetary ecosystem in a speech today opening an international conference on climate change and the "rights of Mother Earth."

More than 20,000 indigenous, environmental and civil society delegates from 129 countries were in attendance as President Morales welcomed them to the conference at a soccer stadium in the village of Tiquipaya on the outskirts of the city of Cochabamba.


Ceremonial sounds welcome delegates to the Cochabamba climate conference. April 20, 2010. (Photo courtesy ABI)
"The main cause of the destruction of the planet Earth is capitalism and in the towns where we have lived, where we respected this Mother Earth, we all have the ethics and the moral right to say here that the central enemy of Mother Earth is capitalism," said Morales, who is Bolivia's first fully indigenous head of state in the 470 years since the Spanish invasion.

Morales is the leader of a political party called Movimiento al Socialismo, the Movement for Socialism, which aims to give more power to the country's indigenous and poor communities by means of land reforms and redistribution of wealth from natural resources such as gas.

"The capitalist system looks to obtain the maximum possible gain, promoting unlimited growth on a finite planet," said Morales. "Capitalism is the source of asymmetries and imbalance in the world."




http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2010/2010-04-20-02.html

[slackmaster]

1. Douchebag

And a hypocrite on so many levels.

[amborin]

50. ad hominum attack: bashing the messenger does not negate the message

[slackmaster]

71. The man is obviously a demagogue

His message is irrelevant.

[tabatha]

2. He is correct.

[Dr Morbius]

9. It is not capitalism which is at fault but unregulated capitalism.

The difference may seem semantic but it is everything.

[tabatha]

22. I agree with you.

[defendandprotect]

60. Capitalism is the problem . . . it's intended to move the wealth and natural resrouces ...

of any nation from the many to the few -- and it does that very efficiently!

And it's based on exploitation --

not only of nature, but natural resources, animal-life -- and even other human

beings according to various myths of inferiority.

Nothing good about it -- invented by Vatican when Feudalism became insufficient to

run their Papal States.


Unregulated capitalism is merely organized crime -- that's true!!

[cali]

11. that's debatable. Take a look at the environmental degradation in the the former U.S.S. R.

or in China.

[wuushew]

18. Don't you feel that modern China is probably doing more aggregate damage to the Earth

especially in terms of CO2 emissions? Nixon should have never gone to China.

[Fumesucker]

32. Both of which are strong examples of the most predatory forms of capitalism these days..

Capitalism (but not freedom) has run amok both in the former Soviet Union and in China in the last decade or more.

[cali]

40. sure, but I'm referring to the massive environmental degradation

that took place in the old Soviet Union. I'm surprised you were unaware of it.

[Fumesucker]

42. I'm not unaware of it..

I also doubt that it has gotten any better with the advent of predatory capitalism there either.

Have they had any rivers catch on fire?

[amborin]

51. ussr was state capitalism

[readmoreoften]

70. +1

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

3. That's rediculous.

Independent of the type of economic system one has... energy production must exist to power everyday living and feed the people.
Even in a socialistic economy, people need transportation and fuel for food production.

Now if his argument is population control via socialistic (or beurocratic) determination then he may have a point.
However, I'm pretty sure he is not looking to institute population/reproduction control.

[tabatha]

23. It is "ridiculous".

Capitalism means that people must earn money to sustain themselves.
For the most part, money is made by selling stuff.
Stuff is made from resources provided by the earth.
The earth is being raped to allow stuff to be made to sell to earn money to sustain human life.
QED.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

24. Why do people sell stuff?... because people buy stuff.

Why do people buy stuff? Because they NEED stuff. People NEED things to sustain themselves. These "things" ultimately come from the earth. I'm pretty sure in socialistic societies people need stuff to sustain human life.Whether your cheese is purchased from Walmart or a government/commune... natural resources were used to produce it. Powerplants in socialist countries still burn coal and cars still eat petrol.

QED? I give you an F... minus.

[tabatha]

30. Are you familiar with how

indigenous people managed to survive without money and without trashing the earth? If they had not survived we would not be here.


As for your grade, you don't know enough.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

37. So the solution is to, technologically, revert back to pre-industrial cultures?

Indigenous people were also sparsely populated, lived short lives, and trade was only limited to localized resources.
Modern population density centers would either have to be evacuated to sustainable levels or people would have to die off.

Heavy industry and industrialization is what allows people in all modern societies to live how they live.
Industrialization is not limited to capitalistic societies. Period. This is not a socialism/capitalism debate.
It's an industrial and or human population problem. These societal traits are independent of financial theory.

If you want to learn economic theory from some crackpot that says chickens are why we have gays, be my guest.
lol :eyes:

[tabatha]

44. Arrogance is what you preach.

"If you want to learn economic theory from some crackpot that says chickens are why we have gays, be my guest.
lo" - where did I say that? Who the hell said that? I dislike people who make things up out of while cloth. I have never said that and never thought that and have always supported gay folk and the diversity of folk of all kind. If only you knew what I have done, you would be ashamed to have stated that.

I also happen to be a scientist, by the way, who reads only non-fiction science books.

No, I am not talking about going backwards - but learning from those who treated the land better than we did.

And as far as financial theories go, the only reason China is doing as well as it is - is because they are flooding our markets and shops with cheap crap that has no value other than kitsch. I find it despicable that good, solid nature has to be destroyed to make kitsch. Just as what was found in the stomach of a whale that beached the other day. I cannot stomach that kind of capitalism.

I don't think you get it - you have a black and white, either or, arrogant outlook.

[defendandprotect]

61. Peak oil may do all of that in the not so far future . . .

[azul]

4. We should be preparing for when Mother Nature shrugs,

for obviously she does have limits, and we are pressing her sorely.

Maybe we be too busy killing and torturing each other in spasms of fear and national security to realize our home world may be becoming unbalanced and is in need our concerted attention?

[marmar]

5. I knew I liked Morales.....

He's very right....as is Vandana Shiva in my sig line.

[EFerrari]

6. Right and it was the wealthy developed capitalist nations

who have cause the bulk of the damage that tried to impose Cophenhagen on many smaller nations in contravention of UN process. Evo is right of course.

[ThomWV]

7. What an absurd proposition.

[EFerrari]

17. Naomi Klein agrees with him.

"This is really a relatively new framing for the climate crisis and is becoming predominantly from the developing world, led by the government of Bolivia and other Latin American governments, and it has been joined by the coalition of least developed countries which are primarily in Africa.

And essentially what they’re saying is that the climate crisis as we know was created in the industrialized world. There is a direct correlation between industrialization (what we call development) and carbon emissions. In fact, 75% of the historical carbon emissions have been produced by only 20% of the world’s population.

Then we have this cruel geographical irony, which is that the effects of climate change our felt overwhelmingly in the developing world, and the parts of the world that are least responsible for creating the crisis. According to the World Bank, 75-80 of the effects of climate change are being felt in the developing world.

So, you have this inverse relationship between cause and effect."

http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=1302

[cali]

21. Naomi Klein? So what?

and though I didn't read the whole thing, she seems to be using terms such as the "industrialized world". Industrialization is hardly limited to capitalist countries.

[amborin]

47. not absurd, but rather the truth

[ZeitgeistObserver]

8. He also says chickens cause baldness and gayness.

Male pattern baldness and the mysteries of human sexuality are no puzzles for the president of Bolivia, who has declared they are caused by eating chicken.

Evo Morales has claimed that both homosexuality and baldness can be caused by the humble chicken.

Speaking at an environmental conference on Tuesday, Morales said chicken producers injected fowl with female hormones and insisted that "when men eat those chickens they experience deviances in being men".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2010/apr/22/chicken-causes-homosexuality-evo-morales

[defendandprotect]

62. Obviously, Morales isn't so far from wrong on those poisons, as well -- !!

[cali]

10. um, could it possibly have anything to do with population?

environmental degradation is far more connected to that than any particular financial system.

[ShortnFiery]

12. Morales is spot on. Same as it ever was .... Check out this quote from 1890?

"Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, for the people and by the people, but a government for Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master...Let the bloodhounds of money who have dogged us thus far beware."- Mary Elizabeth Lease, 1890

[cali]

14. you and various other people on this thread seem to be sadly ignorant

of the massive environmental degradation that's taken place in the former USSR and in China. Certainly, rampant capitalism is significant contributing factor, but there are, of course, many others- such as the little fact that there are too many people on this little planet.

[whattheidonot]

35. less

everyone could easily live with less but this has to be imposed. Once people have stuff it is harder to go back. Capitalism does not work on less because of the profit. China has billions of people to control and keep happy. and Russia is obtaining power again so less is out for now. Production as the solution to keep economies going is the problem. It is now virtually worldwide.

[amborin]

52. USSR was state capitalism; and China is capitalist; it's authoritarian capitalism

[Scruffy1]

56. It hasn't changed

the brainwashing of the American people enables the oligarchy to perpetuate an inhuman system based on the false belief that the interest of the capitalist class is somehow connected to the producing class. History shows that all of the reforms since the 1890's have come to naught.We fix it a little and then they refix it in their own interest leaving us with nothing but the false belief that capitalism reformable. I get really tired of Russia and China always being interjected into the conversation of American capitalism. What these failed, corrupt, despotic countries have to do with any rational approach to socialism is beyond me.
If we get capitalism to actually work for the benefit of the producers the capitalist will use their money power and corporate propaganda to fix it.

[defendandprotect]

63. Interesting . . . the open secret ... that every generation has to learn for themselves!!

Thanks for the quote -

:)

[marmar]

13. Free market un-rec'ers gone wild !!!!

La verdad que duele.

[EFerrari]

20. Lol. Yep

[Captain Hilts]

15. He's an idiot who obviously never went to Soviet-era USSR or the Eastern Bloc. nt

[EFerrari]

34. The Soviet Union is not blocking real reform. n/t

[Captain Hilts]

36. They're just dumping nuke waste into the Arctic, etc. How's that for reform?

[EFerrari]

39. The Soviet Union no longer exists. n/t

[defendandprotect]

67. US dumped nuclear waste into the Pacific . ..

[The2ndWheel]

16. It would be easy if it was just one thing

like economics. Especially one part of one thing, since capitalism is just a single part of the economic picture.

No, it's everything. It's the solution, and the problem. It's the accumulated reality of the last few thousand years of history and momentum, from all across the world, with who knows how many different variables which made the process what it is.

[cali]

19. stop thinking in complex terms!

[Taverner]

25. Yes - although the only road to Socialism is through Capitalism

So kind of a conundrum...

[AnArmyVeteran]

28. Cool picture... Who is it?

[Taverner]

38. Velvet Underground and a young Edie Sedgewick

Rrrrrowr!

[EFerrari]

54. That's not actually true. Many native cultures on this continent

were essentially socialistic. The guy that came up with that idea wasn't from here.

[Taverner]

55. It's a Ricardian Socialism thing

You use Capitalism to achieve socialism, or the correct points of cultural evolution don't happen

Let me add that in small groups, any socio-econimic system works. Because its small enough to adapt on the fly.

However, take a 10K group of folks, and they become less managable. Thankfully, we have Capitalism and Socialism. One takes care of initiative, the other, our well being.

[MellowDem]

26. No, it's humans...

Communism hasn't been friendly to mother earth you could say, or socialism either. It's not the system, but how you regulate and use it. Capitalism has helped push green technology as well. There is nothing inherent about capitalism that promotes unlimited growth. It deals in finite resources. This is just political rhetoric.

[wuushew]

29. where is steady state capitalism being practiced?

Our culture knows nothing but growth. Short term pressures both political and corporate maintain the fantasy that problems and bills can be kicked down the road indefinately.

[MellowDem]

49. This is somewhat true...

but more a cultural problem than anything else.

[alarimer]

27. Human beings are the enemy of mother earth.

The sooner we are gone, the better off earth will be. We are nothing but parasites.

[tabatha]

31. Some humans were able to live in harmony with the earth.

But they were destroyed by capitalists.

[cali]

41. wow. My dear old dad the anthropologist would laugh his ass off

over that simplistic crap.

[tabatha]

43. Really?

When the first settlers arrived in South Africa, it was a pristine country despite populations of Bantu all the way down the eastern seaboard to the Fish River, and San Bushmen living mostly in the West.

Now gold mining, coal mining and other industrial factories have polluted the water, air and earth. I know, I have seen it.

So laugh your asses off if you prefer destroyed earth.

By the way, try reading this book:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0679401369

and at the end of it, if you have any feelings, you will sobbing not laughing.

[cali]

45. that has nothing to do with modern capitalism.

yes, it's horrific, but it's hardly about capitalism. It's about colonialism. And yes, my father had little tolerance for willful stupidity.

[tabatha]

48. Before the white man arrived and introduced his capitialism

into that country, the various African tribes who lived there were healthy and had a good culture, especially the Xhosa, Mandela's ancestors.

The early white settlers were impressed with the health, vitality and demeanor of the blacks to the point of raving about them. The whites destroyed them. Period.

The whites destroyed the aborigines, who also had an extraordinary culture. Period.

The whites destroyed the native americans, who also had an extraordinary culture. Period.

That is what I am talking about.

Obviously, there were other indigenous people who may have had other problems.

But, the whites in early industrial Britain were not that marvelous either - read the book the "Fatal Shore" to see how civilized man treated others.

I would never laugh my ass of at any early culture - some of them gave us reading, writing, arithmetic.

Others preserved their environment so that advanced whites could go on superficial safaris to enjoy the wildlife not destroyed by the "laugh-your-ass-off-able" earlier cultures.

How arrogant.

[proteus_lives]

57. "The whites destroyed the native americans, who also had an extraordinary culture. Period"

Ignorant.

You were aware that there was more then one Native American culture and many were warlike, took slaves, did massive trading and political alliances, over-fished, over-hunted and destroyed their neighbors?

They would have been exactly like the Europeans in several centuries if left to develop on their own.

Your racism and paternal "noble savage" view is the one that is arrogant.

[defendandprotect]

66. Agree . . . and overpopulation is a huge problem now . . .

[defendandprotect]

64. Patriarchy/Organized patriarchal religion are the enemy of nature/earth . . .

"Manifest Destiny" and "Man's Dominion Over Nature" --

Agree with your post --

:)

[SemiCharmedQuark]

33. Actually it's modern medicine. If more humans died of common diseases like the good old days, we'd

be in better shape.

:eyes:

[amborin]

46. also here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8192590&mesg_id=8192773

[anigbrowl]

53. I don't agree with him, but wish him luck with it

I think socialism and/or communism can be viable systems for countries at certain phases of development; some of the economic strategies employed have value. I'm strongly in favor of developing a welfare state which helps individuals to cope with economic disruptions, for example. Over the longer term, though, such systems can become a limiting factor which prevents a country (and its citizens) from reaching its full economic potential.

[tomm2thumbs]

58. greed - ie. capitalism without boundaries

how much is too much - that is the question no one who supports corporatism ever can explain to me. how much really is too much.

[Naturalist111]

59. Materialism drives Capitalism

[defendandprotect]

65. Capitalism drives Materialism . ..

[Warren DeMontague]

68. He 'allegedly' gave that speech. It could have been done on a sound stage in Area 51.

With costumes and elaborate special effects.

"only fools never doubt"

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

69. The central enemy of Mother Earth (as related to global warming) is the combustion of fossil fuels.

Socialist gasoline doesn't cause any less damage than capitalist gasoline.