“Yesterday, the devil came here,” Chavez said, referring to Bush’s address before the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday. “Right here. Right here. And it smells of sulfur still today, this table that I am now standing in front of.” He then made the sign of the cross, brought his hands together as if praying and looked up at the ceiling.

He also held up a copy of the book Hegemony or Survival by Noam Chomsky and advised people to read it. “It’s an excellent book to help us understand what has been happening in the world throughout the 20th century, and what’s happening now, and the greatest threat looming over our planet,” he said. “I had considered reading from this book, but, for the sake of time,” [here Chavez flipped through the tome] I will just leave it as a recommendation.”

He continued, “They [the Bush Administration] say they want to impose a democratic model. But that’s their democratic model. It’s the false democracy of elites, and, I would say, a very original democracy that’s imposed by weapons and bombs and firing weapons. What a strange democracy. Aristotle might not recognize it or others who are at the root of democracy.

“What type of democracy do you impose with marines and bombs?

“The president of the United States, yesterday, said to us, right here, in this room, and I’m quoting, ‘Anywhere you look, you hear extremists telling you can escape from poverty and recover your dignity through violence, terror and martyrdom.’

“Wherever he looks, he sees extremists. And you, my brother – he looks at your color, and he says, oh, there’s an extremist. Evo Morales, the worthy president of Bolivia, looks like an extremist to him.”

Chavez also called U.S. consumerism “madness,” saying Americans have wasteful habits in using oil and energy. He held up a satellite photo showing the world at night, with bright light emanating from the U.S. and other wealthy countries. Consuming less should be an environmental priority, he said, “instead of looking for oil” through the war in Iraq.

Chavez’s words drew tentative giggles at times from the audience, but also applause at the end of the speech and when he called Bush the devil – a word he used no fewer than eight times.

President Evo Morales also gave a speech critical of American foreign policy, with a specific emphasis on the drug war. During his speech, Morales brandished a small, pale green coca leaf and accused the United States of using the war on drugs as a pretext for colonizing Latin American countries.

Morales said he was determined to reverse injustices such as the “pillaging” of natural resources at the expense of indigenous people and the sale of state oil firms and other national assets to international companies, which he said was a violation of human rights. He remarked that Bolivia would not be pressured to change its policies. “We don’t need blackmail and threats,” he said. “This is just recarbonization, neo-colonialism of the Andean countries.”

While in New York, Morales also took the opportunity to meet with North American tribal leaders, including representatives from the Haudenosaunee, Lakota and Cree nations, where they discussed the dangers facing the natural world as well as human rights issues for Native people.

Alex White Plume, tribal chairman and a traditional leader of the Oglala Lakota Nation at Pine Ridge, had these remarks: ‘I was really satisfied, and he [Morales] was very impressed.” The Lakota leader recounted how Morales had thought that ”American Indians were imperialists like the rest of the country, but we cleared that up.”

”It was interesting that the way he grew up was similar to how it was for us in the beginning of our colonization, but he kept to the old ways,” White Plume continued. ”And we agreed that all indigenous people need to bring back some of our old ways… [W]e also discussed how the earth, the air and the water have been ruined in the last 500 years, in both our countries,” he stated. ”We also want to work on getting the Vatican to rescind the Papal Bull of 1493 which declared us heathen and savages … we unanimously agreed to work on that together.”

Both Chavez and Morales are representatives of a new wave of indigenous voices taking charge in Latin American countries. Their politics are fiercely anti-imperialist with a high regard for environmentalism — not the “Who Killed the Electric Car” environmentalism of the United States but a deep seated environmentalism dedicated to the restoration of a symbiotic relationship between humans and the natural world.

This new breakthrough of indigenous voices is unheard of in 500 years of colonial history. And it is here to stay. These not-White leaders reject racism, exploitation, and government oppression, and they understand that a completely new paradigm of life is needed — one built on community, sharing, and the respect of every individual and the natural world.

Ultimately, it is an evolution in thinking that any person can be a part of. We all come from somewhere, even those of us here in America who can’t think beyond one or two generations. In my own blood I have Spanish, Portuguese, Huichol, and Indo-Aryan genes. The Vedas and the Bible are holy books to me, and one day I hope to make pilgrimages to the places of my ancestors — the Sierra Mountains in Mexico, the Atlantic coast of Iberia, and the mountain city of Peshawar on the border of Afghanistan. There are many parts of the Earth that I consider sacred, and it is for that reason that I share the conviction held by people like Morales and Chavez that a fundamental change in modern lifestyles is needed if the human race is to survive.

America is a country of immigrants, but we have become so enamored by consumerism that we have forgotten our roots. Every American has as varied a genetic make-up as I do — we are all mutts in the United States. European, African, Asian, and indigenous American blood is all mixed in this country and produces a vibrant mix of culture and civilization that could be glorious if people were more interested in themselves. I have known too many people, especially fair-skinned people, who have expressed very little interest in their roots; this, in turn, produces a lack of grounding.

For now, most people will probably ignore these indigenous voices — consumerism is far more attractive to the aimless. But in denying those voices, a person also denies that part of herself which, however subsumed under a cultural framework of endless shopping and plastic orange-skinned blondes, cries out repeatedly for a return to something more natural and basic.

If people took the time to climb up their family trees, they would probably surprise themselves with the varied nature of their heritage, and eventually, if they climbed up high enough, they would realize that we all are descendants from a same common ancestor and in truth comprise one human family. Taking that message to heart would ease a great deal of suffering on the planet today.

This revival of the far right is based in a number of factors, all tied to the declining influence of the West. In the United States, Canada, and Australia — all giant countries born from European conquest of the natives — the “war on terror” is becoming a permanent fixture in the political landscape. The leaders of these three countries — US President Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper, and Australian Prime Minister John Howard — are strongly pro-business, dismissive of climate change, and militant in outlook.

In Europe, stagnant economic growth, the decline of democracy through the advent of the European Union, and the influx of immigrants from Africa and the Middle East, especially Muslim immigrants, are leading to huge gains for far right anti-immigration parties. Europe has had racist tendencies for a long time now — the Algerians in France, South Asians in the UK, and the Turks in Germany are all stereotyped and looked down on in some form or another. Add largescale unemployment and a sense of change caused by the influx of foreigners, and the attraction of far right parties makes perfect sense.

Of course, none of these things are going to change anytime soon. As long as the West stays rich and powerful, people from other more destitute countries will find ways to sneak in and find work so that they can send money back and help out their families. The decline of American influence on the world stage appears to guarantee that both the Democrats and the Republicans will cling to the “war on terror” as a necessary means halting the waining power of the United States, with the Canadians and the Australians following suit.

Politicians are doing their best right now to make the world appear black and white, us or them, rich white Christian versus poor brown heathen; as the world continues to grow more chaotic, with violence spreading through war and terrorism and with the Earth’s fury turning more insistent due to climate change, these types of simple ideologies — where domestic tyranny and international war are offered as the only answers to complicated problems — will prove fatally attractive.

Flashpoint #1: War with Iran. This flashpoint should be well-known to readers of this site by now. Sadly, but not surprisingly, negotiations this week between Iran and the West ended with no agreement, and Iran was referred to the United Nations Security Council this past Wednesday for possible sanctions. We can expect serious developments on this front as early as next week.

The United States is calling for a “strong statement” from the Security Council against Iran. American Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton told reporters, “We’re going to press for as vigorous a response in the council as we can get and hope that that gets the Iranians’ attention…If the Iranians do not back off from their continued aggressive pursuit of nuclear weapons, we’ll have to make a decision of what the next step will be.” Reports indicate that the Americans want a Security Council resolution backed by the threat of military force that would demand Iran abandon uranium enrichment and answer outstanding questions about its nuclear program. The United Kingdom is now declaring that Iran will have the technology to build a nuclear bomb by the end of the year, which presents the specter of military action by at least the end of 2006, if not sooner.

Meanwhile, President George W. Bush is now informing the American public that Iran presents a “grave national security concern,” echoing language that was used against Iraq prior to the American invasion. In an intriguing moment of candor, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov remarked that he felt a sense of “déjà vu,” referring to the pre-Iraq invasion drumbeat.

I believe that the United States is now staring into the abyss of a larger global conflagration. I pray that our leaders will step back from the immense bloodshed which will flow from an attack against Iran. There is still time for some negotiated outcome, but as I have indicated on this website since December, I fear the decision to attack has already been made.

Flashpoint #2: The Israel-Palestine conflict. A second flashpoint that is closely related to the situation with Iran is the disintegrating relationship between Israel and Palestine. Ever since the victory of the Hamas party in the Palestinian elections, Israel, with the backing of the United States, has waged a campaign of isolotion against Hamas and the Palestinian people more generally. This campaign reached a potential tipping point today with Israel’s announcement that it would unilaterally redraw Israel’s borders with Palestine by 2010. This has infuriated Hamas, and they have gone so far as to call the Israeli plan a “declaration of war.”

The Israel-Palestine conflict feeds into the larger confrontation between the West and Iran, and vice versa. As each situation deteriorates, it feeds into negative perceptions of the other side and creates an almost inevitable atmosphere of mistrust. If relations unexpectedly sour between Israel and Palestine, we might see this longer and more intractable problem act as the spark for a larger powder keg.

Flashpoint #3: The global economy. Even while nations are now positioning themselves for potential war, there is also a growing threat of instability in the global economy, an instability which might spiral into economic collapse. This really deserves a longer post, and perhaps I will write one, but for now it suffices to remark that the engine of the global economy — spending by American consumers — is showing real signs of slowdown. Stagnant wages, increasing debt, high energy prices, and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few people have left the American economy in its worst structural shape since the 1970s, and possibly since the Great Depression. Any variable in the complicated economic equation which keeps America afloat — a spike in energy prices, a large influx of dollars in currency exchanges, a crash in the housing market, a default of a large corporation like General Motors — would likely cause an economic tailspin.

Economics forms a large part of the reason why conflict with Iran is brewing: Iran’s plans to open an Oil Bourse at the end of March will cause serious harm to American economic interests, and I believe that it is the a major underlying reason for the push for sanctions against Iran.

Flashpoint #4: Environmental catastrophe. Finally, it is necessary to comment on the great darkhorse of our era, the ruinous catastrophes that will be caused by an out-of-control planet. Just as Katrina came out of nowhere to level a city, human-induced climate change promises an unending series of ecological disasters which will batter the physical foundations of civilization. Hurricanes in the nature of Katrina, or a significant heat-wave, flood, or drought would alter life for millions within the course of weeks. The lack of food, water, and shelter which follow such disasters could then trigger larger changes if they occurred in sensitive or violent-prone areas.

All closed systems tend towards disorder. This is not only a law of physics, but also a law of societies and civilizations. We are now witnessing an expansion of entropy throughout the global system, and it is only a matter of time before such volatility erupts.