Heads of Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua declare capitalism 'threatens life on the planet'

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

The Declaration of Cumaná: Capitalism 'threatens life on the planet'

We, the Heads of State and Government of Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela, member countries of ALBA, consider that the Draft Declaration of the 5th Summit of the Americas is insufficient and unacceptable for the following reasons:

- The Declaration does not provide answers to the Global Economic Crisis, even though this crisis constitutes the greatest challenge faced by humanity in the last decades and is the most serious threat of the current times to the welfare of our peoples.

- The Declaration unfairly excludes Cuba, without mentioning the consensus in the region condemning the blockade and isolation to which the people and the government of Cuba have incessantly been exposed in a criminal manner.

For this reason, we, the member countries of ALBA believe that there is no consensus for the adoption of this draft declaration because of the reasons above stated, and accordingly, we propose to hold a thorough debate on the following topics:

1. Capitalism is leading humanity and the planet to extinction. What we are experiencing is a global economic crisis of a systemic and structural nature, not another cyclic crisis. Those who think that with a taxpayer money injection and some regulatory measures this crisis will end are wrong. The financial system is in crisis because it trades bonds with six times the real value of the assets and services produced and rendered in the world, this is not a “system regulation failure”, but a integrating part of the capitalist system that speculates with all assets and values with a view to obtain the maximum profit possible. Until now, the economic crisis has generated over 100 million additional hungry persons and has slashed over 50 million jobs, and these figures show an upward trend.

2. Capitalism has caused the environmental crisis, by submitting the necessary conditions for life in the planet, to the predominance of market and profit. Each year we consume one third more of what the planet is able to regenerate. With this squandering binge of the capitalist system, we are going to need two planets Earth by the year 2030.

3. The global economic crisis, climate change, the food crisis and the energy crisis are the result of the decay of capitalism, which threatens to end life and the planet. To avert this outcome, it is necessary to develop and model an alternative to the capitalist system. A system based on:

- solidarity and complementarity, not competition;

- a system in harmony with our mother earth and not plundering of human resources;

- a system of cultural diversity and not cultural destruction and imposition of cultural values and lifestyles alien to the realities of our countries;

- a system of peace based on social justice and not on imperialist policies and wars;

- in summary, a system that recovers the human condition of our societies and peoples and does not reduce them to mere consumers or merchandise.

4. As a concrete expression of the new reality of the continent, we, Caribbean and Latin American countries, have commenced to build our own institutionalization, an institutionalization that is based on a common history dating back to our independence revolution and constitutes a concrete tool for deepening the social, economic and cultural transformation processes that will consolidate our full sovereignty.

ALBA-TCP, Petrocaribe or UNASUR, mentioning merely the most recently created, are solidarity-based mechanisms of unity created in the midst of such transformations with the obvious intention of boosting the efforts of our peoples to attain their own freedom. To face the serious effects of the global economic crisis, we, the ALBA-TCP countries, have adopted innovative and transforming measures that seek real alternatives to the inadequate international economic order, not to boost their failed institutions. Thus, we have implemented a Regional Clearance Unitary System, the SUCRE, which includes a Common Unit of Account, a Clearance Chamber and a Single Reserve System. Similarly, we have encouraged the constitution of grand-national companies to satisfy the essential needs of our peoples and establish fair and complementary trade mechanisms that leave behind the absurd logic of unbridled competition.

5. We question the G20 for having tripled the resources of the International Monetary Fund when the real need is to establish a new world economic order that includes the full transformation of the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO, entities that have contributed to this global economic crisis with their neoliberal policies.

6. The solutions to the global economic crisis and the definition of a new international financial scheme should be adopted with the participation of the 192 countries that will meet in the United Nations Conference on the International Financial Crisis to be held on June 1-3 to propose the creation of a new international economic order.

7. As for climate change, developed countries are in an environmental debt to the world because they are responsible for 70% of historical carbon emissions into the atmosphere since 1750. Developed countries should pay off their debt to humankind and the planet; they should provide significant resources to a fund so that developing countries can embark upon a growth model which does not repeat the serious impacts of the capitalist industrialization.

8. Solutions to the energy, food and climate change crises should be comprehensive and interdependent. We cannot solve a problem by creating new ones in fundamental areas for life. For instance, the widespread use of agricultural fuels has an adverse effect on food prices and the use of essential resources, such as water, land and forests.

9. We condemn the discrimination against migrants in any of its forms. Migration is a human right, not a crime. Therefore, we request the United States government an urgent reform of its migration policies in order to stop deportations and massive raids and allow for reunion of families. We further demand the removal of the wall that separates and divides us, instead of uniting us.

In this regard, we petition for the abrogation of the Law of Cuban Adjustment and removal of the discriminatory, selective Dry Feet, Wet Feet policy that has claimed human losses. Bankers who stole the money and resources from our countries are the true responsible, not migrant workers. Human rights should come first, particularly human rights of the underprivileged, downtrodden sectors in our society, that is, migrants without identity papers. Free movement of people and human rights for everybody, regardless of their migration status, are a must for integration. Brain drain is a way of plundering skilled human resources exercised by rich countries.

10. Basic education, health, water, energy and telecommunications services should be declared human rights and cannot be subject to private deal or marketed by the World Trade Organization. These services are and should be essentially public utilities of universal access.

11. We wish a world where all, big and small, countries have the same rights and where there is no empire. We advocate non-intervention. There is the need to strengthen, as the only legitimate means for discussion and assessment of bilateral and multilateral agendas in the hemisphere, the foundations for mutual respect between states and governments, based on the principle of non-interference of a state in the internal affairs of another state, and inviolability of sovereignty and self-determination of the peoples.

We request the new Government of the United States, the arrival of which has given rise to some expectations in the hemisphere and the world, to finish the longstanding and dire tradition of interventionism and aggression that has characterized the actions of the US governments throughout history, and particularly intensified during the Administration of President George W. Bush. By the same token, we request the new Government of the United States to abandon interventionist practices, such as cover-up operations, parallel diplomacy, media wars aimed at disturbing states and governments, and funding of destabilizing groups. Building on a world where varied economic, political, social and cultural approaches are acknowledged and respected is of the essence.

12. With regard to the U.S. blockade against Cuba and the exclusion of the latter from the Summit of the Americas, we, the member states of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America, reassert the Declaration adopted by all Latin American and Caribbean countries last December 16, 2008, on the need to end the economic, trade and financial blockade imposed by the Government of the United States of America on Cuba, including the implementation of the so-called Helms-Burton Act. The declaration sets forth in its fundamental paragraphs the following:

“CONSIDERING the resolutions approved by the United Nations General Assembly on the need to finish the economic, trade and financial blockade imposed by the United States on Cuba, and the statements on such blockade, which have been approved in numerous international meetings.

“WE AFFIRM that the application of unilateral, coercive measures affecting the wellbeing of peoples and hindering integration processes is unacceptable when defending free exchange and the transparent practice of international trade.

“WE STRONGLY REPEL the enforcement of laws and measures contrary to International Law, such as the Helms-Burton Act, and we urge the Government of the United States of America to finish such enforcement.

“WE REQUEST the Government of the United States of America to comply with the provisions set forth in 17 successive resolutions approved by the United Nations General Assembly and put an end to the economic, trade and financial blockade on Cuba.”

Additionally, we consider that the attempts at imposing the isolation of Cuba have failed, as nowadays Cuba forms an integral part of the Latin American and Caribbean region; it is a member of the Rio Group and other hemispheric organizations and mechanisms, which develops a policy of cooperation, in solidarity with the countries in the hemisphere; which promotes full integration of Latin American and Caribbean peoples. Therefore, there is no reason whatsoever to justify its exclusion from the mechanism of the Summit of the Americas.

13. Developed countries have spent at least USD 8 billion to rescue a collapsing financial structure. They are the same that fail to allocate the small sums of money to attain the Millennium Goals or 0.7% of the GDP for the Official Development Assistance. Never before the hypocrisy of the wording of rich countries had been so apparent. Cooperation should be established without conditions and fit in the agendas of recipient countries by making arrangements easier; providing access to the resources, and prioritizing social inclusion issues.

14. The legitimate struggle against drug trafficking and organized crime, and any other form of the so-called “new threats” must not be used as an excuse to undertake actions of interference and intervention against our countries.

15. We are firmly convinced that the change, where everybody repose hope, can come only from organization, mobilization and unity of our peoples.

As the Liberator wisely said:

Unity of our peoples is not a mere illusion of men, but an inexorable decree of destiny. — Simón Bolívar

http://rabble.ca/news/2009/04/declaration-...ens-life-planet

[Niels Bohr 72]

The Declaration of Cumaná: Capitalism 'threatens life on the planet'

That is true!

I think the future will need to add the term sustainability before capitalism.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

The Declaration of Cumaná: Capitalism 'threatens life on the planet'

That is true!

I think the future will need to add the term sustainability before capitalism.

Totalitarian pseudo communist regimes don't exactly have a record of being friendlier to the planet than capitalist societies. Ask me, I've lived in one of the former and the way that regime treated the environment surely wasn't the answer to the issues the planet faces.

These dictator fcuks just need to put a sock in it.

[Niels Bohr 72]

The Declaration of Cumaná: Capitalism 'threatens life on the planet'

That is true!

I think the future will need to add the term sustainability before capitalism.

Totalitarian pseudo communist regimes don't exactly have a record of being friendlier to the planet than capitalist societies. Ask me, I've lived in one of the former and the way that regime treated the environment surely wasn't the answer to the issues the planet faces.

These dictator fcuks just need to put a sock in it.

True.

Sustainabilty before Capitalism and Communism needs to added.

[NickD 203]

Countries like Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela can't really brag about good forms of government either and lean for more toward dictatorships than so-called socialistic forms of government. Socialism has never worked either as no motivation for a person to try harder, and in particular in Venezuela is killing the hard working middleclass and favoring the super lazy.

Unfortunately in this country, more and more people are trying to make money with money, anti-trust laws have been all but destroyed with huge major corporations, essentially all dictatorships dictating what we buy, how we dress, and where we should be when they tell us. Capitalism gave my brothers and sisters, me, and even my wife in Venezuela an opportunity to break away from extreme poverty by studying and working hard, but the greed of our corporations to make even greater profits is killing us. And in the case of my wife, Venezuelan socialistic policies if you can call them that are actually the acts of a dictator wrecking that once nice country.

Another thing killing this country is way too many governmental agencies that have Gestapo power that grew over the last 35 years to an enormous 1,525 agencies making it next to impossible for a person to build up a large business in his garage like it could be done just a short time ago. Require a bunch of attorneys, accountants, human resource people just to open the door with knowledge of countless rules and regulations. Many of these regulations were lobbied by the large corporations themselves to assure of no competition and to maintain high profits. But their biggest mistake was to take advantage of foreign cheap labor kind of forgetting they need Americans to buy their products, thus one of the key reasons they are having major problems today.

Capitalism is not the problem, but greed is and that same greed is present in the aforementioned countries. Read a lot of criticisms in that long post, but really no suggestions on how to make improvements.

[Niels Bohr 72]

Capitalism is not the problem, but greed is and that same greed is present in the aforementioned countries. Read a lot of criticisms in that long post, but really no suggestions on how to make improvements.

True.

Sustainability before greed is the new term.

[Texanadian 10]

Oh jeez. Some of this is good. But most of it is awful....

We, the Heads of State and Government of Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela, member countries of ALBA, consider that the Draft Declaration of the 5th Summit of the Americas is insufficient and unacceptable for the following reasons:

- The Declaration does not provide answers to the Global Economic Crisis, even though this crisis constitutes the greatest challenge faced by humanity in the last decades and is the most serious threat of the current times to the welfare of our peoples.

Does anybody have an easy solution to this problem? We haven't exactly figured out how to end all war or end global poverty either.

1. Capitalism is leading humanity and the planet to extinction. What we are experiencing is a global economic crisis of a systemic and structural nature, not another cyclic crisis. Those who think that with a taxpayer money injection and some regulatory measures this crisis will end are wrong. The financial system is in crisis because it trades bonds with six times the real value of the assets and services produced and rendered in the world, this is not a "system regulation failure", but a integrating part of the capitalist system that speculates with all assets and values with a view to obtain the maximum profit possible. Until now, the economic crisis has generated over 100 million additional hungry persons and has slashed over 50 million jobs, and these figures show an upward trend.

So are the lineups for bread in Soviet Russia any better? How about the country wide starvation in North Korea? South Korea doesn't have a problem with food. Capitalism has brought people's standards of living up. It created things like the automobile and air conditioning. Both things that South Americans appreciate I'm sure. Have communist countries ANYWHERE ever made a decent car? I do agree that taxpayer bailouts of financials are a sham. I'm more of a Peter Schiff type in that regard. Let the market correct itself. Let house prices fall. It's going to hurt. No pain, no gain. Encouraging saving is better than encouraging the use of credit

2. Capitalism has caused the environmental crisis, by submitting the necessary conditions for life in the planet, to the predominance of market and profit. Each year we consume one third more of what the planet is able to regenerate. With this squandering binge of the capitalist system, we are going to need two planets Earth by the year 2030.

Chernobyl anybody? We have regulations for air quality and water quality that poor foreign countries don't have. Consuming more doesn't have to do with capitalism as much as it does population. Our birth rates are pretty low by world standards. I guess one thing government IS good at doing is killing people. Governments killed over 100 million people in the 20th century. Stalin and Mao being the height of the killings. Hitler wasn't too far behind them.

If you want to blame high prices of food on anybody, blame it on the government who's been subsidizing farmers to plant corn to make ethanol instead of food. A fuel which gets worse fuel economy (about 30% worse) and uses more energy to make than you get when you use it. Ethanol would never have come to market were it not for government subsidization. Mexicans in particular have been hit by this, as corn is a staple of their food.

Put simply, government has no desire or reason to keep the environment clean. They generally don't sell the land. The citizen has nobody to complain to when government does pollute. And since ownership by government means that somebody else down the line after you leave office will be in control of the land, it gives no desire to the current people in charge to take care of it. Pride in self ownership is what drives people to maintain things.

3. The global economic crisis, climate change, the food crisis and the energy crisis are the result of the decay of capitalism, which threatens to end life and the planet. To avert this outcome, it is necessary to develop and model an alternative to the capitalist system. A system based on:

- solidarity and complementarity, not competition;

- a system in harmony with our mother earth and not plundering of human resources;

- a system of cultural diversity and not cultural destruction and imposition of cultural values and lifestyles alien to the realities of our countries;

- a system of peace based on social justice and not on imperialist policies and wars;

- in summary, a system that recovers the human condition of our societies and peoples and does not reduce them to mere consumers or merchandise.

Capitalism has come up with solar technology, high efficiency wood stoves, high efficiency windows, heat pumps, you name it. Cuba is still driving around in 1950's cars that have ZERO pollution controls on them. Their homes are super inefficient in terms of air tightness, insulation etc. Heck, none of us would be typing here or have come to Visa Journey were it not for Bill Gates and Steve Jobs being the capitalists they are.

4. As a concrete expression of the new reality of the continent, we, Caribbean and Latin American countries, have commenced to build our own institutionalization, an institutionalization that is based on a common history dating back to our independence revolution and constitutes a concrete tool for deepening the social, economic and cultural transformation processes that will consolidate our full sovereignty.

I have no idea what this means.

5. We question the G20 for having tripled the resources of the International Monetary Fund when the real need is to establish a new world economic order that includes the full transformation of the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO, entities that have contributed to this global economic crisis with their neoliberal policies.

Seems to me the only thing the Int. Monetary Fund has done is bail out poor countries with rich country's money. The more capitalist a country is, the more money they put in. I don't like the WTO, World Bank, or Int. Monetary Fund.

6. The solutions to the global economic crisis and the definition of a new international financial scheme should be adopted with the participation of the 192 countries that will meet in the United Nations Conference on the International Financial Crisis to be held on June 1-3 to propose the creation of a new international economic order.

Good luck on getting that to work.

7. As for climate change, developed countries are in an environmental debt to the world because they are responsible for 70% of historical carbon emissions into the atmosphere since 1750. Developed countries should pay off their debt to humankind and the planet; they should provide significant resources to a fund so that developing countries can embark upon a growth model which does not repeat the serious impacts of the capitalist industrialization.

And just what is this growth model that doesn't contribute to carbon emissions?

8. Solutions to the energy, food and climate change crises should be comprehensive and interdependent. We cannot solve a problem by creating new ones in fundamental areas for life. For instance, the widespread use of agricultural fuels has an adverse effect on food prices and the use of essential resources, such as water, land and forests.

They're saying that farms with horse driven plows are cheaper than farms with diesel powered plows? This comes back to population size and demand for food.

9. We condemn the discrimination against migrants in any of its forms. Migration is a human right, not a crime. Therefore, we request the United States government an urgent reform of its migration policies in order to stop deportations and massive raids and allow for reunion of families. We further demand the removal of the wall that separates and divides us, instead of uniting us.

The USA allows more immigrants into the country than all of South America combined in a year by year basis.

In this regard, we petition for the abrogation of the Law of Cuban Adjustment and removal of the discriminatory, selective Dry Feet, Wet Feet policy that has claimed human losses. Bankers who stole the money and resources from our countries are the true responsible, not migrant workers. Human rights should come first, particularly human rights of the underprivileged, downtrodden sectors in our society, that is, migrants without identity papers. Free movement of people and human rights for everybody, regardless of their migration status, are a must for integration. Brain drain is a way of plundering skilled human resources exercised by rich countries.

Brain drain on a moral level can seem wrong. But it's capitalism in it's essence. Some may want to work for low wages in bad conditions. Others prefer to make higher wages in nicer conditions. Ask a Mexican what they think about the Cuba Dry Feet/Wet Feet policy. And why are Cubans going to the USA? I thought Cuba had the everybody hold hands and sing Koombaya, everybody is equal and in harmony aspect of life that this declaration is pushing for?

10. Basic education, health, water, energy and telecommunications services should be declared human rights and cannot be subject to private deal or marketed by the World Trade Organization. These services are and should be essentially public utilities of universal access.

Partly agree.

11. We wish a world where all, big and small, countries have the same rights and where there is no empire. We advocate non-intervention. There is the need to strengthen, as the only legitimate means for discussion and assessment of bilateral and multilateral agendas in the hemisphere, the foundations for mutual respect between states and governments, based on the principle of non-interference of a state in the internal affairs of another state, and inviolability of sovereignty and self-determination of the peoples.

Agree

12. With regard to the U.S. blockade against Cuba and the exclusion of the latter from the Summit of the Americas, we, the member states of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America, reassert the Declaration adopted by all Latin American and Caribbean countries last December 16, 2008, on the need to end the economic, trade and financial blockade imposed by the Government of the United States of America on Cuba, including the implementation of the so-called Helms-Burton Act. The declaration sets forth in its fundamental paragraphs the following:

I've hated the Helms-Burton act from day one.

13. Developed countries have spent at least USD 8 billion to rescue a collapsing financial structure. They are the same that fail to allocate the small sums of money to attain the Millennium Goals or 0.7% of the GDP for the Official Development Assistance. Never before the hypocrisy of the wording of rich countries had been so apparent. Cooperation should be established without conditions and fit in the agendas of recipient countries by making arrangements easier; providing access to the resources, and prioritizing social inclusion issues.

This is more Int. Monetary type stuff. So if you make 40K a year, you should pay $280 to some non transparent, no oversight body which sends your money out of your country. Hands up who wants to volunteer for that?

As the Liberator wisely said:

Unity of our peoples is not a mere illusion of men, but an inexorable decree of destiny. — Simón Bolívar

As Dr Rogers wisely said:

You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that, my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

Texanadian: I hope I don't come across as sounding like some elitist snob. I have no problem with anybody from Cuba, Venezuela, or Nicaragua. I have the same problem with them as they have with us. We simply don't like each other's governments. Many people didn't like the Bush presidency (me included). But we have something that Venezuala and Cuba doesn't. And that's the ability to vote somebody else in!

You can't have freedom without responsibility. That's because they're the same thing.