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The MoA Week In Review – OT 2020-98
Last week’s posts at Moon of Alabama:
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Other issues:
Transition:
Syraqistan:
James Jeffrey is a stupid man:
Anti-Corbyn Labor:
Covid-19:
Use as open thread …
What a pack of bullshit dogfart hypocritical authoritarian fuckwits. Read and weep/laugh. My concern for the well being any of these governments has evaporated.
https://www.unodc.org/documents/commissions/CND/CND_Sessions/CND_63Reconvened/statements/03Dec/Russia_Joint_Statement.pdf
Joint Statement at the reconvened 63rdsession of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs on the WHO/ECDD recommendations on cannabis and related substances
Vienna, 2 December 2020
On behalf of Algeria, Angola, Bahrain, Belarus, Burkina Faso, China, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyz Republic, Libya, Namibia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Philippines, Russian Federation, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
We are extremely disappointed at the outcome of the voting on the recommendation 5.1 to reschedule cannabis plant and cannabis resin from the strictest Schedule IV of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. Cannabis remains the most abused drug globally. For the past 60 years, the international drug control system has been effective in addressing and countering the illicit production of and trafficking in cannabis and cannabis-related substances whilstensuring their availability for medical and scientific purposes. There is limited evidence that justifies any changes to the scheduling system for cannabis and its related substances, which remains relevant today in curbing the worsening global drug situation.
The outcome of the voting clearly shows that there is no consensus on such an important decision and nearly half of the Commission does not see sufficient reasoning for the proposed change. We express deep concern that the decision to change the existing scheduling status for cannabis and its related substances may be interpreted as the Commission finding that these substances are no longer regarded as harmful to health, in sharp contrast to the recent scientific findings.
Notwithstanding the outcome of the voting, there should be no ambiguity about the implications of this decision. The Commission does not condone the legalization of cannabis, which is contrary to the conventions.
We are concerned that the change in the control system will result in an
increase in the illicit use and production of cannabis and cannabis-related substances, as we have seen in some State Parties that eased the control measures long before the official decision of the CND and contrary to the conventions. In addition, this change will not improve access to cannabis for medical and scientific purposes considering that access for such purposes is not restricted within the current legal framework. This change will cause planting more cannabis for its economic benefits and will result with an increase in drug trafficking. Also, replacing the cultivation of agricultural products with cannabis will have adverse effects on food security.
Deliberations on the recommendations over the past two years clearly illustrate that there is no agreement as to their need and that there is no clear understanding of their possible implications. We rejected these recommendations because they will cause uncertainties and gaps in the implementation of control measures, which will weaken the integrity of the international drug control regime.
Cannabis plant and cannabis resin will remain included in Schedule I of the 1961 convention with strict level of international and national control. We call upon the Parties of the conventions to fulfil their obligations to prevent and combat drug addiction in order to protect the health and welfare of mankind and encourage the international community to support these efforts.
Member States maintain the right to impose the strictest domestic control measures for cannabis and cannabis-related substances, which in their opinion are necessary having regard to their particularly dangerous properties, in accordance with Article 39 of the 1961 convention.
The focus should now be on helping Member States effectively implement the control measures for cannabis and cannabis-related substances. Technical assistance will need to be provided, including through the UNODC, to Member States who lack the necessary detection, testing, monitoring and enforcement capabilities to implement them.
We call upon the Commission to elaborate in close cooperation with the INCB, UNODC and WHO clear guidelines to ensure coherent application of the
provisions of the conventions related to licit production, trade, medical and scientific use of cannabis as well as control of emerging high-potency cannabis products. We are concerned that cannabis cultivation might expand further without proper control measures, which could lead to diversions to illicit market and result in weakening of the international drug control system.
The Commission spent two years discussing this complex and interconnected set of recommendations and their possible implications. We believe there is a need for a closer and more coherent coordination between the WHO/ECDD and Vienna-based entities –the INCB and the UNODC -prior to the submission of scheduling recommendations in order to avoid such unfortunate situations in the future, as these recommendations might have very serious implications for the present and future generations.
Finally, we commend the CND chair Ambassador Mansoor Ahmad Khan for his prudent and strong leadership throughout the process of consideration of these recommendations, despite the unprecedented challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. We appreciate the valuable input provided by the UNODC and the INCB during the expert deliberations on the WHO/ECDD recommendations and underline the leading role of the CND as the policy-making body of the UN system with prime responsibility for drug control matters and mandated by the three drug control conventions, which constitute the cornerstone of the international drug control system, to amend the schedules of those conventions.
Posted by: tucenz | Dec 13 2020 18:46 utc | 18
The March toward genuine multilateralism and a multipolar world according to Henry Wallace’s view on 8 May 1942 began with the American Revolution, and IMO there’s some truth to that. He makes that reflection at the beginning of the speech he delivered that day which was later rechristened “The Century of The Common Man”. It’s most illuminating to reread Wallace’s words now that the enemies are the same yet different and are no longer foreign but domestic. He relates:
“The march of freedom of the past one hundred and fifty years has been a long-drawn-out people’s revolution. In this Great Revolution of the people, there were the American Revolution of 1775, The French Revolution of 1792, The Latin-American revolutions of the Bolivarian era, The German Revolution of 1848, and the Russian Revolution of 1917. Each spoke for the common man in terms of blood on the battlefield. Some went to excess. But the significant thing is that the people groped their way to the light. More of them learned to think and work together….
“The people are on the march toward even fuller freedom than the most fortunate peoples of the earth have hitherto enjoyed. No Nazi counter-revolution will stop it. The common man will smoke the Hitler stooges out into the open in the United States, in Latin America, and in India. He will destroy their influence. No Lavals, no Mussolinis will be tolerated in a Free World.
“The people, in their millennial and revolutionary march toward manifesting here on earth the dignity that is in every human soul, hold as their credo the Four Freedoms enunciated by President Roosevelt in his message to Congress on January 6, 1941. These four freedoms are the very core of the revolution for which the United Nations have taken their stand. We who live in the United States may think there is nothing very revolutionary about freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and freedom from the fear of secret police. But when we begin to think about the significance of freedom from want for the average man, then we know that the revolution of the past one hundred and fifty years has not been completed, either here in the United States or in any other nation in the world. We know that this revolution can not stop until freedom from want has actually been attained.
“And now, as we move forward toward realizing the Four Freedoms of this people’s revolution, I would like to speak about four duties. It is my belief that every freedom, every right, every privilege has its price, its corresponding duty without which it can not be enjoyed. The four duties of the people’s revolution, as I see them today, are these:
1. The duty to produce the limit.
2. The duty to transport as rapidly as possible to the field of battle.
3. The duty to fight with all that is in us.
4. The duty to build a peace — just, charitable and enduring.
“The fourth duty is that which inspires the other three.”
Wallace laments about the failure after WW1; but when he spoke, few knew the actual reasons for the war, although Wallace was correct that it wasn’t to serve the Common Man’s interest. To solve the basic problem that in reality goes back 4-5,000 years. Wallace then drives the nail home:
“We did not build a peace treaty on the fundamental doctrine of the people’s revolution. We did not strive whole-heartedly to create a world where there could be freedom from want for all peoples. But by our very errors we learned much, and after this war we shall be in position to utilize our knowledge in building a world which is economically, politically and, I hope, spiritually sound.”
The United Nations contained within it the above vision that it could become the vehicle for attaining the goals enunciated in that last sentence. It’s now 75 years later, and it appears we might have an opportunity to attain Wallace’s, FDR’s, and numerous others dream goal of an unfettered people living in harmony while enjoying those four basic freedoms, but most importantly, the freedom from want and the chains of debt that attends it always.
Wallace knew about banks and finance from the farmer’s POV for he was a member of a longstanding Iowa farming family–the Iowa Asgards. And he knew about the Devilish threats within the USA to the Four Freedoms as he noted in his speech. Although the focus was on Germany, Wallace knew the Nazi Devil lived in many places:
“Through the leaders of the Nazi revolution, Satan now is trying to lead the common man of the whole world back into slavery and darkness. For the stark truth is that the violence preached by the Nazis is the devil’s own religion of darkness. So also is the doctrine that one race or one class is by heredity superior and that all other races or classes are supposed to be slaves. THE belief in one Satan-inspired Fuhrer, with his Quislings, his Lavals, and his Mussolinis — his “gauleiters” in every nation in the world — is the last and ultimate darkness. Is there any hell hotter than that of being a Quisling, unless it is that of being a Laval or a Mussolini?” (Quisling was a Norwegian Fascist executed in 1945 for treason.) [My Emphasis]
Wallace knew and he displayed his knowledge in a very famous op/ed written at the request of the NY Times and vetted by FDR, “The Dangers of American Fascism,” published 9 April 1944. Besides that message, Wallace’s most powerful message was spoken toward the conclusion of his speech which provides an excellent benchmark to measure just how far we’ve come and how much farther we need to go:
“Some [Henry Luce] have spoken of the ‘American Century.’ I say that the century on which we are entering — The century which will come out of this war — can be and must be the century of the common man. Perhaps it will be America’s opportunity to suggest that Freedoms and duties by which the common man must live. Everywhere the common man must learn to build his own industries with his own hands is a practical fashion. Everywhere the common man must learn to increase his productivity so that he and his children can eventually pay to the world community all that they have received. No nation will have the God-given right to exploit other nations. Older nations will have the privilege to help younger nations get started on the path to industrialization, but there must be neither military nor economic imperialism. The methods of the nineteenth century will not work in the people’s century which is now about to begin. India, China, and Latin America have a tremendous stake in the people’s century. As their masses learn to read and write, and as they become productive mechanics, their standard of living will double and treble. Modern science, when devoted whole-heartedly to the general welfare, has in it potentialities of which we do not yet dream.
“And modern science must be released from German slavery. International cartels that serve American greed and the German will to power must go. Cartels in the peace to come must be subjected to international control for the common man, as well as being under adequate control by the respective home governments. In this way, we can prevent the Germans from again building a war machine while we sleep. With international monopoly pools under control, it will be possible for inventions to serve all the people instead of only a few.
“Yes, and when the time of peace comes, The citizen will again have a duty, The supreme duty of sacrificing the lesser interest for the greater interest of the general welfare. Those who write the peace must think of the whole world. There can be no privileged peoples. We ourselves in the United States are no more a master race than the Nazis. And we can not perpetuate economic warfare without planting the seeds of military warfare. We must use our power at the peace table to build an economic peace that is just, charitable and enduring.
“If we really believe that we are fighting for a people’s peace, all the rest becomes easy.” [All Emphasis Mine]
Reading between the lines, we can sense Wallace’s apprehensions about what the USA will become; and as we’ve witnessed, he was quite correct in his suspicions. But the people were quickly duped and he didn’t have any chance of besting Truman in 1948 being attacked in media by those who supported him and FDR during the Depression and war–very much like the attacks on Sanders during the last two election cycles. As Wallace feared, something very similar to Nazism took hold within the USA quickly after the war. Behind it then as now stood Private Finance and the Neoliberals went to work, their goal to privatize everything and ensure the Common Folk owned nothing but the debt that enslaved him/her. No other political-economic example was to be allowed to exist; their one greatest failure and the only reason we’re now on the path to the better world we should have already attained if the sort of Christian Commonwealth vision Wallace had and many shared could have arisen instead of the latent fascism within the USA gaining control.
Posted by: karlof1 | Dec 13 2020 23:01 utc | 48
The Permanent Arms Economy has been the central principle of US state policy since 1944. It takes the form of a policy of maintaining the US in a position in which the rest of the world has to choose either to submit, as the UK has, and follow Washington’s every order, or to employ all national resources on striving to keep pace with the implied US military threat, or to endeavor to exist without provoking the wrath which leads to US aggression. They can do this either by opposing US actions or by developing successful, non capitalist domestic policies which the US ruling class feels obliged to wreck lest they become popular.
This is what the vast Pentagon budgets are really about, the need to force potential rivals to the Unipolar Hegemon to waste their substance on defending themselves against US threats.
Recent years have seen two major developments of a positive nature. The first has been the development of a rough alliance, both formal and informal, against US aggression in Eurasia which has made, for example, an attack on Iran almost impossible. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation being the formal defensive pact which reflects the geographical reality-to which western europe has not yet awoken-that Eurasia cannot be ruled by the United States.
The second development, the (Silk Road) BRI is more interesting in that it revives the ancient substitute to aggression that China developed millenia ago, the Tribute system, or mutually beneficial trading between nations. What the Chinese mean by ‘win-win’ is nothing less than the folk wisdom that “you catch more flies with sugar than vinegar.’ It is a recollection of the basic human practice, long pre-dating states, of exchanging gifts, of reciprocity. Of deterring enmity and jealousy with friendship and assistance.
What China has done, while developing a defensive capacity which can only be challenged by an enemy willing to commit suicide, is to spend the resources that the US spends on its 850 bases and its millions of troops and proxy armies (not to mention proxy states such as Israel), on investment and assistance-through mutual trade and loans- wherever countries feel the need. This includes, of course, countries like Iran and Venezuela which are being subjected to total economic warfare but it is also immensely attractive to a wide range of countries with many different governments, most of them inimical to what they are informed are communist ideas.
The choice before the world is increasingly stark: the planet faces real and very difficult problems, most of which, in the final analysis, have their roots in the capitalist system. Before we can even begin to address these problems we have to put an end to the Hobbesian power politics that are specific to the Empire whose HQ is now to be found in the USA. Contrary to all the nonsense talked by academics, there is no reason at all why there should be any military struggle between the United States and any supposed rivals. History makes no suggestion of such a struggle being inevitable or even likely. It makes no sense except to those who desire it. Far more likely than war is the development of an international consensus that wars are not only profoundly wasteful of every resource but an obstacle to humanity’s saving itself.
There is a sense in which, as karlofi has outlined, what must come next-for America and everywhere else- is to pick up the strands of the progress that was being made in 1944 when the Red Army was burying fascism and there was a general agreement among the Allies that a new international order of peace and rebuilding was to hand. The US Vice President at the time was Henry Wallace. It was from the moment of his removal- by corrupt Democrats of the sort with whom we are very familiar- and his replacement by the malleable Senator from the Pendergast machine, Truman, that we can date the new era which became the Cold War, the anti-Union, McCarthyite era-the era of the Permanent Arms Economy and the seventy year holocaust of anti imperialists and socialists, the sordid era of lies, propaganda and cheating in which we have lived, like rats swimming in a cesspool.
That is the era- Henry Luce’s American Century, of which the neo-conservatives wanted an eternity- that, even as Congress passes yet another record setting ‘Defense’ budget and the last embers of Free Speech are being crushed, which is coming to an end. Not with a bang on the battlefield but with a whimper.
The world has finally lost interest in Washington’s tantrums and Israel’s increasingly insane demands: the caste of the corny old drama is still on the stage-the MbS’s and Bibis, the BoJos and Macrons, The Erdogans and Bolsonaros, the Trumps and the Obamas. And they are still all to be found-yea even unto the Merkels and Orbans- in the CIA pay records.
But the play itself has gone cold. Most people stopped watching it long ago. And now even people like ourselves, with an interest in such matters, have tired of the rubbish. Nobody believes in any of it any more. Everyone is eager to stop the wasting of time and precious energy.
And so it is that, even with the air filled with sinophobic and slavophobic screechings, we turn our faces towards the sensible and long overdue projects that China assures us-and in this is incontrovertible- we can start working on.
And these projects are very familiar. They are the ones that FDR, Churchill and Stalin, bowing to the almost unanimous demands of the peoples they ruled, and the millions of armed men they commanded, committed themselves to. That hunger be ended, because plenty was available for all. That everyone should have shelter, a home, and clothing. That there should be education-not indoctrination but a sharing of real knowledge- for all. That the arts of medicine and healthcare should be freely available to all. That there should be no more economic crises caused by capitalism and that there should be an end to all war, and to imperialism. That an earthly paradise be built, because mankind is capable of it.
Posted by: bevin | Dec 14 2020 4:52 utc | 83
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