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Monday, January 31, 2011

UN: Capitalism, schmapitalism – it’s time for a revolution!

Let everyone know how U.N. Secretary General is calling for revolution to reform capitalism and establish “Sustainable Development.”

Monday, Jan 31, 2011 at 3:03 PM EST

Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, whose recent comments on capitalism and climate change have a strong anti-capitalism and anti-democracy undertone. Glenn put Ki-Moon’s recent comments from the World Economic Forum into context.

With Egypt on the verge of collapse, Glenn feels that there is a strong anti-Western sentiment sweeping different parts of the world. First, he tackled comments from the Ayatollah in Iran.

“All of these protests in Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan and Yemen are inspired by Iran’s Islamic revolution, and these countries are de facto rocked by the aftershock of the Iranian revolution, the ultra conservative cleric added.  [The Ayatollah] says, in the Middle East soon there will be Islamic rulership and a democracy based on religion.  He is saying here also that it’s the end of an era of the Western-backed dictators.  And that is true,” Glenn said.

Glenn agreed with this statement, and criticized the US foreign policy which saw America back dictators that were at least better than  someone who was “Islamofascist”. “We should have stood for freedom the whole time.  But we didn’t,” Glenn said.

Then, he played audio from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.

“For most of the last century economic growth was fuelled by what seemed to be a certain truth:  The abundance of natural resources.  We mined our way to growth.  We burned our way to prosperity.  We believed in consumption without consequences.  Those days are gone.  In the 21st century, supplies are running short and the global thermostat is running high every day.  Climate change is also showing us that the old model is more than obsolete.  It has rendered it extremely dangerous.  Over time, that model is a recipe for national disaster.  It is a global suicide pact.

So what do we do in this current challenging situation?  How can we create growth in a resource-constrained environment?  How do we lift billions of people from poverty while protecting the planet and ecosystems that support economic growth?  How do we regain the balance?  All of this requires rethinking, sometimes out-of-box thinking.  Here at Davos this meeting of the mighty and the powerful, represented by some key countries of present, it may sound stranger to speak of revolution, but that is what we need at this time.  We need a revolution, revolutionary thinking, revolutionary action.  A free market revolution for global sustainability.  It is easy to mouth the words “Sustainable development” but to make it happen, we have to be prepared to make major changes,” Ban Ki-Moon said.

“ I’m not calling him a danger,” Glenn said of Ban Ki-Moon. “I’m calling him a truth-teller.”

“He’s suggesting that the old model is obsolete.  What is the old model?  The old model is Western style free market democracy and a republic.  That’s the old model.  It needs to be thrown out.  Because that model is a global suicide pact.”

But while world leaders encourage less consumption, countries like China are preparing for more growth and more consumption.

“The fact that the Chinese just built a dam, the Three Gorges Dam that is so big, so massive that scientists say that we’ve slowed the planet’s rotation down by a fraction of a second.  That they are building how many new coal plants a week, two new coal plants a week?  That they are now the largest buyer of automobiles in the world over the United States?  They are not slowing down.  In fact, they have so much growth ahead of them, they are going to dwarf us quickly.”

Glenn said that the revolution that’s being called for isn’t a green revolution for clean energy or sustainability. If it were, then governments wouldn’t be encouraging growth through stimulus and consumption.

“What did George Bush say after 9/11?  Consumption is the only thing that this model works on.  Go out and consume, go out and consume.  When they are saying we’re going to stimulate the economy and they’re going to give you your money, what are they hoping you do?”

Glenn said that the revolution won’t be peaceful. It will be like Tunisia. It will be like Egypt. “Having a revolution because the old model is obsolete.”

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