Thursday, January 26, 2012

Stratfor Intelligence Leaked by Anonymous Reveals Spying on Occupy Movement, DGR

Statement from Deep Green Resistance

Internet group Anonymous has leaked information from October and November 2011 suggesting that private intelligence firm STRATFOR has been working with Texas law enforcement to infiltrate the Occupy movement and spy on the Deep Green Resistance movement.

In December 2011, Anonymous attacked the STRATFOR website, allegedly stealing 200 gigabytes of data and shutting the site down for weeks. This isn’t the first time Anonymous has gone after such corporations. In early 2011, Anonymous went after internet security firm HBGary, releasing private documents that included secret plans by HBGary and others to attack and discredit Wikileaks on behalf of big banks.

The information released by Anonymous is a partial “teaser” of the information taken from STRATFOR. It consists of emails in which STRATFOR employees discuss Occupy Austin and Deep Green Resistance. STRATFOR “Watch Officer” Marc Lanthemann writes about receiving information on Occupy Austin and DGR from a “Texas DPS agent.” The Texas Department of Public Safety is a statewide law enforcement agency that includes the Texas Rangers, Highway Patrol, and an Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division.

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| Posted on 01/26.

Natural Gas Industry Shows Love for President Obama

By Press Action

The natural gas industry loves President Obama. They really do. The intensity of the love affair became public knowledge this week.

First, in Tuesday’s State of the Union address, Obama blew a big kiss to the natural gas industry. George W. Bush never came close to Obama’s effusiveness for the natural gas industry in any of his State of the Union addresses.

During his speech, Obama sang natural gas’ praises, saying the United States has “a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly one hundred years.” He stressed that “experts believe this will support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade.”

Obama also proudly said his administration, over the last three years, has opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration. “And tonight, I’m directing my administration to open more than 75% of our potential offshore oil and gas resources,” he said.

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| Posted on 01/26.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Study: U.S. LNG Exports to Give Coal New Lease on Life

By Press Action

By letting U.S. companies export domestically produced natural gas, the U.S. government will cause domestic natural gas prices to rise, which in turn will lead to the burning of more coal for the generation of electricity, according to a new report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration on the impacts of exporting liquefied natural gas.

Coal use, primarily for the generation of electricity, accounts for roughly 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. When burned for electricity use, coal emits twice as much carbon dioxide per unit of energy delivered as natural gas. “Coal plants are the dirtiest, most regressive source of energy—poisoning our communities and environment,” the Sierra Club says.

Gas producers have been making significant discoveries in various geological formations across the United States over the last six years. With visions of great riches, industry officials have been racing to tap these shale gas resources. The result: gas supply is exceeding demand in the United States.

Given their significant investments in shale gas production, gas companies are hoping to reap a greater return on their investment by looking abroad for new markets. Producers, along with the owners of LNG import facilities, have been pushing to export natural gas produced in the United States to other countries. So far, the U.S. Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission have rubber-stamped all of the LNG export applications that have come before them.

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| Posted on 01/24.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

The Illusion of Environmental Protection

By Press Action

All branches of government, at the federal, state and municipal levels, insist on letting big corporations get their way at the expense of the environment. Nowhere will you find majority support among the ruling class for slowing down the destruction of the Earth, let alone entertaining the notion of downsizing industrial culture.

Occasionally, though, a rogue voice of sanity will be heard in the corridors of power. Last week, for example, a Pennsylvania appeals court judge filed a powerful dissenting opinion in a case about the devastation of forests and streams.

The case involved an electric utility company, PPL Electric Utilities Corp., which wanted permission to build a high-voltage electric transmission line that would cut a 100-foot-wide corridor through a pristine woodland preserve and a stream that is home to a number of cold water fish species.

The company, a subsidiary of PPL Corp. (formerly known as Pennsylvania Power and Light), argued that the environmental intrusion was necessary to meet the future electric service needs in the southern part of Lehigh Valley. PPL argued that it had reached this conclusion by using a planning process that was supposed to assure the public that it will “supply electricity to all customer loads in a reliable, economic and environmentally acceptable manner.”

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| Posted on 01/21.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Little Scraps of Humanity

By Press Action

"I have a question for you. How do you do it? How do you come into offices like this and squabble with people like me over a few extra inches? How is that you can sit there in your politeness and your grace and basically ask people for nothing? How do you do it? How do you beg for little scraps of humanity?” – Fast-food executive Richard Cranehill, grilling an animal welfare group representative in the film Bold Native.

The Sierra Club is running a “high-saturation" television advertising campaign in major media markets in Ohio, thanking President Barack Obama for protecting Americans from toxic pollution.

Some political observers wondered whether Obama would lose the support of Big Green groups, given his penchant for appeasing business interests at the expense of the environment. But most astute analysts understood that the mainstream enviros would always come back to Obama, no matter how bad his policies were for the environment.

Indeed, the Sierra Club’s advertising campaign indicates Obama’s reelection bid is on a fast track toward receiving the group’s endorsement. Given how Ohio is expected to be a proverbial swing state in this fall’s presidential election, one could argue that the Sierra Club is already campaigning for Obama through this advertising blitz. And once Mitt Romney or another candidate essentially clinches the Republican nomination, the other Big Green groups will follow suit with their own endorsements of Obama, followed by the launch of a campaign of scare tactics against the Republican nominee.

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| Posted on 01/18.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Occupy Movement Reignites 'Battle for Brooklyn'

By Press Action

The producers of Battle for Brooklyn attribute the documentary’s growing success to the Occupy Wall Street movement’s focus on how government institutions operate on behalf of the wealthy few in the United States.

When it was released in April 2011, Battle for Brooklyn, a documentary about a community in Brooklyn fighting real-estate developers who want to build a basketball arena and numerous other buildings, received positive feedback from reviewers and the public.

But as the Occupy movement caught fire in September 2011, Battle for Brooklyn started getting noticed by an even larger audience, said Michael Galinsky, speaking Jan. 15 at a screening of the film at the Artisphere complex in Arlington, Va. Galinsky co-directed and co-produced the film with his wife Suki Hawley.

Battle for Brooklyn addresses the same issues targeted by the Occupiers: corporate greed, crony capitalism, undemocratic institutions and community destruction.

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| Posted on 01/16.

Monday, January 09, 2012

Hey, Barnes & Noble: How Many Assassins Does It Take to Scare Off Your Customers?

An Open Letter to Barnes & Noble

The U.S. military credits Chris Kyle with killing over 160 human beings. Sometimes more. “The number is not important to me. I only wish I had killed more...” Good students always want extra credit.

This coming Thursday (01/12/2012), the Barnes & Noble bookstore located in the Mira Mesa community of San Diego has scheduled a book signing with Chris Kyle. As author, and state-sanctioned hitman, Kyle plans to visit a supposed “friendly town” to promote his heartfelt tale of bloodletting called American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History.

The event page describes this man as the “most accomplished SEAL sniper in US History.” Accomplished, evidently, in the framework of legal murder. Instead of being tried for crimes against humanity, he will be sitting amongst local families bragging about how many Arabs he has picked off while dreaming about his next Coors Light.

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| Posted on 01/09.

Sunday, January 08, 2012

Earthquakes Shake Public's Faith in Natural Gas Industry

By Press Action

Imagine if saboteurs, with an expertise in geology, intentionally drilled wells thousands of feet underground and then filled these wells with water. Imagine if the depth of the wells and the pressure created by the injected water began causing hundreds of earthquakes in assorted regions of the United States.

Such activity certainly would terrify the public. And, given the gravity of the crimes, it certainly would prompt seismologists and geologists to urge public safety officials to take whatever measures necessary to find the perpetrators and stop them from drilling any new wells. If this were to happen, the notion that someone could intentionally cause an earthquake would be unfathomable to most people. You must be reading too much science fiction or listening to Alex Jones, they’d say. But once they got over the initial shock that it indeed is happening, such unconscionable activity would create a massive public uproar.

Unfortunately, you do not have to imagine people intentionally engaging in activity that they know causes earthquakes. It is actually happening today. But if you thought public officials would be using every means possible to stop such activity, you would be wrong. And if you thought major news media outlets would be beating the drum for public safety officials to stop the perpetrators, you would be wrong again.

In fact, one of the most prominent newspapers in the country, the Washington Post, believes the people who are engaging in activity that is indeed causing the earthquakes should be allowed to continue as long as they are more closely monitored.

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| Posted on 01/08.

Thursday, January 05, 2012

You Won't Fool the Children of the Revolution

By Press Action

A well-known, fifty-something antiwar activist recently scolded the “young people” of Occupy Wall Street for turning a deaf ear to their elders. She was offended by how they were charting their own course, daring to ignore the sage advice of seasoned activists.

Let’s assume this activist’s assessment of the younger generation’s involvement in OWS is accurate … which, of course, it is not. My response would be, why the hell should these younger people, who are attempting to put real democracy into action, show any deference to the older generations?

The corporate noose around American society has grown considerably tighter over the past 30 years. Wars are now endless. Ecocide is happening before our eyes. And yet, not-so-young liberal and progressive activists, especially the self-described pacifists, continue to tell us to support the troops. The foot soldiers of the empire, they claim, are as much victims as the millions of people the U.S. military machine is killing in foreign lands. They tell us to work within the system and avoid violence in all circumstances because, if we don’t, that makes us as guilty as the homicidal maniacs that run the system.

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| Posted on 01/05.

Sunday, January 01, 2012

A Call to Live the Revolution Now

Review of Anarchism and Its Aspirations by Cindy Milstein (AK Press, 145 pages).

Anarchism has had some impressive moments. Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magón in early 20th century Mexico, the Kronstadt Rebellion, Gustav Landauer and the German revolution of 1918-1919, Bhagat Singh’s anti-British campaigns in India in the 1920s, and the Spanish anarchists in the 1930s, to name a few. The moments, as infrequent as they may be, can be electrifying. But they tend to be short-lived, with the participants often imprisoned or murdered by the state and its confederates.

As proponents of a political philosophy that disdains power, anarchists often find themselves at a disadvantage against the authoritarian governments and groups that use coercion to keep their opponents at bay. The antipathy for anarchists extends as far as the written word. State officials and their corporate partners control the mass media, including the outlets that publish the official history books in which their leaders are portrayed as heroes, while anarchists and anti-authoritarians are often labeled terrorists and criminals.

Despite the contempt for anarchism by statists on both the left and the right, anarchists have been able to get their word out through the underground press. Independent publishing houses and, in more recent decades, university presses also have published numerous books on anarchism.

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| Posted on 01/01.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Leah Henderson: 'This Attempt to Deter Me Has Failed'

By Press Action

On Tuesday, Dec. 20, anarchist Leah Henderson began a 10-month prison sentence in the Vanier Centre for Women, a prison in Milton, Ontario, for her alleged role in the anti-G20 protests in Toronto in June 2010. Leah did not participate in protests where some people smashed windows and set fire to police cruisers but pleaded guilty in November to counseling others to “commit mischief.” In a statement at her sentencing hearing, Leah said, “I stand here guilty of breaking your laws, not the laws of justice.” At the end of her statement to provincial court Justice Lloyd Budzinsky, Leah said: “I submit to your jails because today you hold many of the weapons, and many people under your spell. A day is coming when that will not be so. A day is coming where the distorted mirror that hides the lies of capitalism and colonialism will shatter.”

Below is a letter that Leah wrote titled “A Letter to My Community”:

As most of you probably know by now, I have decided to plead guilty to the charge of counseling to commit mischief. Originally, I along with 20 others was charged with four counts of conspiracy in what was called the G20 main conspiracy group.

I am writing because the past year and a half of facing these charges and living under bail conditions has meant that I have not been able to talk as openly as I would have liked. My voice has been muzzled by the state, which has served as a powerful reminder of the many voices that are muzzled by the daily colonialism, patriarchy, racism and violence of the world. While the silencing of my voice has an end date, the work to hear the chorus of our grandmothers and the Indigenous Peoples whose land we stand on is ongoing.

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| Posted on 12/29.

Friday, December 23, 2011

Anarchist Nation

Thanks to the involvement of anarchists in the Occupy movement, anarchism is generating increased attention from the mainstream news media. Most of the press reports, however, have been negative — with some exceptions. The stories on anarchist David Graeber, for example, have been relatively even-handed.

Generally, the mainstream media has thrown around the words “anarchy” and “anarchists” without the slightest hint of insight into the theory and practice of anarchism. Members of the mainstream media aren’t the only ones guilty of peddling unfounded stories about anarchism. Occupiers themselves, many of whom are unfamiliar with the tradition of anarchism, have attacked anarchists, blaming them for sabotaging or hijacking the Occupy movement. How ironic is this, given that the global Occupy movement adopted the anarchist critique of hierarchy and domination.

And even more troubling are the radicals among us—the ones who are surely familiar with the important role played by anarchists in all of the liberation and freedom struggles of the past 125 years, including the radical feminist and environmental movements—who choose to misrepresent anarchism because of some bad experiences they’ve had with people who call themselves anarchists.

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| Posted on 12/23.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

The Establishment Left, Electoral Politics and the Revolution of 2012

When they were in their prime, the team of Leftist all-stars had years ahead of them to push hard for an alternative mode of social organization. And yet, they clung to the existing system and kept warning others that the lesser of the two evils was worthy of our support. Imagine the progress we’d have made by now if these great thinkers had rallied behind a movement to dismantle “the system.” Instead, they told us to respect federal electoral politics because, as they told the story, the tiny differences between the establishment’s two political parties could have huge consequences.

They stood behind their lecterns, offering cogent analysis of the corporate state. But as they were educating us, opening our eyes to the ugly reality of American Empire, they remained anchored in the belief that the system wasn’t worth kicking over.

We celebrated the Leftist all-stars and their significant contributions to awakening people worldwide to the real America. As we discovered, though, they had been snookered into the mythology of electoral politics serving as a vehicle for positive change. Their hypocrisy left us bewildered.

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| Posted on 12/18.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Jalapeños: Joe Arpaio's Latino Assistance Program Eliminating Ñice Ordinary Stranger

By Kap Fulton

There seems to be this shared feeling amongst Euro-Americans regarding Mexico. Thanks to the mainstream media and the depiction of Mexicans in film and television, I have compiled a list of these feelings. Let this also serve as a travel guide for those wanting to travel through Mexico:

1) There is a guy standing at the Mexican border dressed like Pancho Villa. Under his sombrero there is a list of all the white people that have been bad this year. When one of these people tries to cross into Mexico, this authority figure kills said person. The body is then shared amongst recently deported migrants. The leftover bones are then used to make “Menudo” –- a delicious soup. Menudo is actually a Nahuatl word which literally translates to “yummy pink flesh for brunch.”

2) If one is lucky enough to get past the border, the next obstacle is the drug war. On every corner, in every Mexican city, stands a man with an M-16 assault rifle. This man will check your American passport to make sure you are not in one of the rival gangs such as the CIA (there is a dispute as to what the acronym CIA stands for: some say: “Criminals in Action”—others claim “Caucasians in Aztlán.”

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| Posted on 12/17.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Cutting Crime: A New Solution for Environmental Protection?

By Press Action

If only a proper enforcement mechanism had been in place. Perhaps then the owners of a pair of oil products pipelines in Nebraska would have taken the necessary steps to prevent 119,000 gallons of gasoline and diesel from contaminating the surrounding land and a nearby creek.

Instead, under current regulatory and criminal law, executives with the pipeline system’s owners, Magellan Midstream Partners of Tulsa, Okla., will get off scot-free. Furthermore, lawmakers and regulators will refuse to implement proper measures in the aftermath of the Dec. 10 fuel spill, which occurred near Nemaha, Neb., in the southeast part of the state, to prevent similar atrocities from happening in other industrialized regions of the country.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Under an innovative legal and technological solution, as proposed by environmental author and activist Derrick Jensen at last month’s Earth At Risk conference in Berkeley, Calif., executives with companies seeking a permit for a major infrastructure or otherwise risky project would be required to guarantee the safety of their proposed facilities. The solution is known as the Remote-Controlled Cigar Cutter™.

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| Posted on 12/15.

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