Here’s what wowed ‘em in Copenhagen:

President Chavez brought the house down. When he said the process in Copenhagen was “not democratic, it is not inclusive, but isn’t that the reality of our world, the world is really and imperial dictatorship…down with imperial dictatorships” he got a rousing round of applause. When he said there was a “silent and terrible ghost in the room” and that ghost was called capitalism, the applause was deafening…

then he wound up to his grand conclusion – 20 minutes after his 5 minute speaking time was supposed to have ended and after quoting everyone from Karl Marx to Jesus Christ — “our revolution seeks to help all people…socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that’s the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell….let’s fight against capitalism and make it obey us.” He won a standing ovation.

Meanwhile, following the historical pattern of developing capitalist economies, China is currently home to 16 of the 20 most polluted cities on the planet, and has pretty bad water quality as it industrializes to lift its people out of grinding poverty. The government says “don’t hate the rich, be one of them.” In some ways China’s economic development mirrors that of the US a hundred years ago.

As a result of these priorities, China apparently has a different take on Copenhagen: “China has told participants in the UN climate change talks that it sees no possibility of achieving an operational accord this week…China is instead suggesting issuing ‘a short political declaration of some sort’, but it is not clear what that will say.” One part of the world waxes, while another part wanes.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 18th, 2009 at 3:05 am and is filed under China, EU, General, business, radical chic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.