There are two extraordinary facts about the convention on biological diversity, whose members are meeting in Montreal now to discuss the global ecological crisis. The first is that, of the world’s 198 states, 196 are party to it. The second is the identity of those that aren’t. Take a guess. North Korea? Russia? Wrong. Both ratified the convention years ago. One is the Holy See (the Vatican). The other is the United States of America.
This is one of several major international treaties the US has refused to ratify. Among the others are crucial instruments such as the Rome statute on international crimes, the treaties banning cluster bombs and landmines, the convention on discrimination against women, the Basel convention on hazardous waste, the convention on the law of the sea, the nuclear test ban treaty, the employment policy convention and the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities.
In some cases, it is one of only a small number to refuse: the others are generally either impoverished states with little administrative capacity or vicious dictatorships. It is the only independent nation on Earth not to ratify the convention on the rights of the child. Perhaps this is because it is the only nation to sentence children to life imprisonment without parole, among many other brutal policies. While others play by the rules, the most powerful nation refuses. If this country were a person, we’d call it a psychopath. As it is not a person, we should call it what it is: a rogue state.
Through its undemocratic dominance of global governance, the US makes the rules, to a greater extent than any other state. It also does more than any other to prevent both their implementation and their enforcement. Its refusal to ratify treaties such as the convention on biological diversity provides other nations with a permanent excuse to participate in name only. Like all imperial powers, its hegemony is expressed in the assertion of its right not to care.
The question that assails those who strive for a kinder world is always the same but endlessly surprising: how do we persuade others to care? The lack of interest in resolving our existential crises, expressed by the US Senate in particular, is not a passive exceptionalism. It is an active, proud and furious refusal to care about the lives of others. This refusal has become the motive force of the old-new politics now sweeping the world. It appears to be driving a deadly, self-reinforcing political cycle.
Take the nitrogen crisis in the Netherlands. Scientists there have been warning since the 1980s that the excessive release of nitrogen compounds – primarily by agriculture – exceed the land and water’s capacity to absorb them, killing rivers, polluting groundwater, damaging soil, wiping out wild plants and causing a severe but seldom-discussed air pollution crisis. But successive governments could not be persuaded to care. Their repeated failure to act on these warnings allowed the problem to mount until it reached catastrophic levels. In 2019, a ruling by the Dutch council of state that the pollution levels breached European law obliged the government to do suddenly what its predecessors had failed to do gradually: shut down some of the major sources of this pollution.
This has triggered a furious reaction from the industries most affected, primarily livestock farming. The farmers’ protests have, like the Ottawa truckers’ strike, now become a cause célèbre for the far right all over the world. Rightwing politicians claim that the nitrogen crisis is being used as a pretext to seize land from farmers, in whom, they claim, true Dutch identity is vested, and hand it to asylum seekers and other immigrants, at the behest of “globalist” forces such as the World Economic Forum.
In other words, the issue has been co-opted by “great reset” and “great replacement” conspiracy theorists, who claim that there are deliberate policies to replace local, white people with “other cultures”. Some Dutch farmers have now adopted these themes, spreading ever more extreme conspiracy fictions, which might have helped to fuel an escalation of violence.
These themes are a reworking of long-established tropes. The notion that farming represents a “rooted” and “authentic” national identity that must be defended from “cosmopolitan” and “alien” forces was a mainstay of European fascist thought in the first half of the 20th century. Never mind that nitrogen fertilisers are now imported from Russia and livestock feed from the US and Brazil, never mind that the model of intensive livestock farming is the same all over the world: Dutch meat, eggs and milk are promoted as “local” and sometimes even “sovereign”, and said to be threatened by the forces of “globalism”.
Thanks to such failures of care over many years, we now approach multiple drastic decision points, at which governments must either implement changes in months that should have happened over decades, or watch crucial components of civic life collapse, including the most important component of all: a habitable planet. In either case, it’s a cliff edge.
As we rush towards these precipices, we are likely to see an ever more violent refusal to care. For example, if we in the rich nations are to meet our twin duties of care and responsibility, we must be prepared to accept many more refugees, who will be driven from their homes by the climate and ecological breakdown caused disproportionately by our economies. But as this displacement crisis (that could be greater than any dispossession the world has ever seen) looms, it could trigger a new wave of reactive, far-right politics, furiously rejecting the obligations accumulated by our previous failures to act. In turn, a resurgence of far-right politics would cut off meaningful environmental action. In other words, we face the threat of a self-perpetuating escalation of collapse.
This is the spiral we must seek to break. With every missed opportunity – and the signs suggest that the Montreal summit might be another grave disappointment – the scope for gentle action diminishes and the rush towards drastic decisions accelerates. Some of us have campaigned for years for soft landings. But that time has now passed. We are in the era of hard landings. We must counter the rise of indifference with an overt and conspicuous politics of care.
source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/09/us-world-climate-collapse-nations
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ThatsInsane/comments/udtnvu/extreme_lockdown_measures_in_china/
Hijacking top comment to tell you guys how shitty China really is..
This is another step in China's never-ending campaign to annihilate human rights:
Hundreds of human rights lawyers (not even dissidents, just the LAWYERS who defended people) were snatched by gestapo all over China in what is known as the 709 Crackdown.
One of those lawyers, Wang Quanzhang was sentenced to 4.5 years for "subversion of state power". But that's not enough. China actually went after Wang's 6-year-old son, forcing him out of his school and banning any other school from taking him in.
A dissident, [Wang Bingzhang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Bingzhang_(dissident)) was kidnapped by Chinese agents in Vietnam and sentenced to life in prison after a closed trial that lasted 1 day.
A man wore a t-shirt with the word "Xitler" on it and was disappeared. Eventually he was tried for "subversion of state power" while barred from meeting with lawyers
Another man, Wang Meiyu hold up a placard calling for Xi’s resignation & democracy. He was arrested for "picking quarrels”. He ended up dead in custody.
A woman live streamed herself splashing ink on a Xi poster. She was disappeared. Her last social media update: "Right now there are a group of people wearing uniforms outside my door. I’ll go out after I change my clothes. I did not commit a crime. The people and groups that hurt me are the ones who are guilty". Later on there was report of her being sent to a psychiatric hospital
After the ink-splash woman's disappearance her father made a series of broadcast to call attention to her plight. He ended up getting taken away by the police in the middle of a live stream
5 people associated with a Hong Kong bookstore that sold titles such as "Xi Jinping and His Six Women" were disappeared. Only one managed to escape back to HK. He held a press briefing to tell the world about his kidnapping by China. He's now in exile in Taiwan. The other 4 are still somewhere in China.
And, of course
1.5 million Uyghurs rounded up in concentration camps
Genocide through forced abortions on Uyghur women
Sexual torture of Uyghur women such as rape & rubbing intimate parts with chili paste.
Leaked footage of a large number of blindfolded Uyghurs shackled together
A Canadian journalist wanted to debunk reports of Chinese anti-Muslim repression so he went on a stage-managed show tour put on by China. That means he only saw a fake Potemkin village that China actually thought was acceptable by Western standard. But the brutality of even this fake Potemkin village stunned him. Now imagine what's really happening in the real concentration camps where millions of Uyghurs are being held. Imagine how bad the true situation is.
Using minorities & political prisoners as free organ farms. A doctor's eye witness account: 'The prisoner was brought in, tied hand and foot, but very much alive. The army doctor in charge sliced him open from chest to belly button and exposed his two kidneys. Then the doctor ordered Zheng to remove the man’s eyeballs. Hearing that, the dying prisoner gave him a look of sheer terror, and Zheng froze. “I can’t do it,” he told the doctor, who then quickly scooped out the man’s eyeballs himself.'
Call for retraction of 400 Chinese scientific papers amid fears organs came from Chinese prisoners
15 Chinese studies retracted due to fears they used Chinese prisoners' organs
Cultural genocide (and organ harvests, of course). A uyghur's testimony: "First, children were stopped from learning about the Quran, then from going to mosques. It was followed by bans on ramadan, growing beards, giving Islamic names to your baby, etc. Then our language was attacked – we didn’t get jobs if we didn’t know Mandarin. Our passports were collected, we were told to spy on each other, innocent Uyghur prisoners were killed for organ harvesting"
China is moving beyond Uyghur and cracking down on its model minority Hui Muslim. 'Afraid We Will Become The Next Xinjiang': China's Hui Muslims Face Crackdown: "The same restrictions that preceded the Xinjiang crackdown on Uighur Muslims are now appearing in Hui-dominated regions. Hui mosques have been forcibly renovated or shuttered, schools demolished, and religious community leaders imprisoned. Hui who have traveled internationally are increasingly detained or sent to reeducation facilities in Xinjiang."
There is more: courtesy of /U/Exgrandiose
Death of Liu Xiaobo after his inertial pro democracy documentation Charter 08 (Translated)
Discharge Zhao Ziyang from CCP leadership after he stood with the students in Tiananmen Square Protest.
The crackdown on the Weiquen Movement
The arrest of Xu Zhiyong after he called out Xi Jinping for failing to handle the Coronavirus crisis.
For people wanting to know about Chinese Human Rights activist: https://www.nchrd.org/. This website provides a lot of info on current and deceased Chinese Human Rights activist.
Don't forget that if anyone in your family is a dissident, a Muslim, etc. then China will send one of their officials to live with you and your family, as one of your family members.
Imagine, sitting at the dinner table, and having to smile and have a pleasant CCP-friendly conversation, as a Chinese agent in a suit just sits there and smiles with you, and listens to everything you and your family says? Every single day? Imagine, having a fucking CCP Agent, literally living in your house. Fucking nightmare fuel, man.
