Sunday, June 07, 2009
listen up
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Saturday, July 04, 2009
Independence Day
Bruce Springsteen sez:
Well Papa go to bed now, it’s getting late
Nothing we can say is gonna change anything now
I’ll be leaving in the morning from St. Mary’s Gate
We wouldn’t change this thing even if we could somehow
Cause the darkness of this house has got the best of us
There’s a darkness in this town that’s got us too
But they can’t touch me now
And you can’t touch me now
They ain’t gonna do to me
What I watched them do to you
So say goodbye, it’s Independence Day
It’s Independence Day
All down the line
Just say goodbye, it’s Independence Day
It’s Independence Day this time
Now I don’t know what it always was with us
We chose the words, and yeah, we drew the lines
There was just no way this house could hold the two of us
I guess that we were just too much of the same kind
Well say goodbye, it’s Independence Day
It’s Independence Day, all boys must run away
So say goodbye, it’s Independence Day
All men must make their way come Independence Day
Now the rooms are all empty down at Frankie’s joint
And the highway, she’s deserted clear down to Breaker’s Point
There’s a lot of people leaving town now
Leaving their friends, their homes
At night they walk that dark and dusty highway all alone
Well Papa go to bed now, it’s getting late
Nothing we can say can change anything now
Because there’s just different people coming down here now
and they see things in different ways
And soon everything we’ve known will just be swept away
So say goodbye, it’s Independence Day
Papa now I know the things you wanted that you could not say
But won’t you just say goodbye, it’s Independence Day
I swear I never meant to take those things away
Who else has a song for us on this warm Fourth of July?
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Thursday, July 02, 2009
Humans vs. Oceans (a reprise)
Let’s go to ScienceDaily.com for the chemistry: “Ocean acidification is linearly related to the amount of CO2 we produce. CO2 dissolves in the ocean, reacts with seawater and decreases the pH. Since the industrial revolution, the oceans have become 30 percent more acidic (from 8.2 pH to 8.1 pH).”
Ocean-Acidification.net adds: “The ocean absorbs approximately 1/3rd of the CO2 emitted to the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels. However, this valuable service comes at a steep ecological cost - the acidification of the ocean. As CO2 dissolves in seawater, the pH of the water decreases, which is called ‘acidification.’”
This increase in ocean acidification has prompted some dire predictions. “Ocean acidification is more rapid than ever in the history of the earth and if you look at the pCO2 (partial pressure of carbon dioxide) levels we have reached now, you have to go back 35 million years in time to find the equivalents” said Jelle Bijma, chair of the EuroCLIMATE programme Scientific Committee and a biogeochemist at the Alfred-Wegener-Institute Bremerhaven.
Richard Marcus sez: “Even if every single person in the United States were to change all their light-bulbs to fluorescent, cut the amount they drive in half, recycle half of their household waste, inflate their tire pressure to increase gas mileage, use low flow shower heads and wash clothes in lower temperature water, adjusts their thermostats two degrees up or down depending on the season, and plant a tree, it would result in a one time, 21 percent reduction in carbon emissions.”
So, um...where’s the urgency among activists?
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Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Wiped out
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While working out in a gym in Texas during my recent visit, I noticed a container of Clorox disinfectant wipes attached to the wall. The idea was to give us gym patrons a way to wipe down machines after use and disinfect our hands while we we at it.
In case you think there’s nothing unusual about using Clorox in a “health” club, dig this: Just above the Clorox container, there was a small spot of white on the wall. It seems that every time a wipe is pulled from the container, it scrapes the wall at that point and thus, slowly eats away the brown paint.
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Sunday, June 28, 2009
Becoming the Media
I’ve known Jen Angel for years. She and fellow Clamor Magazine founder, Jason Kucsma, appeared in my book, The Murdering of My Years: Artists and Activists Making Ends Meet and I wrote for Clamor on occasion. None of these facts, however, explain why I read and appreciated Jen’s 44-page chapbook, Becoming the Media: A Critical History of Clamor Magazine (from PM Press which yes, is publishing a book of mine soon). Simply put, it’s right down my proverbial alley. I’ve written about corporate media propaganda for decades and never fail to include a spiel like this in my public talks:
“Whether you label them liberal or conservative, most major media outlets are large corporations owned by or aligned with even larger corporations, and they share a common goal: to make a profit by selling a product—an affluent audience—to a given market: advertisers. Therefore, we shouldn’t find it too shocking that the image of the world being presented by a corporate-owned press very much reflects the biased interests of the elite players involved in this sordid little love triangle. That’s why every major daily newspaper has a business section, but not a labor section. Why at least once a week those same newspapers run an automobile section, but no bicycle section. This is why when the Dow Jones Industrial Average drops, it makes headlines. But if the global infant mortality rate rises, it’s questionable if it will even make the papers—and if it does, it’ll be buried on page 23. In other words, if you created a blueprint for an apparatus that utterly erased critical thought, you can make none more efficient than the American corporate media.”
Jen Angel doesn’t need me (or anyone) to explain all that to her. She knows it firsthand and has spent much of her time creating and supporting media that offer the perspective of women, workers, immigrants, and everyone else outside the mainstream umbrella. Not just writing and design, but also issues of distribution, diversity, workplace dynamics, etc. The story of Jen’s role in Clamor—told concisely and with honesty—is part blueprint, part kick in the ass. “The real challenge,” she writes, “is getting people, on a large scale, to understand how media works to nurture, sustain, and strengthen social movements.”
In other words, if the corporate-owned media drives the getaway car for global criminals, it’s high time to create our own independent methods of communication to not only expose what’s going on but also talk openly about what needs to be done…now.
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Friday, June 26, 2009
Mickey Z. sez:
(Photo by Michele)
“It is our moral obligation to see through our own propaganda and kick the addictive habit of lazy thinking. Change should and must be imagined possible. The precarious state of global affairs is not the result of some preordained theology or unstoppable force of nature. We are where we are thanks to decisions made by humans. Other decisions could have been made; other outcomes could have resulted. Therefore, it follows that change is not impossible.”
Your thoughts?
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(Still in Texas: hope to be home on Sunday night)
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Wednesday, June 24, 2009
What sometimes passes for conversation
(A Cool Observer re-run of sorts)
When you meet someone for the first time, they often ask: “What do you do?” Being well-trained capitalists, of course we all understand this question to really mean: “What job do you have?” or “How do you make a living?” or “Where do you rent yourself out for 8-10 hours a days in order to pay for all those consumer electronics?”
I once encountered a more palatable version of this scenario when I met an experimental musician who asked me: “What sort of things do you do?” This refreshing variation led me to answer: “Well, one of the things I do is write.” From there, we talked about my books and his music with no mention of whether or not we’ve ever earned a penny from such ventures.
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(I’m still in Texas and will try to update soon)
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Saturday, June 20, 2009
Health care, American-style
According to an Institute of Medicine report, 60 Americans die every day due to lack of health insurance.
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Speaking of health care:
My Dad just had surgery in Texas so I’m headed down to help out. I’ll try to stay in touch here but my Internet access will be limited...at best. As always, I hope you’ll all continue to gather and chat in my (relative) absence.
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I took this photo in the North Woods of Central Park
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Thursday, June 18, 2009
It's our choice
Which would you rather have:
A commodity culture or an ozone layer?
Interstate highways or ancient forests?
Hamburgers or rainforests?
Cell phones or Eastern Lowland Gorillas?
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Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Understanding the situation in Iran (a quiz)
In order to take seriously the mainstream media/political talk about Iran (elections, nuclear ambitions, etc.), you have to first pretend which of the following:
A) The US didn’t overthrow Mossadegh in 1953
B) Israel doesn’t possess nuclear weapons
C) Iran doesn’t possess the world’s third largest oil reserves
D) The US actually wants to promote democracy at home and abroad
E) You forgot that the only nation to ever use nuclear weapons is America
F) All of the above
(Answer: F)
If you can partake in all that pretending, well...the current hoopla will make a whole lot of sense to you.
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Monday, June 15, 2009
Cultural genocide and the environment
A term like cultural genocide has been typically reserved for discussions of the political science variety. However, with the ever-increasing impact of climate change, all lines are becoming blurred. Neena Bhandari of IPS has written about the frightening connection between global warming and Australia’s Aboriginal communities. Indigenous rights advocates, Bhandari tells is, warn of people being forced out of their traditional lands, their culture destroyed, and their access to water resources dwindling.
Aboriginal people account for only 2.5 percent of Australia’s total population, with an estimated population of 517,200, and they are paying a high price for “progress.” Tom Calma is the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. “As coastal and island communities confront rising sea levels, and inland areas become hotter and drier, indigenous people are at risk of further economic marginalization, as well as potential dislocation from and exploitation of their traditional lands, waters and natural resources,” Calma said. “The cruel irony is that indigenous people have the smallest ecological footprint but are being asked to carry the heaviest burden of climate change.”
Article 7 the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples uses the phrase “cultural genocide” and declares that indigenous peoples have the “collective and individual right not to be subjected to ethnocide and cultural genocide, including prevention of and redress” for:
(a) Any action which has the aim or effect of depriving them of their integrity as distinct peoples, or of their cultural values or ethnic identities;
(b) Any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing them of their lands, territories or resources;
(c) Any form of population transfer which has the aim or effect of violating or undermining any of their rights;
(d) Any form of assimilation or integration by other cultures or ways of life imposed on them by legislative, administrative or other measures;
(e) Any form of propaganda directed against them.
It’s gonna take more than recycled toilet paper and energy efficient light bulbs to solve these problems, folks...
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Saturday, June 13, 2009
Animal Rights, Ecofeminism and Rooster Rehab: Mickey Z. Interviews pattrice jones
pattrice jones is an ecofeminist educator, activist and writer. She is the author of Aftershock: Confronting Trauma in a Violent World: A Guide for Activists and Their Allies and co-founder of the Eastern Shore Sanctuary and Education Center.
Founded in a rural region of Maryland dominated by the poultry industry, the sanctuary provides a haven for hens, roosters and ducks who have escaped or been rescued from the meat and egg industries or other abusive circumstances, such as cockfighting. Not surprisingly, pattrice and company take things further than your average sanctuary. “We work within an ecofeminist understanding of the interconnection of all life and the intersection of all forms of oppression,” she explains. “Thus we welcome and work to facilitate alliances among animal, environmental, and social justice activists.”
As the sanctuary begins a move from Maryland to Springfield, Vermont, I thought it would be the perfect time ask pattrice a few questions, via e-mail:
MZ: What led you to such work? Why hens, roosters, and ducks?
pj: We found a chicken in a ditch. Seriously. Miriam Jones and I (then partners, and still family) were both experienced social justice activists when we inadvertently landed in poultry country, having moved “back to the land” with Green Acres dreams of going off grid. At the time, it was not uncommon for birds to flee to freedom by jumping from transport trucks, and “growers” for the poultry industry would sometimes let us rescue birds they were supposed to cull (the industry has since tightened its transport and security procedures.) One bird became two then five then thirty-five… within six months of finding the first bird, we incorporated the sanctuary.
MZ: Fortunately, there are many animal sanctuaries but I’m curious to know more about what you call the “gendered form of animal exploitation.”
pj: That first chicken was a rooster we originally mistook for a hen. I had to work hard to feel the same way about him once I knew he was a rooster. He was the same tenderly friendly bird he’d always been, but all of those “rooster” ideas—cocky, aggressive, etc.—were interfering with my ability to see him clearly. That got me thinking about the ways that people project gender stereotypes on animals and then read them back as evidence that traditional sex roles are natural, a process I have come to call the social construction of gender by way of animals. So, when we got an urgent call about 24 roosters who had been living together peacefully but all other sanctuaries had turned away under the theory that so many roosters cannot possibly get along, we said yes. Besides livening up the place, that colorful crew inspired us to try to figure out a way to rehabilitate roosters used in cockfighting, which we have done.
MZ: What do you mean when you say “rehabilitate roosters”?
pj: Roosters confiscated from cockfighting operations used to be automatically euthanized, on the presumption that they were too aggressive to ever live peacefully with other birds. But that’s the propaganda of cockfighting enthusiasts, who argue that they are just watching roosters doing what comes naturally. In fact, chickens—like the wild jungle fowl from which they descended and to whom the birds used in cockfighting are very nearly genetically identical—naturally live in flocks in which multiple roosters coexist peacefully. Roosters in the wild fight to the death only against predators, not against each other! They sometimes will have highly stylized fights with each other, but these are not the pitched battles to the death that we see in cockfighting.
MZ: Why do fighting roosters fight?
pj: Raised in isolation and constant frustration, they never learn the social signals by which roosters resolve their conflicts and figure out their places in flocks. Prior to cockfighting bouts, they are often injected with testosterone and methamphetamines. In the bouts, they face opponents who, like themselves, have had their combs shaved (so they look more like a hawk than another chicken) and their spurs augmented by sharp blades. It’s kill or be killed. What we do is give former fighters the chance to learn, by observation and gradual participation, the social skills they need to coexist peacefully with other birds. We give them a safe space from which to do this and, over time, recover from the trauma to which they have been subjected.
MZ: Your approach with the roosters sounds like a logical, compassionate strategy for any living thing that has undergone trauma.
pj: Right. We all—or at least all social species—need the same things when we’ve been traumatized, including safety or sanctuary and the chance to restore the relationships (with others and within ourselves) that have been strained or severed by trauma. I talk about that, for people, in my book Aftershock. In relation to animals, I’m happy to be working with Gay Bradshaw of the Kerulos Center and other members of the new International Association for Animal Trauma and Recovery; we’ve all been thinking hard about how to apply what we know about trauma and recovery among people to the task of helping animals who have suffered human-engendered trauma.
MZ: So now you’re bringing this approach to a new location?
pj: Our move to a larger property in Vermont, a small state with 33 factory farms serving the dairy industry and adjacent to Maine (the home of the infamous DeCoster egg factory) will allow us to expand our bird rescue capacities and also expand our activism to include dairy, which—like cockfighting—is a gendered form of animal exploitation.
MZ: How can readers help and get involved?
pj: Because we were founded in one rural agricultural area and are now moving to another, we depend entirely on support from afar to fund our programs. Because we are a small and chronically underfunded sanctuary, even small donations make a big difference. And we fall all over ourselves with gratitude for those who can afford to give more and do. Folks can find donation information on our website (http://www.bravebirds.org).
If you live in a big city, another way to help out with money is to hold a vegan pot luck fundraiser at your house. Eat, watch a movie like Peaceable Kingdom or Chicken Run, and then pass the hat for the sanctuary.
In terms of volunteering, folks who live near our new location in Springfield, Vermont might want to pitch in on coop cleaning and grounds maintenance. We need folks in our original locale, on the Delmarva Peninsula, to occasionally help out by driving local birds to sanctuaries in Maryland and Virginia. As we expand our rooster rehab program, we’ll be needing folks up and down the east coast to sign up to sometimes drive birds to us from wherever they might be confiscated by authorities after a cockfighting bust.
We need everybody to have a look at the information and ideas on our website and then subscribe to our blog so that they will receive action alerts as we continue and expand our efforts to fundamentally reform food and agriculture while building bridges among social justice, environmental, and animal liberation activists. We’re going to be coordinating a new, explicitly feminist, campaign concerning dairy later this year. Watch for it!
You can e-mail pattrice at:
Website: http://www.bravebirds.org
Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, Mickey Z. can be found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net.
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Take the Tiny Choices survey
My friend Jenn (along with her pal Karina) run a site called Tiny Choices. Every Friday, they post someone’s answers to these 10 survey questions:
1. Vital statistics (name, age, location, link to website/blog)?
2. How do you reside (apartment or house, roommates)? Are your housing decisions dictated by choice or necessity? Please explain.
3. How do you travel (transit, car, etc)? Are your travel decisions dictated by choice or necessity? Please explain.
4. Tell us about a Tiny Choice you’ve made in your life.
5. What is the one environmental dilemma you personally struggle the most with?
6. What is one Tiny Choice you can make in that direction?
7. What is the one environmental Tiny Choice you make that people question (in either a positive educational or a negative hassle way) you the most about?
8. What is the one environmental Tiny Choice you would like every single person to adopt?
9. Do you feel like you make sacrifices for environmentalism? Please explain.
10. Are you generally: optimistic, pessimistic, neutral about environmentalism and the future?
Here are my answers from a while back
Here are all previous survey answers
So, in the name of cross pollinating ideas and philosophies, I’m wondering if any of the regulars here would like to take the survey. If so, copy the above questions, add your answers, and send it all to:
(Let me know if you do it so I can post a link here)
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Thursday, June 11, 2009
High Noon
I was watching High Noon for the billionth time the other night. For me, the most powerful moment in the film is when Amy, the converted Quaker wife (played by Grace Kelly) of Marshal Kane (Gary Cooper) shoots and kills a man to save her husband’s life.
Earlier in the film, Amy declares: “My father and my brother were killed by guns. They were on the right side but that didn’t help them any when the shooting started. My brother was nineteen. I watched him die. That’s when I became a Quaker. I don’t care who’s right or who’s wrong. There’s got to be some better way for people to live.”
However, Amy not only ends up shooting a man, she also fights off the main villain (see above photo) which allows Marshal Kane to finish him off.
While High Noon was originally created as a McCarthy-era allegory, it stands today as a stark warning not only that the average citizen would rather pretend all is well than stand up and fight but also this: When staring down murderous psychopaths, even pacifists must sometimes choose force.
Your thoughts?
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New Mickey Z. video:
Thanks to Keir, I now have footage of my brief talk at the May 17 Veggie Pride Parade
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Tuesday, June 09, 2009
His manifest erosion
Once upon a time...
At the top of the Grand Central Station stairs sat a homeless man. Way back, when I endured the only office gig I’ve ever had, I saw him asking for money near the #7 train. He was about 50-55 and claimed to be a Vietnam vet (if everyone who claimed to be a Vietnam vet was authentic, the U.S. must have had about 10 million invaders over there).
As the months turned into a year, the Vet was at the same spot every single day. I watched him progressively waste away. The Vet lost at least 40-50 pounds…his skin color turned a sort of grayish tone…he barely had the strength to hold up his tattered coffee cup.
It’s pretty shocking to witness a human being’s demise on a daily basis especially when you’re watching him along with thousands of others…most of us contributing to our own demise by submitting to suicidal 9-to-5 (more like 8-to-8) grind.
Even with his manifest erosion, I only started regularly giving the Vet money after a specific incident. The Vet was seated on a milk crate a little nearer to the turnstiles than usual. An extremely large cop noticed this. He approached the Vet with that annoying police swagger we all know and hate…brusquely ordering the poor man to move. The Vet meekly voiced his protest and this massive man in blue loudly and inarticulately bellowed: “Don’t make me put my hands on you, man, ’cause if I do, you’re gonna get hurt.”
This pathetic moment—essentially ignored or unseen by my fellow passers-by—spurred me to immediately adopt the Vet as my own personal cause. I started giving him money the next time I saw him…and went as far as making up regular packages that included underwear, socks, food, and new signs to help his begging.
For some reason, he never used the signs I gave him.
The End
Who wants to tell us a story in the comments section?
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New Mickey Z. video:
Thanks to Keir, I now have footage of my brief talk at the May 17 Veggie Pride Parade
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Sunday, June 07, 2009
Animal rights, ecofeminism, and rooster rehab
pattrice jones is an ecofeminist educator, activist, and writer. She is the author of Aftershock: Confronting Trauma in a Violent World: A Guide for Activists and Their Allies and co-founder of the Eastern Shore Sanctuary and Education Center.
pattrice sez: “We all - or at least all social species - need the same things when we’ve been traumatized, including safety or sanctuary and the chance to restore the relationships (with others and within ourselves) that have been strained or severed by trauma.”
Read my interview with pattrice here
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NYC Event Alert:
Noam Chomsky at Riverside Church on June 12
Anyone planning to go?
(FYI: It’s a fundraiser so there is a charge)
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Saturday, June 06, 2009
Make a bold move or settle for nothing?
Ani DiFranco sez:
“What a waste of thumbs that are opposable
To make machines that are disposable
And sell them to seagulls flying in circles
Around one big right wing
Yes, the left wing was broken long ago
By the slingshot of COINTELPRO
And now it’s so hard to have faith in anything
Especially your next bold move”
Rage Against the Machine sez:
“If we don’t take action now
We settle for nothing later
Settle for nothing now
And we’ll settle for nothing later”
Who has a song quote to add?
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Thursday, June 04, 2009
Playing Left Wing
I finally got around to reading my friend Yves Engler’s 2006 book, Playing Left Wing: From Rink Rat to Student Radical. I highly recommend it...especially for younger readers (say, 16-24) just finding their way onto the meaningful path of rebellion.
An excerpt:
“Maybe all of us are outsiders in one sense or another. Maybe no one fits in completely, no matter where you are. And it sure is a lot more fun to be around people with a willingness to be different, to think critically, to strive for the truth, to challenge authority, and try to make the world a better place. I’d choose that over boring old conformity any day. I choose to conform with the non-conformists. I choose to be an insider with the outsiders. I choose to challenge authority, including the authority of those challenging authority.
“In real life, there is usually a price to pay when someone speaks the truth to the rich and powerful. Still, I would argue, there is a much bigger price to pay if no one has the courage to do it: The world would never change for the better.”
This got me thinking about something from Cornel West
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Tuesday, June 02, 2009
We got it all wrong the first time
In the 1999 film Run, Lola, Run, the female protagonist is magically given three chances to cope with a tricky situation. Like having a reset button on a video game or computer, if Lola screws up, she gets to go back and start from the beginning.
Many people imply unless a critic expounds a specific strategy for change, his/her assessment is possibly worthless or, at the very least, too negative. This reaction misses the essential role critical analysis plays in a society where problems—and their causes—are so cleverly disguised.
When discussing the future, the first step is often an identification and demystification of the past and present. In order for us to hit reset button, we must recognize we got it all wrong the first time.
Your thoughts?
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Sunday, May 31, 2009
"Material growth intensifies environmental degradation"
Expendable Charles recently lent me an excellent book called How the Rich are Destroying the Earth, by Herve Kempf...and I’d like to share this excerpt from the preface:
The comfort in which Western societies are immersed must not conceal from us the gravity of the moment. We are entering a time of durable crisis and possible catastrophe. Signs of the ecological crisis are clearly visible and the hypothesis of a catastrophe is becoming realistic.
Yet, in reality, people pay little attention to these signs. They influence neither politics nor the economy. The system does not know how to change trajectory. Why?
Because we don’t succeed in relating ecology and society.
However, we cannot understand the concomitance of the ecological and social crises if we don’t analyze them as the two sides of the same disaster. And that disaster derives from a system piloted by a dominant social stratum that today has no drive other than greed, no ideal other than conservatism, no dream other than technology.
This predatory oligarchy is the main agent of the global crisis - directly, by the decisions it makes. Those decisions aim to maintain the order that has been established to its advantage and favor the objective of material growth: the only method, according to the oligarchy, of making the subordinate classes accept the injustice of the social situation.
But material growth intensifies environmental degradation.
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Expendable Foto Fun:
Zen Prole stopped in Chicago on his way out west and met with none other than JOS. Thanks to a local waitress, this Expendable moment was preserved:
JOS and Zen Prole
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Saturday, May 30, 2009
the only good things
“You have to do things that average people don’t understand because those are the only good things.” - Andy Warhol
Forget from Michael Fragstein on Vimeo.
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Friday, May 29, 2009
Pet dog Sophie Tucker was found on a remote Australian island
A pet dog which was washed overboard and believed drowned has been found four months later - as a castaway on a remote Australian island.
Read the story at the BBC.
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having a heart
I always prefer to believe the best of everybody, it saves so much trouble.
--Rudyard Kipling
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My next book: Self-Defense for Radicals
Non-fiction book #7 is on its way...thanks to PM Press.
Self-Defense for Radicals: A to Z Guide for Subversive Struggle will be done chapbook-style, much like these other PM Press pamphlets.
Some advance word:
“This small book packs a powerful punch. It will help you prepare
emotionally and physically to fight back. Read it, read it again, and then
practice. As Mickey Z. says, ‘The life you save may be your own’.”
- Derrick Jensen
“Mickey Z. shows you how to use your head. Literally! An invaluable guide for those moments when violence must be countered by force.”
- pattrice jones
“In this violent culture, Self Defense for Radicals belongs on every coffee table and in the glove compartment of every car driven by a man or a woman.”
- Rosemarie Jackowski (RMJ the Expendable)
I’ll provide more details as they develop. For now, here’s a fighting related article of mine.
P.S. Anyone interested in writing a review should let me know soon.
P.P.S. Stay tuned for upcoming news about my second novel getting published this year, too.
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Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Activism 101
Okay, short attention span crowd: Grab your remote (or mouse) and get ready to click, click, click…
To me, the following Ward Churchill quote reads like a poem...so that’s how I’ll present it:
You’ve got to learn
that when you push people around,
some people push back.
As they should.
As they must.
And as they undoubtedly will.
There is justice in such symmetry.
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NYC Event Alert:
Expendable Keir—our resident saxophone monster—will be playing some Manhattan gigs in the next week:
Sunday, May 31 @ 8PM
Winter Garden
Bang on a Can Marathon
Ken Thomson’s 9-headed saxophone monster
Monday, June 1 @ 9PM
The Tank: 354 W 45th St.
DJ SNIFF + KEIR NEURINGER
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Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Activism 101
By Mickey Z.
Okay, short attention span crowd: Grab your remote (or mouse) and get ready to click, click, click…
“How much can you know about yourself if you’ve never been in a fight? I don’t wanna die without any scars.”
-Tyler Durden (Fight Club)
Click…
William Burroughs once wrote about how we humans—like the bull in a bullfight—tend to focus on the elusive red cape instead of the matador. Indeed, we are all-too-easily distracted from real targets by an attractive image or illusion.
Of course, some bulls see right through the red cape, uh, bullshit...and quite justifiably introduce the matador to the business end of their horns. Before you mistake that for a lesson and/or inspiration, don’t forget that such bulls are promptly killed while the matador is mourned as a brave hero.
Here’s my question: If every bull in every bullfight were to gore every matador, how long would it be before bullfights were a thing of the past?
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Malcolm X sez:
“It is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.”
Click…
In the late 1960s—thanks to Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers (UFW)—deciding whether or not to buy grapes became a political act. Three years after its establishment in 1962, the UFW struck against grape growers around Delano, California...a long, bitter, and frustrating struggle that appeared impossible to resolve until Chavez promoted the idea of a national boycott. Trusting in the average person’s ability to connect with those in need, Chavez and the UFW brought their plight—and a lesson in social justice—into homes from coast-to-coast and Americans responded.
“By 1970, the grape boycott was an unqualified success,” writes Marc Grossman of Stone Soup. “Bowing to pressure from the boycott, grape growers at long last signed union contracts, granting workers human dignity and a more livable wage.”
Through hunger strikes, imprisonment, abject poverty for himself and his large family, racist and corrupt judges, exposure to dangerous pesticides, and even assassination plots, Chavez remained true to the cause...even if meant, uh..."stretching" the non-violent methods he espoused:
Once in 1966, when Teamster goons began to rough up Chavez’s picketeers, a bit of labor solidarity solved the problem. William Kircher, the AFL-CIO director of organization, called Paul Hall, president of the International Seafarers Union.
“Within hours,” writes David Goodwin in Cesar Chavez: Hope for the People, “Hall sent a carload of the biggest sailors that had ever put to sea to march with the strikers on the picket lines...There followed afterward no further physical harassment.”
Click…
To me, the following quote reads like a poem...so that’s how I’ll present it:
You’ve got to learn
that when you push people around,
some people push back.
As they should.
As they must.
And as they undoubtedly will.
There is justice in such symmetry.
-Ward Churchill
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When early American revolutionaries chanted, “Give me liberty or give me death” and complained of having but one life to give for their country, they became the heroes of our history textbooks. But, thanks to the power of the U.S. media and education industries, the Puerto Rican nationalists who dedicated their lives to independence are known as criminals, fanatics, and assassins.
On March 1, 1954, in the gallery of the House of Representatives, Congressman Charles A. Halleck rose to discuss with his colleagues the issue of Puerto Rico. At that moment, Lolita Lebrón alongside three fellow freedom fighters, having purchased a one-way train ticket from New York (they expected to be killed) unfurled a Puerto Rican flag and shouted “Free Puerto Rico!” before firing eight shots at the roof. Her three male co-conspirators aimed their machine guns at the legislators. Andrés Figueroa’s gun jammed, but shots fired by Rafael Cancel Miranda and Irving Flores injured five congressmen.
“I know that the shots I fired neither killed nor wounded anymore,” Lebrón stated afterwards. With the attack being viewed through the sensationalizing prism of American tabloid journalism, this did not matter. She and her nationalist cohorts became prisoners of war for the next twenty-five years.
Why prisoners of war? To answer that, we must recall that since July 25, 1898, when the United States illegally invaded its tropical neighbor under the auspices of the Spanish-American War, the island has been maintained as a colony. In other words, the planet’s oldest colony is being held by its oldest representative democracy—with U.S. citizenship imposed without the consent or approval of the indigenous population in 1917. It is from this geopolitical paradox that the Puerto Rican independence movement sprang forth.
This movement is based firmly on international law, which authorizes “anti-colonial combatants” the right to armed struggle to throw off the yoke of imperialism and gain independence. UN General Assembly Resolution 33/24 of December 1978 recognizes “the legitimacy of the struggle of people’s for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial domination and foreign occupation by all means available, particularly armed struggle.”
Prison did not dampen Lebrón’s revolutionary spirit as she attended demonstrations and spoke out to help win the long battle to evict the US Navy from the tiny Puerto Rican island of Vieques in 2003.
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Emma Goldman sez:
“No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law.”
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In her excellent 1995 book, Bridge of Courage, Jennifer Harbury quotes a Guatemalan freedom fighter named Gabriel, responding to a plea to embrace non-violent resistance: “In my country child malnutrition is close to 85 percent,” he explains. “Ten percent of all children will be dead before the age of five, and this is only the number actually reported to government agencies. Close to 70 percent of our people are functionally illiterate. There is almost no industry in our country—you need land to survive. Less than 3 percent of our landowners own over 65 percent of our lands. In the last fifteen years or so, there have been over 150,000 political murders and disappearances… Don’t talk to me about Gandhi; he wouldn’t have survived a week here. There was a peaceful movement for progress here, once. They were crushed. We were crushed. For Gandhi’s method to work, there must be a government capable of shame. We lack that here.”
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Huey P. Newton sez:
“In the spirit of international revolutionary solidarity, the Black Panther Party hereby offers ... an undetermined number of troops to assist you in your fight against American imperialism. It is appropriate for the Black Panther Party to take this action at this time in recognition of the fact that your struggle is also our struggle, for we recognize that our common enemy is U.S. imperialism, which is the leader of international bourgeois domination. There is no fascist or reactionary government in the world today that could stand without the support of United States imperialism. Therefore our problem is international, and we offer these troops in recognition of the necessity for international alliance to deal with the problem … Such alliance will advance the struggle toward the final act of dealing with American imperialism. To end this oppression we must liberate the developing nations … As one nation is liberated elsewhere, it gives us a better chance to be free.”
(Excerpted from an October 29, 1970 letter to the National Front for Liberation and Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Viet Nam)
Click…
Arundhati Roy sez:
“People from poorer places and poorer countries have to call upon their compassion not to be angry with ordinary people in America.”
Click…
In his book Endgame, Derrick Jensen tells of a discussion he had with a longtime activist. “She told me of a campaign she participated in a few years ago to try to stop the government and transnational timber corporations from spraying Agent Orange, a potent defoliant and teratogen, in the forests of Oregon,” Jensen writes. All too predictably, the dedicated demonstrators assembled to protest the toxic spraying were, “like clockwork,” ignored by the helicopter pilots. Both humans and landscape ended up thoroughly doused with Agent Orange—time and time again. The protest campaign obviously had no effect, so a different approach was taken. “A bunch of Vietnam vets lived in those hills,” the activist told Jensen, “and they sent messages to the Bureau of Land Management and to Weyerhauser, Boise Cascade, and the other timber companies saying, ‘We know the names of your helicopter pilots, and we know their addresses’
“You know what happened next?” she asked.
“I think I do,” Jensen responded.
“Exactly,” she said. “The spraying stopped.”
Click…
MLK sez:
“When you’re right, you can never be too radical.”
Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, Mickey Z. can be found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net.
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Monday, May 25, 2009
Happy Anniversary to us
Q. How long has the Cool Observer blog been around?
David Bowie sez: Five years
It all began five years ago—on May 26, 2004—with this rather mundane post.
So, I’ll take this opportunity to say thanks to all the regulars—The Expendables—past, present, and future. I am humbled on a daily basis by the amazing folks who’ve chosen this tiny corner of the Web as a meeting place of sorts.
How many of you remember how you first found this blog?
P.S. Thanks to Mark and Nancy for making this place possible
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Screwing around at Socrates Sculpture Park
(photo by Michele)
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Saturday, May 23, 2009
Memorial Weekend (blah, blah, blah...)
Progressive paradox: Anti-war, pro-troops
We stand and sing “God Bless America” during the 7th inning stretch at Yankee Stadium to support, among other things: water boarding, Daisy Cutters, cluster bombs, napalm, depleted uranium, white phosphorus, and the launching cruise missiles into crowded cities.
P.S. Don’t support our (sic) troops…
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time is a delusion
A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
--Albert Einstein
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Thursday, May 21, 2009
"No further physical harassment"
![]()
In the late 1960s—thanks to Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers (UFW)—deciding whether or not to buy grapes became a political act. Three years after its establishment in 1962, the UFW struck against grape growers around Delano, California...a long, bitter, and frustrating struggle that appeared impossible to resolve until Chavez promoted the idea of a national boycott. Trusting in the average person’s ability to connect with those in need, Chavez and the UFW brought their plight—and a lesson in social justice—into homes from coast-to-coast and Americans responded.
“By 1970, the grape boycott was an unqualified success,” writes Marc Grossman of Stone Soup. “Bowing to pressure from the boycott, grape growers at long last signed union contracts, granting workers human dignity and a more livable wage.”
Through hunger strikes, imprisonment, abject poverty for himself and his large family, racist and corrupt judges, exposure to dangerous pesticides, and even assassination plots, Chavez remained true to the cause...even if meant, uh..."stretching" the non-violent methods he espoused:
Once in 1966, when Teamster goons began to rough up Chavez’s picketeers, a bit of labor solidarity solved the problem. William Kircher, the AFL-CIO director of organization, called Paul Hall, president of the International Seafarers Union.
“Within hours,” writes David Goodwin in Cesar Chavez: Hope for the People, “Hall sent a carload of the biggest sailors that had ever put to sea to march with the strikers on the picket lines...There followed afterward no further physical harassment.”
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Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Loners, uh...unite?
I just finished reading Party of One: The Loners’ Manifesto and I have a feeling more than a few Expendables would enjoy and relate to this book.
An excerpt:
Apart. Such a simple concept. So concrete. So easy to represent on charts or diagrams with dots and pushpins either in or out. Yet real life is not dots. Some of us appear to be in, but we are out. And that is where we want to be. Not just want but need, the way tuna need the sea....
We do not require company. The opposite: in varying degrees, it bores us, drains us, makes our eyes glaze over. Overcomes us like a steamroller. Of course the rest of the world doesn’t understand.
Someone says to you, “Let’s have lunch.” You clench. Your sinews leap within you, angling for escape. What others thrive on, what they take for granted, the contact and confraternity and sharing that gives them strength leaves us empty. After what others would call a fun day out together, we feel as if we have been at the Red Cross, donating blood.
Related article, re: introverts
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DVD Alert:
An interview with me appears in this documentary
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Monday, May 18, 2009
Veggie Pride Parade photos (and other food for thought)
These images were taken by Jenn:
(Expendables: James, Keir, me, and Charles)
This one is by Expendable James:
(more photos to follow later in the week)
Plus: Two links that relate to the discussion that began in the previous thread (be sure to check out the comments after the articles):
A review of Lierre Keith’s book
Further discussion about Lierre Keith’s book
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DVD Alert:
An interview with me appears in this documentary
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Saturday, May 16, 2009
Postcards from the ledge
Disguised as a book of innocent postcards, Slingshot is a dangerous collection of Eric Drooker’s most notorious posters. Plastered on brick walls from New York to Berlin, tattooed on bodies from Kansas to Mexico City, Drooker’s graphics continue to infiltrate and inflame the body politic.
Sample:
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NYC Event Alert:
I’m speaking at the Veggie Pride Parade on May 17
Veggie Pride Parade schedule here
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Friday, May 15, 2009
The return of Expendable storytelling
(This one should sound familiar to some of you)
Once upon a time...
Years ago, I had a friend, Vinny, and he was a wizard with his car. I don’t mean fixing it; I mean driving it. Vinny could drive his car backwards better than most people drive forward. And he did so with immense pride. But here’s the catch: he wouldn’t drive backwards in the wrong direction. Vinny would drive along with all the other cars in the same direction as them…only backwards. This was a major league mindfuck for anyone on the road with him.
He’d get us in his Toyota…me in the front with him, Frank and Pasquale in the back. Vinny would instruct us to sit straight and look forward as if we were doing nothing unusual. He would ever-so-slightly turn his head and sometimes only use the rearview mirror. The best would be when we stopped at a red light with a car in front of us and behind us. We’d be facing the wrong direction but going in the right direction and people were puzzled.
One more Vinny rule: do not laugh or act differently than you would on any other drive. Amazingly, we could pass an entire night doing this.
Vinny’s driving magic did not end there. He perfected the ability to sit in the passenger seat and still drive his car. His left hand would covertly hold the bottom of the steering wheel as his left leg stretched over to manipulate the pedals.
The first time I saw him, he was turning the corner on my block and I did a genuine, silent-movie caliber double take. People were freaking and he had this incredible gift to act as if all was normal. He waved to me and drove past as this other guy Charlie mumbled something about “cruise control.” I must have laughed for twenty minutes.
The next step was to add passengers. Vinny would get me and Frank in the back seat and cruise through Astoria. He’d have the radio blasting with his right hand out the window, fingers snapping. The responses along crowded Ditmars Boulevard were priceless...indelibly etched in my mind. Vinny loved this game so much that he’d do it alone if he had some errands to run.
The End
Who wants to tell us a story in the comments section?
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NYC Event Alert:
I’m speaking at the Veggie Pride Parade on May 17
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Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Obama and the denial of genocide
This April, President Barack Obama broke campaign promise #511, namely to explicitly acknowledge the Armenian genocide as U.S. president. What happened on his recent visit to Turkey? What are the ramifications of his breaking this promise?
Read my interview with David Boyajian here
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NYC Event Alert:
I’m speaking at the Veggie Pride Parade on May 17
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Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Obama and the Denial of Genocide
By Mickey Z.
Writer-activist David Boyajian’s investigative articles and commentaries have appeared in Armenian media outlets in the U.S., Europe, Middle East, and Armenia and the Newton Tab and USA Armenian Life newspapers named him among their “Top 10 Newsmakers of 2007.” So, when Barack Obama paid a visit to Turkey last month, it seemed like a good time to ask Boyajian for his take on the new president’s approach to the issue of the Armenian genocide.
Mickey Z: This April, President Barack Obama broke campaign promise #511, namely to explicitly acknowledge the Armenian genocide as U.S. President. What happened on his recent visit to Turkey? What are the ramifications of his breaking this promise?
David Boyajian: President Obama visited Turkey from April 6 to 7, where he did not use the word “genocide” when referring to the 1.5 million murders committed by the Turkish Ottoman Empire against its Armenian citizens from 1915-1923. As a candidate, Obama had promised several times to do so. His statement in Turkey that he had “not changed his views”—implying he still believes it was genocide—was still a clear breach of his promise to use the “G word.” It was a case study in verbal gymnastics and political duplicity and should be studied in political science courses. Obama’s broken promise obviously eroded his credibility. The same holds true for Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who, as senators, supported the Armenian genocide resolution. They’ve since fallen disgracefully silent. Dr. Samantha Power should also be embarrassed. She’s the National Security Council’s genocide expert and a Pulitzer Prize winning author. As a campaign advisor to Obama, she made a video telling Armenian Americans that as president, Obama would definitely acknowledge their genocide. “Take my word for it,” she said.
Appeasement of a genocide-denying country such as Turkey is bad policy because its message is that genocides can be committed without consequence. Appeasement also erodes U.S. credibility on human rights and its stated desire to be a leader in genocide prevention. Unlike what lobbyists for Turkey would have U.S. believe, Armenian genocide affirmation by America would not harm U.S. national interests. Turkey depends on the U.S. for weapons systems, support for billions in loans from the International Monetary Fund, security guarantees through NATO, advocacy for Turkish membership in the European Union, and more. Some 20 countries, including Canada, France, and Switzerland, as well as the parliaments of the EU and the Council of Europe, have acknowledged the Armenian genocide. None has ever experienced much more a Turkish temper tantrum in retaliation.
MZ: Two days prior to Armenian Genocide Remembrance day—which annually falls on April 24—Turkey and Armenia announced that they had agreed to a “roadmap” to normalize relations. What was the significance of this timing? What does the “roadmap” contain?
DB: Behind the scenes, the U.S. State Department had long been twisting Armenia’s arm to agree to a so-called “roadmap” with Turkey before President Obama issued what has become a customary “April 24 statement” by U.S. presidents marking Armenian genocide memorial day. The “roadmap,” announced on April 22, provided political cover for Obama to not use the “G word” on April 24. That is, since there was now supposedly a roadmap for normalization of relations—no matter how vague and hurriedly slapped together— Obama could say that he did not want to upset Turkey and the touted-as-highly-delicate Turkish-Armenian negotiations by using the “G word.” Notice that Obama did not consult with Armenian-Americans or Armenia about this. So much for promises and moral principles. It’s disgraceful that Obama, simply to help Turkey save face, not only broke his promise, but showed blatant disregard for the activists—not just Armenians—who labored so hard for many years for the cause of recognizing all genocides.
Armenia has always said that it was ready to normalize relations with Turkey—which would include Turkey’s re-opening its border with Armenia—without pre-conditions. Suddenly, however, Armenia has had pre-conditions imposed on it in this “roadmap.” According to the Turkish press, the “roadmap” allegedly contains pre-conditions such as: Armenia’s agreeing to a joint commission to examine the veracity of the Armenian genocide—yes, you heard right, Armenia’s formal recognition of current Turkish boundaries—which contain the Armenian homeland, and, possibly, Armenia’s accepting Turkish mediation in the conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijan over the disputed Armenian region of Karabagh—which is absurd since Azerbaijan and Turkey are allies. It appears that Armenia’s president, whose electoral legitimacy is in question, has been worn down in these negotiations by Turkey, the West, and possibly even Russia. And because the Armenian president is grappling with his legitimacy, he is not heeding the cautions being voiced by the people of his own nation about the “roadmap.”
MZ: The U.S. administration and mainstream media would have us believe that Turkey is seeking to “reconcile” with Armenia. Is “reconciliation” really a possibility, or have we misunderstood what’s going on?
DB: The word “reconciliation” in relation to Armenian-Turkish relations is largely an invention of U.S. policymakers, their emissaries, and the mainstream media who take their cues from them. What the U.S. and Europe would like to see is a more stable Caucasus—that is, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia—with open borders. Open borders, you see, would facilitate laying more oil and gas pipelines that would originate in the Caspian Sea region and proceed west to Turkey and then to energy-hungry Europe and Israel. The U.S. and Europe don’t want to put it quite that crudely—no pun intended—so they try to depict Armenia and Turkey as possibly “reconciling” and thus resolving all their differences. Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 out of sympathy with its ally Azerbaijan, which was in a war with the Armenians of Karabagh, a historically Armenian-populated autonomous area within Azerbaijan that Stalin handed to Azerbaijan. Turkey has also been infuriated that Armenia and Armenians worldwide have been demanding that Turkey acknowledge the genocide it committed against Armenians.
Turkey has to acknowledge the genocide or there will never be peace between it and Armenia. And although the Armenian government has not put forth any claims for reparations arising out of the genocide, or for territory, many Armenians do have these goals. They cite the Treaty of Sèvres of 1920, which provided for Armenian sovereignty over Armenian lands upon which Turkey committed the genocide, and which have since been incorporated into what is now eastern Turkey.
MZ: The countries of the Caucasus are Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. Most Americans, including the mainstream media, could not find these small countries on a map. Why are Russia and the U.S.—the latter being thousands of miles from the region—so interested in these three small countries?
DB: The Caucasus is truly Ground Zero in Cold War II, the ongoing conflict between the U.S. and Russia. The U.S.—along with Europe and the NATO military alliance—regard Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan as middlemen between the West and the gas and oil-rich regions around the Caspian Sea. The West has already laid gas and oil pipelines from Azerbaijan through Georgia and then on to Turkey and the west. The U.S. wanted those and future pipelines to bypass Russia and Iran because those two countries could shut such pipelines to pressure the U.S. and others. The only possible pipelines routes, therefore, are through Georgia or Armenia. But Turkey shut its border with Armenia in 1993, and Azerbaijan closed its border with Armenia even earlier due to the conflict between it and the de-facto Armenian region of Karabagh. That left Georgia as the only place for these Western pipelines. After the Russian-Georgian was last year, however, opening an alternative route has become more urgent. That largely explains the West’s renewed interest in Armenia. Conversely, Russia sees the Caucasus as within its traditional sphere of influence, and regards U.S. and European interest in the region as hostile acts.
Simultaneously, NATO has been pushing into the region. Georgia, Azerbaijan, and to some extent even the ex-Soviet republics on the other side of the Caspian Sea, are on the path to joining NATO. Russia was already upset that, following the Cold War, NATO had absorbed the former Warsaw Pact nations of Eastern Europe. NATO is now attempting, in effect, to do the same thing on Russia’s southern border. Russia fears that it will eventually be virtually surrounded by NATO. As a result, we have Cold War II: The U.S. and NATO are trying to push into the Caucasus and Central Asia, while Russia is trying to keep them out.
MZ: Why is Israel interested in the Caucasus, and what role is that country playing? Why are Israel and the pro-Israel lobby dead set against recognition of the Armenian genocide by the U.S. Congress?
DB: Israel is interested in getting some of the oil and gas that flow out of the Caspian Sea region. That is, from countries such as Azerbaijan, oil and gas flow west through Georgia, and then on to Turkey and other countries, possibly including Israel. After all, the U.S. and Turkey, which are important players in these pipelines, are obviously also very friendly with Israel. Israel also welcomes all non-Arab supplies of energy since they would make its Western allies less dependent on Arab oil and gas. And Israel has long had what it calls its Periphery Policy. Historically, Israel has not had good relations with its Arab neighbors. Therefore, to serve as counterweights, Israel befriends those countries further away, especially Muslim countries that aren’t necessarily sympathetic to Israel’s Arab neighbors or Palestinians. Azerbaijan, the only Muslim nation in the Caucasus, and some Muslim nations to the east, such as Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, are such countries. Fortuitously for Israel, they also possess significant deposits of gas and oil.
For decades, Israel and Turkey have had very good relations, mainly because they have a common ally, the U.S., and common adversaries, namely Arab nations. In the 1990’s, Israel and Turkey signed a number of military, economic, and political agreements that solidified their relationship. Even before that, but particularly after that, Turkey felt that it did not have sufficient lobbying muscle in Washington. So the Turks asked Israel to convince some of the pro-Israel lobby—the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee and others—to serve as advocates for Turkey. The Jewish lobby groups agreed. So these groups, as part of their deal with Turkey, deny or call into question the Armenian genocide and work to prevent U.S. acknowledgement of that genocide. These groups won’t tolerate anyone questioning of the Holocaust, and yet hypocritically work against acknowledgment of the Armenian genocide. Interestingly, for the last 2 years, Armenian Americans have exposed the ADL’s hypocrisy. In Massachusetts, for example, fourteen cities severed ties with an anti-bias program sponsored by the ADL because of the latter’s hypocritical and anti-Armenian stance (see NoPlaceForDenial.com). Armenians are determined to challenge genocide denial whenever it occurs.
MZ: Is there a problem with the way the mainstream media has been covering Armenian issues?
DB: Yes. The mainstream media have several problems. First, they know very little about the Caucasus or Armenians. Reporters tend, therefore, to copy each other and repeat clichés and falsehoods—such as that Armenia and Turkey are on the verge of a historic “reconciliation.” Media also tend to accept at face value the propaganda issued by Western governments whose interest in the Caucasus is—let’s be frank—not “reconciliation,” democracy, or human rights, but rather self-interested economic, political, and military political penetration of the Caucasus.
Turkey has about 30 times more people and territory, and 50 times more Gross Domestic Product, than Armenia. The power differential is enormous. Turkey has infinitely more allies in Western media, governments, think tanks, and multi-national corporations—and knows how to use them. Commentators who have a vested interest in touting Turkey for their own political and even financial reasons have particularly come out of the woodwork to deride legitimate Armenian demands. But we rarely hear commentators speak of how a small country that has been the victim of genocide, that has had most of its territory stripped from it, and that has been blockaded by the denier of that genocide—Turkey—is being threatened by that very same unrepentant denier. Mainstream media largely fail to appreciate the foregoing facts. Hopefully, Mickey, this interview will help the media and your readers understand the issues and the region a bit better.
David Boyajian can be reached at
Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, Mickey Z. can be found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net.
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Monday, May 11, 2009
His aim is true
In 1968, Peter Bogdanovich made an auspicious celluloid debut with a film called Targets, starring Boris Karloff as Byron Orlok, a veteran horror film actor who has retired because real life has become so terrifying that audiences are no longer frightened by horror movies. In the film’s riveting climax, a sniper, Bobby, chooses as his targets the patrons of a drive-in theater showing the real life Karloff in The Terror.
“Bogdanovich attempts to show us just how lethal weapons are,” writes film critic Danny Peary. “He forces us to look through the gun sights with Bobby and help him line up his victim. It is frustrating—we want Bobby to miss but each time we see his aim is true. It is bad enough when unidentified people fall dead, but often Bogdanovich will have Bobby take aim at someone and pull the trigger only to find himself out of bullets. While he reloads we have time to get to know and suffer with the intended prey.”
After killing the projectionist, Bobby climbs down from his perch only to be confronted by Orlok (Karloff). Although Orlok is unarmed, Bobby is perplexed by the image of the real Karloff who seems to be also walking towards him on the immense screen. Bobby shoots at the screen—the “wrong” Orlok—and is then disarmed the “real” Orlok before being arrested.
“The scenes in which Orlok complains that real life is so horrifying that horror films have lost their ability to scare anyone remind us that we are watching a movie,” writes Peary. “While Bogdanovich places the sniper in a screen where The Terror, a not-very-scary Roger Corman horror film starring the real Boris Karloff, is being projected, to prove that Orlok is correct in thinking ‘real’ life more frightening than horror films, he is also reminding us that no matter how terrifying we find Bobby’s actions in Targets, it is only a movie we are watching and doesn’t compare to the real real thing.”
Unfortunately, discerning “the real real thing” from imagined evils is not just the stuff of ambitious directorial debuts.
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NYC Event Alert:
I’m speaking at the Veggie Pride Parade on May 17
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Sunday, May 10, 2009
Mothers and the Great Escape
Perhaps the most famous elephant of the nineteenth century was Jumbo. He was captured in a similar fashion. A hunter, Hermann Schomburgk, shot his mother. He describes it himself: “She collapsed in the rear and gave me the opportunity to jump quickly sideways and bring to bear a deadly shot, after which she immediately died. Obeying the laws of nature, the young animal remained standing beside its [sic] mother …. Until my men arrived, I observed how pitiful little baby continuously ran about its mother while hitting her with his trunk as if he wanted to wake her and make their escape.” …
If you are a mother, what would you do if someone tried to take your child? If you have a mother, what would you feel if someone shot her so they could put you on display? What would you feel as you poked at her, hit her, wanted her to wake up so together you could make your escape, but she did not awaken?
-From Derrick Jensen’s “Thought to Exist in the Wild: Awakening from the Nightmare of Zoos"
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Vegetarianism, the Holocaust and the Myth of Civilization
Lierre Keith’s new book The Vegetarian Myth is generating lots of passionate discussion on vegetarian and vegan blogs and message boards. Here are a couple examples of comments recently posted on the Vegans of Color blog:
“I was just reading about the book elsewhere. I don’t want to buy it though… I don’t want to support the project. I’ll see if I can get it from my library.”
“I would be tempted to review it but not if I had to actually support the book by buying it. And I only say tempted because I really wouldn’t want to give this book any more publicity than it already has.”
These commenters appear interested in reading The Vegetarian Myth, although they seem more inclined to pick up a copy at a library rather than purchasing one. But does borrowing the book from a library mean you won’t be “supporting the project”?
Libraries are more inclined to keep books on their shelves—i.e., not discard them—if they’re getting checked out. And library systems may decide to purchase additional copies of a particular title if they’re getting regular requests from patrons. So, it would seem readers are still “supporting the project” even if they opt to borrow a book from a library ... But I digress.
Whether you “support the project” by purchasing The Vegetarian Myth or indirectly “support the project” by borrowing it from a library or friend, I strongly recommend you read it. For vegetarians and vegans, there’s a good chance you’ll be repulsed by Keith’s return to meat-eating after 20 years of being a vegan. And many vegetarians and vegans may be able to cite studies and sources to counter her arguments, particularly the ones she uses to extol the health benefits and the environmental benefits of eating non-factory-farmed meat and dairy.
But The Vegetarian Myth is a book that addresses a set of related topics about which vegetarians and vegans care so deeply—the food we eat, how it’s produced, and how it affects us—that you’ll likely come away from reading it feeling enriched, so to speak, no matter how empty you think Keith’s argument are or how angry it makes you.
Elsewhere in the same thread on the Vegans of Color blog, one of the commenters addresses some issues raised in The Vegetarian Myth that I didn’t discuss in my earlier review of the book.
“Dani” of the Vegan Ideal writes:
“Since Keith believes that civilization and vegetarianism are ‘substantially the same,’ the book is fanatically anti-vegetarian. For instance, Keith makes an overzealous and misguided attempt to use the Haber-Bosch process to somehow link vegetarianism to the Holocaust. Should we think this is absurd, Keith tells us that is because we are believing the myth of the vegetarians.”
Keith addresses the Haber-Bosch process and the rise of modern agriculture in the “Political Vegetarians” chapter of the book. (As defined by Keith, political vegetarians believe a plant-based diet for humans is more just and sustainable than one based in part on the consumption of animal-based products.) She writes that two out of five people in the world today are alive because of this process. She backs up this statement by citing Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. In his 2006 book, Pollan cites the work of Vaclav Smil, a geographer who wrote a book about Fritz Haber called Enriching the Earth. Pollan writes:
“This is why it may not be hyperbole to claim, as Smil does, that the Haber-Bosch process (Carl Bosch gets the credit for commercializing Haber’s idea) for fixing nitrogen is the most important invention of the twentieth century. He estimate that two out of every five human on earth today would not be alive if not Fritz Haber’s invention. We can easily imagine a world without computers or electricity, Smil points out, but without synthetic fertilizer billions of people would never have been born.”
When humankind acquired the power to “fix” nitrogen, the basis of soil fertility shifted from a total reliance on the energy of the sun to a new reliance on fossil fuel, Pollan writes. The Haber-Bosch process works by combining nitrogen and hydrogen gases under immense heat and pressure in the presence of a catalyst. The heat and pressure are supplied by large amounts of electricity, and the hydrogen is supplied mostly by natural gas today.
In The Vegetarian Myth, Keith highlights the link between fossil fuels and modern agriculture, and how it is an unsustainable practice. As Dani of the Vegan Ideal notes, though, Keith goes further by describing Haber’s ties to Germany’s war machine. Keith writes on page 106:
“Haber also developed poison gases, including ammonia, chlorine, and the Holocaust horror of Zyklon B. He oversaw the first gas attack ever on April 22, 1915. This overlap between war and agriculture will only surprise you if you believe the myth of civilization or the myth of the political vegetarians, which end up substantially the same since their genesis is the same: agriculture and its annual monocrops.”
Dani of the Vegan Ideal is correct to assert that Keith “makes an overzealous and misguided attempt to use the Haber-Bosch process to somehow link vegetarianism to the Holocaust.”
I doubt many people would be surprised by Haber’s involvement in both the development of a process that led to modern agriculture and the development of poison gases used in war. Both involved the use of chemistry. Keith’s statement that this overlap would “only surprise you if you believe the myth of civilization or the myth of political vegetarians” reads similar to the guilt-by-association argument used against vegetarians: that Hitler was a vegetarian, a claim that has been debunked many times.
With regard to the links between agriculture and war, Dani of the Vegan Ideal states: “It’s ironic that Keith claims a plant-based system of food production is inherently linked with war, while she proudly promotes an intensive pastoral system of food production when there is an overwhelming amount of anthropological evidence showing an overlap of herding- and war-based cultures.”
Dani of the Vegan Ideal also contends that Keith describes the exploitation of other animals as a “reciprocal relationship” (page 25) rather than as exploitative. “It’s sad that Keith, who comes from an anti-sexual violence background, would make such a repulsive claim,” Dani of the Vegan Ideal writes. “It’s repulsive, because by reframing the exploitation of other animals as a ‘reciprocal relationship’ in defending animal husbandry Keith depoliticizes that exploitation. It shares a twisted logic with patriarchy and the belief that a woman or child cannot be exploited by a husband, father, or other ‘male head of a household.’”
Dani of the Vegan Ideal raises some interesting and persuasive points about The Vegetarian Myth. But that’s because Dani of the Vegan Ideal read the book—albeit in limited preview on Google Books. Taking whatever time you need to read The Vegetarian Myth will be well worth it. In fact, reading the book may have the unintended effect of making you even more committed to the practice and ideals of veganism. -Mark Hand
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Another Mother's Day (sigh)
An older Mother’s Day article of mine
Bruce Springsteen sez: “Those you are with, in the presence of miracles, you never forget. Life does not separate you. Death does not separate you.”
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Bonus: A non-Mother’s Day shout out to all those women who are child-free and loving it
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NYC Event Alert:
I’m speaking at the Veggie Pride Parade on May 17
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Friday, May 08, 2009
Just What the Herbalist Ordered
Kurt Vonnegut sez: “The late twentieth century will go down in history, I’m sure, as an era of pharmaceutical buffoonery.”
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, more than half of all Americans take at least one prescription drug while one in six takes three or more. As reported by TruthOut.org, an analysis of 168,900 autopsies conducted in Florida in 2007 found that three times as many people were killed by legal drugs than by cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines combined. To make things a little more dramatic: statistically speaking, prescription drugs are 16,400% more deadly than terrorists.
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NYC Event Alert:
I’m speaking at the Veggie Pride Parade on May 17
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And don’t forget: Mickey Z. on YouTube
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Thursday, May 07, 2009
Hired Gun: CCF's Greatest Hits
As tracked by GreenIsTheNewRed.com:
American Idol Star Carrie Underwood Accused of “Supporting Domestic Terrorists”
American Idol star Carrie Underwood is donating a portion of the proceeds from her new single to the Humane Society of the United States, and getting accused of supporting “animal rights terrorists.” One of my favorite lines so far: “Carrie Underwood may think she is supporting puppies and kittens, but she needs to understand that she is supporting domestic terrorists instead.”
Let’s pause for a second and take a look at how idiotic this has all become. The Center for Consumer Freedom needed a hilarious flow chart to attempt to connect HSUS to “terrorism,” and failed miserably. Now, Carrie Underwood is being smeared as a terrorist for being “connected” to HSUS and, as Ecorazzi reports, the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance is trying to put pressure on Fox. What’s next?
Underwood’s single, “Home Sweet Home,” is a cover of a Motley Crue song. Maybe that means they can go after Tommy Lee for supporting terrorism, too? (I mean, he also produced that, ahem, “terrorist training video” with PETA spokesperson Pamela Anderson).
Corporate Front Group Warns PETA’s New Neighbors of “Violence”
The Center for Consumer Freedom, a corporate front group formed by Philip Morris, is warning Dupont Circle businesses that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals may bring “violence” to the Washington, D.C. neighborhood.
CCF’s press release and letter warns neighbors of the “potential for harassment, violence, and mass pet killings” from a “radical animal rights group.”
“It’s not unusual for ordinary people to be unsure about how to act around the group’s employees,” CCF warns. “Please be assured that most of them are harmless unless provoked.”
Lines like that might make you wonder if this is all a joke. But Rick Berman and his crew at the Center for Consumer Freedom are dead serious. The letter is part of an ongoing media campaign by the group to demonize animal rights activists as “animal rights terrorists.” And it’s part of a broader scare-mongering campaign by corporations, politicians and industry groups called the Green Scare.
Center for Consumer Freedom Helps Terrorist Groups Raise Money
Last week the Center for Consumer Freedom, an industry front group, took out a full-page ad in The New York Times accusing the Humane Society of the United States of supporting “terrorism.” Their crime? A speech at a “holiday gala” for a group called the Humane League. If you’re not following, well, you’re not the only one. The ad included a flow chart to explain CCF’s convoluted logic, and their website has a 70-page document trying to support the flow chart.
CCF argues that they connect the Humane Society to bullhorn-wielding “eco-terrorists” in six steps, and in response I created a little contest called “Six Degrees of Consumer Freedom.” I asked you all to trump CCF by connecting them to real terrorists in fewer steps.
I’m proud to say… we have a winner!
Karen left a comment connecting CCF to terrorism in two steps: CCF was created by Philip Morris, and Philip Morris has ties to cigarette smuggling, which directly funds terrorist groups. (Congrats Karen! You’ll be receiving your “domestic terrorist” apron!)
Tofu Makes You Gay and Charlotte’s Web is Animal Rights Extremism
Forget about the First Amendment. The Center for Consumer Freedom, an industry front group, is out there protecting more “delicious civil liberties” (and delicious corporate profits). Their press release on the movie says:
But the images prodding your kids toward the multiplex might be more about animal rights than E.B. White. One Charlotte’s Web commercial airing on Nickelodeon (oddly enough, during an episode of Mr. Meaty) shows heroic bike-riding teens in pig-snout masks “liberating” (read: stealing) a barn full of pigs. Is this illegal? Definitely. Is it appropriate advertising for a G-rated movie? No way.
I should note that the commercial CCF is dubbing a promo for the Animal Liberation Front features “We’re Not Going to Take It” by Twisted Sister. I completely agree that Dee Snider is indeed terrifying and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
The scare-mongering goes on to note:
The TV commercial ends with a plea for kids to visit SaveWilbur.com, a Nickelodeon / Paramount website that encourages kids to “Say no to bacon” and print out stickers reading “Tofu Rulez.”
Apparently those extremists at Paramount aren’t just promoting “eco-terrorism.” They’re trying to turn our kids into rampant homosexuals! I urge introduction of the Hollywood and Homosexual Terrorism Act as quickly as possible.
Head of Center for Consumer Freedom Called a “Despicable Man” by His Own Son
Rick Berman has no shortage of enemies. He and his various front groups have been the hired guns for a laundry list of nasty corporations, smearing anyone for a buck (including Mothers Against Drunk Driving or, as Stephen Colbert calls them, “O-mamma bin Laden”). I’ve written here about one of his groups, the Center for Consumer Freedom, and their campaigns to smear activists as “eco-terrorists” and “animal rights terrorists.” (And we’ve also linked them to terrorism).
So it’s not really breaking news when unions, animal groups, environmentalists and everyone else targeted by Berman rails against him. But the most scathing attack on Berman I’ve ever read comes from his own son.
His son, David Berman, was the head of the band the Silver Jews. When the band broke up, David Berman wrote on Drag City message board, saying “I’ve always hid this terrible shame from you, the fan.” (Stereogum had this story first. Thanks to Liz and Justin for the tip.)
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Derrick Jensen on IMF Protest
Source: Lia Tarachansky
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Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Clean (sic) coal
No matter what the Pope of Hope might think, “clean coal” is a contradiction in terms.
Greenpeace sez: “‘Clean coal’ is the industry’s attempt to ‘clean up’ its dirty image—the industry’s greenwash buzzword. It is not a new type of coal. ‘Clean coal’ technology refers to technologies intended to reduce pollution. But no coal-fired power plants are truly ‘clean’. ‘Clean coal’ methods only move pollutants from one waste stream to another which are then still released into the environment. Any time coal is burnt, contaminants are released and they have to go somewhere. They can be released via the fly ash, the gaseous air emissions, water outflow, or the ash left at the bottom after burning. Ultimately, they still end up polluting the environment.”
I hate to break it to Lord Obama but even the mainstream corporate media has got the goods on this farce. The Washington Post sez: “Clean coal: Never was there an oxymoron more insidious, or more dangerous to our public health. Invoked as often by the Democratic presidential candidates as by the Republicans and by liberals and conservatives alike, this slogan has blindsided any meaningful progress toward a sustainable energy policy.”
We are so fucked…
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NYC Event Alert:
I’m speaking at the Veggie Pride Parade on May 17
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And don’t forget:
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Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Call me Mickey (dis)Mantle
(photo by Nancy Ryan)
Sure, we know the term dismantle by its standard definition:, e.g. “to take apart.” However a variation on that standard definition—"to put an end to in a gradual systematic way"—gets closer to how “dismantle” is often used in a radical sense: dismantle civilization.
Why such a goal? Some persuasively posit that civilization is anti-nature because constant growth requires resources, forests, fuel, food, minerals, etc. Civilization “conveniently views humans as being above nature, its only perceived value as resources to plunder & pillage. Civilized people, cut off from nature and the landbase that supports them, do not perceive themselves as part of the natural world, and in fact often fear it.”
What does it mean to dismantle civilization? In the words of Derrick Jensen, it means: “Depriving the rich of the ability to steal from the poor and to destroy the world.”
So, if the rich (and the politicians they own) want to take away our rights, I say we get our shit together and fight to take away theirs: Their right to pollute, their right to exploit, to wage war, to steal, and to treat all living things as if they were disposable.
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NYC Event Alert:
I’m speaking at the Veggie Pride Parade on May 17
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And don’t forget:
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Sunday, May 03, 2009
Soil Isn’t Just Dirt: A Review of The Vegetarian Myth
By Mark Hand
Review of The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability by Lierre Keith (PM Press, 2009).
On the cover of Lierre Keith’s new book, The Vegetarian Myth, there’s a blurb by environmental activist and author Derrick Jensen that says, “This book saved my life.”
I don’t think I’m prepared at this time to make such a bold pronouncement. However, I may change my mind if my health radically deteriorates and I decide to follow the advice on diet and nutrition dispensed by Keith.
After reading the book, though, I am prepared to write this about it: The Vegetarian Myth tackles a set of related topics—the food we eat, how it’s produced, and how it affects us—with a substance and style that I’ve never read anywhere else.
My summary assessment isn’t as dramatic as Jensen’s “This book saved my life” blurb. Such an opinion would be hard to match, given the consequences at stake in Jensen’s life. Another test of a book’s redeeming value is to determine whether it effectively challenges one’s long-held beliefs on a particular topic. For me, as a vegetarian, The Vegetarian Myth passes this test because it effectively challenged my strongly held belief in the merits of vegetarian and vegan diets.
And The Vegetarian Myth has many other merits, including explaining the awesome destructiveness of agriculture—and the role played by the corporate giants in this sector—in a manner that I, as a layperson on the topic, had never read anywhere else.
The heart of The Vegetarian Myth is composed of three chapters—“Moral Vegetarians,” “Political Vegetarians” and “Nutritional Vegetarians.” Keith defines moral vegetarians as people who believe life is possible without killing other animals. Political vegetarians believe a plant-based diet is more just and sustainable. Nutritional vegetarians believe that animal products are “the root of all dietary evil.”
On a rudimentary level, someone could come away from reading The Vegetarian Myth, particularly the “Nutritional Vegetarians” chapter, thinking the U.S. meat, poultry and dairy industries will love the book—except those pesky parts where she states factory farming of animals is cruel, wasteful and destructive.
In one such pesky part, Keith writes: “Factory farming is a nightmare, from every angle: ethically, ecologically, nutritionally. There’s not word besides torture to describe the experience of laying hens in battery cages, so crowded they can’t lie down or open their wings, driven insane by the bright glare of lights that stay on forever. Torture also describes what happens to pigs, animals that are smarter than dogs, so smart in fact that if they had digits instead of hooves they could probably learn some rudimentary sign language. … This tortuous life ends at the slaughterhouse, where, if not properly stunned and killed, they may be boiled alive in a rendering vat. No moral person can face these facts without a sickening of the spirit.”
In the minds of the executives at these companies and their marketing gurus, would drawing attention to Keith’s fierce opposition to any type of factory farming—the exact type of farming in which each of these industries engages—outweigh the benefits of publicizing her impassioned case against vegetarianism and veganism?
Would it benefit these industries to leverage Keith’s life story—from a meat eater in her youth to 20 years of veganism and back to a meat eater—to promote the supposed nutritional value of consuming their food products?
Will these industries ever know The Vegetarian Myth exists?
Released by PM Press and Jensen’s Flashpoint Press, the book likely will get very little exposure due to the publishers’ limited marketing budgets. But let’s say an executive with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association does get her hands on the book. What will she discover? She will learn that Keith believes humans need to embrace the consumption of animal products, including beef, or else face severe and chronic health problems.
A vegetarian diet, most especially a vegan one, “will damage you. I know,” Keith writes. “Two years into by veganhood, my health failed, and it failed catastrophically. I developed a degenerative joint disease that I will have for the rest of my life. It started that spring as a strange, dull ache deep in a place I didn’t know could have sensation. By the end of the summer, it felt like shrapnel in my spine.”
Keith says her spine now “looks like a sky-diving accident.”
Six weeks into her veganism, Keith says she had her first experience with hypoglycemia. Three months into it, she stopped menstruating. She felt exhausted all the time and had an ever-present cold. Her skin became flaky and itchy. At the age of 24, she developed gastroparesis. She suffered from depression and anxiety.
Keith, now in her mid-40s, says she wasn’t the only one in her circle of friends who developed severe health problems from going vegan. “All the friends of my youth were radical, righteous, intense. Vegetarianism was the obvious path, with veganism the high road alongside it. And those of us who did it long term ended up damaged,” she writes.
Now that Keith has gone back to eating meat and dairy, how has it changed her life? She says her spine “isn’t coming back” but that eating a diet of grass-fed [my emphasis] animal production “has repaired the damage a bit and made a moderate dent in my pain level.” Her insulin receptors “are also down for the count, but protein and fat keep my blood sugar stable and happy,” she says.
She hasn’t missed her period in five years and her stomach is “okay” as long as she takes betaine hydrochloride with every meal. She is now depression-free, but her cold and exhaustion are permanent due to her veganism, she says. And some days her breathing takes more energy than she can spare, all because she lived as a vegan for 20 years, she says.
Keith would be a perfect spokesperson for a national campaign against vegetarianism and veganism, as long as the sponsors of the campaign understood and, even better, shared her distaste for what “civilization” has done to the planet.
Second Thoughts
Keith’s transformation from vegan to campaigner for the human consumption of animal products reads similar to some notable figures who renounced their staunchly held beliefs or past associations in order to bring attention to their current causes. Some recent examples include David Horowitz, who spent most of the 1980s renouncing his “communist” and Marxist upbringing and early adulthood and is now a right-wing political activist; Patrick Moore, an early member of Greenpeace who now serves as a shill for nuclear power; and Bjorn Lomborg, who also was a member of Greenpeace (although Greenpeace says it has no record of him being actively involved in the organization) prior to writing The Skeptical Environmentalist in which he argued that the world’s environmental problems aren’t as serious as many scientists’ claims and that environmental conditions “are going better and they are likely to continue to do so into the future.”
One might argue that Keith’s conversion can be easily differentiated from these three examples because her goals—one of which is putting an end to global biocide as quickly as possible—are much more radical. But one could also argue Horowitz’s support of a more powerful U.S. police state is radical and far out of the American mainstream. And Moore’s support for a nuclear power renaissance certainly runs counter to the beliefs of Wall Street banks, which have been reluctant to invest in new nuclear power plants over the past 25 years, viewing the energy source as too costly and risky. Perhaps Lomborg is the least radical of the group, given his support of the global economic status quo.
And yet, I agree with those who would argue that Keith’s fundamental critique of industrial culture is not represented anywhere in mainstream political discourse or media, unlike the beliefs of Horowitz (FOX News), Moore (Barack Obama/Stephen Harper) and Lomborg (BusinessWeek, Time, The Guardian).
Some might argue that Keith has simply become an advocate of “happy meat”—local, grass-fed, sustainably produced, and humanely raised meat. But that would be unfair. If there were ever a movement devoted to the principles set out in The Vegetarian Myth and if it proved successful, such a movement would easily result in a spectacular reduction in the suffering and torture of animals, compared to what they experience today in factory farms and due to ecosystem devastation.
The leading perpetrator of crimes against animals and the planet, according to Keith, is agriculture. “Liberal remedies will never serve a radical analysis,” she writes. “There is an inherent contradiction in understanding that systems of power must be dismantled while only embracing personal solutions. To put that more bluntly: if agriculture is a war, why aren’t we fighting back?”
In The Vegetarian Myth, Keith uses her 20 years as a vegan to lend credibility to her campaign against agriculture. Along the way, however, she may alienate a large segment of the vegetarian and vegan populations, the groups of people who she hopes to convert to her cause. Describing these segments of the population as a “subculture” with “cult-like elements” will certainly raise eyebrows. It also could prove counterproductive.
Throughout the book, Keith mocks vegetarians and vegans. She portrays them as adolescents. “In the narrative of my life, the first bite of meat after my twenty year hiatus marks the end of my youth, the moment when I assumed the responsibilities of adulthood,” Keith writes. “It was the moment I stopped fighting the basic algebra of embodiment: for someone to live, someone else had to die. In that acceptance, with all its suffering and sorrow, is the ability to choose a different way, a better way.”
In Defense of Animal Fat
According to Keith, not only misguided and naive individuals like her, but entire nations have benefited from moving toward a diet based on large amounts of animal fat. The Japanese have been living healthier and longer lives since they started eating a more “Western” diet, higher in total fat and animal fat, she writes. The studies she cites run counter to conventional wisdom, which has told us that the health of residents in Japan and other Asian countries has grown worse since they increased their intake of animal fat.
The Japanese have “increased their consumption both of total fat and animal fat over 250 percent since 1961—and they are now the longest living people in the world,” Keith writes.
And in the United States, the past 15 years have seen a reduction in fat consumption of almost 25%, but our health has only gotten worse, according to Keith. Americans have done what the experts have told them—“ate less fat, more carbohydrates – and have gotten sicker,” she writes.
Clinical studies, according to Keith, have found that low-fat diets increase anger, depression and anxiety. Low cholesterol levels occur more often among criminals, individuals diagnosed with violent or aggressive conduct disorders, and homicidal offenders with histories of violence and suicide attempts related to alcohol.
Currently, 40% of Americans are killed by coronary heart disease. The rate of coronary heart disease has increased at the same time that the proportion of animal fats consumed by people in the United States dropped from 83% to 62% and the consumption of vegetable oils has increased by 400%.
“You tell me what to blame: the saturated fats we’ve always eaten—for four million years—or the industrially manufactured oils that until recently were used in paint,” she writes.
Unlike the general meat-eating population, a large percentage of the target audience of Keith’s book—the “subculture” of vegans and vegetarians—have studied the impact of factory meat production on the environment. This subculture has concluded that it is not only more humane, but better for the entire planet and more efficient to refrain from eating animal products. They’ve probably read that it takes approximately 16 pounds of grain and 2,500 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat in a factory farm. Much of this grain is grown in developing countries, where a large percentage of their land is used for cattle-raising for export to the United States, instead of being used to grow staple crops, which could feed local people directly. In a world where a child starves to death every 2 seconds, it seems impossible to justify such waste.
Oops! Grains and staple crops are products of agriculture, Keith reminds us. “The truth is that agriculture is the most destructive thing humans have done to the planet, and more of the same won’t save us,” she writes. “The truth is that agriculture requires the wholesale destruction of entire ecosystems.”
Unlike the general meat-eating population, a large percentage of vegetarians and vegans will not get lost or utterly confused when Keith states, “What’s looming in the shadows of our ignorance and denial is a critique of civilization itself.”
“Critique of civilization”? The average American, who might have been nodding in agreement while reading the “Nutritional Vegetarians” chapter, in which she slams vegetarians and vegans, will grow suspicious when Keith speaks of bringing down civilization in order to save the planet and ourselves.
“The words ‘animal rights,’ ‘vegetarian,’ and ‘vegan’ are some of the most mocked and emotionally loaded terms in our language, even in very liberal circles. One has to wonder if a multibillion dollar meat industry hasn’t had a part in making these words and the ideals behind them seem so laughable to so many people,” Sunaura Taylor and Alexander Taylor write in a recent essay.
Looking beyond her case against vegetarianism and veganism, Keith’s book is essentially a well-researched indictment of the U.S. food industry—and, yes, civilization itself.
The food industry has developed more than 100,000 new processed foods since 1990, she writes. She spends several pages discussing soy and how big agriculture has heralded soy as a panacea for everything from hot flashes to world hunger. “Soy contains so many anti-nutrients that it isn’t edible for humans without a lot of processing, substantially more than other seeds,” she writes.
In discussing Asian cultures’ relationship with soy, Keith writes, “The Chinese ate soy as a protein source only when they were starving—when they also ate their children.”
The Vegetarian Myth is at its strongest when Keith avoids using attention-grabbing “ate their children” polemical ploys. In the “Moral Vegetarians” chapter, she goes into wonderful detail about soil and how one tablespoon of it “contains more than one million living organisms, and, yes, every one of them is eating.”
“Soil isn’t just dirt,” she writes. “A square meter of topsoil can contain a thousand different species of animals.”
Grasping the Concept of Domestication
Keith explains the reciprocal relationship between animals and plants and how she didn’t fully understand this relationship when she was a vegan. She writes about the concept of domestication and how it’s not well understood by people who claim to be against it.
“I saw domestication as bringing animals and plants under human control and it was appalling to me, a short trajectory that ended in hens tormented in battery cages and primates brutalized in head injury experiments,” she writes. “Of course, my entire diet was composed of domesticates, with the exception of a serving or two of fiddlehead ferns every spring, but they were plants, so I simply didn’t think about it. It was the animals I wanted to save from human exploitation, and in the vegan outlook, exploitation begins with domestication.”
In the “Political Vegetarians” chapter, Keith explains that where she parts company with them is when they conflate factory farming with any and all meat.
She describes how a 10-acre non-factory farm “of perennial polyculture in a mid-Atlantic climate” could produce 3,000 eggs, 1,000 broilers, 80,000 stewing hens, 2,000 pounds of beef, 2,500 pounds of pork, 100 turkeys and 50 rabbits.
“This is the amount of food that Joel Salatin—one of the high priests of the local, sustainable movement—produces on ten acres of his Polyface Farm in Virginia. The chickens get some supplemental grain; everything else eats grass,” she writes.
If people ate nothing but the above, it would be enough food to support at least nine people for a full year and support them in full health by providing essential protein and fat, Keith writes.
Political vegetarians, on the other hand, are planning a planetary diet in complete ignorance of where food comes from, she writes. “Advocates like Peter Singer and John Robbins want us to grow annual grains and no animals at all,” Keith writes. “Set aside the topsoil, water, climate, and typography problems. What is going to fertilize that grain? Peter, John: what is going to feed your food? Vegetarians like everyone else in urban industrial culture, have no concept that plants need to eat, that soil is alive and hungry. They seem shocked when I ask them what will feed their food.”
With regard to the top environmental issue of the day in mainstream circles, global warming, Keith argues it all began with agriculture. “Ten thousand years of destroying the carbon sinks of perennial polycultures has added almost as much carbon to the atmosphere as industrialization, an indictment that you, vegetarians, need to answer,” she writes.
Our Only Hope Is in the Soil
To save the world, we must first stop destroying it, according to Keith. “Cast your eyes down when you pray, not in fear of some god above, but in recognition: our only hope is in the soil, and in the trees, grasses and wetlands that are its children and its protectors both.”
Toward the end of the book, as she tries to rally the troops and unite the factions, Keith calls for a new populism and a serious political movement combining environmentalists, farm activists, animal rights activists, feminists, indigenous people, anti-globalization and relocalization efforts that fights for a new, and living, world.
I assume Neal Barnard and my other former colleagues at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, where I briefly worked almost 20 years ago, will be able to respond to Keith’s “Nutritional Vegetarians” chapter with studies and evidence of their own showing that people live longer, healthier, and happier lives on a vegan diet.
I’m not a dietician, so I can only use my personal experience and those of others I know to say that I have not witnessed vegetarianism and veganism produce the endemic harmful health effects that Keith chronicles in The Vegetarian Myth. I’ve been a vegetarian for more than 15 years and I’ve never been healthier. I’ve always been physically active. But since becoming a vegetarian, my strength and stamina have improved to the point that I’m a faster marathoner, half-marathoner, 10-miler and 10-kilometer racer today, in my early 40s, than I’ve ever been, including when I was a meat-eating, dairy-loving captain of my cross-country team in high school.
However, I’m not going to rule out the possibility that I would run even faster if I started eating meat again. It’s certainly possible, but I don’t plan on giving it a test anytime soon.
With regard to Keith urging vegetarians and vegans to eat meat and dairy or else face chronic health problems and an early demise, I assume such a move would only hasten the oft-predicted ecological collapse. There are not enough farms like Polyface Farm to support all of the vegetarians and vegans in the United States if they were to begin eating locally grown, grass fed animals. This means that these vegetarians and vegans would need to eat factory-produced meat in order to get proper amounts of protein, Vitamin D and Vitamin B12. These are the same factory farms that rely on agriculture, and all of its devastating qualities, to provide the grains to feed their animals.
My advice would be for vegetarians and vegans to monitor your health very carefully (as I’m sure you already do), and to adjust the types of food you eat if you begin feeling the same symptoms and enduring the same debilitating conditions experienced by Keith. And if you do go back to eating meat and dairy, try to avoid, if at all possible, factory-farmed food products.
If you, as vegetarians and vegans, are able to read with an open mind the sections of Keith’s book where she slams the vegetarian and vegan lifestyles as naïve, unhealthful and destructive, I think you’ll appreciate the rest of The Vegetarian Myth because it gets to the root of the problems that are driving our culture toward ecological collapse.
Our industrial culture, including factory farming, is destroying our planet. The Vegetarian Myth is a tremendously helpful resource that can help guide us away from the abyss and toward sustainability.
Mark Hand can be reached at .
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The F Word
What is feminism? My favorite definition comes from the inimitable bell hooks: “A movement to end sexism, sexual exploitation, and oppression.” This description not only exposes any non-feminist as the dogmatist he/she is, it also dovetails nicely with the concept of self-defense.
First, there are the three iniquities feminism seeks to abolish (sexism, sexual exploitation, oppression). Many physical attacks are essentially oppressive gestures spawned by a perceived ability to exploit a weaker (sic) gender. Therefore, any struggle to eradicate such attacks (and the mindset behind them) is—by definition—self-defense. Whether the person fighting back is a female or male is not the point. However, the vastly greater number of female targets consequently creates more female fighters.
In addition, bell hooks uses the word “movement.” In a literal sense, self-defense requires movement: evading attack, disabling your attacker, and then getting away from the attack scene as quickly as possible.
Conclusion: Fighting back is feminism in action.
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NYC Event Alert:
I’m speaking at the Veggie Pride Parade on May 17
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And don’t forget:
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Friday, May 01, 2009
Remember The Martyrs
In “Minimum Security,” a furious (yet adorable) bunny and his friends confront countless obstacles to pursue their dreams. Whether it’s to save the world or to break into the competitive world of accordion superstardom, they use everything from plucky grit to the willful denial of unrealistic expectations to achieve their goals. And, in Bunnista’s case, an impressive arsenal of gray-market weaponry.
The title is inspired by a prisoner who, after being released into general society, observed in an interview, “I’m still not free; I’m just in minimum security.” “Minimum Security” is an allegory of a society headed over the precipice into who-knows-what.
Characters:
Bunnista: After escaping from the mascara section of a cosmetics testing lab, Bunnista made it his mission to destroy evil as he sees it (one missing eye notwithstanding). Not so unrelatedly, he’s an ardent explosives and weapons enthusiast.
Kranti: Kranti wears leaves and lives outside in a quest to rewild herself and to restore the planet as a whole to its natural state. Beneath her harsh, uncompromising exterior is a person who’s really hard to get along with.
Bananabelle: With her good heart and cheerful nature, Bananabelle just wants everyone to get along and for everything to work out in the end. To keep hope alive, she embraces denial as her most effective tool.
Nikko: Kranti’s brother deploys his considerable charm and intelligence to achieve a life of glamor, fun, comfort and junk food.
Javier: Nikko’s boyfriend is passionate about politics and art. He’s convinced that the most effective way to change the minds of millions, and thus save the world, is by playing Animist riot-polkacore music on the accordion.
Chip: He’s filthy rich, he’s narcissistic (not that those things necessarily go together, ahem), and he burns with the desire for true love (without really knowing what that is).
Other characters include Fluffy, a dog who wants nothing more than a colossal mountain of bones (with little bits of rotting meat still attached), Bunnista’s mom, who wields her cleaning implements with fierce assertiveness, and a polar bear who eats oil company shareholders in an attempt to save the polar ice caps (plus they just taste so good).
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Operation Cease and Desist: Derrick Jensen and Mickey Z. Liberate Arlington
Authors Derrick Jensen and Mickey Z. came to Arlington, Va., on April 25, 2009 to speak about what they think is wrong with our society and culture and the ways we can right the wrongs.
Born and raised in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens, Mickey Z. is the author of several books, including his latest non-fiction book, No Innocent Bystanders: Riding Shotgun in the Land of Denial.
Mickey Z. sez: “As Malcolm X used to love to say, ‘You’ve been had, you’ve been took, you’ve been hoodwinked, bamboozled and led astray.’ And I submit, the reason for this is a little something I like to call propaganda. And I know this is not a word commonly used in polite discourse in our country. We prefer euphemisms like spin and hype and public relations. But don’t kid yourself. We live in a corporate propaganda state.”

Mickey Z.’s novel, CPR for Dummies, was released in 2008.
Derrick Jensen is the author of thirteen books, including A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, and Endgame.
A Bunnista sandwich.

Mickey Z. asks: “What is normal in our country and on our planet? ... Normal means that shortly after World War II, the Department of War was magically transformed into the Defense Department.”

Derrick Jensen sez: “One of the good things about everything being so fucked up—about the culture being so ubiquitously destructive—is that no matter where you look—no matter what your gifts, no matter where your heart lies—there’s good and desperately important work to be done.”

Mickey, Derrick and Michele.

In his latest novel, Songs of the Dead, Derrick Jensen writes: “I know now that there is and always has been a heart that beats beyond the grasping of our mechanical fingers, unfound in the claws of our braced backhoes, slipping away in the face of our too-coarse bulldozers. The past resides in the soil, and though we believe it blows away and is lost, that is not true. It is there all the time, though we do not see it.”

Mickey, Zen Prole and Michele.
