The moral dimension of things: Why are political leaders lying most of the time?

By Prof. Rodrigue Tremblay, Global Research

The New American Empire

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."  Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850), French economist

"Certain hierarchs of the Catholic Church in Latin America used prayer as an anesthesia to put the people to sleep. When they cannot dominate us with law, then comes prayer, and when they can't humiliate or dominate us with prayer, then comes the gun." Evo Morales, President of Bolivia (July 13, 2009)

"The single most important quality needed to resist evil is moral autonomy. Moral autonomy is possible only through reflection, self-determination and the courage not to cooperate." Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German philosopher

Why do political leaders seem to be lying most of the time?

Why is uncontrolled greed so prevalent in corporate rooms?

Why do wicked men wage wars of aggression and become indifferent to the killing of innocent people?

Why does materialism seem to trump everything else?

Why do we have the uneasy feeling that our society is going in the wrong direction?

The very fact that we have to raise such questions may be a sign of the times.

Indeed, when the stench of moral decay becomes overwhelming, bad things inevitably follow. Historically, it can be shown that when the moral environment in a society is deteriorating, problems tend to pile up.

We are presently living in one of those times, characterized by deep and entrenched political corruption, by routine abuse of power and disregard for the rule of law in high places, and by unchecked greed, fraud and deception in the economic sphere. The results are all there to see: Severe and prolonged economic and financial crises, rising social inequalities and social injustice, increasing intolerance toward individual choices, the disregard for environmental decay, the rise of religious absolutism, a return to whimsical wars of aggression (or of pre-emptive wars), to blind terrorism and to the repugnant use of torture, and even to genocide and to blatant war crimes. These are all indicators that our civilization has lost its moral compass.

With all these throwbacks to an unpalatable past, it is not surprising there is a resurgence of interest nowadays for questions of morality and of ethics.


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Methane frozen beneath Arctic seabed destabilising, scientists warn

Huge quantities of methane below the Arctic seabed are showing signs of destabilising, according to research conducted in the East Siberian Sea.

Scientists aboard Russian icebreakers have discovered that methane is leaking from the sub-sea permafrost far faster than had been previously estimated, raising concerns that climatic tipping points may have been reached.

As a greenhouse gas, methane is 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide but emissions from subsea permafrost are not included in climate change prediction models.

“The sub-sea permafrost should act as a cap or seal, preventing leakage,” Natalia Shakhova, of the University of Alaska, told The Times. “Beneath it there is methane that has accumulated at high pressure. But the permafrost is losing its ability to be an impermeable cap.”

After water vapour and carbon dioxide, methane is the most significant of the gases that cause the atmosphere to retain heat. Levels have doubled since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution but 40 per cent of sources are natural, resulting from the decomposition of organic material in wetlands and other areas.

The permafrost that covers vast tracts of land in the far North is thawing, steadily adding methane to the atmosphere. The Arctic has warmed at about twice the rate of the rest of the planet. Climate scientists are concerned that as rising temperatures melt more permafrost, the added methane will raise temperatures further and so cause a wider thaw.

Dr Shakhova said: “The climatic consequences of this are hard to predict. This type of source has never been predicted by anyone and has not been included in climate models. We're going to keep studying this region and investigating why this is happening.

“Our concern is that the sub-sea permafrost has been showing signs of destabilisation already.”

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Vets to Congress: Rethink Afghanistan Now

The power of nonviolence by Ziad AbuZayyad

...There is a lesson to be learned here by us Palestinians: We cannot quash the Israeli repression machine with violence, because our violence will be used to justify and legitimize the brutality of the strong against the weak. Furthermore, Palestinians need to take into account the fact that they have allies on the Israeli side who share their rejection of the occupation and of discrimination; it is crucial to reinforce and nurture this relationship with them.

Disseminating a culture of passive resistance against the oppression and atrocities of the occupation is the most efficacious method for fighting it: It should be promulgated and its circle expanded. It must not remain restricted to pockets of protest here and there, but should become a generalized modus operandi that encompasses all points of contact with the occupation and the settlements, which are trying to gobble up the land and obliterate all features of Palestinian identity. It must be clearly said that nonviolence is morally superior to force...

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Departing U.N. envoy has strong words for Afghan government

The departing U.N. envoy to Afghanistan said Thursday that the nation's leaders must "clean up their own house" and warned that U.S.-led military operations must not jeopardize political efforts toward reconciliation with the Taliban.

At a news conference marking the end of his 18-month term, Kai Eide said there was hope for the nation but the world needed more resolve from President Hamid Karzai's government. He criticized Afghanistan for a lack of reform and the international community for "fast-ticking clocks" and unrealistic demands.

His overall assessment: "This year, of course, will be the most challenging that Afghanistan has faced since the fall of the Taliban. . . . It's a year where negative trends have to be reversed, or they will become irreversible."

Eide said he was encouraged by Karzai's invitation to the Taliban to attend a peace conference this year. That proposal comes as the militant group has been weakened by the arrests of leaders and the recent U.S.-led military sweep that pushed its fighters from a stronghold in the southern province of Helmand.

"I think it's high time that we get into this kind of a political process" of trying to negotiate with the Taliban, said Eide, a Norwegian diplomat. "It is now time to talk. I believe the reconciliation and peace process, whatever shape it takes, should get underway as soon as possible." He said the international strategy "has unfortunately been too much militarily driven." 

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