Spinelli's Footsteps

US politics, because of the failure by both Republicans and Democrats to deal with the problems of campaign finance, is rotten from head to toe. But under Bush the corruption has acquired Nigerian qualities. Federal government is a vast corporate welfare programme, rewarding the industries which give millions in political donations with contracts worth billions. Missile defence is the biggest pork barrel of all, the magic pudding which won’t run out however much you eat. The funds channelled to defence, aerospace and other manufacturing and service companies will never run dry because the system will never work. - George Monbiot 19 August.

2.

Russia is considering arming its Baltic fleet with nuclear warheads for the first time since the cold war, senior military sources warned last night / Sunday Times 17 August, 2008.

Just who really does control what are called "Russian" nuclear weapons, Wayne Hall asked. Wayne's concern is well-grounded. However, we should never fall for the illusion that Western governments, or the Chinese, Israeli, Indian and Pakistani governments, maintain full control of theirs. If the governments of the belligerent Nation-States and the leaders of their military blocs would really control the world, including the annihilation systems they have ordered, then we would perhaps have a lasting nuclear peace. But we would not have freedom, because the control would have to be total.

F. William Engdahl's analysis from July about President Medvedev's proposals, and his comments on the Georgian-Russian war for the internet-based Real News Network, are excellent. Except that I doubt that the political problem of the nuclear age can be solved by means of traditional, intergovernmental, diplomacy.

Nuclear disarmament equals a democratic revolution, because it changes the relations of force in favor of the peoples. It requires that the peoples turn their backs on their governments and conspire together to replace the system of nation-states and military blocs with a non-militant system of world governance.

Around 1930, H.G Wells, who already saw that the nuclear age was coming, called this non-governmental perspective The Open Conspiracy .

In some respects the conditions for a successful Open Conspiracy are more favorable today than at the time of Wells. The internet, in particular, gives a new point of departure for political thought and political praxis. With the internet, it may be possible, for the first time, to create a common human understanding ("an information"), which is not controlled and manipulated by Nationalist and military-industrial interests, or religious fanatics. Thus it may be possible to add a new dimension to the old Montesquieuan idea of a human liberty, based on the separation of state powers.

The public library without walls can become an Informational Power, which completes the constitutional triad of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Powers of the modern Nation-States. The internet has indeed already begun to function like a cosmopolitan Informational Power. This is why we call it 'cyberspace', which means self-government. It is a kind of government, which "like scientific process, will be conducted by statement, criticism, and publication that will be capable of efficient translation" (Wells, H.G.: The Open Conspiracy. H.G. Wells on World Revolution. Edited and with a Critical Introduction by W. Warren Wagar. Praeger 2002, p. 70-71).

The traditional newspapers, radio stations and television channels, tend to serve serve only one party, one nation and one military bloc. They tend to create an atmosphere of war. The way the mass media handle the recent Georgian-Russian war is yet one example of this tendency of the mainstream press.

Public libraries and the internet, on the other hand, tend to serve the peoples and to create an atmosphere of peace.

• Planning a nonviolent action This workshop is part of the “Role of nonviolence in the antimilitarist movement” strand within European Peace Action Forum. www.esf2008.org/registrations/ofog-sweden/planning-a-nonviolent-action
• Practical skills for direct action - This workshop is part of the “Globalising Nonviolent Direct Action” strand within European Peace Action Forum. - www.esf2008.org/registrations/ofog-sweden/practical-skills-for-direct-action
• Partnership for Peace and New NATO Countries... without joining - This workshop is part of the “Growing Influence of NATO and the Militarisation of the EU” strand within European Peace Action Forum. ... www.esf2008.org/registrations/ofog-sweden/partnership-for-peace-and-new-nato-countries
• Nonviolence tools for campaign development ... reach your campaign goals - This workshop is part of the “Role of nonviolence in the antimilitarist movement” strand within European Peace Action Forum. ... www.esf2008.org/registrations/ofog-sweden/nonviolence-tools-for-campaign-development
• Campaigns Against War Profiteering ... against corporations profiteering from war - This workshop is part of the “Globalisation of Militarism” strand within European Peace Action Forum. ... www.esf2008.org/registrations/ofog-sweden/campaigns-against-war-profiteering -
• US Nuclear Weapons in Europe and Resistance - This workshop is part of the “Nuclear Weapons” strand within European Peace Action Forum. - www.esf2008.org/registrations/ofog-sweden/us-nuclear-weapons-in-europe-and-resistance
• Resistance Against US Missile Offence Installations in Europe ... - This is part of the “Militarisation of Space” strand within European Peace Action Forum... www.esf2008.org/registrations/ofog-sweden/resistance-against-us-missile-offence
• Space Industry in Sweden and Around Europe - This workshop is part of the “Militarisation of Space” strand within European Peace Action Forum. Following an introduction to all the issues within this ... www.esf2008.org/registrations/ofog-sweden/space-industry-in-sweden-and-around-europe
• Camping Against Nuclear Weapons and Tracking Nuclear Convoys ... - ... transportation of nuclear weapons on public roads This workshop is part of the “Nuclear Weapons” strand within European Peace Action Forum. ... www.esf2008.org/registrations/ofog-sweden/camping-against-nuclear-weapons-and-tracking
• AND MORE

Ofog translates into ”mischief”. But ofog is also a play with words. “Foga” is a Swedish verb meaning to conform, to obey. But in Swedish, if you put an O before a word, you turn it into its opposite.
“Foga” also means, roughly, fixating things together in a decided and unchangeable form, so in this meaning of the word, when we put the O before, this is an allusion to our function as a flexible, dynamic network.

I would they had thought European. However, I am glad that the Irish voted NO to the Lisbon Treaty even if they only did it for the usual reasons.

With their NO votes, the supporters of the Nationalist Sinn Féin wanted to defend Ireland's sovereignty and military neutrality. Conservative Catholics feared that the Lisbon Treaty would break the Irish constitutional ban on abortion.

The majority of the workers and farmers and many middle class people felt they had nothing to gain but something to lose if they voted YES. The Irish said NO to the kind of development, liberalization and modernization that the EU represents.

Yet the main reason for the victory of the NO in Ireland, and earlier in France and Holland, is the fact that the Treaty of Lisbon (like its predecessor, the Constitutional Treaty of the European Convention) really does not change anything; it only continues the present catastrophic economic and political trends.

Interestingly, Ireland does not have a political party of the radical right of the type represented by Le Pen's Front national in France, or Jörg Haider's Freiheitspartei Österreichs. Sinn Féin, which collected ca 7 percent of the votes in the last parliamentary elections (2007), and which campaigned actively against the Treaty of Lisbon, is certainly Nationalist, but it is not xenophobic. The economic demands of the party. e.g. tax justice, are leftist. (1)

Sinn Féin also demands that Sellafield be closed down. Whether this is primarily because the British nuclear site pollutes Irish waters, or out of a principled and global opposition to nuclear energy, is not known to the present author.

Ireland is the exception that proves the rule: today the EU is not something which the citizens decide about, but something which is forced upon them. (The first, spontaneous reactions of President Sarkozy and other EU leaders confirm that the rule applies as usual in the case of the Irish NO to the Lisbon treaty.)

However, the situation is partly our own fault. The EU would not have to be what it is if its citizens dared to think in European terms instead of going ahead along the usual National and Nationalist paths.

Our first strategic demand as EU citizens should be the abolition of the weapons of mass destruction. The constitutional treaty of the EU should outlaw the nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. For what purpose do we maintain and modernize atomic bombs now that the Cold War is over?

The EU-leaders would not contribute to the new arms race if they were serious about combating the man-caused climate change. Nor would they advocate the building of new nuclear power plants.

We the peoples of the EU-countries need to decide about the future of the nuclear weapons and the nuclear power plants.

The Treaty of Lisbon does not spell it out clearly. Yet what it means is that the governments of France and England may continue unhindered with their 'modernization' of their national nuclear arsenals, and that the EU will be committed to continuing the nuclear war planning of NATO and to embracing the current doctrines of nuclear deterrence, preemptive strikes and militarization of outer space.

Furthermore, the Treaty of Lisbon builds on the Euratom Treaty of 1957, the purpose of which is to further and increase the use of nuclear energy. The EU needs a new Euratom which guarantees an ordered and secure dismantling of the existing nuclear power plants.

For these two main reasons plus the obvious Capitalist bias of the Lisbon Treaty, I would also have voted NO , if I had had the chance.

Mikael Böök Isnäs, Finland.

Footnote:

(1) Based on: Eoin O'Malley: Why is there no radical right party in Ireland? Working Papers in International Studies. Centre for International Studies. Dublin City University. 2008.

To the librarians at Information for Social Change:

Mr Tony Benn spoke at the international conference of the Stop the War Coalition, on 1 December, 2007, in London, you may watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw0kQPE6adI

Prime Minister Gordon Brown spoke at the Chamber of Commerce in Delhi 21 January 2008; you may read his speech here: http://acdn.france.free.fr/spip/article.php3?id_article=386&lang=en

Benn represents the Civil Society; Brown, the State.

The library sits somewhere in between these two. What does the library say?

Today, I sent the following letter to attac-convention, the mailing list of the European Attacs on the subject of the Constitution of the EU.

Dear friends in ATTAC Hungary, Dear Attacies in other countries as well,

in the notes from the scientific council of Attac Hungary (http://attac.zpok.hu/cikk.php3?id_article=761) on ATTACs ABC plan for the EU , there is no mention of the nuclear problem. This omission reminds me of the East-West relations of the European Nuclear Disarmament movement of the 1980s, only that we can now see a similar pattern in reverse.

It seems, in short, that our dear allies in Eastern Europe, then Charter 77, now Attac Hungary, really don't care about nuclear disarmament, and they have not yet learned how to distinguish between legitimate defence and criminal weapons of mass destruction.

Of course, the ATTACies of Western Europe equally deserve to be criticized on this point. Because, neither have they, the Western European ATTACies, sofar shown any clear understanding of the nuclear problem in relation to the EU and its constitution.

Do you really believe that we can ever have a democratic and social European Union, if that European Union is preparing to "defend" itself with nuclear bombs? Do you believe that weapons of mass destruction can co-exist with democracy in the same state? Do you think that people can take decisions about using nuclear weapons, and thus to act like a kind of collective terroristic suicide bomber, in a constitutional and democratic way?

In sum: Have you ever taken the time to think through the nuclear issue? If you have not yet done it, when are you going to do it?

Then there is another point of critique I woud like to make. Tamas, whom I consider my friend and ally - athough I have perhaps not yet met him in real life - writes (in an email): "Let's just stick to ye olde-worlde internationalism." Sorry, Tamas, but Stalin and the Sino-Soviet conflicts managed to break that old internationalism. It was also catastrophic for that internationalism that the USSR and the Chinese People's Republic built atomic weapons. Not to speak about the French Communist Party, which suddenly approved of the French national atomic weapon in 1977. They swore in the name of the proletarian internationalism, and then proceeded to consenting to building atomic bombs pour la gloire de la France!

But you probably do not mean that old internationalism, which should be dead and buried by now?

No, here in Europe, in particular - and also because this is where we happen to live - we desperately need a new cosmopolitan and internationalist Federalism (inspired by, for instance, Altiero Spinelli) which not only takes into account and corrects the mistakes of the past, but also starts from the premise of, for instance, the internet.

By the way: Has it occurred to you that the internet is as much an offspring of modern atomic physics as are the nuclear arms? What I want to say here, is a simple fact: that the electronic internet presupposes the discovery of the atomic nucleus, and then also the discovery of the negative particles, which are called electrons. The atomic age might have brought forth something of value, too - the internet!

Those atomic discoveries were made around the year 1900, and thus at the time of the birth of Leo Szilard (1898-1964), the Hungarian physicist, who became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1943. He also became one of the fathers of the atomic bomb, which he might have regretted afterwards. Because, Szilard is said to have "developed an enduring passion for the preservation of human life and freedom, especially freedom to communicate ideas" (Wikipedia).

It seems that even Spinelli, as wise as he became before his death in 1986 (he called his autobiography "Come ho cercato di diventare saggio" , that is, "How I tried to become wise") , did not make up his mind about the nuclear versus non-nuclear defense of the EU. Because if he had, then he would have included a provision about it in his draft constitution of the EU (1984). He would have demanded an outright and clear constitutional criminalization of WMD.

However, Spinelli, like the other Italian Eurocommunists (Spinelli was an independent member of the group of the PCI in the European parliament), was very close to joining the END movement of the 1980s. It is somewhat understandable that, under the conditions of the Cold War and its nuclear terror balance in Europe , they were afraid of "rocking the boat".

Does any such excuse remain for us, who call ourselves "The Justice Movement", not to go on with demanding a nuclear free zone from Poland to Portugal? Do we intend to back up our "justice" with weapons of mass destruction and options of pre-emptive strikes?

A closer look at the life and work of Szilard might actually help us to make up our minds. And let's not go on with this madness any longer. The time has come for scrapping the nukes. That, precisely, is the necessary first step towards "another world".

Gordon Brown, on his recent visit to India, declared: "Facing serious challenges from Iran and North Korea, we must send a powerful signal to all members of the international community that the race for more and bigger stockpiles of nuclear destruction is over."

To which Praful Bidwai, one of India's leading anti-nuke campaigners, commented:

"We certainly welcome Gordon Brown's statement. He puts the issue of nuclear disarmament on the global agenda. Although if he wants to score a major diplomatic and political point he should set an example and destroy Britian's nuclear weapons. That would have given Brown an unprecedented levarage to call the shots in the disarmament debate". (quoted from "Daily News & Analysis", Mumbai 23 january, 2008 http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1147027)

Hear, hear. That is elementary wisdom from the East!

May I end this letter with a quotation from The Open Conspiracy by H.G.Wells: "We have to make an end to war, and to make an end to war we must be cosmopolitan in our politics".

All the best.

 - Mikael

Unfortunately, I have to tell you that the WSF Library of the Kenya Library Association (http://www.wsf.library.org) is not very strong, and it is even weakened right now by the political crisis in Kenya. But we shall try to strengthen it, and you are welcome to participate!

The 21 'actionable themes' of the WSF, which we intend to stick to in our WSF Library, cover very wide areas. Yet the WSF Library site is a website with a special focus. It tries to cover *activities*, which are known as "The World Social Forum", and which should perhaps be seen as *a process* rather than as a recurring event. So http://www.wsflibrary.org is parallell to http://www.wsfprocess.net/, which also is a common space and a set of collaborative tools for the WSF participants. The WSF Library site, however, has a special feature, which the parallell site is lacking: it aims at creating a permanent link between the libraries and the WSF. That is a special task. Obviously, these two WSF-process-related websites are both very much needed and can support each other in various ways.

The people who participate in the WSF and the related regional and national social forums may be counted in tens of thousands. But these are very small numbers! The process needs to spread to many millions of people, in particular, to the universities and through libraries. Universities and libraries tend to be cosmopolitical institutions and, partly for that very reason, to be 'open spaces', like the WSF.

The Wiki-WTO idea (http://www.wsflibrary.org/index.php/Wiki-WTO) relates, as far as I understand, to a different task: to create a knowledge base on the WTO, perhaps with the ITO in mind. An International Trade Organization (ITO) was envisaged after WW II by J.M.Keynes and others. By the way, Susan George recently wrote a nice article on the same, "The world trade organisation we could have had" (http://mondediplo.com/2007/01/03economy).

The WTO is indeed an enormous subject even for a Wiki... but, as I said, I like the idea of the Wiki-WTO very much. Yes, we should compete with the WTO in creating a knowledge-base on the rules of world trade! And this might well succeed through the combined efforts of a global net of social intellectual producers, in the wiki-way, that is.

Library is a key concept. The library is an organization (or the the organization) of our "outboard memory". Organization means order, but the library combines order with freedom. The library is an open space and a growing space. The growth of the library cannot be planned in detail, nor is it more predictable than the future generally is. The library, although being an organized collective memory, and thus a collection of things past, is open like the future is open, and as the human mind can be open. Our past and our future meet in the library, one may say, although this sounds very trivial.

The internet, too, is a library. As we are all becoming connected to the net and through the net, our common, cosmopolitical library becomes inseparable from our lives. The present version of the library shows that our life is common, that we are we.

The library has of course always been a document *of society*, which proves that Mrs Thatcher was wrong in saying that there is no such thing. And our new library, the internet, may prove the existence of World Society. That gives ground for hope. Or for despair, if you see the internet as a Spider's trap, or if you believe that the human brain, extended with "outboard memory", is an evolutionary dead-end.

With these words I just wanted to give you an impression of my way of thinking. To say "you know more", like you did, is really meaningless. How could I know more than you? Knowledge is social. If I would know something, I would tell you. Then we would both know as much.

Daniel from the musical band who has performed their songs at our WSF events in Nairobi, sends these news today:

''"It is agreat day for kenyan childrens today as the government has announced the free secondary education,this is astep forwad of improving many citizens lifes,Robert who is our group member is abeneficiary of this programm though not for Isaiah who study in aprivate school, but we are trying to see on how he can continue with his studies.

 We are still hoping for the best.
 In solidarity,"''

And the other day, I got this:

''" .... actually what happened in our country was unxpected scenerio and it was a shook to us all.we are very grateful though for you and other friends of our who were very much concerned about our safety including Julie from USA.The situation now is calm after people realised that it wont help when fighting things are now back to normal.This will take alot of time for people here to heal because many lost there friends and properties which means many will still have hatred towards others,it is now agreat challenge to us hoperaisers to try and restore rhe Hope to our people.Truly speaking,people were reacting due to frustration and thats the reasons why they were rioting.people are tied of living in poverty and this was an indication of that anger.We promise to do our best in our area of music to restore back hope to others here in our place and hope that you will greatly continue to support us. ...''

But on 2 January, it still sounded like this:

''"Hi, the tension is so high and we have been denied access to basics needs here and the situation is getting worse,people are killing each other like flies it is so bad.

 Please pray for us in,"''

So, today it is getting a little bit better. By the way, have you heard abt this One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project? Great, I am for the idea!

However,

__"We stand at the brink of a second nuclear age. Not since the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has the world faced such perilous choices. North Korea's recent test of a nuclear weapon, Iran's nuclear ambitions, a renewed U.S. emphasis on the military utility of nuclear weapons, the failure to adequately secure nuclear materials, and the continued presence of some 26,000 nuclear weapons in the United States and Russia are symptomatic of a larger failure to solve the problems posed by the most destructive technology on Earth."__ (Board of Directors of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 2007) *

How come we still have all these terror weapons when each child is supposed to have a laptop and connect to the library?

• ) The statement of the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 2007 is quoted from:

Heikki Patomäki: The Political Economy of Global Security War, Future Crises and Changes in Global Governance. Routledge 2007