Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Ah-Anti-Anti-Capitalista: Insatiable is not sustainable
I often wonder what the cops, passersby, media types, etc. are thinking when occupiers break into the joyous song/dance of ah-anti-anti-capitalista.
Here in the Land of the Free™, we are consciously conditioned to worship capitalism (and capitalists) so I’ll bet some outsiders perceive such a chant as a very convenient excuse to dismiss Occupy Wall Street (OWS) as—pick one—naïve, anarchist, communist, socialist, anti-American, selfish, lazy, or “too radical.”
Losing potential allies might lead some to ditch any blatant anti-capitalism slogans but what if we instead put in the time and effort to explain the simple—and I do mean simple—reasoning behind such sentiment?
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New photo:
May 14 animal rights panel @ Brecht Forum
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Sunday, May 13, 2012
A Little Idea: #Occupy a Beautiful Beginning
The first form one learns in Wing Chun Kung Fu is called Sil Lum Tao, which is usually translated as “a little idea.”
Free food, music, medical care, art, and books: All little ideas. The same goes for so much more, e.g. the People’s Mic, bicycle-generated electricity, pop-up occupations and Town Squares, hand signals, permaculture, and of course, an all-inclusive, consensus-based, horizontal collective model of human interaction (well, maybe that last one is more than a little idea).
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One of my recent OWS photos:
Can I get a raised fist?
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Thursday, May 10, 2012
At the heart of an occupation
Occupier Stacy Lanyon has been gathering stories that defy everything most of us have read or heard about #OWS. I’m proud to say she recently interviewed me.
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One of my recent OWS photos:
Ah-anti-anti-capitalista
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The People’s Gong, May 9:
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Monday, May 07, 2012
In Defense of Occupation: Dealing with skeptics
So, you took off work on May 1 and opted to not tell anyone at the workplace. Little did you know that you’d end up recognized by a sharp-eyed co-worker in footage on the Evening News. Before long, you’re face-to-face with a skeptical colleague, who muses: What do the occupiers want? Why is there no clear agenda?
You: Um, have you heard of a little something called the Declaration of the Occupation of New York City.
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One of my recent OWS photos:
OWS/Cannabis March: May 5, 2012
More OWS/Cannabis march photos here
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Courtesy of Rick the Cartoonist:
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Friday, May 04, 2012
Declaring a Farm Forever Inviolate of Drilling for Shale Gas
By Press Action
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive?. I like a little rebellion now and then." -Thomas Jefferson
Drawing upon this nation’s Declaration of Independence as inspiration, Dr. J. Stephen Cleghorn, co-founder of the 50-acre Paradise Gardens and Farm organic farm that sits above the Marcellus Shale formation, is holding a press conference to declare—in defiance of any established laws which say otherwise—that his farm shall never be violated from above or below by unconventional shale gas drilling. He will seal his declaration upon the scattering of ashes that are all that is left of the farm’s co-founder, his late wife Dr. Lucinda Hart-González, who died of cancer in November 2011.
“May her ashes,” he will say as he drops them to the ground below, “declare this farm forever inviolate of any attack upon it as a living system. Her blessed ashes hereby declare a new right of love at the surface and forever below this farm that no gas drill may ever penetrate.”
WHO: Dr. Cleghorn will be joined by grassroots activists who oppose shale gas drilling from the Pennsylvania Alliance for Clean Water and Air (PACWA), Marcellus Protest, Protecting Our Waters and several others. Also invited: Senator Joseph Scarnati, Speaker Sam Smith, J. Brett Harvey (CEO of CONSOL Energy), Douglas H. Miller (CEO of EXCO Resources) and Larry and Maxine Burkett of Punxsutawney, who hold the deed to the gas rights under the farm.
WHAT: Press conference will begin with a PACWA summary of over 100 reported cases of people and animals sickened by exposure to gas drilling activities. Ben Price of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund will speak briefly of efforts to ban unconventional gas drilling based on a new Bill of Rights that includes the Rights of Nature. Cleghorn will have a short statement and move to the invocation of blessings with his wife’s ashes. His herd of 97 goats will stand by in witness. Legislators, gas company executives and the Burketts will have an opportunity to make a brief statement if they like and remain to take questions.
WHERE: 2771 Paradise Road, Reynoldsville, PA 15851—in the upper pasture.
WHEN: May 10, 2012. 11 AM - 12:30 PM. (Rain or shine)
WHY: The recently enacted Act 13 is an unacceptable corporate raid on our democracy. Pennsylvanians will not stand for it anymore. Cleghorn will stand his ground against the corporate tyranny that is poisoning the state’s water and air while sickening its people and animals. “We need a new paradigm for how we live on this Earth,” states Cleghorn. “Let’s have a little rebellion. Individual acts of resistance such as mine are but part of an ongoing movement and organization to create a new foundation of law based on the Rights of Nature.”
Top Photo: Courtesy of Paradise Gardens and Farm, LLC
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Thursday, May 03, 2012
Daisy Cutters Into Daisies: #NoWarButClassWar
Seed bombs are compressed balls of soil and compost that have been impregnated with wildflower seeds. When jettisoned onto construction sites, abandoned lots, etc. seed bombs become a method of protesting and combating urban sprawl.
The BLU-82B or “Daisy Cutter” bomb has been described as “the largest conventional bomb in existence and is 17 feet long and 5 feet in diameter, about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle but much heavier. It contains 12,600 pounds of GX slurry (ammonium nitrate, aluminum powder, and polystyrene) … the ammonium nitrate in just one Daisy Cutter bomb is about six times the amount used in the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.”
Seed bombs are used to turn forsaken parcels of urban land into gardens.
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One of my May Day photos:
Union Square Park: Occupied for May Day
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Wednesday, May 02, 2012
EPA Official Trumpets Gas Industry as Top Lieutenant Gets Crucified
By Press Action
In the wake of the resignation of a high-ranking U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official who used the word “crucify” to describe his philosophy of enforcement against polluters, other agency officials are determined not to make further utterances that could offend the oil and gas sector and other polluting industries. In fact, the agency is going out of its way to sing natural gas’ praises.
Speaking May 1 at a conference on the health effects of shale gas drilling, Bob Perciasepe, the EPA’s deputy administrator and the nation’s second-ranking environmental official, repeatedly said natural gas is going to play a significant role in the nation’s energy future. He touted the fact that U.S. oil and gas production has increased since President Obama took office in 2009.
Perciasepe also discounted arguments that the nation can have either a strong economy or environmental protection, but not both. “Our primary view on this is that it is a false debate,” he said. “Simultaneously, we can do environmental protection and have economic growth.”
With the ability to extract large volumes of natural gas locked in shale rock formations, the United States has an opportunity to be “that innovative shining light for energy development,” he proclaimed.
Perciasepe made his comments at a conference in Washington, D.C., hosted by the Institute of Medicine, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences, to discuss the health impacts of shale gas extraction. His speech came a day after Dr. Al Armendariz resigned as administrator of EPA Region 6, which oversees environmental enforcement issues in Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.
At a local Texas government meeting in Texas in 2010, Armendariz made the mistake of using the word “crucify” as a synonym for “punish.” In a video of his speech that started circulating widely shortly before he resigned, Armendariz said, “It was kind of like how the Romans used to, you know, conquer villages in the Mediterranean. They’d go in to a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw, and they’d crucify them. And then, you know, that town was really easy to manage for the next few years.”
By making examples out of companies that pollute and are not complying with the law, “you hit them as hard as you can” to act as a “deterrent” to others, he said.
As a high-ranking official in the nation’s environmental police force, Armendariz’s enforcement policy appeared to be a sound one. The EPA, in theory, exists to protect human health and the environment. But Armendariz quickly found out that when a government official speaks bluntly about cracking down on corporate polluters, his or her days on the job are numbered.
No one in the Obama administration offered Armendariz any public support as the lunatic fringe in Congress and their partners in the corporate press called for his ouster. In his resignation letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, Armendaris said, “As I have expressed publicly, and to you directly, I regret comments I made several years ago that do not in any way reflect my work as regional administrator. … I have come to the conclusion that my continued service will distract you and the agency from its important work.”
In an April 30 statement, Sharon Wilson, Gulf regional organizer for the environmental group Earthworks, said that when Armendariz resigned, “drilling-impacted communities lost a champion in the fight to improve the fracking industry’s lamentable track record of sacrificing community health and clean water for the sake of maximizing corporate profits.”
“Dr. Armendariz exemplified much of what an environmental regulator should be: expert on the issues, and concerned for the public and the environment before all else—not to the exclusion of all else, but before all else,” Wilson said. “In other words, he exemplified the very reason the Environmental Protection Agency exists.”
Wilson said Armendariz’s resignation also is regrettable because “it may signal a premature end of what is a much-needed public conversation about what effective environmental enforcement is.”
Armendariz’s call for punishing companies that break the law to deter other companies from breaking the law is the justification behind most criminal penalties, “especially in Texas” where that argument “amounts to the holy writ when it comes to punishing criminal persons … except apparently, in cases when the criminal person happens to be a corporation.”
Back in Washington, instead of supporting one of his top lieutenants in the field who had worked hard to protect human health and the environment, Perciasepe, EPA’s second-most powerful official, was busy praising the gas industry’s ability to create jobs and trumpeting the decades’ worth of gas supplies. It is “undeniable that natural gas will play a key role in our nation’s energy future,” he told the audience at the Institute of Medicine conference.
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Tuesday, May 01, 2012
The Anarchist 'Terrorists' Arrested in May Day Plot Were Supplied by the FBI
...and an Informant With a Lengthy Criminal Record
By Will Potter
As the Occupy movement carries out massive May Day protests around the country, the FBI Joint Terrorism Task force is trumpeting the arrest of “self-proclaimed anarchists” and “terrorists” who allegedly conspired to destroy a bridge in Ohio. Integral to the development and advancement of this plot, however, were FBI agents themselves and an informant with a drug and robbery record.
Douglas L. Wright, 26; Brandon L. Baxter, 20; and Anthony Hayne, 35, Connor C. Stevens, 20, and Joshua S. Stafford, 23, were arrested by the FBI on April 30, just in time to make the announcement as the nation turns its attention to May Day protests.
The affidavit reveals a plot by the FBI that continues a pattern of behavior in “terrorism” investigations against political activists. Most importantly, undercover FBI agents helped shape the “plot,” offered advice on how and where to use explosives, and allegedly sold explosives to the activists.
Pervasive Use of Informants and Undercover FBI
The informant in the case has been working with the FBI since July 20, 2011, and has a criminal record including possession of cocaine, conviction for robbery, and four convictions for passing bad checks. (The FBI’s proclivity for using down-and-out criminals was a key issue in the “Operation Backfire” Earth Liberation Front cases. The lead arsonist and informant, Jacob Ferguson, had a heroine addiction, and is now back in prison on drug charges).
The informant and the others haphazardly talked about various plans, starting with the use of smoke grenades and destroying the banks signs off the top of large buildings.
For instance, on April 10, 2012: ““…BAXTER explained that he does not know what to do with the explosives and he has never considered blowing anything up before.”
Conversation shifted to other outrageous plans. According to the affidavit, “WRIGHT joked that he would wear a suicide vest and walk in and blow himself up, but advised he would have to be very drunk.”
“The CHS [the informant] asked the others what it is they wanted to do… BAXTER said that they had never decided on the bridge, they were just throwing out options and they had never decided on anything.”
FBI Guidance
The defendants flitted between hyperbolic conversations -– some about destroying bank signs, some about destroying a boat, some about a bridge — and various spy tactics such as secret email accounts, wiping computer drives, and disrupting surveillance. At every step of the way, the informant (who was paid nearly $6,000, plus expenses) and undercover FBI agents were there to correct course.
At one point Wright asked the undercover FBI agent “if there was any work he could do… to pay for the items he was going to purchase” from the agent. Later, Wright told the confidential source that he no longer wanted to be part of the plan, but wanted to know if the informant might hire him to do some work on his house.
At another point, Wright told the informant that he and others thought one of the individuals involved was an undercover cop (which he was). To allay his fears, the informant said he would help provide the explosives.
Clamoring to Thwart ‘Terrorist Plots’
U.S. Attorney Dettelbach called this a violent terrorist plot, and said: “The defendants stand charged based not upon any words or beliefs they might espouse, but based upon their own plans and actions.”
What’s troubling is that the government has had a heavy hand in creating the very plot it thwarted.
And on top of that, the defendants, by the admission of the FBI, said repeatedly that they had no intention of harming anyone. At one point Baxter and Wright “stated they don’t want people to think they are terrorists.”
This isn’t an isolated instance.
The criminal complaint reads like the spitting image of the case of Eric McDavid, who was coaxed by an undercover FBI operative named “Anna.” In that case, like this one, the FBI supplied bomb making recipes, bomb making materials, and attempts to distill activist boasting and hyperbole into a coherent plan.
McDavid did nothing, and was arrested on conspiracy charges, like these defendants have been. As readers of this site know, conspiracy charges are the fall-back for the government when there is not enough evidence to get anything else to “stick.”
Demonization of Anarchism
In addition to a continuation of undercover informants and FBI-manufactured plots, this case also reflects on an-going focus on demonizing anarchists.
The government’s press release proclaims that the defendants are “self-proclaimed anarchists.” The affidavit notes that they attended anarchist protests and carried anarchist flags.
The affidavit also says that the defendants talked about anarchists “rioting and destroying each city” that holds May Day protests, and that it will be “off the hook.”
Demonizing anarchists has gone one for over a century, of course, but in recent years the rhetoric has dovetailed with “War on Terrorism” hysteria.
For example, in Scott Demuth’s case, the government argued that: “Defendant’s writings, literature, and conduct suggest that he is an anarchist and associated with the ALF movement. Therefore, he is a domestic terrorist.”
In another case, the government sought a high cash bond against environmentalist Hugh Farrell because “the defendant has been observed advocating literature and materials which advocate anarchy.”
It should come as no surprise, then, that the announcement of these arrests was carefully unveiled yesterday, so that the top news story this May Day would not be about how anarchists are preventing home foreclosures, starting community gardens, teaching collective organizing skills, and re-framing class consciousness, but about how they were part of an FBI-guided “terrorist plot.”
Will Potter is an award-winning independent journalist who focuses on “eco-terrorism,” the environmental and animal rights movements, and civil liberties post-9/11. He is the author of the book “Green Is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement Under Siege."
This article is reprinted from the Green Is the New Red website with the permission of the author.
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The Anarchist Origins of May Day
By Workers Solidarity Movement
Not many people know why May Day became International Workers Day and why we should still celebrate it. It all began more than 125 years ago when the American Federation of Labor adopted an historic resolution which asserted that “eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s labor from and after May 1, 1886".
In the months prior to this date workers in there thousands were drawn into the struggle for the shorter day. Skilled and unskilled, black and white, men and women, native and immigrant were all becoming involved.
Chicago
In Chicago alone 400,000 were out on strike. A newspaper of that city reported that “no smoke curled up from the tall chimneys of the factories and mills, and things had assumed a Sabbath-like appearance”. This was the main center of the agitation, and here the anarchists were in the forefront of the labor movement. It was to no small extent due to their activities that Chicago became an outstanding trade union center and made the biggest contribution to the eight-hour movement.
When on May 1, 1886, the eight hour strikes convulsed that city, one half of the workforce at the McCormick Harvester Co. came out. Two days later a mass meeting was held by 6,000 members of the “lumber shovers” union who had also come out. The meeting was held only a block from the McCormick plant and was joined by some 500 of the strikers from there.
[Print out and distribute a PDF leaflet of this text]
The workers listened to a speech by the anarchist August Spies, who had been asked to address the meeting by the Central Labor Union. While Spies was speaking, urging the workers to stand together and not give in to the bosses, the strikebreakers were beginning to leave the nearby McCormick plant. The strikers, aided by the ‘lumber shovers’ marched down the street and forced the scabs back into the factory. Suddenly a force of 200 police arrived and, without any warning, attacked the crowd with clubs and revolvers. They killed at least one striker, seriously wounded five or six others and injured an indeterminate number.
Outraged by the brutal assaults he had witnessed, Spies went to the office of the Arbeiter-Zeitung (a daily anarchist newspaper for German immigrant workers) and composed a circular calling on the workers of Chicago to attend a protest meeting the following night. The protest meeting took place in the Haymarket Square and was addressed by Spies and two other anarchists active in the trade union movement, Albert Parsons and Samuel Fielden.
The Police Attack
Throughout the speeches the crowd was orderly. Mayor Carter Harrison, who was present from the beginning of the meeting, concluded that “nothing looked likely to happen to require police interference”. He advised police captain John Bonfield of this and suggested that the large force of police reservists waiting at the station house be sent home.
It was close to ten in the evening when Fielden was closing the meeting. It was raining heavily and only about 200 people remained in the square. Suddenly a police column of 180 men, headed by Bonfield, moved in and ordered the people to disperse immediately. Fielden protested “we are peaceable”.
Bomb
At this moment a bomb was thrown into the ranks of the police. It killed one, fatally wounded six more and injured about seventy others. The police opened fire on the spectators. How many were wounded or killed by the police bullets was never exactly ascertained.
A reign of terror swept over Chicago. The press and the pulpit called for revenge, insisting the bomb was the work of socialists and anarchists. Meeting halls, union offices, printing works and private homes were raided. All known socialists and anarchists were rounded up. Even many individuals ignorant of the meaning of socialism and anarchism were arrested and tortured. “Make the raids first and look up the law afterwards” was the public statement of Julius Grinnell, the state’s attorney.
Trial
Eventually eight men stood trial for being “accessories to murder”. They were Spies, Fielden, Parsons, and five other anarchists who were influential in the labor movement, Adolph Fischer, George Engel, Michael Schwab, Louis Lingg and Oscar Neebe.
The trial opened on June 21, 1886 in the criminal court of Cooke County. The candidates for the jury were not chosen in the usual manner of drawing names from a box. In this case a special bailiff, nominated by state’s attorney Grinnell, was appointed by the court to select the candidates. The defense was not allowed to present evidence that the special bailiff had publicly claimed “I am managing this case and I know what I am about. These fellows are going to be hanged as certain as death”.
Rigged jury
The eventual composition of the jury was farcical; being made up of businessmen, their clerks and a relative of one of the dead policemen. No proof was offered by the state that any of the eight men before the court had thrown the bomb, had been connected with its throwing, or had even approved of such acts. In fact, only three of the eight had been in Haymarket Square that evening.
No evidence was offered that any of the speakers had incited violence, indeed in his evidence at the trial Mayor Harrison described the speeches as “tame”. No proof was offered that any violence had been contemplated. In fact, Parsons had brought his two small children to the meeting.
Sentenced
That the eight were on trial for their anarchist beliefs and trade union activities was made clear from the outset. The trial closed as it had opened, as was witnessed by the final words of Attorney Grinnell’s summation speech to the jury. “Law is on trial. Anarchy is on trial. These men have been selected, picked out by the Grand Jury, and indicted because they were leaders. There are no more guilty than the thousands who follow them. Gentlemen of the jury; convict these men, make examples of them, hang them and you save our institutions, our society.”
On August 19 seven of the defendants were sentenced to death, and Neebe to 15 years in prison. After a massive international campaign for their release, the state ‘compromised’ and commuted the sentences of Schwab and Fielden to life imprisonment. Lingg cheated the hangman by committing suicide in his cell the day before the executions. On November 11, 1887 Parsons, Engel, Spies and Fischer were hanged.
Pardoned
Six hundred thousand working people turned out for their funeral. The campaign to free Neebe, Schwab and Fielden continued.
On June 26, 1893 Governor Altgeld set them free. He made it clear he was not granting the pardon because he thought the men had suffered enough, but because they were innocent of the crime for which they had been tried. They and the hanged men had bin the victims of “hysteria, packed juries and a biased judge”.
The authorities had believed at the time of the trial that such persecution would break the back of the eight-hour movement. Indeed, evidence later came to light that the bomb may have been thrown by a police agent working for Captain Bonfield, as part of a conspiracy involving certain steel bosses to discredit the labor movement.
When Spies addressed the court after he had been sentenced to die, he was confident that this conspiracy would not succeed. “If you think that by hanging us you can stamp out the labor movement … the movement from which the downtrodden millions, the millions who toil in misery and want, expect salvation—if this is your opinion, then hang us! Here you will tread on a spark, but there and there, behind you—and in front of you, and everywhere, flames blaze up. It is a subterranean fire. You cannot put it out”.
Source: http://www.wsm.ie/c/origins-mayday
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Monday, April 30, 2012
Communities Grow More Polarized in Uncertain World of Shale Gas Development
By Press Action
“The areas of the United States having the highest levels of long‐term poverty, outside of those having a history of racial inequalities, tend to be found in the very places that were once the site of thriving extractive industries.” -William R. Freudenburg
The fracking debate isn’t only about the environmental damage. The economic and social impacts of shale gas drilling also are proving divisive in state houses and communities located above natural gas fields across the country.
In Pennsylvania, residents who live in counties with the heaviest shale gas industry activity are experiencing an increase in social conflict, Timothy Kelsey Ph.D., professor of agricultural economics at Pennsylvania State University, said at an April 30 conference on the health impacts of shale gas extraction. The conference, held in Washington, D.C., was sponsored by the Institute of Medicine, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences.
Communities “are becoming more polarized” between those residents for and against drilling in the Marcellus Shale, Kelsey said. Part of the conflict is between “the haves and the have-nots”—landowners who received relative pennies from gas companies to lease their land and those who struck more lucrative deals, he said.
Kelsey emphasized that the shale gas industry is engaging in “resource-based economic development—when it’s gone, it’s gone.” There needs to be a longer-term focus, one that looks at the economic and social health of communities when the shale gas boom is over, he said.
Shale gas drilling began in earnest in Pennsylvania in 2007, and since then, the state government has seen higher tax collections from sales and income taxes, Kelsey said. At the local level, though, there has been little change in government tax collections, although local governments are seeing higher costs. And there remains a great sense of uncertainty about the costs and benefits of shale gas drilling, especially with how it will affect communities and families, he argued.
There is a similar sense of uncertainty across the border in New York where a battle is raging over the future of shale gas drilling. The gas industry is champing at the bit to drill, while shale gas drilling foes are hoping to keep natural gas volumes locked underground.
Many experts are asking, what’s the hurry? There is no need for New York and the rest of the United States to rush into the “uncertain world of shale gas development,” especially with the nation’s current oversupply of natural gas, according to Jannette Barth Ph.D., an economist who has spent the past several years studying the economic impact of natural gas drilling in New York.
Barth, who has more than 35 years of experience developing economic models and conducting economic analyses, contends it would be prudent to wait for the proper and comprehensive scientific, public health and economic research to be completed in order to make a fully informed decision on shale gas development.
In testimony before a forum sponsored by New York State Senate Democrats on April 25, Barth said decision-makers in Albany, N.Y., and Washington, D.C., are relying on “misinformation” regarding the economic impact of shale gas development. She noted that President Obama, in his promotion of the natural gas industry, has been quoting a study conducted by IHS Global Insight, which it prepared for America’s Natural Gas Alliance, an industry coalition of the leading shale gas producing companies.
“This study exaggerates benefits and ignores significant costs,” she said. “In fact, all of the studies funded by the gas industry have done the same.” The study, “The Economic and Employment Contributions of Shale Gas in the United States,” was released in December 2011.
According to Barth, IHS Global exaggerated natural gas reserve assumptions. It inflated gas reserve assumptions, which resulted in inflated estimates of the economic impact of gas drilling, including the GDP and job contributions as well as the tax and federal royalty revenues, she said.
The state’s Senate Democrats held the forum in Albany to get more information on the safety and long-term economic impacts of hydraulic fracturing on the state. Barth was one of many experts and residents who testified at the forum. As New York gets closer to issuing final rules for the use of hydraulic fracturing, groups are increasing the pressure on state officials. For example, on May 3, New Yorkers Against Fracking and other grassroots groups will be holding actions across the state, urging Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislators to support a statewide ban on fracking.
In her testimony, Barth also cited a non-industry-funded study by Headwaters Economics, which found that “counties that have focused on energy development are underperforming economically compared to peer counties that have little or no energy development.” The study, “Fossil Fuel Extraction as a County Economic Development Strategy: Are Energy-Focusing Counties Benefiting?”, was released in September 2008.
In a peer-reviewed academic article, “Mining the Data: Analyzing the Economic Implications of Mining for Nonmetropolitan Regions,” William Freudenburg concluded that “the areas of the United States having the highest levels of long‐term poverty, outside of those having a history of racial inequalities, tend to be found in the very places that were once the site of thriving extractive industries.”
Barth also quoted a study by two economists at the University of Wyoming who concluded that there is “clear evidence that resource-dependent counties in the United States exhibit more anemic growth, even after controlling for state-specific effects, socio-economic differences, and initial income.”
The oil and gas industry spends huge amounts of money on lobbying, political contributions, public relations, advertising and economic impact studies “in order to spread falsehoods and hide the truth,” Barth said in her testimony. “Here is the truth,” she said. “Extractive industries create boom and bust cycles and communities in upstate new York are likely to be worse off economically in the long run if we allow shale gas development.”
Speaking at the Institute of Medicine’s April 30 forum, Roxana Witter M.D., an assistant research professor at the Colorado School of Public Health, said natural gas development can disrupt the social structure of local host communities. “Social disruption may in turn impact individual health through stress mechanisms, as well as other possible mechanisms,” she said.
Opportunities to improve health may involve addressing changes to community structures, including encouraging more community engagement, Witter said. Policymakers need to “reduce the power gap” between the gas industry and the host communities, creating what she calls “residential empowerment.” For many people, the “sense of loss of control is very important,” she said.
Local control has emerged as a big issue in the shale gas drilling debate, Kelsey noted. But in Pennsylvania, state lawmakers threw out any chance for some form of local control, he said, when they passed Act 13, a new state law that supersedes and preempts any municipality from adopting any local ordinances that regulate the shale gas industry.
Industry consultants, just like lawmakers in Pennsylvania, dismiss the importance of local control when they conduct their studies. They also often fail to examine the social and health costs of shale gas drilling. “They ignore costs to communities such as the costs associated with increased truck traffic, costs associated with increased demands on fire departments, police, hospitals and social services, the loss of jobs in other industries that are not compatible with an increased industrial landscape or with the risk of water and air contamination,” Barth said in her testimony.
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Sunday, April 29, 2012
The UN May Have Silenced the Afghan Public
By Afghan Peace Volunteers
“Today, Afghanistan and the U.S. initialed and locked the text of the strategic partnership agreement,” said Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi. “This means the text is closed…”
Why “lock” or “close” the future of Afghanistan to 30 million ordinary Afghan citizens?
While the world may accept that the U.S. and Afghan governments have some “state” or “noble” considerations for not revealing the contents of the U.S. Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement, how about the democratic consideration of involving Afghans in their own future?
Even the Afghan Parliament was in the dark and uninvolved until they were recently given a peek when Afghanistan’s National Security Advisor, Rangin Dadfar Spanta, read “portions” of the Agreement to assembled parliamentarians on 23rd April, saying that the U.S. will defend Afghanistan from any outside interference via “diplomatic means, political means, economic means and even military means.”
The U.S. has said it expects to keep about 20,000 troops in the country after 2014.
What IS the Afghan public opinion regarding the U.S. Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement?
Does anyone know?
In an article dated 11th July 2011, Iman Hassan of The News wrote:
“… the Afghan public has outrightly rejected the US plans as the results of a survey conducted by UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) suggest. UNAMA with its 23 offices in Afghanistan conducted the survey across the country some two months back and hasn’t published it. Although, the survey’s findings are widely known. If published the stark survey results will undermine the US’ future strategic plans.”
Out of curiosity, the Afghan Peace Volunteers pursued the question of whether the UN had actually conducted such a survey. We sent emails to friends with the Fellowship of Reconciliation U.S.A who have correspondence and contact with the UN. Below was the reply that was forwarded to us.
14th April 2012
Dear XXX,
I sent an email inquiry to the UN Coordinator in Afghanistan to ask about the survey.
As I suspected, I did not receive any response. It seems they are not willing to talk about it.
But I will keep watching for any future publications.
Best,
XXX
We also asked a staff member at McClatchy Newspapers in Kabul if he could ask some questions at the UN office in Kabul. We have not heard any news from the McClatchy staff.
So, we still don’t know if there was ever such a survey conducted by the UN office in Kabul.
We feel that even if there was no such survey, then a survey should be conducted under the auspices of the UN, and its results made known before the signing of the agreement, to rebuild trust in the UN, U.S. and Afghan governments’ democratic processes.
The contents of the U.S. Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement should be ‘unlocked’ to the American and Afghan public, and the survey conducted among Afghans in every province, particularly in the provinces where the joint military operations of the Strategic Partnership Agreement will continue to be launched beyond 2014.
Has the UN silenced the Afghan public?
But perhaps, participation in today’s democracy is designed to be “locked” away.
We, the Afghan Peace Volunteers, respectfully ask for the key.
29th April 2012
The Afghan Peace Volunteers are a grassroots group of ordinary, multi-ethnic Afghans seeking a life of non-violence, the unity of all people, equality, and self-reliance. We seek non-military solutions for Afghanistan and do not work for the benefit of any political group or religion.
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With a Rebel Yell, Deep Green Resistance Takes Message to Southeast
By Press Action
During a two-week period this summer, radical environmentalists will be spreading their message of resistance to industrial capitalism to an area of the country that they hope will prove a fertile recruiting ground. Instead of preaching to the converted in historically friendly communities across the western United States, Deep Green Resistance is heading to the Southeast, where the ruling elite has never hesitated to subsidize a nuclear power plant project or clamp down on a trade union organizing effort.
A traveling group of DGR activists will be touring seven Southeast cities in what the group’s organizers are calling the “Culture of Resistance Roadshow.” At each stop of the tour, there will be music, art and informative presentations that DGR hopes will give activists the tools they need to make a difference in the struggle for a livable future.
The tour kicks off in Miami on June 16 and then makes its last stop in Washington, D.C., on June 30. In between, the traveling roadshow will visit Gainesville, Fla., on June 18, Asheville, N.C., on June 22, Chapel Hill, N.C., on June 23, Knoxville, Tenn., on June 25, and Richmond, Va., on June 27.
“We tried to choose cities that already have a radical presence there,” DGR organizer Sam Krop said. “We understand how important it is to network with other like-minded activists and to build strong communities willing to fight for the rights of life and living beings. With many of the cities that we chose, we were already familiar with a local venue or activist group, so we were able to work from a solid foundation.”
The roadshow’s tour cities have groups or individuals who are supportive of DGR, but the region doesn’t have any DGR action groups and hasn’t had any DGR-sponsored events yet. “We hope to encourage support for this movement and connect with those supporters we already have,” said Xander Knox, another lead organizer with DGR.
The DGR group emerged from the work of authors/activists Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith and Aric McBay, who co-authored the book, Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet. The book, published in 2011, examines strategic options for resistance, from nonviolence to guerrilla warfare, and the conditions required for those options to be successful. It provides an exploration of organizational structures, recruitment, security, and target selection for both aboveground and underground action.
DGR currently has 25 chapters in seven countries and 12 U.S. states. To help aid with its educational and recruitment efforts, DGR also recently launched a news service, which covers global environmental and social issues, from logging operations in Brazil’s rainforest to air pollution in Britain. The news service also stays on top of the key environmental battles in the United States.
Each Southeast roadshow will include workshops that will feature a similar program, although there may be some small differences based on the nature of each individual locale. For example, DGR is hoping to do the first event in Miami with members of One Struggle, an anti-capitalist organization in South Florida.
“The workshops will focus on the problem with civilization and the need for resistance, so while the basic critique and strategy will remain the same, we are going to try and tailor our examples and calls to action to each specific place,” Krop said. “For instance, as an illustration of the destructiveness of civilization, we could discuss the degradation of the everglades in South Florida and mountaintop removal in Appalachia. We understand that resistance looks different in every situation and every place, so while we will retain a singular message, we hope to make that message applicable to every location.”
Members of DGR will be leading the workshops at each tour stop and will be working with local activists for promotion and outreach. Jensen, Keith and McBay will not be in attendance at any of the Culture of Resistance Roadshow events, the organizers said.
After the final stop in Washington, DGR members plan to travel north to meet up with their friends in Earth First! who are helping to organize the “2012 Round River Rendezvous,” which is scheduled to run July 1-7 in the Marcellus Shale region. “We aim to craft this year’s Round River Rendezvous into both a meaningful opportunity to connect activists and environmental justice campaigns from across the country, and a resounding gesture of solidarity with all those resisting the spread and effects of fracking,” the Marcellus Shale Earth First! Network said in a statement. The location of the EF! Rendezvous in the Marcellus region will be disclosed closer to the date of the event.
DGR said it recognizes that the current structure of society—industrial civilization—is fundamentally unsustainable, and that small-scale remedial actions will not stop the systematic destruction of the natural world. The Culture of Resistance Roadshow workshops “will explore the inability of current efforts to truly address the fundamental contradictions of our modern struggles, and present concrete steps to an equitable, thriving future,” the group said. “This workshop is intended as a practical guide to effective activism, and will leave attendees feeling empowered to shift the course of history at this most critical juncture.”
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Saturday, April 28, 2012
1,000 Reasons to Strike on May 1: A Day Without the 99%
By Mickey Z.
"What are you rebelling against?”
“Whaddya got?"
-From the 1953 movie, “The Wild One"
It’s no accident that “the system”—this dominant and destructive culture of ours—makes us feel so damn alone, makes us feel like we can’t make a difference, like we can’t “fight City Hall.”
The nature of top-down rule, of course, is to leave those on the bottom throwing up their hands in resignation, heaving a collective sigh, and concluding: Whaddya gonna do?
I’ll let you in a secret or three: We are not alone, we can make a difference, and what we’re “gonna do” is occupy a goddamned strike on May 1.
Why May 1? Across the globe, this date is widely celebrated as International Workers’ Day while here in the United States, its roots lie in the late 19th century struggle for a shorter workday.
Why occupy? Please allow me to suggest (in no particular order) a thousand reasons why activists in the United States must strike on May 1…
To get started, I suggest you ponder this: If the United States is the world’s shining light—as we’re so often told—why are its citizens left with no choice but to organize in a desperate attempt to defend human, environmental, civil, and animal rights?
Why can’t we drink water or breathe air or eat food without the risk of becoming ill from corporate-produced toxins?
If the American way of life is so sacred, so ideal, so worthy of being defended by any means necessary, why do we need so many homeless shelters, alcohol and drug rehab centers, rape crisis hotlines, battered women’s shelters, and suicide hotlines?
If the U.S. of A. is the zenith of human social order, why does our vaunted way of life provoke terror as a tactic and an emotion?
Why strike on May 1?
The United States constitutes roughly 5 percent of the earth’s population but consumes more than 25 percent of the earth’s resources.
The U.S. Department of Defense—the interventionist institution formerly known as the War Department—is the biggest polluter on Planet Earth, for example, releasing more hazardous waste than the five largest U.S. chemical companies combined. To add insult to injury, the world’s worst polluter also gobbles up 54 percent of taxpayer dollars.
A small taste of what we’re getting for all that money: A decade after the U.S.-led invasion, Afghanistan has the highest infant mortality rate in the world—257 deaths per 1,000 live births—while 70 percent of the population lacks access to clean water. Meanwhile, in Pakistan, it’s been found that one in seven U.S. drone strikes result in a child fatality.
Why strike on May 1?
Here in the land of the free, one in 31 adults is in prison, on parole, or on probation, corporations enjoy “personhood,” 50 million are without health insurance, 2,660 children are born into poverty every day, and the two-party deception still rules—thanks to corporate media propaganda (by age 18, the average American has seen roughly 360,000 TV commercials and by age 70, will have spent ten of those 70 years watching TV).
Here in the home of the brave, women earn 77 cents for every dollar a man is paid, 44 percent of the U.S. death row population is African-American (an ethnic group that constitutes a mere 12.6 percent of the nation’s people as a whole), total student debt now exceeds the total consumer debt and just passed $1 trillion, and every 46 seconds, a woman is raped.
We Americans—the most privileged of the 99%—must be willing to accept that there is something terribly wrong with our country. We must also accept that it’s now or never.
Why strike on May 1?
We must also occupy the big picture—the global picture—and strike against: Hydro-fracking, tar sands extraction, GMOs, animal experimentation, nuclear weapons and waste, annual worldwide use of pesticides of 500 billion tons, and a frightening, mostly ignored 30 percent rise in ocean acidification.
Occupy against animal byproducts being responsible 51 percent of annual worldwide human caused greenhouse gas—all in the name of an industry also responsible for unspeakable animal cruelty along with an epidemic of preventable human diseases.
Strike because under-nutrition contributes to five million deaths of children under five each year in developing countries. Occupy because every square mile of ocean now hosts 46,000 pieces of floating plastic.
Occupy because the planet’s leading cause of human death and illness is diarrhea and 88 percent of these deaths are directly linked to a lack of access to safe water. Strike because every 20 seconds, a child dies as a result of poor sanitation (1.5 million preventable deaths each year).
Why strike on May 1?
Strike because 90 percent of the large fish are already gone. Occupy because 80 percent of the world’s forests are already gone.
Strike to challenge all classism, racism, sexism, speciesism, ability-ism, patriarchy, homophobia, and any other form of discrimination, hierarchy, and repression.
Why strike on May 1… and occupy every day?
#Occupy every single day because every single day:
- 200,000 acres of rain forest are destroyed.
- 150-200 plant and animal species go extinct.
- 13 million tons of toxic chemicals are released across the globe.
- 25,000 to 30,000 children under the age of five die from preventable causes.
This is but a minute sampling of what business-as-usual has wrought. Yeah, I know it’s not 1,000 reasons. I could go on… and on and on, but I’d rather hear from you.
What are you occupying for/against and why are you participating in the May 1 General Strike? Give voice to your concerns, your passions, your anger, and your love.
My reason: I’m striking because we are on the brink of social, economic, and environmental collapse and therefore, this is the best time ever to be an activist.
When else in all of human history have we been in a better position to shape the future? What we do (or don’t do) in the next few years will tilt us all toward either the point of no return or a far more sane culture.
In other words, each and every one of us can take part—right now—in creating the most important social changes ever imagined. What an extraordinary time to be alive.
No more denial. No more excuses. No more pretending everything is okay. No more waiting for someone else to step up and do it for us. It’s now or never.
Strike on May 1 so we let the 1% know how badly they need us.
Mic Check: We don’t need them.
This isn’t about skin color, gender, sexual preference, or what parcel of geography you happen to have been born on. I’m not talking about party affiliations, incremental reform, or what sky-god you’ve chosen to worship (or not). It’s all about recognizing a crisis and taking the appropriate measures ... now.
And it all starts with us. How lucky are we? We’ve been trusted with the most vital mission in the history of human struggle: survival.
I’ll see you at the barricades...
We are the 99%. Expect us. Join us…
#OccupyUrgency. #OccupyClassWar. #Occupy4MayDay.
Mickey Z. is the author of 11 books, most recently the novel Darker Shade of Green. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on an obscure website called Facebook.
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PennFuture Dissects Pennsylvania's Shale Gas Giveaway
By Press Action
Pennsylvania’s noxious new natural gas law, Act 13, has received a fair amount of press attention, much of it negative. In drafting the legislation, state lawmakers gave the shale gas industry everything it wanted, including the right to drill almost anywhere and full protection from local ordinances.
The law, which took effect April 14, contains many sordid provisions. To help people understand the new law, Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future, or PennFuture, has released a handy guide to all of the favors and loopholes for the gas companies that Act 13 provides. PennFuture, an environmental advocacy group that supports natural gas drilling as long as it is regulated properly, said the guide was “deliberately written to be as accessible as possible to all, primarily presented in a question-and-answer format.”
“Since this law was signed, there has been a great deal of confusion about the various provisions,” George Jugovic Jr., president and CEO of PennFuture, said in an April 23 statement. “This plain language report separates rumor from fact, and will help elected officials, public health officers and physicians, and citizens in and out of the drilling fields understand their rights in terms of drilling.”
For example, the guide helps readers understand Act 13’s provisions limiting local control over the gas industry. PennFuture asks, “Does the law really require my local government to allow major industrial activities in the middle of a residential area?” Unbelievably, the new law does indeed require local officials to allow oil and gas companies to conduct their operations in all zoning districts, including residential districts. Only processing plants “need not be allowed in a residential district,” PennFuture explains.
Act 13 supersedes and preempts any municipality from adopting any local ordinances that regulate the “technical features” of “oil and gas operations” regulated under Chapter 32 or state and federal environmental statutes, PennFuture explains. Chapter 32 establishes the requirements for companies wanting to drill a conventional or unconventional gas well in Pennsylvania. This is the section of Act 13 that amended the Oil and Gas Act that Pennsylvania had operated under since 1984.
Because Act 13 broadly defines “oil and gas operations” to include almost all gas production and transmission activities, municipalities cannot regulate any aspects of those operations already addressed by Chapter 32 or an environmental statute. To the extent municipalities attempt to plan for oil and gas activities within their borders, Act 13 provides that any local regulation must allow for the “reasonable development” of oil and gas resources.
Until now, PennFuture says, Pennsylvania courts have allowed municipalities’ considerable discretion in determining what constitutes the “reasonable development of minerals” within their borders. But Act 13 largely eliminates this discretion for oil and gas resources by prescribing in detail what a local ordinance must contain in order to meet the “reasonable development” standard.
“The new law guts local governments’ rights of zoning and long-term planning, doesn’t allow for local health and environmental regulation, forbids municipalities to appeal state decisions about well permits, and provides subsidies to the natural gas industry and payments for out-of-state workers to get housing but provides for no incentives or tax credits to companies to hire Pennsylvania workers,” author Walter Brasch wrote in a March 23 article on the law.
Under the law, natural gas producers must submit a report that identifies a running count, by municipality, of the wells that have been drilled and the date each was drilled or ceased production. Also under the law, any county in Pennsylvania that has unconventional gas wells within its borders has 60 days after the effective date of the law—April 14—to adopt an ordinance imposing a fee on the gas produced from those wells. The county may not determine the size of the fee that will be imposed or what it will do with the money, only that a fee will be imposed.
“Does the public have a right of access to fee data submitted to the PUC?” PennFuture asks in the Act 13 guide. Based on its analysis of the law, the answer is no. The law says that any information obtained by or submitted to the state Public Utility Commission as a result of any report, investigation, examination or hearing “shall be kept confidential and only used for official purposes,” PennFuture says. “Further, any employee that divulges confidential information is subject to discipline by the PUC.”
This particular provision and others in the law allow gas companies to act in the dark on all of the critical points of information the public would need to hold them accountable. “Read broadly, this provision precludes the public from accessing through a public information request records used by the PUC to fulfill its statutory duty of ensuring compliance with the law,” PennFuture says. “In other words, the public may find it very difficult to ensure that public officials are fulfilling their statutory obligations under this law.”
Another noxious part of Act 13 is the provision governing access by emergency personnel and other health professionals to the chemicals and additives that gas drilling companies use during the fracking process. PennFuture explains that, under the law, the state Department of Environmental Protection is generally prohibited from disclosing chemicals claimed to be a trade secret or “confidential proprietary information.”
But there appear to be two ways for public health officials to obtain chemical information claimed to be a trade secret or “confidential proprietary information,” PennFuture says. Public health officials can obtain the chemical information if the health professional determines that a “medical emergency exists” that necessitates them knowing the information.
The health official must confirm the need for the information in a written statement, if requested by the company. Once the information is provided, the health official must limit use of the information to the purposes for which it was sought. Further, the health official has a specific obligation, once the information is obtained, to maintain it as confidential.
Health officials and first responders also have a right to obtain the chemical information claimed to be a trade secret or “confidential proprietary information” if the information is needed to respond to a spill or release or a complaint by a person claimed to have been affected by a spill or release, according to PennFuture. In order to obtain the information, the health official or first responder must make a written request for the information.
PennFuture also points out that there is no way to challenge the company’s claim that certain information is a trade secret or “confidential proprietary information.”
“Some doctors are calling it a ‘gag law’ because, as they read the act, the confidentiality agreement could limit them from sharing information about the chemicals with colleagues and perhaps even patients,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reported in an April 13 article. Adam M. Finkel, who directs the University of Pennsylvania’s Program on Regulation, told the Inquirer that the bill is an “ominous piece of work.”
The law “retains some of the worst aspects of industry secrecy about proprietary hydrofracking chemicals while making unethical demands on physicians,” Bernard Goldstein, emeritus professor in the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, wrote in an analysis.
Stephen Rosenfeld, in an March 7 article, argued that Act 13 may be the most anti-democratic, anti-environmental law in the country. “The industry needed the legislature to rewrite those laws because a 2009 decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld municipal rights to write zoning laws that excluded oil and gas drilling if it did not fit the community’s ‘character’ and ‘special nature,’” Rosenfeld wrote. “The oil and gas industry did not want to file a suit every time it wanted to drill.”
Update: Pennsylvania farmer and anti-fracking activist Stephen Cleghorn offers his always incisive perspective on Act 13 in a new post on his blog “Anger and Courage.” Cleghorn writes that “we owe a debt of gratitude to PennFuture for their excellent summary of Act 13 in plain language.”
But Act 13 also stands as a cautionary tale for PennFuture and anyone else that thinks they can negotiate with the gas industry to protect the waters and environment of Pennsylvania, Cleghorn maintains. “Try that and this industry will have you back on your heels taking blow after blow from them,” he says. “This law giveth lip service to some new environmental protections for which PennFuture and its consultant John Quigley had lobbied very hard, but then taketh away those protections with waivers and secrecy about what will really be happening. The Act is pretty good evidence of what Dr. Sandra Steingraber meant when she said ‘To advocate for mitigation is to sanction gas drilling.’”
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Friday, April 27, 2012
Get the Fracking Facts, You Water-Drinking Being!
By Lucia della Paolera
Straight from reservoirs in upstate NY, New York City’s tap water, long considered some of the cleanest and purest in the country—not to mention UNFILTERED—is at risk of becoming permanently contaminated.
The PSA “ANYBODY of WATER,” by I AM PICTURES in association with I HEART H2O raises awareness about the threats facing New York’s water, so that New Yorkers can take action to protect it immediately.
Over the past decade the global demand for energy has increased exponentially.
Diminishing supplies of conventional fuels such as coal and oil, as well as growing scientific consensus and public awareness about the environmental hazards of the extraction of such fuels has led to the search for alternate ways to power our country. Recently, the natural gas (methane) found in large quantities in deep underground formations of shale in vast areas of the United States has become the go-to power source to profitably replace US dependence on coal and foreign oil.
Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is the new method of unconventional fossil fuel extraction through which energy companies unlock methane from hard shale rock thousands of feet underground.
To reach those depths underground and extract the shale gas, energy companies infuse millions of gallons of fresh water taken from local streams, rivers and lakes with hundreds of proprietary chemicals, turning it into millions of gallons of toxic waste water.
Most of this tainted water is left underground, able to migrate through the naturally fissured bedrock, and the rest is methodically dispersed/discarded, or held in ponds at the earths surface. This waste water contains a toxic cocktail of as many as 1,000 chemicals, often including dangerous, hazardous substances such as Arsenic, Hydrogen Sulfide and Mercury, and volatile organic compounds like Acetone, Benzene and Toluene. And because of faulty, unregulated storage methods, this water laced with corrosive salts, radioactive elements and carcinogens is left to leak freely into our land, air and water.
In recent years, energy corporations like Chesapeake, Chevron, Hess, Cabot and others have offered millions of Americans get-rich-quick leases that allow the companies to drill into their land and frack for shale gas. The decision to grant the gas industry access to their land and water has proven catastrophic for landowners who unwittingly submit themselves, their families, their local communities and future generations to the potential short and long term, permanent and irrevocable hazards, and potentially catastrophic impacts of fracking.
And this poisoned wastewater has led to an alarming and growing list of health and environmental problems. Notorious cases include tap water so contaminated that it is flammable right out of the faucet, as demonstrated in Josh Fox’s 2010 award-winning documentary “Gasland."
There have been cancerous tumors, chronic respiratory problems, central nervous system damage, countless chronic migraines and the dulling or total loss of the sense of smell and taste, to name just a few of the health problems suffered by people and animals subjected to post-fracking air and water. And once these chemicals have leaked into the water, they are often impossible to remove. While leasing land to energy companies may look profitable in the short term, the detrimental effects of the tainted water on the land (and economy) are disastrous in the long term.
Families who sign these risky leases with energy companies are often unaware of the dangers of fracking. As of 2012, fracking is exempt from critical parts of seven major federal regulations.
For example, the 2005 Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act, pushed through congress by Vice President and former Haliburton CEO Dick Cheney exempts corporations from revealing the chemicals used in fracking fluids, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 exempts fracking from federal regulations pertaining to hazardous waste. And to this date, no US governmental or state agency has initiated a Health Impact Analysis. It’s time to put the pressure on.
This means that energy corporations are largely not held responsible for the incalculable damages suffered by Americans who usually have no idea what they are signing up for. And if the gas industry prevails, unregulated drilling will begin on the first of what could become tens of thousands of wells in the Catskill / Delaware Watershed. This fracking would run the risk of contaminating the drinking water of millions of New Yorkers, whose tap water comes straight from that source and turn the upstate rural landscape into a sacrificial industrial zone.
There is fast-growing consensus that it is time to hold energy corporations accountable for their actions and put an end to fracking today.
Citizens For Water, Damascus Citizens for Sustainability and NYH2O are currently leading the fight to protect New York’s water through educating the public about the health, environmental and economic impacts of hydraulic fracturing and supporting a ban on fracking. It has not been proven that fracking can be done safely.
It is in this spirit that I AM PICTURES (IAMPICTURESNY.COM) in association with I HEART H2O (IHeartH2O.org) is proud to launch “ANYBODY of WATER,” a video and portrait PSA that raises awareness about the dangers of fracking and inspires public action. The goal of the PSA is to rally people together to stop hydraulic fracturing and ensure that our water is pure today and forever, because as the campaign says, “it’s the only body of water we have.”
Lucia della Paolera is a writer and editor living and working in Brooklyn, N.Y.
This article is reprinted with permission of I♡H2O, an organization that seeks both to inspire water-conservation action through creativity and design, and to raise awareness of the need to protect our water resources.
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1000 Reasons to Strike on May 1: A day without the 99%
It is no accident that “the system"—this dominant and destructive culture of ours—makes us feel so damn alone, makes us feel like we can’t make a difference or “fight City Hall.”
The nature of top-down rule, of course, is to leave those on the bottom throwing up their hands in resignation, heaving a collective sigh, and concluding: Whaddya gonna do?
I’ll let you in a secret or three: We are not alone, we can make a difference, and what we’re “gonna do” is occupy a goddamned strike on May 1.
+++
One of my recent OWS photos:
In case of emergency...
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Thursday, April 26, 2012
Experts: Shale Gas Drilling's Liabilities Far Outweigh Potential Economic Benefits
By Press Action
The natural gas industry needed a better sales pitch. It was moving into new and potentially hostile territory. Not everyone in the Marcellus Shale region was going to welcome gas companies with open arms. And then industry officials received a special gift from their colleagues on Wall Street, the ones instrumental in creating the financial meltdown of 2008. With the economy in a tailspin, the industry found the perfect antidote to what its members viewed as venomous complaints about the natural gas extraction process known as hydraulic fracturing.
Jobs and economic development would become the industry’s rallying cry as it stormed into the region, disrupting communities and destroying ecosystems. Landowners and mineral rights owners were promised huge sums of money if they signed leases to allow natural gas companies to create industrial zones in their backyards. Local business owners were told they could expect a jump in sales as the invading armies of contract workers and drilling companies would spend huge sums of money at local establishments.
But not everyone living in the states located above the Marcellus Shale geological formation was buying what the industry was selling. Many were skeptical. Others were downright angry. Groups of concerned residents emerged to fight the industry’s planned takeover of their communities. They wrote letters to local officials and organized protests. And they sought out experts to analyze the industry’s rosy economic predictions.
For the past few years, one of those experts, Jannette Barth Ph.D., president of J.M. Barth & Associates Inc., an economic research and consulting firm, has been closely following the natural gas industry’s economic claims. She has argued that industry organizations, such as the Marcellus Shale Coalition and the Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York, have touted the economic impact of gas drilling in the Marcellus even though their analyses include enough data inconsistencies to raise large red flags.
Barth joined Deborah Rogers, who served on the advisory committee for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and Al Appleton, a former commissioner of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, at an April 24 event in New York City to offer their opinions on whether the gas industry’s numbers add up. The event, “Frackonomics: Debunking the Financial Myths of Shale Gas and Embracing a Green Energy Future,” was sponsored by United for Action and the New York Society for Ethical Culture, with several other organizations serving as co-sponsors.
Barth, who was scheduled to testify during an April 25 forum convened by Democrats in the New York State Senate, issued a “balance sheet” earlier this year that sought to calculate New York’s “net equity from shale gas development.”
Among the “assets” of shale gas development, Barth cited various sources of tax revenue, including taxes paid directly by the gas industry based on future legislation and increased income taxes based on royalty income to leaseholders and lease income to landowners. Shale gas drilling also could stimulate other industries based on the byproducts of natural gas. New York state could see short-term job gains in the gas industry and related industries, according to Barth’s analysis. The state also could see increased spending by leaseholders. Finally, New Yorkers could enjoy lower natural gas costs for heating and cooking as well as lower electricity costs from power plants fueled by natural gas, she said.
According to Barth’s analysis, though, the “liabilities” of shale gas drilling far outnumber the assets. She highlighted several potential paths leading to tax revenue losses, including income tax losses by leaseholders who vacate properties and relocate out of state, income tax losses caused by decreases in tourism and other industries negatively affected by drilling, and property tax losses caused by the negative impact of drilling on property values and financing.
Aside from the tax revenue losses, the liabilities listed by Barth include human health costs associated with water contamination from fracking fluids and wastewater, and air pollution from compressors, leaks and gas released at well sites. Other liabilities cited by Barth were:
- Costs associated with declining quality of life due to the creation of an industrial landscape.
- Costs associated with declines in organic farming and other agriculture and food manufacturing.
- Costs associated with increased air pollution from increased truck traffic.
- Costs associated with increased homelessness.
- Costs associated with the postponement of investment in renewables.
- Costs associated with a long-term bust, characteristic of extractive industries.
In a 2010 paper, Barth explained that “in light of the undisputed potential for environmental harm from gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, the principal reason advanced for taking the environmental risks is the positive economic impact that such drilling could have for New York State and its counties.” In her analysis, though, Barth has found the gas industry’s job creation claims are exaggerated and the industry often misinterprets economic data.
During the panel discussion at the Frackonomics event in New York, Barth reiterated her point about the boom-and-bust nature of extractive industries. “Extractive industries produce short-term booms followed by long-term busts,” she said.
In his remarks at the event, Appleton argued that to engage in hydraulic fracturing responsibly would be prohibitively expensive for the natural gas industry. “We have to ban fracking in New York state because it can never be effectively regulated,” he said. “The industry will never behave responsibly.”
But as New York residents continue to make strong cases—both environmental and economic—against the use of hydraulic fracturing in their state, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other high-ranking state officials appear to be getting closer to giving the gas industry a green light to move forward with drilling. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, after receiving tens of thousands of public comments on an environmental impact statement on high-volume hydraulic fracturing, is expected to issue a final set of rules this summer allowing gas companies to drill. When that happens, the ball will be back in the opponents’ court. Will they concede defeat? Or will they ratchet up the resistance?
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Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Roots of Occupy: Wall Street Has Always Been War Street
By Mickey Z.
"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.” -Benito Mussolini
There’s plenty that feels new and fresh about Occupy Wall Street (OWS): the younger participants, the scope of the coalition, the endurance, the creativity, and the outrage. What’s not new is the target of that outrage: Wall Street, Corporate America, and the politicians they fund have been at this deadly game for more than a century.
Mic Check: The pursuit of profit long ago transcended national borders and well… anything resembling justice, community, solidarity, or morality.
To learn more about these roots of Occupy, read on...
Know Your History
In the years before World War II, for example, doing business with Hitler’s Germany or Mussolini’s Italy (or, as a proxy, Franco’s Spain) proved no more unsavory to the captains of industry than, say, selling military hardware to Indonesia does today.
What’s a little repression when there’s money to be made?
“Many leaders of Wall Street and of the U.S. foreign policy establishment had maintained close ties with their German counterparts since the 1920s, some having intermarried or shared investments,” writes investigative reporter Christopher Simpson. “This went so far in the 1930s as the sale in New York of bonds whose proceeds helped finance the Aryanization of companies and real estate looted from German Jews.... U.S. investment in Germany accelerated rapidly after Hitler came to power.”
In case you missed it: U.S. investment in Germany accelerated rapidly after Hitler came to power.
Such investment increased “by some 48.5 percent between 1929 and 1940, while declining sharply everywhere else in continental Europe.”
Mic Check: When William E. Dodd, U.S. ambassador to Germany during the 1930s, declared “a clique of U.S. industrialists is working closely with the fascist regime[s] in Germany and Italy,” he wasn’t kidding.
In December 1933, Standard Oil of New York invested $1 million in Germany for the making of gasoline from soft coal. Undeterred by the well-publicized events of the next decade, Standard Oil also honored its chemical contracts with I.G. Farben—a German chemical cartel that manufactured Zyklon-B, the poison gas used in the Nazi gas chambers—right up until 1942.
Some of the other companies that traded with the Reich and, in some cases, directly aided the war machine included: Ford, General Electric, Standard Oil, Texaco, International Harvester, IBM, Chase Manhattan Bank, Davis Oil Company, DuPont, Bendix, Sperry Gyroscope, and General Motors.
Mic Check: GM’s top man at the time, William Knudsen, called Nazi Germany “the miracle of the 20th century.”
All of these businesses were more than happy to see the German labor movement and working-class parties smashed and for many of these companies, operations in Germany continued during the war (even if it meant the use of concentration-camp slave labor) with overt U.S. government support.
“Pilots were given instructions not to hit factories in Germany that were owned by U.S. firms,” writes Michael Parenti. “Thus Cologne was almost leveled by Allied bombing but its Ford plant, providing military equipment for the Nazi army, was untouched; indeed, German civilians began using the plant as an air raid shelter.”
An illustrative example of how the 1% is loyal only to the 1% is International Telegraph and Telephone (ITT). This multi-national conglomerate was founded by Sosthenes Behn—an unabashed supporter of the Führer even as the Luftwaffe was bombing civilians in London—and was responsible for creating the Nazi communications system, along with supplying vital parts for German bombs.
According to author Jonathan Vankin, “Behn allowed his company to cover for Nazi spies in South America, and one of ITT’s subsidiaries bought a hefty swath of stock in the airline company that built Nazi bombers.”
Behn himself met with Hitler in 1933 (the first American businessman to do so) and became a double agent of sorts. While reporting on the activities of German companies to the U.S. government, Behn was also contributing money to Heinrich Himmler’s Schutzstaffel (SS) and recruiting Nazis onto ITT’s board.
In 1940, Behn entertained a close friend and high-ranking Nazi, Gerhard Westrick, in the United States to discuss a potential U.S.-German business alliance—precisely as Hitler’s blitzkrieg was overrunning most of Europe and Nazi atrocities were becoming known worldwide.
In early 1946, instead of facing prosecution for treason, Behn ended up collecting $27 million from the U.S. government for “war damages inflicted on its German plants by Allied bombing.” At that juncture, Behn was in the perfect position to lobby President Truman concerning the newly formed Central Intelligence Group (CIG).
Meeting with the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William D. Leahy, in the White House, Behn, as recorded in Leahy’s diary, generously offered for consideration “the possibility of utilizing the service of [ITT’s] personnel in American intelligence activities.”
Meanwhile, Sullivan and Cromwell was the most powerful Wall Street law firm of the 1930s. John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles—the two brothers who guided the firm; the same two brothers who boycotted their own sister’s 1932 wedding because the groom was Jewish—served as the contacts for the aforementioned I.G. Farben (the company that put the gas in gas chambers).
During the pre-war period, the elder John Foster Dulles led off cables to his German clients with the salutation “Heil Hitler,” and he blithely dismissed the Nazi threat in 1935 in a piece he wrote for the Atlantic Monthly. In 1939, he told the Economic Club of New York, “We have to welcome and nurture the desire of the New Germany to find for her energies a new outlet.”
“Hitler’s attacks on the Jews and his growing propensity for territorial expansion seem to have left Dulles unmoved,” writes historian Robert Edward Herzstein. “Twice a year, [Dulles] visited the Berlin office of the firm, located in the luxurious Esplanade Hotel.”
Ultimately, it was little brother Allen who actually got to meet the German dictator, and eventually smoothed over the blatant Nazi ties of ITT’s Sosthenes Behn. “(Allen) Dulles was an originator of the idea that multinational corporations are instruments of U.S. foreign policy and therefore exempt from domestic laws,” Vankin writes.
Mic Check: This idea later took root in U.S.-dominated institutions and agreements like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and World Trade Organization (WTO).
Know Your Enemy
Please allow me to repeat: Wall Street has always been War Street.
Calling war “possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, sure the most vicious” racket of all, infamous U.S. Marine Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler declared (back in the 1930s): “It is the only [racket] in which profits are reckoned in dollars and losses in lives … I spent 33 years being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.”
Translation: OWS didn’t emerge out of nowhere.
Thousands upon thousands of racketeers for capitalism helped lay the foundation for a well-informed global movement with passion, endurance, and diversity. These racketeers have brought us to the brink so we must complete the task of bringing down the system that spawned them while cultivating new models of human culture.
In order for all species—and the ecosystem itself—to survive, Wall Street must be permanently dismantled. There is no middle ground.
The time has come to choose: Which side of history are you on?
We are the 99%. Expect us. Join us…
#OccupyYerHistory. #DeOccupyWallStreet.
Upcoming Mickey Z. event in NYC: Why Occupy? One Planet, One Struggle (May 6)
Mickey Z. is the author of 11 books, most recently the novel Darker Shade of Green. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on an obscure website called Facebook.
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Tuesday, April 24, 2012
A Farm Inviolate of Gas Drilling
By Stephen Cleghorn
On May 12, 2012 my wife Lucinda’s remains (her ashes) will be laid to rest as protector of this organic farm and all its inhabitants—human, animal and plants—in perpetuity. Amidst the tearful and joyful celebration of the life she lived and left behind for all those who were privileged to know and love her, Lucinda will forever become part of this farm for which she cared.
Two days before that—on May 10th—I will convene a press conference to declare this farm off-limits to unconventional drilling for gas in the Marcellus Shale that lies a mile below it.
During the press conference I will make the first deposit of Lucinda’s ashes, saving the rest for the family gathering two days hence. With that deposit this land becomes sacred ground, held in trust by me and those who follow me as portion of the common wealth by which we are all sustained.
Those gathered on that day will learn a new meaning of “surface rights.” The rights of all beings whose lives are sustained at the surface and depend upon the clear, clean water that runs upon and below it will be declared the inalienable rights by which human affairs are to be conducted. I will speak of the impermeable love of the land that is present just below our feet like an invisible barrier that no drilling rig can penetrate.
2771 Paradise Road, Reynoldsville, PA 15851
11:00 AM to 12:30 PM (lunch and solidarity afterwards)
“There is not a diamond bit hard enough to pierce this love for the creative Earth that sustains us, at least not here where I stand” I will say on that day. Any “property rights” that one person claims to destroy the good earth of Pennsylvania that belongs to no one because it belongs to all as part of the common wealth will be declared null and void.
I will be inviting Pennsylvania Speaker of the House Sam Smith, State Senator Joe Scarnati (both my representatives in Harrisburg), as well as representatives of the oil companies active in this area and the owners of the gas “rights” to this property to come witness my declaration and to take some time to listen to stories of people who have been harmed by unconventional drilling for gas.
Chairs behind the gathering point at the top of the beautiful hill that Lucinda so loved will be reserved with names of the invited guests on them. If they show up, they get to speak. That’s how they get to demonstrate the courage of their convictions, if they can. But the ground rule will be that they have to listen first, as Lucinda’s sister (her only sibling) speaks of Lucinda’s love for this land. They have to first hear about and from those who have been harmed by this drilling as their stories are told.
If they do not show up, I will turn and ask the silence of each of their empty seats to speak for them.
There will be poetry. There must always be poetry. Including this from a poem called “Look Out” by writer-farmer Wendell Berry:
You will see that your place, wherever it is,
your house, your garden, your shop, your forest, your farm,
bears the shadow of its destruction by war
which is the economy of greed which is plunder
which is the economy of wrath which is fire.
The Lords of War sell the earth to buy fire,
they sell the water and air of life to buy fire.
They are little men grown great by willingness
to drive whatever exists into its perfect absence.
Their intention to destroy any place is solidly founded
upon their willingness to destroy every place.
I will be asking various grassroots organizations to stand with me as we demonstrate for all to see that a people power movement is afoot to shut down these operations since the government in Harrisburg has decided not to protect us.
My goats will be in attendance as potential new victims of drilling if I do not act to protect them. They make a pretty picture and they keep me focused on the responsibility given to me to protect their lives.
The overall tone of the gathering will be focused on empathy for the human and animal beings who are suffering here in PA from this kind of drilling, and the many more who will surely suffer. That empathy for the victims will be offered as the “narrow gate” through which our adversaries may enter to receive our loving embrace of them as, we believe, our brothers and sisters in their hearts and souls. We will ask them to arise from their stupor and let their empathy move them beyond their corporate and political allegiances. We will declare that corporations are not persons, but are organizations inhabited by real human persons capable of change.
So there you have it—a few ideas for fighting from where I live and love, and asking others to join me in that fight for an on-farm demonstration of resolve to resist the fracking, even as we appeal to the frackers and the legislators to leave the anonymity of their high corporate and governmental perches and become full human beings again.
Final note to my friends in resistance to fracking: The farm will be open to you from Wednesday May 9 through Friday May 11 if you’d like to come for some camping, sleeping in the hay loft, gathering together for meetings and coalition building, just taking a break, whatever—in addition to standing with me for this event on May 10. I just need to hear from people if they’d like to come so I can plan. Please email me at jstephencleghorn@yahoo.com.
This article is reprinted with the permission of Stephen Cleghorn from his blog, “Anger and Courage.” Cleghorn owns and operates the organic Paradise Gardens and Farm in Reynoldsville, Pa.
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Monday, April 23, 2012
Roots of Occupy: Wall Street has always been War Street
There’s plenty that feels new and fresh about Occupy Wall Street (OWS): the younger participants, the scope of the coalition, the endurance, the creativity, and the outrage. What’s not new is the target of all that outrage: Wall Street, Corporate America, and the politicians they fund have been at this deadly game for over a century.
Mic Check:The pursuit of profit long ago transcended national borders and well…anything resembling justice, community, solidarity, or morality.
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One of my recent OWS photos:
Wall Street: Consider yerself occupied
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The People’s Gong:
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DGR Unleashes News Service on 'Cabal of Power-Mad Psychopaths'
By Press Action
Deep Green Resistance, the radical environmental group, has launched a news service to keep people informed of two important global trends. The first being the environmental destruction associated with industrial capitalism and how it will eventually kill the planet if left unchecked. The second being the growing number of individuals and groups determined to put an end to the ecological devastation.
The mainstream news media does a miserable job monitoring the global environmental crisis and an even worse job covering the people who are defending the earth. “The DGR News Service intends to help close this gap by providing news and commentary about the ecological and social disaster we have found ourselves in, and those fighting to stop it,” DGR said in an April 18 news release. “The site will gather together news stories from mainstream, alternative, and activist sources, essays by writers such as Waziyatawain, Derrick Jensen, Aric McBay, and Lierre Keith.”
Jensen, McBay and Keith are co-authors of the book, Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet. The book, published in 2011, examines strategic options for resistance, from nonviolence to guerrilla warfare, and the conditions required for those options to be successful. It provides an exploration of organizational structures, recruitment, security, and target selection for both aboveground and underground action.
DGR believes there are many strategically effective ways to fight back against the corporations, governments and people destroying the planet. And the group said it has chosen to embrace them all. “In doing so, we will help foster a culture of resistance that will liberate a world put on the sacrificial altar by a cabal of power-mad psychopaths,” the group said in the news release.
The person overseeing the new DGR news operation is Owen Lloyd, who ran a similar project called Deep Green News prior to getting the DGR news service up and running. Lloyd said he is currently making the editorial decisions on what gets pushed out by the news service, but that DGR has been working to train new volunteers to work on the project. Apart from editorial content, DGR had to make sure the online news site was visually appealing. The news service’s website, with its professional and aesthetically pleasing look, was designed by Max Wilbert, a member of the DGR staff.
The news service covers global environmental and social issues, from logging operations in Brazil’s rainforest to air pollution in Britain. It’s also staying on top of the key environmental battles in the United States. For example, the news service re-posted a recent Al Jazeera article by Dahr Jamail who reported that scientists and seafood processors are finding “disturbing numbers” of mutated shrimp, crab and fish that they believe are deformed by chemicals released during BP’s 2010 oil disaster. The news service also is keeping tabs on the shale gas frenzy, re-posting an American Independent News Network story by Sarah Pavlus on how private water companies are participants in a massive lobbying effort to expand the use of hydraulic fracturing for gas production.
While most of the news articles on the DGR News Service site are currently reprints from other news organizations, Lloyd said he’s “definitely interested in publishing more original copy.” He’s been in talks with DGR people about providing original content for the service, and “I’m really excited about that,” he said. Eventually, Lloyd hopes to have content such as book and film reviews, weekly editorials and interviews.
“DGR, as an organization, has been growing quickly, and that has been making it easier to start specializing and becoming more effective and well-rounded,” he said. “So although the News Service is serving as a portal, that is primarily a result of the constraints I’m working under right now.”
While DGR has a national organization, there are also local DGR groups in communities across the United States and around the world, with new groups starting up all the time. Lloyd said two new local groups have been established since the news release on the DGR News Service was issued April 18.
DGR realizes time is running short on turning the tide against a grow-or-die economic system. One of the most effective tools in building resistance is making sure people are informed about the reality of the environmental and social crisis. That’s where the DGR News Service hopes to play a role—letting people know about the atrocities and then giving them examples of how people are effectively fighting back.
“This devastation has only continued to accelerate,” DGR said in the news release. “At the same time, people around the globe are standing up together in resistance, fighting for their land, for their water, for their health, for their children, for their communities, for their planet, and for justice.”
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Sunday, April 22, 2012
The Earth Needs More Than a Day: Why We Occupy (Part 1)
By Mickey Z.
"The earth is not dying. It is being killed, and the people killing it have names and addresses.” -Utah Phillips
April 22 is—wait for it—“Earth Day.”
Tragically, far too many of us humans live insulated within a culture so disconnected from its literal landbase that we have to set aside one day a year to acknowledge the existence of the mortal coil upon which we dwell.
Mic Check: Planet Earth doesn’t need a “day.” Planet Earth needs an army of informed and dedicated defenders.
- 1.2 trillion gallons of untreated sewage, storm water, and industrial waste are discharged into U.S. waters annually.
- Every second, 10,000 gallons of gasoline are burned in the United States.
- Each year, Americans use 2.2 billion pounds of pesticides.
- 81 tons of mercury is emitted into the atmosphere each year as a result of global electric power generation.
Earth Day Fun Fact: If every person in the United States did everything suggested in the film, An Inconvenient Truth, carbon emissions would fall by a mere 21 percent.
For those of you scoring at home, that’s a one-time, 21 percent reduction in carbon emissions when most responsible scientists are calling for a 75 percent reduction.
We compost, we drive hybrids, we bring our own bag to the market, but meanwhile, mega-polluters—like transnational corporations and the U.S. Department of Defense—are committing ecocide with little or no resistance.
Mic Check: The Earth needs a lot more than a single fuckin’ day of touchy-feely denial and greenwashing...
- 40 percent of U.S. rivers and 46 percent of U.S. lakes are too polluted to support aquatic life.
- 80 percent of the rivers in China are too polluted to support aquatic life.
- Every square mile of ocean hosts 46,000 pieces of floating plastic.
- The Mississippi River carries 1.5 million metric tons of nitrogen pollution into the Gulf of Mexico each year—resulting each summer in a dead zone about the size of New Jersey.
A few weeks ago, while standing near the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) InfoDesk at Union Square Park, I was confronted by a passerby (a person of color, in fact) who called me a “fool” to be in any way connected with Occupy. “You people don’t even know what you want,” he bellowed.
Me: “I know what I want.”
Him: “What? Tell me.”
Me: “I wanna see the entire system brought down. It’s based on relentless growth, it’s unsustainable, and thus, it’s anti-life. We have to create change now before there’s nothing left to be changed.”
My reply changed one thing: his facial expression. He gaped at me in utter disbelief but still dodged my point—focusing instead on explaining how smart he is.
Me: “Okay, since you know so much, perhaps you can tell me how much of the planet’s forests are already gone?”
Him: “What has that got to do with anything? I knew you people were fools.”
Sadly, that conversation wasn’t atypical of my interactions with those who mock OWS and defend the status quo. Cultural conditioning runs deep—even when it’s diametrically opposed to our most fundamental needs.
- Each year, the United States loses about 1 percent of its topsoil to erosion—75 percent of original U.S. topsoil has already been lost.
- 85 percent of U.S. topsoil loss is directly associated with livestock raising.
- 150-200 animal and plant species go extinct every 24 hours.
- The global meat and dairy industries slaughter billions of animals each year and are responsible for 51 percent of human-created greenhouse gases.
At both Zuccotti Park and Union Square, I’ve heard passersby yell out: “Get a job.” Such folks are probably part of the 99% but have opted to the let the corporate media do their thinking for them and therefore, now perceive the occupiers as “selfish and lazy.”
In doing so, they ironically choose to ignore the economic issues that spawned OWS in the first place while tacitly offering support for maintaining a rigged system based on rampant inequality—a system that offers them nothing but misery.
It appears the “get a job” crowd would rather aim their growing anger and fear at a random protestor they believe may not have a job than at the global criminals responsible for consuming, poisoning, and killing our shared ecosystem.
Mic Check: Even if every jobless occupier found paid work, there would still be dioxin in every single mother’s breast milk.
Why We Occupy:
- 200,000 acres of rain forest are destroyed each day.
- 13 million tons of toxic chemicals released across the globe.
- 80 percent of the world’s forests are gone.
- 90 percent of the large fish in the ocean are gone.
We occupy because we’ve reached the point of no return.
We occupy because minor changes are not nearly enough.
We occupy because we must stop acting like we’re the last generation of humans.
We occupy because we don’t want our legacy to be one of inaction and shame.
We occupy because here’s the most inconvenient truth of all: it’s time to embrace a darker shade of green.
We occupy because we’re the ones the planet has been waiting for.
We are the 99%. Expect us. Join us…
#OccupyDarkGreen. #OccupyTheEarth. #Occupy4TheEarth.
Upcoming Mickey Z. event in NYC: Why Occupy? One Planet, One Struggle (May 6)
Mickey Z. is the author of 11 books, most recently the novel Darker Shade of Green. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on an obscure website called Facebook.
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Saturday, April 21, 2012
Chesapeake Energy Tries to Cap Public Relations Blowout
By Press Action
During the same week that the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider an appeal of former Enron Corp. executive Jeff Skilling’s 2006 conviction on fraud and conspiracy charges, a shareholder of Chesapeake Energy Corp. filed a lawsuit in federal court against the company’s CEO, Aubrey McClendon, and other company officials over potential conflicts of interest.
Over the past half-dozen years, many people, including investors, Wall Street analysts and reporters, have questioned the practices of Chesapeake, the second-largest producer of natural gas in the United States, something that rarely happened during Enron’s meteoric climb up the Fortune 500 list in the 1990s.
In a recent Rolling Stone magazine article, reporter Jeff Goodell wrote that, under McClendon’s leadership, Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake became the largest natural gas leaseholder in the United States, owning the drilling rights to about 15 million acres. “McClendon has financed this land grab with junk bonds and complex partnerships and future production deals, creating a highly leveraged, deeply indebted company that has more in common with Enron than ExxonMobil,” Goodell wrote.
The shareholder lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma on April 19 (Case 5:12-cv-00436-R), was brought by Deborah Mallow IRA SEP Investment Plan after Reuters reported April 18 that McClendon had secured up to $1.1 billion in loans to pay for his stake in the company’s wells. Along with McClendon, the lawsuit lists several members of Chesapeake’s board of directors as defendants.
The lawsuit focuses on an arrangement known as the Founders Well Participation Program. Under the program, McClendon can purchase up to 2.5% interest in wells being developed by Chesapeake. Each year, McClendon must elect to invest in all wells being developed by the company or no such wells, according to the lawsuit.
The program was first formalized and incorporated into employment agreements in connection with Chesapeake’s initial public offering in 1993. Chesapeake’s board believed the participation program aligned the interests of the founders of the company with those of the company because the founders were investing and sharing the risks and rewards of drilling on the same basis as the company.
In 2005, Chesapeake formalized the arrangement by proposing shareholder approval of the Founders Well Participation Program. The program, which was approved by shareholders, extends to 2015. According to the lawsuit, Chesapeake did not at the time of the shareholder vote specify how the founders would pay for their participation investments in each of the wells spudded by or on behalf of the company.
In his Rolling Stone article, Goodell noted that during the financial meltdown in 2008, McClendon was forced to sell off 94% of his stock in Chesapeake, or about 33 million shares, for $550 million to meet a margin call on his personal investments.
“Despite the dramatic setback, Chesapeake’s board boosted McClendon’s annual salary to $112 million, making him the highest paid CEO at any S&P 500 company at the time,” Goodell wrote. “The pay hike, which sparked a shareholder lawsuit, was scorned by Wall Street analysts. ‘McClendon clearly thinks of Chesapeake as his own personal piggy bank,’ says one.“
In its lawsuit, the Deborah Mallow IRA SEP Investment Plan argued that McClendon’s personal financial issues have in the past been of great concern to shareholders and have had an adverse on the company’s stock. “To increase his holdings in Chesapeake stock, McClendon borrowed money from his brokers, a practice known as buying on margin,” the lawsuit said. During the week that McClendon was forced to sell his millions of shares in the company in 2008, the company’s stock fell nearly 40%.
In the wake of the events of 2008, McClendon agreed to borrow up to $225 million from Union Bank, pledging his share of wells as collateral, according to the lawsuit. In December 2010, he borrowed $375 million from TCW Asset Management, a private equity. And in January of this year, McClendon borrowed $500 million from a unit of EIG Global Energy Partners, a private equity firm formed by former TCW executives, the lawsuit said.
“EIG, which has been involved in financing transactions done by Chesapeake, appears to have connections with McClendon that date back to 2009,” the lawsuit said.
In a separate April 18 article, Reuters reported on a meeting of the New Mexico Investment Council and EIG Chief Operating Officer Randall Wade. The Reuters article explained:
"In fall 2008, Mr. McClendon didn’t have liquidity to participate in the (well) program in 2009, at which point EIG entered into discussions with him” and ultimately formed a special purpose vehicle called Larchmont Resources, Wade said.
Through Larchmont, EIG acquired the rights to all of McClendon’s well stakes for 2009 and 2010. EIG then set up a new special purpose vehicle—Jamestown Resources—to control McClendon’s well shares in 2011, with rights to 2012, Wade said.
EIG’s investments have been extremely profitable. “EIG sweeps 100 percent of the cash flow generated by those projects until EIG has gotten all of its money back plus a 13 percent realized return,” Wade told New Mexico investors. EIG also gets a 42 percent cut of McClendon’s share of the well profits “in perpetuity,” he said.
According to the shareholder lawsuit against Chesapeake, large investment banks and hedge funds such as EIG have been involved in many of Chesapeake’s deals and volumetric production payments over the past few years.
“It is no surprise that shareholders reacted with alarm when these tangled transactions were revealed,” the lawsuit said. “Such huge loans raise serious conflicts of interest; they can easily cloud the CEO’s judgment on key issues ranging from how quickly Chesapeake should generate cash flow, to how it operates wells, to how aggressively it can bargain with EIG on financing terms.”
The loans call into question whether the Founders Well Participation Program’s stated goal of aligning the financial interests of McClendon with those of shareholders, as was promised when the program was approved in 2005, “has been frustrated, due to the appearance that McClendon has taken no true risk in his investment,” the lawsuit said.
In an April 18 statement, Chesapeake General Counsel Henry Hood said “Mr. McClendon’s interests and Chesapeake’s are completely aligned.”
“In addition, there are numerous third-party participants in the company’s wells, including some of the largest energy companies in the world, that monitor the actions of the company through a number of processes, including well audits, reporting, governmental filings and hearings, participation in development plans and marketing of production. The suggestion of any conflicts of interest is unfounded,” Hood said.
Aside from McClendon, who also serves as chairman of Chesapeake, the parties named in the lawsuit include several members of the company’s board of directors. Among them are former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating and former U.S. Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla.
In its lawsuit, the Deborah Mallow IRA SEP Investment Plan said it is seeking to require the individual defendants to disclose all material facts relating to the McClendon loans and to discuss their actual and potential implications; to establish a method of independent oversight regarding McClendon’s borrowings, so that “the threats they may represent to the company can be identified and addressed; to rescind the Founders Well Participation Program as the purpose approved by the shareholders “has been frustrated, as McClendon appears to have little or no true personal equity in the wells”; and account to the company “for such damages as it has and will suffer as a result of their violation of law.”
Corporate Hubris?
Writing in The Wall Street Journal on April 20, columnist Holman W. Jenkins Jr. said, “It’s hard to see how Mr. McClendon, after his 2008 losses, is anything but gigantically leveraged personally amid a crash in natural gas prices, even as his company, ironically, also struggles to reduce debt.”
“The Securities and Exchange Commission is seldom stirred to action except by headlines,” Jenkins wrote. “This may be one of those occasions. The corporate governance scolds who have been seeking Mr. McClendon’s head since 2008 will likely seek it anew.”
Former Enron executive Jeff Skilling was handed a 24-year prison sentence after he was convicted of 19 counts of securities fraud and other financial crimes in 2006. Many people view Skilling’s prison sentence as outrageously long and contend he was made a politically convenient fall guy for a risk-prone and shortsighted management team that valued stock price above common sense.
Skilling was a brash, in-your-face executive. He will be remembered for many notorious incidents such as when he called Richard Grubman, an analyst with Highfields Capital who had been trying and failing to get financial documents from Enron, an “asshole” during a recorded conference call with analysts. Under Skilling and his boss Ken Lay, the culture inside Enron’s offices was built on fear, with a certain percentage of employees shown the door each year if their job performance metrics failed to measure up to their colleagues’.
The arrogance among Enron’s energy traders was legendary. When a forest fire shut down a major transmission line into California, cutting power supplies and raising prices during the Western energy crisis of 2000-2001, Enron energy traders celebrated. “Burn, baby, burn. That’s a beautiful thing,” a trader said, based on audiotapes obtained by the federal government. In another tape, an Enron trader could be heard talking about how they ripped off “grandma Millie” in California by manipulating electric power markets.
Skilling was raised in a middle class family in Illinois, while McClendon, as Goodell wrote in his Rolling Stone article, “grew up awash in oil money.”
“He’s the great-nephew of Robert S. Kerr, the influential Oklahoma governor and senator who co-founded the Kerr-McGee Corp. in 1929,” Goodell wrote. “Kerr-McGee was the ExxonMobil of its time, an energy giant that eventually sold for $16 billion. McClendon’s personal fortune is now estimated at $1.2 billion, including a major stake in the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder and a $20 million retreat in Bermuda.”
Like Skilling, McClendon can be ruthless in his role as head of Chesapeake and in his personal business dealings. With the hope of boosting natural gas’ image, McClendon has battled the coal industry. He challenged a governor who accused Chesapeake of manipulating natural gas markets. He filed a federal lawsuit against a Michigan town because he didn’t like how its zoning laws would affect his ability to develop a large piece of environmentally sensitive land that he purchased along Lake Michigan. McClendon touted the achievements of his company, the most active driller in the Marcellus Shale, and dismissed anti-fracking activists as people interested “in turning the clock back to the Dark Ages.”
The coming weeks could prove crucial as McClendon and Chesapeake seek to navigate a public relations storm. As Forbes magazine’s Christopher Helman wrote on April 19, McClendon “is in a pickle right now.”
“Natural gas, hovering around $2 per mmBTU, is cheaper than it’s been in a decade. Much of the shale gas supply boom is due to McClendon’s boundless optimism in always trying to be the first ones in to a big new play,” Helman wrote. “The better he’s gotten at finding gas, the cheaper it’s become. Chesapeake is becoming a victim of its own success.”
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Friday, April 20, 2012
The Earth Needs More Than a Day: Why We Occupy (Part 1)
Fact: April 22 is “Earth Day.”
Mic Check: Most of us humans live insulated within a culture so disconnected from its literal landbase that it has to set aside one day a year to acknowledge it even exists.
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One of my recent OWS photos:
Ballet at the barricades
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Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Sierra Club Endorses Shale Gas Fan Obama for Reelection
By Press Action
It’s now official. The Sierra Club is endorsing President Barack Obama for reelection. This is the same president who strongly supports natural gas drilling, onshore and offshore oil drilling, and the construction of new nuclear power plants.
In an April 18 letter to supporters, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said, “We’re endorsing President Obama for reelection—we made too much progress over the past four years to give it all back to Big Polluters.”
“Can you imagine what will happen if President Obama loses reelection … if polluters like big oil and coal companies buy their way into the White House and majorities in Congress?” Brune asked in the letter.
Yes, we can. The nation will continue to be dominated by fossil fuel interests and will remain wedded to an extremely destructive economic system, just as it has been during the first three-plus years of Obama’s presidency.
The environmental group’s endorsement of Obama shouldn’t come as a surprise. The group always endorses Democratic candidates for the White House. But the lack of shock shouldn’t translate into complacency. The fact that a group purporting to work for the environment would support Obama should anger every person who truly believes in protecting human health and the health of the planet.
Some political observers wondered whether Obama would lose the support of Big Green groups, given his penchant for appeasing business interests at the expense of the environment. But most astute analysts understood that the mainstream enviros would always come back to Obama, no matter how bad his policies were for the environment.
On April 18, Brune joined with the leaders of Environment America, the League of Conservation Voters and Clean Water to announce their support for Obama’s reelection. “The Sierra Club and our 1.4 million members and supporters share the same vision for America as the President for a prosperous and innovative economy that protects the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the health of our families,” Brune said in a statement.
Apparently, Brune and the leaders of these other Big Green groups haven’t had time to read the Worldwatch Institute’s latest State of the World book. Worldwatch explains that attaining sustainable prosperity will require a dramatic redirection of the global economy, shifting distribution of wealth and moving away from a growth-centric system. “While this is a daunting task, failure will lead us to an ecologically degraded future where the vast majority of humanity will never be able to be prosperous, but will simply eke out an existence on a hot, unstable planet,” Worldwatch says.
Worldwatch takes the position that “overdeveloped countries” must begin to engage in “economic degrowth.” Nowhere do the Big Green groups highlight the importance of a degrowth movement.
With the Big Green groups’ endorsements for Obama starting to roll in, we are once again getting distracted by the presidential election racket. That’s exactly what the nation’s ruling elite and Big Green groups want.
The ruling elite don’t want us embracing real political power. Instead, they want us to believe that elections make a democracy. The Big Green groups don’t want us joining together to force systemic change that could actually save the planet. They want us to work inside the system, focusing only on slowing down the rate of the planet’s destruction. The mainstream enviros are more interested in sustaining their donor base by portraying minor shifts in the nation’s environmental policies as major victories.
In his letter to supporters, Brune said, “This election will be a knockdown, drag-out fight, as big polluters and their political allies are spending unprecedented millions to defeat President Obama and roll back the progress we’ve made.”
Brune is the executive director of the same group that accepted $26 million from Chesapeake Energy Chairman and CEO Aubrey McClendon and other people associated with the natural gas producer. In case you’re not familiar with Chesapeake Energy, it is an Oklahoma-based natural gas producer that is actively drilling for natural gas in shale plays across the country, contributing to the industrialization of large portions of rural America.
In recent years, the messaging from the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense Fund was that natural gas is cleaner-burning than coal and would serve as the perfect bridge fuel to a sustainable energy future. At the time, when landmen were working overtime buying up leases across the Marcellus Shale, for example, the Sierra Club and the other Big Green groups failed to warn people about the dangers of the extraction process and the related activities that go along with natural gas drilling.
“The Sierra Club helped to put the wheels of fracking in motion. And now people are hurt. People have poisoned water,” said Sandra Steingraber Ph.D., the acclaimed author and ecologist.
The Sierra Club and Obama are on the same page when it comes to natural gas production and protecting the environment. On April 13, Obama gave the natural gas industry another chance to applaud his efforts when he issued an executive order establishing an Interagency Working Group “to support safe and responsible development of unconventional domestic natural gas resources.” All of the major natural gas lobbying groups in D.C. welcomed Obama’s move.
The Sierra Club also weclomed Obama’s decision to issue the executive order. In an April 13 news release, Brune said his group looks forward “to working with the newly formed Interagency Working Group to provide the support and policy solutions they need to be successful in protecting American families from an industry run amok.”
Obama has committed a multitude of acts that should anger real environmentalists. This is the same president who in September 2011 withdrew tougher new ground-level ozone standards that had been drafted by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Obama’s decision to overrule the EPA on the smog standards was praised by Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, certainly no friend of the environment. “Stopping this job-killing ozone standard has been one of my top priorities, and I am pleased that today’s announcement offers some good news for Oklahoma and the nation,” Inhofe said in a statement. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also hailed Obama’s decision to back down on toughening ground-level ozone standards. “The U.S. Chamber is glad the White House heeded our warning and withdrew these potentially disastrous—and completely voluntary—actions from the EPA,” U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas Donohue said in a statement. “This an enormous victory for America’s job creators, the right decision by the president, and one that will help reduce the uncertainty facing businesses.”
This is the same president who in May 2011 decided to delay a rule that would cut emissions from power plants at major industrial facilities. In January, a federal court scolded the Obama administration, ruling that the EPA had needlessly suspended implementation of what is known as the boiler MACT rule. The court called the delay “arbitrary and capricious.”
This is the same president who in March 2011 opened a large part of Wyoming to coal mining. “The decision was the carbon equivalent of opening 300 coal-fired power plants,” author and environmentalist Bill McKibben said.
This is the same president who, after a government-mandated moratorium on drilling that ended in the fall of 2010, has allowed the oil and gas industry to get back to business as usual in the Gulf of Mexico following the BP oil disaster that started in April 2010. The U.S. Department of the Interior’s recent western Gulf oil and gas lease sale attracted more than $337 million in high bids, and now the Obama administration is preparing to hold 10 more Gulf of Mexico lease sales.
This is the same president who in January released a report praising the boom in U.S. natural gas production, despite the extensive environmental damage caused by the shale gas revolution in communities across the country. In the report, the Obama administration writes: “The potential benefits to the U.S. economy are substantial.” The report ignores the environmental devastation caused by shale gas drilling. The shale gas revolution has resulted in the rapid industrialization of the land that sits atop the Marcellus Shale and other shale plays. For the hydraulic fracturing process, huge amounts of water are used. Waste pits are rampant near drilling sites. New roads are being built to provide access to the drilling sites. New pipelines and compressor stations are being built, destroying forests and animal habitats. Each phase of the natural gas production and gathering process requires the use of products, such as concrete, steel and asphalt, that use tremendous amounts of oil-based products and coal during a very energy-intensive manufacturing process.
This is the same president who touts endless economic growth, despite the fact we live in a world with finite “natural resources.” In the report released in January, the White House wrote:” We are seeing some encouraging economic signs, including 22 straight months of private sector job creation, a measurable improvement in the competitive position of U.S. manufacturing, and an expansion of our domestic natural resources that further supports business investment.” The report lacks a basic understanding of sustainability. Obama and the rest of the ruling elite believe in protecting an economic system that is making ecosystems extinct. “Industrialization is the tacit premise, that’s assumed to be what needs to be saved, rather than the world that it’s threatening,” explains Roxanne Amico, a Buffalo-based artist, independent radio producer and activist.
This is the same president who decided during the summer of 2011 to delay finalizing new regulations for the disposal of coal ash and other coal combustion waste. More than three years after the coal ash spill at TVA’s Kingston plant in Tennessee, the EPA still has yet to establish new federal protections for coal ash.
This is the same president who in his rejection of the presidential permit for TransCanada’s Keystone XL crude oil pipeline in January emphasized that the rejection was not based on the merits of the project, but the “arbitrary nature” of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information “necessary to approve the project and protect the American people.” In its recommendation to the president, the State Department emphasized that the denial of the permit application “does not preclude any subsequent permit application or applications for similar projects.” In other words, TransCanada is welcome to file an application for a similar pipeline project that the president will be more than happy to approve after the November election.
And this is the same president who continues to let the world’s worst polluter of all, the U.S. military, destroy communities and ecosystems around the world. Mickey Z. writes: “Keep this in mind the next time you hear the phrase ‘war on terror’: Our tax dollars are subsidizing a global eco-terror campaign and all the recycled toilet paper in the world ain’t gonna change that. In other words, if we don’t want our legacy to be one of inaction, we must create drastic, permanent change very, very soon.”
Officials with the Sierra Club and the other Big Green groups play the same game during every presidential election season. They beg for little scraps, minor concessions from governments and large corporations. They can’t see beyond what they view as pragmatic or realistic. They refuse to acknowledge that the ruling elite’s economic and political systems are the primary roadblocks to restoring the planet’s health.
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Roots of Occupy: The Battle in Seattle, 1999
By Mickey Z.
“In the present circumstances, I’d say that the only thing worth globalizing is dissent.” -Arundhati Roy
During a NYC Anarchist Bookfair, one of my co-presenters started a discussion about the World Trade Organization (WTO). Besides pointing out the crucial connections between such organizations/treaties and the global meat and dairy industries, he also reiterated the important role anti-WTO protests played in eventually inspiring Occupy Wall Street (OWS).
After that event, I was asked two questions that provoked this article. The first came from someone in the audience: “What are WTOs? I didn’t understand that part at all.”
Question #2 came from a fellow panelist who appeared baffled by my outspoken support for OWS throughout the event: “What is it that you like so much about Occupy?"
In the name of answering those questions, please allow me to cover way too much ground in a single article...
The WTO-OWS Connection
Created in 1995, the WTO describes itself as such:
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations. At its heart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk of the world’s trading nations and ratified in their parliaments. The goal is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business.
Another take on the WTO from Global Exchange:
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the most powerful legislative and judicial body in the world. By promoting the free trade agenda of multinational corporations above the interests of local communities, working families, and the environment, the WTO has systematically undermined democracy around the world.
In 1994, Ralph Nader offered $10,000 to any member of Congress who would read the 500-page treaty and answer ten questions about it. Colorado Senator Hank Brown took up the challenge. He passed the quiz and promptly announced that he would be voting against the WTO.
Brown’s vote was not nearly enough as others in Congress voted blindly in favor of corporate domination. Thus, when the truth about the WTO eventually became more widely known, the only vote left was to raise hell.
The organization’s decision to hold its annual meeting in Seattle in late 1999 provided activists with the stage from which they could heard by millions… and they made global headlines by essentially shutting down the meetings.
The protests weren’t perfect, of course. Different factions within the demonstration feuded over goals, issues, and tactics. Even the mainstream media recognized that paradox, with the Los Angeles Times stating:
“Leaders of the peaceful demonstrations have lashed out at the anarchists, accusing them of undermining their anti-globalism message by breaking windows and destroying property. The anarchists in turn accused the Seattle protesters of protecting the same private-property interests that the WTO represents.”
Infighting aside, the November 1999 events in Seattle injected American dissidents into an internationalist movement. In their book, 5 Days That Shook the World: Seattle and Beyond, Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn declared that the “street warriors” who were “initially shunned and denounced by respectable ‘inside strategists,’ scorned by the press, gassed and bloodied by the cops and national guard” were able to:
- Shut down the opening ceremony.
- Prevent President Bill Clinton from addressing the WTO delegates.
- Get the corporate press to actually mention police brutality.
- Force the cancellation of closing ceremonies.
Activist and author Chuck Munson of the Infoshop website listed some of the many accomplishments of the movement, post-Seattle. These include:
- The international Indymedia network.
- The return of a direct action, confrontational style of protest.
- Putting organizations like the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund (IMF) under the microscope.
- Establishing the Internet as an activist’s most valuable tool of communication.
Sound familiar? As with OWS, the Battle in Seattle was not single-issue—not even close—and owed much of its success to the role anarchists played in cultivating a non-hierarchical approach aiming at systemic change rather than incremental reform.
“Ours is a worldwide guerrilla war of publicity, harassment, obstructionism,” wrote St, Clair and Cockburn. “It’s nothing simple, like the ‘Stop the War’ slogan of the 1960s. Capitalism could stop that war and move on. American capitalism can’t stop trade and survive on any terms it cares for.”
As Michael Albert of ZNet added, the goal is to globalize equity not poverty, solidarity not anti-sociality, diversity not conformity, democracy not subordination, and ecological balance not suicidal rapaciousness.
So, what took so long? What happened between 1999 and 2011?
The Obama-OWS Connection
Dissent spreads slowly in a heavily conditioned society and the United States is as conditioned as any society in history. It would require a wake-up call—a betrayal—of epic proportions to get more people in the streets to create a movement with endurance.
Enter Mr. Yes We Can.
In 2008, Barack Obama’s campaign hypnotized far too many on the entrenched Left but—more significantly—energized and politicized a new generation of Americans. When the Pope of Hope inevitably exposed himself as just another corporate-funded war criminal—when “hope & change” became indistinguishable from “shock & awe”—it was both a profound deception and a powerful lesson: “Change we can believe in” is never top-down… real change starts with the 99%.
Enter Occupy.
By setting the bar so high, Obama inspired misguided but sincere hope in millions. By betraying those millions so swiftly, he broke a cardinal rule of marketing. He revealed to voters/consumers that there was little or no difference between the products being offered and thus inadvertently helped launch a movement I see as our last, best chance.
Which brings me back to the second question I faced the other night: “What is it that you like so much about Occupy?" Inherent in the wording (and tone of voice) was distrust if not disdain for OWS.
Without enough time to offer more than a quick answer, I focused on how the 99% umbrella is creating a massive coalition instead of single-issue activists—the first time I’d seen this since Seattle in 1999, yet far more enduring than any singular event.
Choose Process Over Purity
I’m not sure how my brief reply sounded to my co-panelist but I am sure how his question sounded to me. It brought me back to the early days of OWS when I found myself writing stuff like this, over and over:
Occupation is imperfection. Whether you call it anarchist, socialist, democratic, or utopian—it will never be perfect. More importantly, even if the initial results don’t satisfy the majority, consider this: The results will still be far better than anything we have now.
Occupation does not end. Let’s not waste time imagining potential endgames when we all know that a successful movement must be an enduring process.
Say no to purists, say no to opportunists, but find reasons to say yes to occupation.
There has never been a better time to be an activist...
When future generations ask what you did to defend all life on earth, will you talk of how effortlessly you deconstructed the impure revolutionary theory of those on the front lines or will you simply and honestly reply: “I did my part”?
So, beware the more-radical-than-thou purists and remain vigilant in smoking out those activists seeking excuses to remain in-activists. No one knows how OWS will play out but without the committed support of a wide range of allies, it cannot grow, evolve, and realize its potential.
The choice is yours: Find fault or find common ground. The future is waiting upon your decision.
We are the 99%. Expect us. Join us…
#OccupyImperfection. #OccupyParticipation.
Mickey Z. is the author of 11 books, most recently the novel Darker Shade of Green. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on an obscure website called Facebook.
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Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Roots of Occupy: The Battle in Seattle 1999
While taking part in a panel on animal liberation at the recent NYC Anarchist Bookfair, one of my co-presenters started a discussion about the World Trade Organization (WTO). Besides pointing out the crucial connections between such organizations/treaties and the global meat and dairy industries, this discussion also reiterated the role the WTO played in inspiring Occupy Wall Street (OWS).
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One of my recent OWS photos:
OWS Drum Circle of the Future
Even more OWS/Anarchist Bookfair photos here
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May Day: A Radical Strike into the Belly of the Beast
By Zakk Flash
May 1st is recognized worldwide as International Workers’ Day, a holiday originating in response to the Haymarket Massacre of 1886 in Chicago, where workers fought for the establishment of worker protection measures, namely the eight hour workday. However, while the rest of the world marks May Day as a celebration of the working class, the United States is left with Labor Day—a banker’s holiday hurriedly passed through Congress by Grover Cleveland in an attempt to appease the outrage generated by the murder of railway workers at the hands of United States Army troops during the Pullman Strike.
While a worker walk-out may have been born from the secessio plebis of Ancient Rome, English Chartist and radical preacher William Benbow brought to modern times the idea of general strike as a “sacred month” in the first mass working-class labor movement. In 1877, the Great Railroad Strike began the first major labor action in the United States; centered in East Saint Louis, the strike shut down all industrial railway traffic through the National Stockyards, letting only passenger and mail trains through. In 1936, early in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency, a series of strikes spread; half a million textile workers united in states across the country, dock workers and their associates in San Francisco, and radical Teamsters in Minneapolis all fought against the violence of police and armed strikebreakers. These strikes, and the unemployment councils that cropped up to encourage progressive change, pushed Roosevelt to enact bold reforms to the American system.
Over the course of two days in December of 1946, radical action brought City of Oakland to a standstill. The general strike there inspired the anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act that President Truman called a “conflict with important principles of our democratic society,” even as he used it twelve times over the course of his presidency. The act essentially killed the general strike as a tactic for the labor movement.
The power of the working class, however, is not tied to mainstream organized labor; concessions by the AFL-CIO to the government’s National Labor Relations Board have made the organization little more than a special interest group for the Democrats, even as they pass anti-labor and anti-free speech legislation. While the working class needs the strength of militant unionization—the IWW Food and Retail Workers United union in the Pacific Northwest being a good example—the policies of the National Labor Relations Board are decidedly anti-worker. Capitulation of reactionary unions to NLRB demands, and to the Democratic Party, constitutes abandonment of the working class.
Knowing that union leadership would be refused the blessing of their Democratic Party masters, rank-and-file members of labor joined with the Occupy Movement to speak for themselves; in October 2011, the General Assembly of Occupy Oakland voted overwhelmingly to shut down the city on November 2nd in response to the military-style crackdown on demonstrators by eighteen different police agencies, including the critical wounding of Scott Olsen and Kayvan Sabehgi, two veterans of the war in Iraq. The convergence of radical labor and Occupy Oakland made it possible to shut down the Port of Oakland, the fifth-largest container port in the nation, disrupting millions of dollars of capitalist income. This is only the beginning.
In December of 2011, Occupy Los Angeles called for a general strike on May Day, to “recognize housing, education, and healthcare as human rights.” This revival of May Day has been echoed by Occupations from wealthy Wall Street to poverty-stricken Oklahoma. Already, nationwide strikes have rocked other countries hit hard by the capitalist crisis, including Spain, Iceland, Portugal, and Greece. Austerity measures in these countries have been enacted solely to appease unelected European Union technocrats, protecting the interests of wealthy investors and multinational banking cartels. The civil war that capitalism calls “peace" is intensifying universally; the May Day General Strike will be our response to their crisis.
However, our demonstrations on May Day cannot be an exercise in paying homage to the past days of the global justice movement; instead, they must embody concrete preparation for the future. The anarchist concept of prefigurative politics demands that we lay the foundations of future society solidly in the present. By retaking May Day, we stand in solidarity with a legacy of international struggle against neoliberal capitalism and authoritarian control. Values such as classlessness, autonomy, self-management, diversity, and mutual aid preclude borders; the internationalism of May Day is only one step in a long march towards an international solidarity.
The atmosphere across the globe seems pregnant with a revolutionary fervor unseen in recent years. The occupation at New York City’s New School in 2008 provided a glimpse into the possibilities of occupation when students seized their school building as a show of solidarity against the policies of a broken administration. The nascent student movement later reclaimed campuses across California, inspiring actions nationwide with the release of an influential text called “Communiqué from an Absent Future.” At the same time, organizers linked themselves to demonstrations in Greece over the police murder of a 15-year old anarchist in the neighborhood of Exarcheia.
With the European crisis beginning in late 2010 and Arab Spring blossoming in early 2011, international resistance to gutter government became not only widespread, but populist in nature. In Greece, the “I Won’t Pay” movement took shape as normal citizens ignored tolls, transit ticket costs, and bills for healthcare. Governor Scott Walker’s anti-labor actions designed to eliminate collective bargaining were met with thousands of people descending on the Madison, Wisconsin State Capitol. Later that spring, the May 15th movement known as los Indignados took over public squares in Spain and Greece and demanded a radical change to the political milieu.
Our unity with the workers of the world extends beyond May Day. Radical movements must seek more than an end to illegitimate and authoritarian governments; we demand the recognition of universal rights, respect of individual autonomy and local decision-making, and an end to coercive and subordinate relationships in all areas of our lives. As Bob Black writes in The Abolition of Work:
"To demonize state authoritarianism while ignoring identical, albeit contract-consecrated, subservient arrangements in the large-scale corporations which control the world economy is fetishism at its worst ... Your supervisor gives you more or-else orders in a week than the police do in a decade."
Our struggle has to be more than mere conflict with a rigged economic system. Economics do not exist in a vacuum, but at the convergence of complex political, financial, and military interests. Historical, social, and legal dimensions come into play with the understanding that markets perpetrate inequities by favoring those with more power, wealth, and privilege. To avoid essentialism, we must strike hard at the intersections that prop up systemic inequality, even as we focus on unbridled market fundamentalism itself.
On May 20-21st, tens of thousands will gather in Chicago to demonstrate against the NATO military bloc. Serving as the armed will of the U.S. and Western Europe, NATO accounts for a staggering 70% of the world’s military spending, money that is used to control strategic resources of the Global South on behalf of a Western capitalist economic minority. While the majority of the planet lives on less than $2 per day, NATO swallows $2 billion per week on a war that nobody seems to want. The reasons are simple: poverty and wealth are functions of politico-economic entanglement; when resources abroad like oil or precious metals are determined to be matters of national security, the politics of who deserves what comes into play.
As spokesman for the Coalition Against NATO/G-8 War & Poverty Agenda, Andy Thayer reminds us that Richard Nixon, President of the US in ‘68, was no friend of the working class. However, even despite being “ideologically ... further to the right of any previous post-WW II president, and a notorious racist and anti-Semite to boot,” Nixon enacted a series of measures “that marked him as by far the most “progressive” president since the Great Depression—far to the left of, yes, President Obama.” Despite his conservative principles, a mass movement of citizen agitation forced Nixon to enact Affirmative Action, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), expand food stamps, nominate a Supreme Court that gave us Roe v. Wade, and finally, a wind-down of the Vietnam War.
Young men and women who join the military, many for an education or a job opportunity, are being slaughtered around the world as the American Empire advances, using poor countries as proxy in many cases. As many soldiers refuse to reenlist, the temptation of tactical nuclear strike grows for the Pentagon. Without an immediate demand for disarmament, a global nuclear war is almost certainly on the horizon; already, we see the case built for attacks on Iran and North Korea. Thayer’s call for continuous and forceful action against warmongering is an urgent one; the opportunity to act against imperial militarism must be seized in Chicago as Obama takes the stage in his effort make the NATO summit the centerpiece of his reelection campaign.
Chicago 1968 marked the beginning of the end for the Vietnam War. Exposing NATO’s military expansionist policies in Chicago 2012 may provide a valuable victory for Occupy Wall Street and for the global justice movement as a whole. War must be understood as a critical underpinning of the capitalist agenda.
The call for a general strike and the mobilization of opposition to NATO’s military stranglehold, however, must only be the beginning of a growing and sustained process of radical organization: of fellow citizens in the workplace, in our neighborhoods, and in our schools. Our movement must include the homeless, the working poor, the uneducated, the societal marginalized—those most disadvantaged by capitalist exploitation. Radical mo(ve)ments such as these serve as a wake-up call, not only to socio-political elites faced with a critical mass demanding change, but to the entirety of the working class who have realized the power they seek lies in their own direct action. Profound social transformation must be at the root of any economic recovery.
We live in a time when half-hearted notions of “reform” are served only as a recuperative mechanism for capitalist greed, where governments pledge that the only escape from financial crisis must come through workers surrendering their rights, where the commons is privatized and the rights of all are turned into a bargaining chip that benefits only a few. Women’s bodies are turned into battlegrounds as politicians fight for office. Social services, education, and jobs are being slashed in a scorched-earth campaign to preserve power.
Historically, government has failed in its responsibilities, unless forced by direct action: sit-ins and Freedom Rides for the rights of black people, strikes and boycotts for the rights of workers, mutinies and desertions of soldiers in order to stop a war. Today, we can be sure we will not see any change from the status quo ... unless popular upsurge demands it. The best way to make our demands known? Hit capitalism in its pocketbook.
I’ll meet you at the barricades.
Dr. Zakk Flash is an anarchist political writer, radical community activist, and editor of the Central Oklahoma Black/Red Alliance (COBRA). He lives in Norman, Oklahoma.
Find more about the Central Oklahoma Black/Red Alliance (COBRA) at http://www.facebook.com/COBRACollective.
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Monday, April 16, 2012
Gas Industry Gives Obama High Marks for Plan to Streamline Fracking Regulations
By Press Action
When the oil and gas industry unanimously supports an Obama White House initiative, it’s time to sound the sound the alarm and rally the troops. Environmental activists are already stretched thin in their efforts to protect human health and the health of the planet. But the political elite never take a day off from promoting and enacting policies that cause irreversible damage to the environment. So activists, despite their exhaustion, must take a deep breath and keep on fighting.
Since assuming the presidency, President Barack Obama has frequently expressed support for the natural gas industry. In his State of the Union address in January, he blew a big kiss to the industry. He sang natural gas’ praises, saying the United States has “a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly one hundred years.” Obama also proudly said his administration, over the last three years, has opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration. “And tonight, I’m directing my administration to open more than 75% of our potential offshore oil and gas resources,” he said.
Natural gas industry officials gave Obama’s State of the Union address a standing ovation, thanking him for acknowledging the industry’s role in creating jobs and providing for a “secure energy future.” On Friday, April 13, Obama gave the natural gas industry another chance to applaud his efforts when he issued an executive order establishing an Interagency Working Group “to support safe and responsible development of unconventional domestic natural gas resources.”
On the day of the announcement, Obama administration officials met with natural gas industry leaders to inform them of the president’s plans, which are part of his effort to reduce the regulatory burden on the natural gas industry and other U.S. business sectors.
The American Petroleum Institute, the powerful lobbying group for the oil and gas industry, issued a statement April 13, saying it welcomed Obama’s executive order. “We’re pleased that the White House recognizes the need to coordinate the efforts of the ten federal agencies that are reviewing, studying or proposing new regulations on natural gas development and hydraulic fracturing,” Jack Gerard, API president and CEO, said after attending the White House meeting on the executive order. “We have called on the White House to rein in these uncoordinated activities to avoid unnecessary and overlapping federal regulatory efforts and are pleased to see forward progress.”
API thanked Obama for supporting the natural gas industry and argued that “adding potentially redundant federal regulation could stifle the kind of investment that has led to lower energy prices for consumers, more American jobs, and increased energy security.”
The American Gas Association, the trade association for investor-owned natural gas utility companies, gave a big thumbs-up to Obama’s executive order. In an April 13 statement, Dave McCurdy, AGA’s president and CEO and a former congressman from Oklahoma, said his association is “pleased to see this action today, which will help promote consistency between the administration and policies that are put in place.”
McCurdy also noted that “President Obama highlighted the benefits of natural gas in his State of the Union address, and has been promoting responsible production and broader use of this domestic, abundant, affordable, clean and reliable energy source.”
Obama’s decision to establish the working group comes a year after he issued an executive order—welcomed by the U.S. manufacturing and energy sectors—calling for a full review of all federal regulations to make sure they are not stifling economic growth and harming the competitiveness of Corporate America.
“Some sectors and industries face a significant number of regulatory requirements, some of which may be redundant, inconsistent, or overlapping,” Obama said in the January 2011 executive order. “Greater coordination across agencies could reduce these requirements, thus reducing costs and simplifying and harmonizing rules.” In a January 2012 speech, Obama emphasized that Corporate America “can’t be bogged down by red tape and bureaucracy if we’re actually going to get every bang for the buck.”
In his executive order establishing the Interagency Working Group on unconventional gas production, Obama said the panel will include officials from the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of the Interior, Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Transportation, Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security, Environmental Protection Agency, Council on Environmental Quality, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Office of Management and Budget, and National Economic Council.
“In 2011, natural gas provided 25 percent of the energy consumed in the United States. Its production creates jobs and provides economic benefits to the entire domestic production supply chain, as well as to chemical and other manufacturers, who benefit from lower feedstock and energy costs,” Obama said in the executive order. “By helping to power our transportation system, greater use of natural gas can also reduce our dependence on oil. And with appropriate safeguards, natural gas can provide a cleaner source of energy than other fossil fuels.”
API and AGA weren’t the only industry groups to greet Obama’s executive order with open arms. America’s Natural Gas Alliance, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbyist for shale gas producers, said it appreciates Obama’s issuance of this executive order.
“It lays out a blueprint for the coordination of work among the federal agencies on this important domestic resource,” ANGA said. “We particularly note that the Administration, through the order, recognizes that the states are the primary regulators of natural gas activities. Each state has different geological conditions and state regulators have the on-the-ground presence and expertise to promulgate and oversee unique operating requirements. We look forward to continuing to work with both the Administration and the states in bringing the benefits of this clean, domestic resource to all Americans.”
The Independent Petroleum Association of America, a D.C.-based lobbyist for oil and gas producers, also gave Obama kudos for the initiative. “The White House executive order has a very good intent—centralizing the many ongoing reviews of hydraulic fracturing policies and proposals,” IPAA President and CEO Barry Russell said in an April 13 statement. “We hope this order provides the administration with a more comprehensive understanding of the federal government’s increasing regulatory grasp on the industry. A key mission of this new coordination effort should be to reach out to the state agencies who already regulate hydraulic fracturing and the industry’s other practices.”
The Natural Gas Supply Association, which represents large natural gas producers, said Obama’s initiative could create an improved regulatory environment for natural gas development. “The order establishes a coordinated approach toward federal regulation while acknowledging the primacy of state regulators, setting the stage for natural gas companies to function in a more effective, streamlined environment,” NGSA President and CEO R. Skip Horvath said in an April 13 statement. “The companies that supply the nation’s natural gas stand ready to help achieve its potential as a key part of the U.S. economy and energy policy.”
One of the primary goals of the Interagency Working Group on unconventional gas production will be to quiet public opposition to the industrialization of communities where shale gas companies are drilling wells. The working group will not be tasked with enhancing or improving the safety of shale gas drilling. Instead, the working group will seek to “coordinate agency policy activities, ensuring their efficient and effective operation and facilitating cooperation among agencies,” according to the executive order.
Natural gas companies and their investors dislike regulatory uncertainty. If the federal government streamlines its regulatory activities, shale gas companies will be able to operate with more confidence knowing that their operations will not be disrupted.
The working group will be guided by the industry’s rush to develop shale gas resources and the assumption that, even after all the damage it has done already, mitigation is an option. The working group will be similar to the Department of Energy subcommittee created by Obama to study shale gas production.
Stephen Cleghorn Ph.D., a Pennsylvania farmer who in 2011 testified before the DOE subcommittee, said the panel did not consider whether shale gas production should be halted. “They’re in the business of making it continue,” Cleghorn told Press Action in February. “Their charge is to figure out for [Energy Secretary Steven] Chu and the president how to make this gas drilling happen in a responsible way.”
According to Cleghorn, keeping a tighter leash on the gas companies is not good enough. He cited the work of ecologist and author Sandra Steingraber Ph.D., author of Living Downstream: An Ecologist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment, who contends that mitigation measures, such as recycling of toxic fracking wastewater or triple casings around well bores, do not reduce the ultimate risk and harm caused by gas drilling.
“Mitigation strategies make fracking seem less destructive than it really is. Mitigation builds time bombs with longer fuses. To advocate for mitigation is to sanction gas drilling,” Steingraber said in a Jan. 9 presentation at a conference sponsored by Physicians Scientists & Engineers for Healthy Energy and Mid-Atlantic Center for Children’s Health and the Environment.
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Saturday, April 14, 2012
New York Times Fabricates 'Balanced' Discussion on Natural Gas
By Press Action
The New York Times organized a conference on energy, which included speeches and panel discussions that addressed the use of hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas from shale plays across the United States. Even though there is widespread opposition to the use of hydraulic fracturing, the day-long conference on April 11 did not include a single speaker opposed to fracking.
The conference included a representative from the Environmental Defense Fund, but neither the representative, chief counsel Mark Brownstein, nor EDF as a group is opposed to fracking. On the other hand, the conference was awash with cheerleaders for natural gas production, including Energy Secretary Steven Chu, American Gas Association President and CEO Dave McCurdy and Southwestern Energy Co. President and CEO Steve Mueller.
Given the New York Times’ often strong reporting on natural gas drilling, it is shocking that the “newspaper of record” would exclude opponents of fracking from the agenda of its energy conference. Regarding the format of the conference, the Times said it would “curate both speakers and audience, to guarantee a balanced, thorough and open debate.” For those attendees who dished out $1,500 to attend the conference and were expecting a truly balanced and thorough debate on hydraulic fracturing and other energy issues, they should demand their money back.
During his session, Chu emphasized that he had no doubt that drilling in shale gas plays could be performed in an environmentally responsible way. “That’s something I believe that can be developed very responsibly,” he said. In fracking, millions of gallons of chemically treated water are injected underground to break up rock and free trapped gas.
Chu also said he supports the export of domestically produced natural gas as a way to drive up natural gas prices. The Energy secretary said that if natural gas prices remain depressed for too long, it could impede natural gas production in shale plays. Chu did not address the belief of many people that slowing down or stopping natural gas extraction would benefit human health and the health of the environment.
Instead, for Chu, the focus is entirely on creating wealth for U.S. energy and industrial companies. The Obama administration official said there is a way to continue natural gas extraction and allow liquefied natural gas exports that will “create a lot of wealth in the United States.”
The U.S. Department of Energy, under President Barack Obama’s leadership, has been extremely pro-fracking and pro-LNG exports. Speaking in Houston in early February, Chu said the low price of natural gas is hurting domestic job growth and exporting the fuel would boost the U.S. economy. “Exporting natural gas means wealth comes into the United States,” Chu said.
Obama recently trumpeted how U.S. natural gas production has reached an all-time high during his presidency. In his 2012 State of the Union Address, Obama announced a new goal to develop natural gas resources in a way that would support employment for 600,000 Americans by the end of the decade. This includes jobs involved in the production and distribution of shale gas as well as jobs in companies that supply services and equipment to the shale gas industry. Do these pronouncements make you feel confident that Obama administration is truly concerned about the terrible environmental consequences of natural gas extraction and recognizes how an economy based on nonstop growth will destroy the planet?
Ken Salazar, Obama’s Interior secretary, says that “hydraulic fracturing is very much a necessary part of the future of natural gas because without this new technology, the amount of natural gas we have in this country is a very [minute] amount.”
The Environmental Defense Fund, one of the Big Green groups that supports natural gas extraction, welcomes natural gas’ role in replacing coal as a fuel for power plants. Speaking at the New York Times conference, EDF’s Brownstein said natural gas serves as a perfect complement to the intermittency of renewable energy. “Gas can play that role,” Brownstein said.
At the New York Times conference, Michael Levi, senior for energy and the environment at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that it is a “great thing” that natural gas is replacing coal as a fuel at power plants. Natural gas “has done more than any legislative initiative in the last decade to push coal out of the system,” Levi said.
Unfortunately, the New York Times chose not to offer a real discussion on natural gas. Instead, it was a one-sided affair in which you had industry and government officials expressing great confidence in the potential of natural gas and the loyal members of the environmental and nonprofit world providing their stamp of approval for natural gas production and exports, as long as they are conducted in a thoughtful and responsible manner.
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Thursday, April 12, 2012
Anti-War Means Anti-War: Voices of Occupy (part 5)
During a recent exchange on Facebook, occupier Bill Perry discussed the need for Occupy Wall Street (OWS) to be more openly anti-war: “The argument from September 17 through the end of 2011 was that only 70% of the 99% were against the war, and we might alienate the remaining 30%,” he wrote.
To which, fellow occupier John Penley added: “OWS should take on the US Military Industrial Complex in big way. This is something that has not been done on large scale. Military war spending is the root of many of the problems OWS has taken up but we have not targeted the source itself. I personally would love to see a call for national anti-military industrial complex anti-war actions.”
“As a Viet Nam combat vet,” says Perry, “I find the young-uns to be really embarrassing when they fawn over us Vets, rather than fighting to cut the 700 billion dollar defense budget that causes cuts in education, student loans, Medicare, Social Security, health care, housing, labor rights, and all the other issues without addressing where the money has gone. It’s time to step up and re-focus.”
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One of my recent OWS photos:
Hearts & Minds
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Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Worldwatch Institute: Economic System No Longer Works for People or the Planet
By Press Action
The Industrial Revolution gave birth to an economic growth model rooted in structures, behaviors and activities that are unsustainable, according to the Worldwatch Institute. In this bold pronouncement, Worldwatch, a mainstream environmental research organization, essentially is linking the ongoing destruction of the planet to the dominant economic system.
Mainstream environmental organizations have strong ties to the global economic elite, either through their relationships with foundation grant funders or the makeup of their board of directors. These factors, combined with the conventional thinking of the people who fill the groups’ leadership positions, typically result in policy prescriptions that, at best, offer only Band-Aids, not legitimate remedies, to the environmental crisis.
In an April 3 press release announcing the release of Worldwatch’s latest State of the World book, Michael Renner, a senior researcher with the group, said, “Mounting ecosystem stress and resource pressures are accompanied by increased economic volatility, growing inequality, and social vulnerability. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the economy no longer works for either people or the planet.”
Instead of letting a failed economic system continue to destroy the planet, Worldwatch says the world needs to pursue what it calls “sustainable prosperity.” Worldwatch incorporated the catchphrase into the title of its latest State of the World book, the 29th in a series that it began in 1984. In State of the World: Moving Toward Sustainable Prosperity, the think tank defines sustainable prosperity as “development that allows all human beings to live with their fundamental needs met, with their dignity acknowledged, and with abundant opportunity to pursue lives of satisfaction and happiness, all without risk of denying others in the present and the future the ability to do the same.”
Worldwatch explains that attaining sustainable prosperity will require a dramatic redirection of the global economy, shifting distribution of wealth and moving away from a growth-centric system. “While this is a daunting task, failure will lead us to an ecologically degraded future where the vast majority of humanity will never be able to be prosperous, but will simply eke out an existence on a hot, unstable planet,” Worldwatch says.
Once again, Worldwatch, in explaining what will happen if the world does not address the environmental crisis, uses the word “prosperous” to describe an ideal future in which humans live in harmony with nature. Based on the messages conveyed by the nation’s mass media and the lessons taught in the nation’s classrooms, though, most Americans would liken prosperous to being successful in material terms, such as owning a well-appointed house, two cars, and a country club membership.
But Worldwatch appears to be going in a different direction by defining the word as having one’s fundamental needs met. The think tank, though, also throws in “satisfaction” and “happiness” into its definition of sustainable prosperity. Satisfaction and happiness, of course, are relative terms. The opportunities and material goods that make a human satisfied and happy in Dallas are likely going to be different than what makes a human satisfied and happy in Dhaka.
On the surface, the message in the latest edition of Worldwatch’s State of the World book seems radical, delivering a stern rebuke of the grow-or-die capitalist system that is playing a major role in destroying the planet. Erik Assadourian, a senior fellow at Worldwatch and co-director of State of the World 2012, says, “If we do not radically change our consumer culture and collectively re-prioritize sustainable living, we will be the agents of our own undoing.”
But when dealing with established, mainstream organizations such as Worldwatch, one must be mindful of rhetoric versus reality. Worldwatch’s publications and official statements may offer an analysis that strays to the edges of acceptable discourse in dominant political circles. As an organization that relies on grants from foundations and wealthy donors, though, Worldwatch must be careful not to tread too far outside the box when offering solutions. The proverbial devil is in the details, not in the bold pronouncements of senior officials at Worldwatch.
Worldwatch takes the position that “overdeveloped countries” must begin to engage in “economic degrowth.” This is certainly not a term one hears every day in mainstream political and economic discourse. But this is the only honest position a true environmental group can take, given the rate at which the environment is being decimated to sustain the mega-economies. Worldwatch should be praised for adopting the “degrowth” mantra. But let’s take a look at how Worldwatch suggests overdeveloped nations should embark on a degrowth movement?
Worldwatch says, “This can be achieved by a mix of tax shifting, shortening work weeks, denormalizing certain types of consumption, and de-marketizing certain sectors of the economy, such as food production and child care.”
In other sections of this year’s State of the World, Worldwatch explains that transnational corporations, or TNCs, often go unchecked, with no limits placed on their impacts on society, the environment, or the economy. What is Worldwatch’s proposed remedy? “TNCs must adapt if sustainability is to become a reality, including shifts in their purpose, ownership, capital investment, and governance,” Worldwatch says.
Worldwatch also calls on mobilizing the business community to be more green, inclusive and socially responsible. Such an effort “will take a combination of business-led voluntary initiatives reinforced by new corporate structures and strong government policy and public oversight,” the group says.
Here we have a mainstream environmental group with the courage to publicly endorse rolling back economic growth and its attendant energy use. But, unfortunately, Worldwatch follows up its astute analysis with a set of feeble proposals. Incremental reforms such as tax shifting and urging corporations to change their purpose and governance are already occurring in some parts of the over-developed world. And many of the recommendations in State of the World, including the passages that focus on shifting toward denser cities that require less motorized travel and support healthy communities by enabling walking and cycling, could have been written by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg or other big city officials.
Unlike big environmental groups, Worldwatch does not make the assumption that economic growth, as opposed to the planet itself, is what needs to be saved. The group’s president, Robert Engelman, states plainly that “perpetual economic and demographic growth aren’t possible on a finite planet.” He calls for a “good life” for humans based on “enough” rather than “ever more.”
But Worldwatch’s timid measures would do little to stop, let alone slow down, the destructive forces of the global industrial economy, which is barreling forward like a runaway train threatening to run over everything that gets in its way.
Worldwatch and other environmental groups now appear to favor the catchphrase “sustainable prosperity” over “sustainable development,” given their recognition that development is what’s causing so much harm to the natural world.
Worldwatch’s new State of the World book could easily serve as a companion to the United Nations High Level Panel on Global Sustainability’s new report, “Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A future worth choosing,” which was released in January.
In its book, though, Worldwatch takes a deeper and more critical look than the UN panel in analyzing the relationship between the dominant global economy and the environmental crisis. Coincidence or not, Worldwatch’s State of the World and the UN report highlight the importance of “prosperity.” In its report, the UN panel said its mission “was to reflect on and formulate a new vision for sustainable growth and prosperity, along with mechanisms for achieving it.”
The UN panel argued that the “international community needs what some have called ‘a new political economy’ for sustainable development.” According to the panel, this means, for example, recognizing that with climate change, there is “market failure”, which requires both regulation and what the economists would recognize as the pricing of “environmental externalities”, while making explicit the economic, social and environmental costs of action and inaction.
The UN report also stresses “the importance of innovation, new technologies, international cooperation and investments responding to these problems and generating further prosperity.” None of the panel’s recommendations would help to stop the dominant culture’s destruction of the planet. In fact, most of the UN panel’s recommendations, including its call for “generating further prosperity,” would only worsen the health of the planet.
According to environmental writer Jeffrey St. Clair, “The environmental movement has become freighted with more and more deceptive terms. Let’s begin by banishing the tiresome phrase sustainable development. Coined by NGOs in the 1970s, this discreditable term has been used to put a green gloss on everything from mega-dams to rainforest logging. Endless development is a more accurate description.”
Bravo for Worldwatch for labeling the dominant grow-or-die economic system as the reason for the environmental crisis. But its recommendations, on the other hand, are watered down and clearly don’t reflect the urgency merited by the worsening condition of the air, water and land.
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Monday, April 09, 2012
We will not be hijacked: Voices of Occupy (part 4)
This past week, I got a message from one the occupiers who attended my talk—Shannone Rhea—informing me of an attempt by a MoveOn front group to co-opt Occupy the East End (OEE). Shannone requested my help in spreading the word so for starters, I offer this excerpt from the OEE press release:
(MoveOn’s) most recent attempt to co-opt our movement is by scheduling a “99% Spring Training” by a MoveOn front group called “99% Spring” on April 15, 2012 at the same location and time where Occupy the East End (OEE) has been holding its General Assemblies since the group formed in October of 2011. Occupy the East End delivered an unprecedented unanimous block—every OEE member at the GA issued a personal block—to a MoveOn representative who “asked” OEE to participate—after MoveOn had scheduled the event. The MoveOn rep refused to change the date or time and informed OEE that “you will be taken over [by MoveOn] whether you like it or not."
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One of my recent OWS photos:
Free speech activists forced to remove a poster detailing a legal decision which protects such free speech
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Sunday, April 08, 2012
Sandra Steingraber's Generosity Invigorates Anti-Fracking Movement
By Press Action
“The compliance that fatalism effects is invisible to the fatalistic thinker, who does not regard him or herself as a conformist, but simply as a realist.” -Eileen Crist, from “Beyond the Climate Crisis: A Critique of Climate Change Discourse” in Telos
Sandra Steingraber Ph.D., the acclaimed author and ecologist, is determined to stop natural gas companies from ever conducting hydraulic fracturing in her upstate New York community. She was raised in a family whose members did not close their eyes to the horrors around them.
Steingraber, who was adopted as an infant, said part of the game plan of those who carry out atrocities is to make them seem unstoppable and inevitable. In her role as a public health biologist, she is witnessing atrocities being committed against air, food and water by the natural gas industry and other industrial sectors. “It seems to me that we are in the middle of an ecological holocaust, to speak really bluntly,” she said in a recent interview with Press Action.
Steingraber’s adoptive father had to go off and fight Adolf Hitler as an 18-year-old. During much of World War II, the German Wehrmacht seemed unstoppable. But ultimately Nazi Germany was defeated. Steingraber’s father and the millions of others battling Hitler’s military machine remained steadfast in part because they believed they were fighting a good fight.
The vast majority of Germans either participated in or overlooked the atrocities of Nazi Germany and later denied personal moral responsibility for what occurred around them. After the war, the rest of the world did not judge these people kindly. Because of the syndrome known as the “Good Germans,” the evil of Nazism was allowed to spread widely, Steingraber said.
Growing up in Illinois, the lesson she was taught by her parents and extended family was never act like a Good German. “You don’t judge the probability of success when you do the right thing,” she said. “You just do the right thing. And you do it with your whole heart.”
Today, Steingraber is inspired by the commitment of the individuals and grassroots groups who are working against the use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, an industrial practice used for the extraction of natural gas. “I believe fracking in New York is stoppable,” she said. “It has to be stopped and therefore we can stop it.”
But as with the Good Germans of the 1930s and 1940s, there are many Americans living in fracking zones who are pretending that everything is normal and fine. Steingraber finds this type of mindset extremely troubling, especially among residents in New York where state officials appear to be on the verge of ending the state’s de facto moratorium on fracking.
“The biggest obstacle in our way, not to diminish the power of the oil and gas industry, which I fully acknowledge is the wealthiest and most powerful industry on the planet, but it’s really the advanced resignation of the people that they are about to run over that is my biggest problem right now,” Steingraber said.
Too many people believe it is not realistic to fight for the abolition of fracking. They opt instead to lobby lawmakers for stricter regulations. “That’s really a form of fatalism that’s treacherous,” Steingraber said. “There’s no science that shows regulations are actually protective. If we go the regulatory route, we are laying time bombs underneath New York.”
Resistance Is Never Futile
In her latest book, Raising Elijah: Protecting Our Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis, Steingraber cites a newspaper article in which an energy company official is quoted as saying, “The shale army has arrived. Resistance is futile.”
The U.S. natural gas industry indeed views the places where it sets up operations as a battlefield, especially in areas of the country where the industry has held little influence and lacked visibility. When it explores and drills for natural gas in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, there is relatively little public opposition to its activities. But as advances were made in hydraulic fracturing technology and extracting natural gas from shale rock became more economical, gas companies jumped at the opportunity to move into new areas where local politicians had yet to be paid off by the industry.
Legislators and regulators in the states situated above the Marcellus Shale, though, were easy targets. Public officials in Pennsylvania, for example, rolled over without any hesitation when the gas industry dangled large amounts of money before their eyes. The shale gas army moved into the state, known affectionately by drilling enthusiasts as the “Saudi Arabia of natural gas,” with the full blessing of state and local officials, even though studies had not been conducted to ensure gas drilling and its associated activities would not have adverse effects on local communities.
Unlike the paid-off politicians, many Pennsylvania residents viewed the gas industry with suspicion. The previous extractive industry to invade Pennsylvania—coal—also promised riches for everyone. But what the coal barons ultimately oversaw was the permanent scarring of a state, leaving behind destroyed ecosystems and countless cases of black lung. Recognizing a higher level of distrust than it faced in friendlier regions of the U.S., the gas industry knew it had a public relations battle on its hands.
The industry started pouring millions of dollars into advertising campaigns and building highly disciplined PR operations. Gas companies believed they were fighting an insurgency. As a result, they hired former U.S. military psychological operations, or psy-ops, experts comfortable in dealing with localized issues and local governments. “Having that understanding of psy-ops in the Army and in the Middle East has applied very helpfully here for us in Pennsylvania,” a gas company official said about his company’s decision to hire former military psy-ops experts.
In Raising Elijah, Steingraber acknowledges the shale gas army has arrived in the Marcellus Shale and has set its sights on her community in New York. But when the health of children and the future of the planet are at stake, resistance is never futile—“unless you believe sitting at a segregated lunch counter or standing before a line of tanks in Tiananmen Square is just a waste of time,” she writes in the book.
“If everyone who had quiet anxiety and concerns about fracking acted upon their values, we could stop it,” Steingraber told Press Action. “But it’s this advanced fatalism that I find most frustrating. It’s harder for me to deal with than the arguments of the oil and gas industry. I’m happy to debate the oil and gas industry anytime, anywhere. And if we’re having a fair and honest debate on the evidence, I always feel like I’ve won the argument.”
Exposing the Big Green Collaborators
Steingraber is particularly troubled by the so-called realism when it is practiced by the big environmental groups who then provide political cover for the natural gas industry. For example, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune revealed in a February interview with Time magazine that from 2007 to 2010 the Sierra Club had accepted $26 million from Chesapeake Energy Chairman and CEO Aubrey McClendon and other people associated with the natural gas producer.
Steingraber recently wrote a letter denouncing the Sierra Club for its decision to accept millions of dollars from the gas industry. In the letter, posted on the Orion Magazine website on March 23, Steingraber said she would be removing the Sierra Club’s endorsement — the group in 1999 called her “the new Rachel Carson” — from her website.
The Sierra Club’s response to her letter failed to placate Steingraber. “There has been no acknowledgement that in the years in which they were doing the bidding of the oil and gas industry that they provided political cover, including hoodwinking people like me,” she told Press Action.
Steingraber lives in Tompkins County, New York, where 40% of the land has been leased to natural gas drillers. She is angry at how the leasing was conducted in a hush-hush manner at a time when the big green groups were actively endorsing natural gas production. “How did I not know that?” she asks about the leasing activity. “To get to all the people who own 40% of the land and to get them to sign contracts, all kinds of house visits and phone calls had to happen when the Sierra Club was on the payroll.”
The messaging that people were hearing from the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense Fund was that natural gas is cleaner-burning than coal and would serve as the perfect bridge fuel to a sustainable energy future. At the time, when landmen were working overtime buying up leases across New York, the Sierra Club and the other big green groups failed to warn people about the dangers of the extraction process and the related activities that go along with natural gas drilling.
After Brune told Time magazine about the payments from the natural gas industry, Steingraber said she wanted to wait and see how the organization would react to the disclosure. Would they clean house and reorganize? After six weeks of waiting, she realized the organization would not be making any substantive changes. That’s when she decided to write her letter blasting the group.
“Any board member who had anything to do with it should resign,” Steingraber said. “Then there are reparations that need to happen. The Sierra Club helped to put the wheels of fracking in motion. And now people are hurt. People have poisoned water.”
Given the gas industry’s toxic track record and the fact the industry is gearing up to begin extracting natural gas in her community, Steingraber decided to devote a chapter of Raising Elijah to fracking and how it negatively impacts public health and the environment.
“The proposal to shatter the shale bedrock of our rural county and extract from it natural gas reveals the abandonment” of the precautionary principle, she writes in the book.
“I felt like I had to include a chapter on fracking in the book. It became the capstone final chapter, which I hope encapsulates all of the previous problems that I wrote about in the first nine chapters,” Steingraber said, adding that she is currently working on a book devoted entirely to fracking.
Refusing to Remain Silent
When she began researching and writing Raising Elijah four years ago, Steingraber said she did not aim to write about fracking. It was her intention to summarize for parents the state of the evidence on environmental health threats to pediatric development, from point of conception through and including puberty.
However, gradually she began to see fracking as the largest threat to children in the region of New York where she lives with her husband, Jeff de Castro, and her two children, Faith and Elijah. The younger of the two, Elijah, was named after Elijah Lovejoy, an abolitionist writer from Alton, Illinois, just down the river from where Steingraber grew up.
In her research, Steingraber learned that Lovejoy remained calm in his published writings about slave owners and their supporters. Lovejoy saved his fierce language for the citizens of Illinois who sought to remain above the fray, ignoring the evils of slavery. Lovejoy’s fellow residents in Alton volunteered to sign a resolution asking him to cease publication and leave town but would not sign a resolution that urged protection against mob rule. These people were “the ones who believed themselves upstandingly moral but who chose to remain silent about the great moral crisis of the day,” she said.
In November 1837, Lovejoy, 35, was killed by a mob, shot to death over his anti-slavery views. If his fellow citizens who opposed slavery had stood up to defend him and speak out against slavery, Lovejoy almost certainly would not have been killed. And if all of the Americans who chose to remain silent for so many years had decided to fight for what was right, slavery would have ended much earlier.
The same is true for protecting public health and the environment. Because of the significance of what is at stake, Steingraber views the anti-fracking movement as part of a long, noble history. But for the movement to be successful, people need to recognize that silence is complicity.
Steingraber, who earned a doctorate in biology from the University of Michigan, has studied the practice of hydraulic fracturing and its impact on humans and the environment. At a recent public health conference, she explained that fracking is a form of fossil fuel extraction that turns the earth inside out. It buries a surface resource that is vital to life—fresh water—and brings to the surface subterranean substances—hydrocarbons, radioactive materials, heavy metals, brine—that were once locked away in deep geological strata and now require permanent containment, she said in her presentation.
“Before it is sent down the borehole, the fresh water used to fracture bedrock is mixed with inherently toxic materials. These include known and suspected carcinogens, neurological toxicants, and chemicals linked to pregnancy loss,” she explained . “At least one thousand truck trips are required to frack a single well. These trucks—along with earth-moving equipment, compressors, and condensers—release or create soot, volatile organic compounds, and ozone. Exposure to this kind of air pollution has demonstrable links to asthma, stroke, heart attack, cancers, and preterm birth.”
Not only are natural gas producers using highly toxic substances to pull the methane out of shale gas formations deep below the earth’s surface, the gas getting extracted is being used as a feedstock for highly toxic chemicals. The widespread use of fracking is creating an abundant and cheaper feedstock to create these toxic chemicals. For many years, Steingraber worked for chemical reform and changing the nation’s laws that govern the production, use and disposal of toxic chemicals. But with fracking, she believes a new approach is needed.
“It really makes no sense for me to keep talking about how we need chemical reform when we keep blasting out of the ground more and more of the feedstock that makes that stuff,” she said.
One Battle at a Time
Steingraber, who also authored the acclaimed book Living Downstream: An Ecologist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment and is featured in a 2010 documentary of the same title, understands first-hand what is at stake for public health in the fracking wars. She is a cancer survivor. 
She was diagnosed with bladder cancer more than three decades ago, at the age of 20. It is the most expensive kind of cancer because people can live a long life with it, but it tends to recur in the majority of patients. “It’s the cancer most likely to recur of all human cancers,” Steingraber said. “That means you live a really highly medical life forever and I’m also considered at high risk for other kinds of cancers. The medical surveillance that I’m under is intense.”
Steingraber isn’t the only cancer survivor in her immediate family. Her mother was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer when Steingraber was 15 years old. Her mother, who was told at the time that she had only months to live, is still alive and at 82 has outlived most of her doctors. “Her main message to me is don’t let them bury you until you are dead,” she said.
Looking back at World War II and her father’s fight against Nazi Germany, Steingraber recites a portion of the speech given by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill before the House of Commons and how it informs her battle with cancer and applies to the anti-fracking movement. “We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender,” Churchill said in the June 1940 speech.
“You just take it one battle at a time,” Steingraber said. “You bring the sort of Churchillian determination to every biopsy and you keep fighting.”
To aid in the fight against fracking, Steingraber made the decision to donate a significant portion of the $100,000 she received as a winner of the Heinz Award to help prevent fracking in New York.
Established by Teresa Heinz in 1993 to honor the memory of her late husband, U.S. Senator John Heinz, the awards recognize outstanding individuals for their contributions in the areas of the environment, arts and humanities, human condition, public policy, and technology, the economy and employment.
The Heinz Family Foundation selected Steingraber for the award for successfully bringing a human rights approach to the environmental crisis. “Dr. Steingraber urges governments to adopt policies that safeguard the healthy development of children and the abiding ecological systems on which their lives depend,” the Heinz Family Foundation said in its profile of the award recipients. “Dr. Steingraber has deployed her rare combination of abilities as a lyrical writer, disciplined scientist and passionate advocate to the pursuit of a healthier world for us all, saying, ‘What we love we must protect.’”
Steingraber said the timing of the award announcement influenced the outcome of her decision to use the money to fight fracking. When she received the telephone call from Teresa Heinz letting her know that she had won the award, Steingraber was on a research trip in the western United States studying the impact of fracking.
“I was in Salt Lake City when I got the phone call and it just happened that Tim DeChristopher, the activist who successfully disrupted the leasing of public land in southern Utah for the oil and gas industry, was being sentenced,” she said. “I was shocked that he got two years in prison. I was shocked that he was led away in chains.”
Resistance and Moral Obligations
Steingraber said DeChristopher’s speech at his sentencing hearing deeply moved her. “He looked at the judge and said, ‘This is what love looks like,’” she said. “The rest of his speech was all about our moral obligation at this moment in history to do whatever we can to the best of our ability to stop forms of resource extraction that are eliminating the future for young people. Here he was a young man going to prison acknowledging that this is taking away his future plans, but the point was he had no future anyway because of the oil and gas industry.”
So when she received the phone call from Teresa Heinz and realized she had a cash prize of $100,000 with no restrictions, Steingraber said “it seemed that I was called by Tim DeChristopher himself and his message to do everything I could to stop, to resist fracking.”
“I didn’t want to use the money to study fracking. I wanted to use it to stop fracking,” she said.
On March 26, Steingraber announced she would be providing the seed money for the formation of a statewide coalition called New Yorkers Against Fracking. Joining Steingraber as honorary advisory committee members are Niagara native, former Love Canal resident and founder of Center for Health, Environment and Justice Lois Gibbs and anti-fracking advocate and upstate resident and actor Mark Ruffalo.
Steingraber said her decision to donate a significant portion of the Heinz Award represents the reverse of what the oil and gas industry does. Oil and gas companies “come in and cut checks that they give to people in exchange for their compliance and silence,” she said. “I’m going to write a big check and push that into the community in exchange for resistance and speech.”
The $100,000 donation to New Yorkers Against Fracking represents less than what the oil and gas industry pays for a single television advertisement. “It’s nothing to them. It’s everything to me,” she said. “But because it’s everything to me, the gesture might have the power to inspire and embolden others to join this fight.”
After publicly announcing that she would give the money to fight fracking, Steingraber delivered a speech to a group of residents in upstate New York who were beginning the process of investigating ways to impose a moratorium or ban on fracking in their community. The man who was leading the effort told Steingraber that her decision to donate her money to the anti-fracking movement inspired him to take action.
“That’s exactly as I had hoped. It would be something that would counteract this resistance-is-futile message that they are getting from the oil and gas industry,” she said.
Experienced political strategists and coalition builders will run the group, but New Yorkers Against Fracking will not be an attempt to orchestrate the anti-fracking movement. “It’s going to serve as a megaphone and spotlight for the movement so that it makes the messaging more visible,” she said.
According to Steingraber, the environmental problems caused by fracking are first and foremost creating a crisis of family life because they prevent parents from protecting their children against things that are harmful. Her job as a parent has been “sabotaged” by a government that has failed to provide the necessary protection to allow for healthy child development, she said.
Steingraber emphasized that she and her family live a modest life in a small town in update New York. They live in a 1,000-square-foot house. Her 10-year-old son, Elijah, shares a bedroom with Steingraber and her husband. He really needs his own room at this point in his life, she said.
The $100,000 cash award could have gone toward upgrading her home or helping to pay her medical bills as a cancer survivor. “But am I really going to use the money to put an addition on my house when they’re about to blow the bedrock up underneath?” Steingraber asked. “It seemed to me that the best investment I could make with this money was to devote it to protecting the air, food and water of my little family.”
Top photo of Sandra Steingraber by Dede Hatch
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Friday, April 06, 2012
Spread the knowledge: Voices of #Occupy (part 3)
Anyone relying on the corporate media for OWS updates is missing out and that’s where it’s our job to step up and fill the void. Case in point: Occupier Julie Cramer.
Recently, while in Italian class, Julie asked her teacher how to say “to protest” (protestare) and this sparked an impromptu discussion about Occupy Wall Street (OWS).
“My teacher asked what OWS is fighting for,” says Julie, “and before I could open my mouth, someone said ‘No one knows. I don’t even think they know.’ I quickly responded with an: ACTUALLY WE DO KNOW!”
It was then that Julie realized she once thought the same way.
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One of my recent OWS photos:
Can you wrap yer mind around the concept?
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Tuesday, April 03, 2012
Occupy Radical Patriotism: Wave the flag of revolution
You know the drill by now: A Facebook friend posts a powerfully worded status in support of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and her/his more mainstream friends launch into reflexive, uninformed assault mode.
When this happened last week on a friend’s page, I opted to step up and offer my two cents in solidarity. Not surprisingly, this only served to deflect the emotion in my direction.
You know this drill, too: If you hate America so much, why don’t you leave?
For the record, I don’t “hate America.” In fact, I think it’s one of the best countries anyone ever stole. (insert rimshot here)
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One of my recent OWS photos:
What’s on your plate?
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May Day 2012 - A Declaration of Solidarity from Occupy Oklahoma
WHEREAS, May 1st is officially recognized worldwide as International Workers’ Day, a holiday originating in response to the Haymarket Massacre of 1886 in Chicago, where workers were fighting for the eight hour workday;
WHEREAS, the people of the world have risen against economic inequality, social domination, financial exploitation, government corruption, and iron-fisted authoritarianism in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Greece, and elsewhere;
WHEREAS, this working class movement has observed unchecked corporate power redefining the natural world as a body of resources to be exploited to serve their purposes and interests;
WHEREAS, the physical and economic assault of governments worldwide upon their peoples constitutes an attack on the principles of self-determination and democracy;
WHEREAS, corporate interests and the politicians they control continue to spread aggression in Washington DC, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, and multitudinous countries of the world;
WHEREAS, our solidarity with the workers of the world constitutes our inalienable right to freedom of association;
WHEREAS, a call is growing for an international mass action to honor the struggles and sacrifices of working peoples around the world;
WHEREAS, isolated efforts at reform have failed to stem the growing tide of corporate power and the harm it causes to the working class;
WHEREAS, we recognize in the General Strike a powerful tool in the battle for democracy, a furtherance of social and economic conditions, and the provisions of education and healthcare;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the General Assembly of Occupy Oklahoma endorses the General Strike of May Day 2012, including work stoppages, street demonstrations, sick-outs, and other solidarity actions;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the General Assembly of Occupy Oklahoma urges its constituent members to stand in solidarity in a “Day without Workers,” supporting a boycott of shopping, work, and school-related activities as part of May Day observances.
This resolution has been endorsed by:
The General Assembly of Occupy Oklahoma
Occupy Norman (University of Oklahoma)
Occupy Tulsa
Occupy OKC
Occupy Shawnee (Oklahoma)
The Central Oklahoma Black/Red Alliance (COBRA)
CrimethInc. Ex-Workers’ Collective: Stillwater Cell
N©!2012
The author, Zakk Flash, humbly puts this missive and all its contents at the disposal of those who, in good faith, might read, circulate, plagiarize, revise, and otherwise make use of them in the course of making the world a better place.
Possession, reproduction, transmission, excerpting, introduction as evidence in court and all other applications by any corporation, government body, security organization, or similar party of evil intent are strictly prohibited and punishable under natural law.
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Monday, April 02, 2012
Derrick Jensen: 'I Keep Wanting to Like Ron Paul'
By Press Action
In an April 1 appearance on Michael Ruppert’s weekly radio show, author and environmental activist Derrick Jensen said he is torn by Ron Paul’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
“I keep wanting to like Ron Paul because I like his attitudes on foreign policy and his attitudes on drugs,” Jensen told Ruppert, a diehard Paul supporter. “I wish that his laissez-faire attitude extended to women.”
Paul, who claims to embrace liberty and freedom, does not believe women should have autonomy over their bodies. He favors giving the government authority to take away a woman’s freedom to have an abortion. He also supports assessing a criminal penalty against the “abortionist,” or the doctors who help to protect the health of women. Paul also believes victims of sexual harassment in the workplace should bear some responsibility for resolving the problem. “Why don’t they quit once the so-called harassment starts? Obviously the morals of the harasser cannot be defended, but how can the harassee escape some responsibility for the problem?” he said.
Jensen, author of Endgame, The Culture of Make Believe, What We Leave Behind and many other books, also is of two minds on Paul’s policy position toward the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. During the radio show, Ruppert said he supports Paul’s call to shut down the EPA. He referred to the EPA as a “big government bureaucracy” and described the agency as “corrupt.” Ruppert claimed Paul, if he wins the presidency, would “liberate the localities to deal with the collapse on a local basis.”
When Ruppert speaks of “collapse,” he apparently is referring to a collapse of the global economy due to factors such as depletion of oil and other resources and the spending of outrageous amounts of money on the military to sustain the U.S. empire.
Unlike Ruppert, Jensen did not appear ready to call for the elimination of the EPA. “I’m torn because I agree with you on the EPA that it’s function is to promote the illusion that something is being done, that we are somehow being protected, which helps us to not go more openly against the system,” Jensen told Ruppert. “At the same time, I also know that there have been at least some horrible actions that have not happened because of EPA stepping in.”
This was Jensen’s second appearance on Ruppert’s “The Lifeboat Hour” radio show in the last six weeks. In a Feb. 19 guest appearance, Jensen argued that environmental and anti-capitalist activists in the U.S. have not figured out what they want. However, if activists can establish a clear set of goals, there is a chance for success, given the extremely serious financial troubles facing the corporate state, Jensen said.
“It is possible for our victories to become permanent,” Jensen said during the Feb. 19 show. “At this point, they don’t have the money” to continue rebuilding industrial infrastructure and systems that activists may succeed in dismantling, he said.
Jensen repeated this argument on the April 1 show. “Right now we have a lot more options for what we can do than people did 50 years ago because the system is collapsing,” Jensen said. “There’s a great line by David Brower, which was, ‘as environmentalists, all of our victories are temporary and all of our losses are permanent.’ But I think with the collapses happening, we actually have a chance for our victories to become permanent in that if you can protect something now, it may actually be protected forever as opposed to protected until the next recession is over.”
During the conversation, Jensen also quoted a friend who favors using various tactics to ensure doors remain open for protecting the environment. If an animal or plant species “still exists in 20 years, they may still exist in a hundred,” he said. “But if they are gone in 20, they are gone forever.”
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'Open the Door and Go Inside:' Voices of #Occupy (Part 2)
By Mickey Z.
“If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: Infinite.” -William Blake
For much of my radical life, I could’ve accurately characterized the activist scene as a series of separate rooms for separate causes—with doors often locked.
Until Occupy Wall Street (OWS), that is.
Today—under the 99% umbrella—a massive coalition is coalescing and this has created previously unimagined opportunities for militant mingling.
Case in point: On March 24, I was at the Union Square OWS camp in solidarity with the protest against police brutality. As usual, I had my camera in hand—taking advantage of the inexhaustible photo ops—when I saw a smiling woman who happened to be in a wheelchair, carrying a sign that read:
The Revolution Is Wheelchair Accessible
Between my long connection to the disability rights movement and my desire to share images that demonstrate the diversity of OWS, this was an automatic aim-and-shoot. I later posted the photo and tagged a friend in the disability rights movement. In a matter of minutes, this simple act resulted in my becoming Facebook friends with the woman in the photo: Michele “Equality” Kaplan.
This, comrades, is often how activism works. First, you gotta be there. Next, you gotta participate. Lastly (and this often where the proverbial ball is dropped), you gotta follow-through.
The follow-through part is how—less than a week after taking that photo—I am including Michele’s story in my Voices of #Occupy series.
“When I heard about Occupy and went to Zuccotti Park,” Michele told me, “I was so insanely excited to see what I was seeing. The energy and the people were so incredibly welcoming that I couldn’t wait to come back. For me, though the only issue was the lack of wheelchair accessibility. Camping out was not an option, but I saw tons of potential. After all, from what I heard they had a women’s only section, they had a non-smoking and smoking section. There was a sacred space area for meditation and defusing from it all. ‘Why not create more accessible options of activists in wheelchairs?’ was my thought.”
This was the point when Michele learned just how DIY the Occupy movement is. She sums it up as such: “If you feel something is not right, start something and fix it yourself. The movement welcomes all kinds of groups.”
As I’ve said over and over, this doesn’t mean OWS (or any movement) is perfect.
Mic Check: To struggle for change is to risk imperfection.
Michele asked some simple questions in an OWS forum: “How can we make the movement more wheelchair accessible? Could there be a section on the park for wheelchairs and if not what are some alternatives?”
“I learned there are tons of trolls on the Occupy Wall Street forums,” she explains. One response really got her motivated: “Are you fucking kidding me? This is a revolution! What next? A massage table?”
“This pissed me off to no end and eventually led to the creation of Occupy On Wheels, which serves as a resource for the Occupy movement so they can make their events wheelchair accessible,” Michele said. “That was when I also learned that there is also a great amount of solidarity, and that anyone can make an impact—but you have to take the initiative. You can’t just wait for someone else to do it.”
Having an impact is exactly what all of us in OWS are doing—each in our own way. If you want to learn this for yourself, well… interact with the mainstream. The same week I met Michele, I was waiting for a train at the Union Square subway station. On the back of my jean jacket, I had pinned a large 99% patch—proudly displaying my “gang colors” in public.
The result was one man asking me what the patch meant. When I explained, he nodded and replied: “I don’t care what anyone says, what the cops are doing is wrong.” To which a nearby tourist added: “Keep up the great work. God bless you all.”
Okay, we’ve got doors and we’ve got a heavenly reference so… I’ll happily accept this segue to one more Occupy story.
Anyone who’s spent time at Liberty Square/Zuccotti Park or, more recently, Union Square Park is surely familiar with the image of a woman named Betty: holding a sign in one hand, her other hand held high in a raised fist.
When I recently saw Betty chatting with a couple of Mayor Bloomberg’s soldiers, I had to ask her if she felt they “got” what she was telling them.
“Some of them certainly do,” she said. “I have a good relationship with some of the cops—even the white shirts.”
Betty went on to tell me how when her husband and other OWS musicians broke into Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” a white-shirted cop walked closer to tell them how much he loves that song.
“He stood there for a while, tapping his foot, until a higher ranking cop arrived,” said Betty. “He moved away from us but stayed within listening range, still tapping his foot.”
Mic Check: We are cleansing the doors of perception but as Rage Against the Machine reminds us: “We don’t need the keys, we’ll break in.”
“The Occupy Movement is like having a door that is closed,” says Michele Kaplan. “There are no signs saying ‘come on in,’ but the door is not locked either. It’s up to you to open the door and go inside.”
Whaddya do once you’re inside?
“Occupy is like a mural,” Michele concludes, “and it’s up to you to leave your community’s mark.”
#OccupyYerStory
It’s time we counter the media misinformation and 1% propaganda with a dose of reality—the hard work, the community, the solidarity, the creativity, the innovation, and the durability behind the OWS banners.
Send me a few lines about your experiences, etc. so I can continue writing a regular series of articles called: The Voices of #Occupy.
Let’s open doors and knock down doors together so we can spread the word that this is the Global Spring and the 1% should fuckin’ expect us..
#OccupyYerStory to me: mickey@mickeyz.net
Photo Credit: Mickey Z.
Mickey Z. is the author of 11 books, most recently the novel Darker Shade of Green. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on an obscure website called Facebook.
© WorldNewsTrust.com—Share and re-post this story. Please include this copyright notice and a link to the original story.
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Sunday, April 01, 2012
Wilma Subra: State Lawmakers Let Shale Gas Industry Call the Shots on Fracking
By Press Action
All signs are pointing to Gov. Andrew Cuomo giving the natural gas industry a green light by this summer to proceed with the use of hydraulic fracturing to drill for natural gas in New York. After the Cuomo administration gives the industry a thumbs-up, lawsuits from citizen and environmental groups may delay when the state Department of Environmental Conservation reviews the first drilling permit application. But most observers believe Cuomo and the rest of the political elite in New York have no intention of banning high-volume hydraulic fracturing in the state.
A large-scale movement against shale gas drilling has emerged in New York over the last few years. But it’s hard to gauge whether members of this movement are sufficiently committed to the cause to throw a monkey wrench into the industry’s plans. Along with filing lawsuits and phoning their state legislators, will anti-fracking activists in New York, given their large numbers, use civil disobedience and blockades to impede the industry’s activities? Civil disobedience and blockades are effective tactics against the activities of powerful interests. Take a look at how union members and activists were able to shut down operations at oil refineries in France for a couple weeks in October 2010.
Because the natural gas industry holds immense power and influence, there was never a doubt the political elite in New York would give the industry permission to use hydraulic fracturing. The only uncertainty was the timing of the approval.
While the state’s final rules may be tougher than in other states, few knowledgeable observers expect that New York’s new regulatory framework for fracking will be overly burdensome on the industry. “I think they’re going to implement some additional regulations, but it’s only going to be what the industry allows them,” chemist and environmental consultant Wilma Subra told Press Action. “The industry is very, very powerful in all of these states. The industry has such political influence at the state capitals and in the legislative process.”
In other words, shale gas drilling will soon dominate the landscape in the Marcellus Shale region of New York, similar to what is occurring in the hardest-hit counties of Pennsylvania … unless anti-fracking activists decide not to let the gas companies run roughshod over the state’s water, air and land.
The industry claims they have perfected the technology and that there’s no reason to worry about any risks from hydraulic fracturing. Officials routinely argue that hydraulic fracturing is a technology with a long history, going back 60 years. But the technology used 60 years ago is completely different than what the industry is trying to get its hands around today. The vast differences in technology are why Charif Souki, chairman and CEO of Cheniere Energy Inc., an LNG import company, recently explained that the shale gas industry is still “very early in the learning curve” of understanding the potential harm and benefits of hydraulic fracturing.
Subra, who received the MacArthur Fellowship “Genius” Award from the MacArthur Foundation for helping ordinary citizens understand, cope with and combat environmental issues in their communities, agrees with Souki. “There are a number of issues. There’s the technology, which is still being developed,” she said. “There are a lot of gaps in the technology that could cause problems.”
Subra has been studying the health and environmental impacts of oil and gas industry activities since the 1970s. In 1981, Subra founded Subra Company, a chemistry lab and environmental consulting firm in New Iberia, La. After the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, Subra worked with local residents along the Gulf Coast to study the health and environmental effects of the disaster.
“Subra’s phone began ringing the morning after the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon, with calls from friends and neighbors who had men on the rig,” The Guardian newspaper reported in June 2010. “More calls came in when the southerly winds coming off the Gulf brought headaches, nausea and breathing difficulties to people on the coast. These days, the phone rings constantly.”
As for hydraulic fracturing, regulatory oversight in the Barnett Shale of Texas, the birthplace of the shale gas revolution, has been ineffectual to nonexistent. As a result, people became living laboratories in this unprecedented mineral play, Subra told the Dallas Observer.
“We’re seeing surface water contamination from leaks and spills of produced water. We’re seeing deeper groundwater contamination from the failure of cement and casing. We’re seeing air emissions from produced fluids, compressor stations, and along pipelines,” Subra told the Dallas Observer. Exposure begins with respiratory problems, skin rashes, neurological impairments and finally cardiovascular issues.
A number of cities and counties in Texas, as well as New York and Pennsylvania, have passed ordinances either imposing stricter regulations on shale gas drillers or banning the practice outright. In Texas, a gas company will apply for a permit to drill a well in a jurisdiction and also seek several exemptions from the rules. “If the local governing authority denies the exemptions, then the gas company comes in and says, ‘we’re going to sue you for denying these exemptions,’” Subra explained to Press Action. “But the local government doesn’t have the financial resources to be able to fight the legal challenges, so then they start backing down.”
The natural gas industry typically follows two approaches when confronted by local government authorities seeking to protect the health of their residents and the health of the environment, Subra said. The industry works with state legislators to strip rights from communities and individuals to impose restrictions or bans on gas drilling, very similar to what happened in Pennsylvania with the passage of a draconian new law, called Act 13. Or the gas companies threaten to file big lawsuits that consume the budgets of towns and counties, she said.
Despite getting slapped with lawsuits by gas companies, two towns in New York—Dryden and Middlefield—won a legal battle when a state court upheld local zoning laws passed by the towns to prohibit oil and natural gas exploration within their borders. These court rulings may eventually get overturned on appeal. But at least some municipalities are refusing to surrender to the gas companies without a fight.
According to New Yorkers Against Fracking, a new coalition of environmental and citizen groups formed last week, 82 towns and six counties have enacted bans or moratoria in New York State. Seventy-one municipalities are also considering or staging a ban or moratorium. In the past few weeks, Buffalo, the second largest city in New York, and Niagara Falls both passed resolutions calling for Gov. Cuomo and the state legislature to pass a statewide ban on fracking.
As the battle over fracking continues in New York, communities in other states are already facing the negative consequences of shale gas drilling. “Shale gas took off so rapidly that the state regulatory process has not been able to keep up and is influenced so heavily by the industry itself,” Subra said. “The states don’t have sufficient regulation on the books to ensure that the shale gas development process is protective of human health and the environment. They’re having huge impacts on the quality of life for people living in those areas.”
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"Open the door and go inside": Voices of #Occupy (part 2)
For much of my radical life, I could’ve characterized the activist scene as a series of separate rooms for separate causes—with doors closed, even locked.
Until Occupy Wall Street (OWS), that is.
Today—under the 99% umbrella—a massive coalition is coalescing and this has created previously unimagined opportunities for militant mingling. Case in point: On March 24, I was at the Union Square OWS camp in solidarity with the protest against police brutality. As usual, I had my camera in hand—taking advantage of the inexhaustible photo ops—when I saw a smiling woman in a wheelchair, carrying a sign that read:
The Revolution Is Wheelchair Accessible
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One of my recent OWS photos:
Ready for his close-up
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Thursday, March 29, 2012
Occupy May Day: #NoWarButClassWar
May Day 2012 is coming. Are you ready to strike?
One reason why Occupy Wall Street (OWS) has caught on while so many other protests and fledgling movements did not, is this fundamental idea: 99%. A steadfast commitment to recognizing classism is a big part of what’s helping OWS endure and grow.
Class warfare is nothing new. It’s a real war and it’s been waged—top-down—for centuries. However, here in the US—thanks to corporate propaganda—the “top” has more often than not managed to convince the “down” that talking/thinking about class is, well…un-American (or just plain delusional).
Therefore, the distinct lack of discomfort with which OWS discusses and encourages class warfare is downright revolutionary and we may see it taken to the streets on May 1.
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One of my recent OWS photos:
#BlindLeadingBlind
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Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Talk to the Universe: Voices of #Occupy (Part 1)
By Mickey Z.
"Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.” -Lao Tzu
When I was first booked to give a talk called “#Occupy for All Species” at the Jivamuktea Café in the Union Square area of New York City on March 23, I could’ve never guessed that the new Occupy Wall Street (OWS) camp would be in full effect right up the street.
This development added an exciting dynamic to the talk even if it kept some folks from attending. After all, why be indoors when a revolution is happening in a public park less than a block away… and it’s 70 degrees in March?
Still, there were plenty of amazing, dedicated occupiers at the talk. For that, I feel nothing but profound gratitude. One such occupier—who goes by the name of Eco—later told me how deeply impressed he was by my presentation, and thanked me for what I do.
I joked about how I’ve been doing this for decades—basically begging people to occupy without using the word—and sometimes thinking that I was being ignored.
Eco smiled and I’ll paraphrase his spontaneous response: “You were talking to the universe, Mickey. We all are. You weren’t being ignored, but sometimes it takes a while to be heard. We hear you now.”
Mic Check: One definition of epiphany is “a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by a simple occurrence or experience.”
Such a revelation not only gave my perception a much-needed adjustment, it also helped me realize that if you talk to the universe, sometimes it talks back.
For example, in October 2011, OWS encouraged everyone to pull their money from the big banks. I had an account with a small local bank… but also had a Chase credit card. When I went to my local bank to inquire about getting a credit card from them instead, I was informed that if I signed up that particular day, I’d get a free gift.
"What might this gift be?” I asked.
“A blanket,” came the reply.
“I’ll be back in an hour,” I promised—barely able to contain my joy.
I went home, took care of a few things, and prepared for what had become one of my three or four visits each week to Liberty Square during the initial encampment. This time, however, I stopped at my bank, filled out the forms, and was handed a brand new blanket.
Smiling all the way from Astoria to Wall Street, I carried my gift directly down to the OWS Comfort Station and donated it—but not before I shared this karmic story with Mae, at the Comfort table, who rewarded me with a smile so dazzling, I can still see it in my mind’s eye.
Mic Check: Talk to the universe.
I could also tell the universe a little about someone else’s OWS story, e.g. Stephen Baldwin, the minstrel of Occupy. He and I were friends long before OWS as he performed in a Beatles cover band I’d often go see play in Central Park and the subway.
When the Occupy camp sprung up, he focused his myriad musical passions there and we’d greet each other with a friendly fist bump each time we’d cross paths. One day, I asked him if he ever still played with the cover band.
“I love those guys,” he told me, “but I don’t wanna be in the nostalgia business anymore. I’m occupying the present now.”
To which I added: “And preserving the future.”
Mic Check: Tell your story to the universe.
After my talk on March 23, I walked over to Union Square to join the occupation until its nightly eviction by the NYPD. This time, however, the occupiers had a new tale to tell. They decided to create a People’s Barricade prior to the midnight deadline.
As I stood with friends, Phil and Angela Rockstroh, waiting for yet another epic OWS spectacle to unfold, a local resident stopped to talk with us.
"I’ve lived around here 55 years, but I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said.
“The occupation?” I asked.
“No,” she replied, “there must be about 1,000 cops just around the corner."
We walked over and found a swarm of cops—in riot gear. I took some photos and immediately showed them to someone from the OWS legal group. The game was on.
Having gathered folded-up boxes earlier, the occupiers set about opening those boxes and turning them into a barricade of sorts—exactly where Bloomberg’s Army normally places their metal barricades at midnight.
Just as the row of boxes was completed, a long line of riot cops entered the park—immediately greeted by occupiers loudly humming the Imperial March from Star Wars. We all took our places on the outside of the People’s Barricade, thus—in a way—trapping the helmeted storm troopers in the park… where they stood, twirling their batons.
A chant started: “Keep the cops in. Make New York safe.”
Frances from the OWS People’s Library yelled out that it was 10 seconds to midnight. Hundreds of occupiers loudly counted down to eviction and Bloomberg’s thugs did not disappoint. They moved in, kicked over the People’s Barricade, and replaced it with the State’s barricade and promptly locked themselves into Union Square Park as the captive audience for the nightly OWS Barricade Burlesque/Eviction Theater.
Mic Check: Sing, dance, and perform for the universe.
One of my fellow occupiers that night was Ash Love. Earlier, she’d attended my talk and ended the event by having a little chat with the universe herself. Here’s some of the story she shared with the room:
"When the occupation first started, there was talk of how the occupiers were just lazy, uneducated, and a bunch of dirty hippies. I am an occupier. I am only 22 years old. I worked a full time job and went to school full time—and I still made it down to Zuccotti Park/Liberty Square at least three or four times a week. I’ve met some of the most selfless, positive, and motivated intellectuals and built relationships through the occupation that can’t compare with anything. I’ve never had such heart-felt, more loving friendships in my entire life."
Mic Check: Make friends with the universe.
Two days later, I made my way to Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn to attend the fourth edition of Occupy Town Square—which are “mobile, daytime outreach occupations, held in parks and other public spaces around NYC, building the movement for economic, social, and environmental justice.”
Although I’ve lived in NYC my entire life, I’d never been to that park, so when I got off the subway at DeKalb Avenue, I opted to rely on the evidence of my senses and headed off in the direction of some trees.
When I saw two of Bloomberg’s soldiers standing at a gate, I knew I’d found the park. But once I passed them with a sneer, I had no idea where the gathering might be found within a 30-acre park.
I stopped walking, got quiet, and asked the universe for help… and that’s when I heard it: the unmistakable sound of drums. Like a human may have done hundreds or thousands of years ago, I followed the drumbeat through unfamiliar terrain until I was back home with my tribe.
Later, when I left Occupy Town Square, I passed several occupiers making their way to the event. When they’d see my 99% button, they’d smile and ask me for directions. Each time, I’d reply: “Just follow the sound of the drums.”
Mic Check: Listen to the universe.
These are just a few of my Occupy stories—along with poignant words from Stephen and Ash. But what’s your story?
It’s time we counter the media misinformation and 1% propaganda with a dose of reality—the reality, the community, the solidarity, the creativity, the innovation, and the durability behind the OWS banners.
Send me a few lines about your experiences, etc. and I promise to create a regular series of articles called: The Voices of #Occupy.
Let’s talk to the universe together so it can inform all who are listening that this is the Global Spring and they should fuckin’ expect us…
#OccupyYerStory to me: mickey@mickeyz.net
Mickey Z. is the author of 11 books, most recently the novel Darker Shade of Green. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on an obscure website called Facebook.
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Author Donates Heinz Award to Launch New Yorkers Against Fracking
By Press Action
Acclaimed author Sandra Steingraber is providing the seed money for a new coalition formed to stop shale gas drilling in New York state.
The coalition, New Yorkers Against Fracking, kicked off its coordinated grassroots strategy today with a call-in day to ban fracking in the state. “We must send a powerful response about the fracking industry’s false promises and hidden costs,” the coalition said. “We need to demand that Gov. Cuomo support a ban on fracking!”
Founding members of New Yorkers Against Fracking include Citizen Action of New York, New York State Breast Cancer Network, Food & Water Watch, Catskill Mountainkeeper, Frack Action, Water Defense, Frack-Free Catskills, Fingerlakes Clean Waters Initiative and many more.
Steingraber, a recent winner of the Heinz Award for her life’s work, is donating a significant portion of her $100,000 award to help prevent fracking in New York.
“Fracking turns fresh water into poison. It fills our air with smog, our roadways with 18-wheelers hauling hazardous materials, and our fields and pastures with pipelines and toxic pits,” Steingraber said in a statement. “I am devoting my Heinz Award to the fight against hydrofracking in New York because as a mother, there is no more important investment that I could make right now than to support the fight for the integrity of the ecological system that makes their lives possible.”
Along with launching the anti-fracking group, Steingraber recently announced she is “breaking up” with the Sierra Club over the environmental group’s decision to accept more than $25 million in shale gas money, mostly from Chesapeake Energy.
In a letter to the Sierra Club, posted on the Orion Magazine website on March 23, Steingraber, author of Living Downstream: An Ecologist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment, said she would be removing the Sierra Club’s endorsement—the group in 1999 called her “the new Rachel Carson—from her website.
“The Sierra Club had taken money, gobs of it, from an industry that we in the grassroots have been in the fight of our lives to oppose,” said Steingraber, who lives in New York with her husband and two children. “The largest, most venerable environmental organization in the United States secretly aligned with the very company that seeks to occupy our land, turn it inside out, blow it apart, fill it with poison.”
As a result of the dedication of grassroots activists and the determination of local officials, New York has seen a surge of local fracking bans enacted across the state. Overall, 82 towns and six counties have enacted bans or moratoria in New York state. Seventy-one municipalities are also considering or staging a ban or moratorium. In the past few weeks, Buffalo and Niagara Falls both passed resolutions calling for Governor Cuomo and the state legislature to pass a statewide ban on fracking.
Since acknowledging receiving money from the shale gas industry, the Sierra Club appears to be trying to demonstrate its anti-fracking bona fides. On March 25, USA Today published an op-ed by Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune who said “the natural gas industry that we know today is dirty, dangerous and putting American families at risk.”
“Given the lack of effective oversight for this industry run amok, federal and state agencies need to take a hard look at the risks natural gas fracking poses to our health and communities,” Brune wrote in the op-ed. “It’s time for everyone to stop thinking of natural gas as a ‘kinder, gentler’ energy source and renew our focus on reaching a clean energy future as soon as possible.”
These are pretty strong words coming from an organization that previously touted natural gas as a clean-burning bridge fuel to a sustainable energy future. But given its track record as a corporate-backed reformist group and reliable supporter of the Democratic Party, one shouldn’t get too excited by Brune’s op-ed.
When Brune admitted to a Time magazine reporter that the Sierra Club had “clandestinely accepted” the millions of dollars from Chesapeake Energy, the declaration “seemed less an acknowledgement of wrongdoing than an attempt to minister to a looming public relations problem,” Steingraber wrote. “Would someone truly interested in atonement seek credit for choosing not to take additional millions of gas industry dollars?”
Through the years, the Sierra Club has gained the respect of business groups because it accepts the premise of endless growth and industrialization. The Sierra Club and its fellow Big Green groups pursue a policy of practical engagement with some of the biggest polluters in Corporate America. It is small, grass-roots organizations, not the Sierra Club and other Big Group groups, that have been the driving force against shale gas drilling in New York and Pennsylvania.
As top officials with the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council were meeting with energy industry officials to discuss natural gas’ optimum role in a “high-energy/low carbon future,” grassroots activists were in the fight of their lives to oppose shale gas drilling across the country.
As Ralph Cavanagh, co-director of NRDC’s energy program, was rejoicing in the abundance of natural gas reserves in shale plays across the United States, officials in municipalities across Pennsylvania and New York were passing ordinances to ban natural gas drilling within their town limits to protect the health of the local residents and the environment.
As the Sierra Club was clandestinely accepting $26 million from Chesapeake Energy-affiliated individuals and subsidiaries, activists in the gas patch were raising awareness about the impact of natural gas industry activities on human health and the health of the natural world.
The national Sierra Club “served as the political cover for the gas industry and for the politicians who take their money and do their bidding,” Steingraber said. “It had a hand in setting in motion the wheels of environmental destruction and human suffering,” she said. “It was complicit in bringing extreme fossil fuel extraction onshore, into our communities, farmlands, and forests, and in blowing up the bedrock of our nation. And I can’t get over it.”
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Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Talk to the Universe: Voices of #Occupy (part 1)
One of the occupiers who came to my talk told me how deeply impressed he was by my presentation, and he thanked me for what I do.
I joked about how I’ve been doing this for decades—basically begging people to occupy without using the word—and sometimes thinking that I was being ignored.
He smiled and I’ll paraphrase his response: “We’re all talking to the universe, Mickey, and so were you. You weren’t being ignored but sometimes it takes a while to be heard. We hear you now.”
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One of my recent OWS photos:
Like a human might have done 500 years ago, I followed the drum beat home to my tribe
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Video of my 3/23 talk @ Jivamuktea Café:
Mickey Z: #Occupy for All Species
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OWS video taken after I did my talk:
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Friday, March 23, 2012
DeOccupy Animal Experimentation: Don't Put Descartes Before the Horse
By Mickey Z.
"Atrocities are no less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research.” -G. Bernard Shaw
If your 10-year-old neighbor strapped down his pet bunny, used metal clamps to keep its eyes wide open, and poured Mommy’s perfume directly into those unprotected eyeballs, you’d presumably be horrified. Even if Junior professed he was tormenting the rabbit in the name of the common good, he’d surely be on a collision course with Ritalin.
Mic Check: Fast-forward 20 years, give Junior a college degree and a white lab coat, and voila: he’s an esteemed member of the corporate/scientific community. Such is a world in which cruelty is big business.
It can be argued that the roots of such barbarism lie in the philosophy (sic) of René Descartes who postulated (sic) that animals could not experience pain. In this enlightened 21st century of ours, we now recognize that animals are not machines. Yet, we still embrace laboratory animal suffering as unavoidable, even necessary.
WTF?
Meanwhile, millions of dollars have been raised and tens of thousands of humans have been mobilized to assail animal experimentation almost exclusively on moral grounds. While I believe, in a sane society, a moralistic appeal should be adequate to end this practice, this is corporate capitalist America, the Land of Denial… where moral stances are effortlessly quashed by those seeking to justify the laboratory torture of animals on well… “moral” grounds.
“What’s more important, your child or some nameless rodent?” they ask.
Mic Check: If it is established that such experiments are not only morally vacant, but scientifically specious as well, the hunter becomes the hunted, if you’ll pardon the expression.
#OccupyTruth
“The reason why I am against animal research is because it doesn’t work,” explains Robert Mendelsohn, M.D. “It has no scientific value and every good scientist knows that.”
Aysha Z Akhtar, M.D., M.P.H., a senior medical advisor and Jarrod Bailey, Ph.D., a senior research consultant for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, concur. “The more we study the relevance of animal tests, the more apparent their shortcomings become,”
Akhtar and Bailey state in a Feb. 9, 2007 letter published in the British Medical Journal. “Even subtle physiological differences between humans and animals can manifest as profound differences in disease physiology and treatment effectiveness and safety. For example, numerous differences in spinal cord physiology and reaction to injury exist between species and even strains within a species. These differences likely contribute to the repeated failure of spinal cord treatments that have tested safe and effective in animals to translate into human benefit.”
In addition, say Akhtar and Bailey, “tests in rodents for predicting human carcinogenicity with a false negative rate approaching two-thirds, potentially caus(ed) widespread human exposure to carcinogens.” They also point at wonder drugs like Vioxx, which failed to show adverse reactions in animal tests but ended up to be potentially deadly for humans.
“Results from animal tests are not transferable between species, and therefore cannot guarantee product safety for humans,” agrees Herbert Gundersheimer, M.D.
“A major shift in our research paradigm is long overdue,” declare Akhtar and Bailey. “The move away from animal experiments toward more accurate methods of studying disease and intervention is scientifically superior and more ethical for humanity, as well as for animals.”
“Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals, and the answer is: ‘Because the animals are like us,’” says Professor Charles R. Magel. “Ask the experimenters why it is morally OK to experiment on animals, and the answer is: ‘Because the animals are not like us.’ Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction.”
If animal experimentation is both indefensible cruelty and unsound science, why is it still in widespread use?
Dr. Gundersheimer has a possible answer: “In reality (animal) tests do not provide protection for consumers from unsafe products, but rather they are used to protect corporations from legal liability.”
(Did I just hear someone shout out “Bingo”?)
#OccupyHolisticJustice
Once again, the connections between animal rights and Occupy movement are clear. The corporate powers-that-be manipulate and twist our minds in the name of profit and they’re damn sure not gonna let animal abuse get in their avaricious way.
Mic Check: If the new wave of occupants and the old guard of animal rights activists join hands, well… the 99% becomes that much more unstoppable.
As I’ve said over and over, the system being challenged by OWS is built, in a major way, on the exploitation of non-human animals and the eco-system. It’s all connected within a culture constructed on the premise of unlimited growth and it must all remain connected within a movement aiming for holistic justice.
If you’re working to dismantle corporate power, expand freedoms, and create a safer, more sane culture, you already have plenty in common with animal rights activists. Why not take things even further and recognize that the mighty 99% also includes non-human animals—and the entire ecosystem itself?
We are the 99%. Expect us. Join us…
#DeOccupyAnimalExperimentation. #OccupyHolisticJustice.
Upcoming Mickey Z. event: Let’s welcome the American Spring in NYC on March 23
Mickey Z. is the author of 11 books, most recently the novel Darker Shade of Green. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on an obscure website called Facebook.
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Thursday, March 22, 2012
Former Texas Mayor Files Complaint Against Range Resources Official, Attorney
By Press Action
Calvin Tillman, former mayor of DISH, Texas, on March 19 filed a formal complaint in Texas against David Poole, general counsel of Range Resources Corp., and Troy Okruhlik, an attorney at Harris, Finley & Bogle PC, which serves as outside counsel for Range Resources. In the complaint, Tillman alleged that Poole and Okruhlik violated provisions of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct.
Tillman said in his complaint, filed with the State Bar of Texas Chief Disciplinary Counsel’s Office, that Range Resources, via Poole and outside attorneys employed by Harris, Finley & Bogle, issued a subpoena for him in 2010 in a case—Scott and Rebecca Law vs. Range Resources Corporation and Range Texas Production LLC—for which he “had no knowledge of the merits” nor had ever had any correspondence with the plaintiffs in the case.
“It is now my belief that this subpoena was not issued as a matter of necessity in this case, but rather this mechanism was used by Mr. Poole, and Mr. Okruhlik, as an intimidation and punishment tactic, due to my negative statements regarding the natural gas industry in general,” Tillman said in the complaint.
Another subpoena was emailed to Tillman on Jan. 4, 2011, while he was still serving as mayor of DISH, notifying him that he was required to appear on Jan. 5, 2011, for a deposition. The cover letter on the attached subpoena was signed by Okruhlik, Tillman said. In the cover letter, according to Tillman, Okruhlik stated that Tillman had refused to accept the documents from certified mail. Tillman said the original documents had a Denton, Texas, mailing address and neither the town of DISH nor Tillman had ever received a notice from the U.S. Postal Service. The previous subpoenas were delivered by a courier, and Tillman said he had fully cooperated in receiving those subpoenas.
“Therefore, Mr. Okruhlik made a false statement, suggesting that we refused to accept the letter,” Tillman alleged in the complaint. “He also placed an undue burden on a third person, by attempting to have me deposed with only 18 hours’ notice.”
Tillman argued in the complaint that Okruhlik “made these false statements in order to not give me or my attorneys time to react to this request, thus forcing me into a deposition that I was not prepared for, which is an attempted violation of my legal rights.” Tillman said the attorney for the town of DISH and his personal attorney were able to react on short notice, and Okruhlik and Poole accepted a signed affidavit in place of an in-person deposition, Tillman said.
Range Resources and Okruhlik had not responded to a request for comment on Tillman’s complaint at press time.
Headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, Range Resources is a prominent natural gas producer with operations across the United States, including the Marcellus Shale in the Appalachian region. In 2011, Range Resources sold the vast majority of its properties in the Barnett Shale in Texas.
Tillman has been a thorn in the side of the natural gas industry for several years. As mayor of DISH, a small town in Denton County, Texas, he oversaw the commissioning of an air quality study in 2009 that assessed compressors, condensate tanks, and major pipelines that process and transport natural gas extracted from the Barnett Shale play. The study found seven locations in the town where carcinogenic and neurotoxic emissions violated limits set by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Tillman’s term as mayor of DISH ended in May 2011.
Given the lessons he has learned during his struggle for tougher gas industry regulations in Texas, Tillman has been invited to give speeches to residents in other communities affected by the industry’s activities. He also appeared in Gasland, a 2010 documentary by filmmaker Josh Fox that examined the impacts of natural gas drilling across the U.S.
In his complaint, Tillman also noted that Sharon Wilson, who maintains a popular blog site, www.TexasSharon.com, was issued a subpoena by Range Resources to provide information about a lawsuit filed against the company in Parker County, Texas, and to appear for a deposition. “The amount of documentation requested puts an undue burden on Ms. Wilson, and much of which has no relation to the lawsuit mentioned,” Tillman said in his complaint.
Steven and Shyla Lipsky of Parker County filed their $6.5 million lawsuit against Range Resources in state district court in June 2011, alleging water well contamination. In July 2011, Range Resources filed a counterclaim in state district court, seeking $3 million in damages from the Lipskys. Range Resources argued that the “plaintiffs’ unfounded and disparaging statements and their ‘expert’s’ trumped up efforts to involve the United States Environmental Protection Agency … have required Range to spend millions of dollars to establish its innocence.”
“The damage done to Range’s reputation is not as easily calculated, but is more harmful in the long term. Range is entitled to recover for these damages,” the company said in its counterclaim.
In his complaint, Tillman argued that neither he nor Wilson had any information that was not previously obtained by Range Resources. Also, depositions by Tillman and Wilson would not provide Range Resources with information to defend itself in the lawsuits, he argued. “But rather this tactic is used to silence those who are critical of the natural gas industry and has no substantial purpose, other than to embarrass, delay or burden a third person not involved in the matter,” Tillman said in the complaint.
In his complaint, Tillman said that Poole sent him a formal letter on March 5 in which Poole denied any knowledge of Range Resources issuing a subpoena to Tillman. “Mr. Poole’s name was on three separate documents, which issued these subpoenas,” Tillman said. “Therefore, it is not only clear that he was aware of the subpoenas, but that he was also a part in issuing them.”
In the March 5 letter, Poole said Range Resources issued the subpoena for Wilson’s deposition because the company “is seeking discovery in order to prepare for trial of its counterclaim” against the plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit against the company in Parker County. Wilson “was the recipient of and responded to an email from a high level EPA official regarding the EPA order that is the direct result of the actions Range’s claims are based on,” Poole wrote in the letter.
According to Poole, Range Resources believes Wilson “has a relationship with the ‘expert’ who provided misleading information and we believe she has had communications with the homeowner that are relevant to the issues in the lawsuit.”
In his complaint, Tillman also pointed out that in a deposition of Steven Lipsky, a Range Resources attorney specifically asked Lipsky if he knew Tillman, “attempting to pull me into that case as well,” Tillman said. Lipsky said he did not know Tillman. “These intimidation techniques must stop now,” Tillman said in his complaint.
What Happens Next?
On its website, the State Bar of Texas explains that it reviews all complaints. “If it [the complaint] alleges facts that, if true, would be a violation of the disciplinary rules, it will be classified as a formal complaint,” the State Bar says on its website. “If it does not allege facts that are a violation, it will be classified as an ‘inquiry’ and dismissed.”
If the complaint is dismissed, it can be appealed to the State Bar’s Board of Disciplinary Appeals, whose decision is final.
If a grievance becomes a formal complaint, the attorney in question will be informed of the complaint and asked to respond within 30 days. The Chief Disciplinary Counsel will then conduct an investigation to determine whether there is just cause to believe the alleged professional misconduct occurred. Based on its findings, the matter is either presented to a grievance panel for dismissal or proceeds to litigation.
“The Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel keeps confidential all information concerning any pending complaint(s),” the State Bar says on its website. “However, if the lawyer is found to have committed professional misconduct and receives a public sanction, information about the grievance is no longer confidential.”
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DeOccupy Animal Experimentation
If your ten-year-old neighbor strapped down his pet bunny, used metal clamps to keep its eyes wide open, and poured Mommy’s perfume directly into those unprotected eyeballs, you’d presumably be horrified. Even if Junior professed he was tormenting Mr. Rabbit in the name of good, he’d surely be on a collision course with Ritalin.
Well, fast-forward 20 years, place Junior in a white lab coat, and voila: he’s an esteemed member of the scientific community. Such is a world in which animal experimentation is big business.
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One of my recent photos:
Inside. Looking Out.
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March 23 MZ event:
Mickey Z: #Occupy for All Species (Ecosystem Before Economics)
Let’s welcome the American Spring at Jivamuktea Café on March 23
As the #Occupy movement continues to grow and evolve, how and where do animal rights and other dark green issues fit into the now infamous 99%?
Join New York City’s own Mickey Z. - subversive author of 11 books - for an urgent and inspirational call-to-arms, re: OWS, activism, speciesism, ecocide, veganism, holistic justice, the 2012 election, and so much more - followed by Q&A/discussion.
If you’ve never been to a Mickey Z. event, check your expectations at the door and prepare to be #Occupied.
Friday, March 23 @ 7pm
Jivamuktea Café
(Organic/Vegetarian/Vegan/Non GMO)
Jivamukti Yoga School
841 Broadway, 2nd floor (@Union Square)
New York, NY 10003
(212) 353-0214
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Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Cheniere Energy CEO: Shale Gas Industry 'Very Early in the Learning Curve'
By Press Action
The U.S. natural gas industry is still in the initial stages of developing and understanding the technology that can be used to extract natural gas from shale rock formations, according to Charif Souki, chairman and CEO of Cheniere Energy Inc., an LNG import company that is seeking regulatory authority to convert its terminals into export facilities.
“We’re very early in the learning curve and we’re going to be able to find this resource more easily, faster and cheaper over a long period of time,” Souki said in an interview with E&E TV that originally aired March 19. “Our drill bits are getting better, so we know how to manage them and get them to the right place faster and better with less intrusion.”
Oil and gas industry officials routinely argue that hydraulic fracturing is a technology with a long history, going back 60 years. But the technology used 60 years ago is completely different than what the industry is trying to get its hands around today. The vast differences in technology are why Souki says the industry is still “very early in the learning curve.”
In his E&E TV interview, Souki explained that technology is emerging that will allow the shale gas industry to reduce the amount of water used in the hydraulic fracturing process by 80% over the next few years. “This is going to become a better and better process,” he said.
In 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated that 70 billion to 140 billion gallons of water were used to fracture 35,000 wells in the U.S. each year. This is about the annual water consumption of 40 to 80 cities each with a population of 50,000, according to environmental group Earthworks. Horizontal shale wells can use anywhere from 2 million to 10 million gallons of water to fracture a single well. So, even if water usage by shale gas drillers drops by 80%, the industry will still need billions of gallons of water to extract natural gas.
Souki highlighted the “learning curve” facing natural gas drillers as a way to defend his company’s applications to convert LNG import terminals into LNG export terminals. The facilities will be capable of exporting billions of cubic feet of natural gas each year. If the natural gas industry is awash in natural gas, even though it has yet to fully grasp the technology it is using to extract the fossil fuel, imagine how much natural gas the industry could produce once it gets fully up to speed on hydraulic fracturing and other upstream technologies. There will be enough natural gas to keep prices low for U.S. consumers and allow companies such as Cheniere Energy to earn handsome returns for its investors by exporting huge amounts of LNG. That’s the story Souki and other LNG export supporters want us to believe.
But many analysts, including the U.S. Energy Information Administration, have said that exporting natural gas from the United States could lead to domestic price increases. And others have argued that allowing LNG exports will only encourage natural gas producers to drill even larger numbers of wells, creating more toxic industrial zones across the country.
Last May, the U.S. Department of Energy gave Cheniere Energy permission to export 16 million metric tons per year of domestically produced LNG, equivalent to 2.2 Bcf/d of gas, from its Sabine Pass LNG terminal in Louisiana. Cheniere Energy also must get approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to build the liquefaction facilities at the Sabine Pass terminal, which was originally built to import LNG.
On March 7, Souki sent FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff a letter urging the commission to approve Cheniere Energy’s application to build the LNG export facilities at Sabine Pass by March 15. FERC has yet to issue an order granting approval to Cheniere Energy’s application, but few people believe the commission will reject the application.
Prior to issuing a final order on Cheniere Energy’s request, FERC was required to conduct an environmental review of the proposal. In an environmental assessment released in December 2011, FERC refused to analyze the impact of increased LNG exports as part of its review of Cheniere Energy’s application. Instead, FERC focused only on the environmental impact of the facilities themselves, not on how the facilities will create greater demand for natural gas production in the United States, with large amounts of that increased production heading overseas in the form of LNG. In its final conclusion, FERC determined that Sabine Pass’ export facilities “would not constitute a major federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human environment.”
In its application, Cheniere Energy stated that the proposed liquefaction facilities and “subsequent exportation” of domestic natural gas to the global market “would provide a market solution to allow the further development of unconventional (particularly shale gas-bearing formation) sources in the United States.” FERC staff highlighted this acknowledgement by Sabine Pass in its environmental assessment of the project.
And yet, as noted by the Sierra Club, “despite this explicit recognition that the project will encourage additional shale gas extraction, the [environmental assessment] contains no analysis of the impacts of such extraction.” Refusing to address the impact of the shale gas extraction violates the National Environmental Policy Act’s “command to consider both direct and indirect impacts of the proposed action,” the Sierra Club said.
Aside from highlighting potential advancements in the use of water for fracking, Souki did not address the adverse environmental effects of the shale gas revolution. Souki and other industry insiders tend to dismiss concerns about the environment and only focus on the money-making aspects of resource extraction. Never do you hear industry officials or their enablers in policymaking positions argue that the nation should cut back on natural gas production. Producers may decide to shut-in gas production because low gas prices make it uneconomical to extract the gas. But never do you hear them calling for a moratorium to give the environment a chance to recover or until the risks of hydraulic fracturing have been fully examined. And never do you hear them saying that we should produce only what we need until we develop a system based on sustainability that allows humans to live in balance with nature.
Instead, Souki and other industry officials are giddy with excitement about the vast reserves of natural gas in shale plays across North America. They believe they must find new markets around the globe in order to make as much money as quickly as possible off this natural resource.
“We are very fortunate to be sitting on an enormous resource, but abundance comes with some drawbacks,” Souki told E&E TV. “We need to find new demand for the natural gas that we can now produce. We are, in fact, producing it with drilling a lot of wells and there’s more gas than we know what to do with. ... There’s a number of wells that have not been connected because there’s no place to send the gas, so sometimes too much of a good thing is too much.”
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Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Verbally Abuses Public
By Save Passamaquoddy Bay
On 2011 December 20, Save Passamaquoddy Bay emailed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) webmaster regarding insulting wording on the FERC website (see below). To-date, four months later, no one at FERC has acknowledged receipt of the email, and the offensive wording remains.
FERC’s website page on Public Concerns regarding LNG terminal siting (http://www.ferc.gov/industries/gas/indus-act/lng/public.asp) states:
Most the (sic) controversy deals with:
- Dangers of LNG vapor clouds
- Gas quality specifications of LNG
- Question over who has primary jurisdiction over LNG in California, the State or FERC?
- Btu heat content issues
- Mexican nationalization issues
- If the Hackberry policy should apply to capacity expansions, or even initial capacity, of existing LNG terminals
- Many Not-In-My-Back-Yard (NIMBY) concerns. [Emphasis added by SPB.]
Save Passamaquoddy Bay researcher and webmaster Robert Godfrey said of the FERC statement, “‘NIMBY’ is used to insult and marginalize opponents of projects, regardless of project appropriateness. FERC’s use of ‘NIMBY’ in referring to public concerns is patently offensive. FERC forgets that it is working for the public, not the applicants, and owes the public a correction and an apology.”
Godfrey went on to say, “Conspicuously absent from FERC’s list of public concerns is FERC’s and LNG applicant’s use of false information. For instance, FERC and applicants claim that unconfined LNG vapor cannot explode, even though the 2004 Sandia (Sandia National Laboratories) Report to the Department of Energy cites research demonstrating such events can occur (U.S. Coastguard China Lake Tests – 1978 [Parnarouskis et al. 1980] [Lind and Witson 1977]).
“FERC did not mention,” he continued, “misleading or incomplete information issued by FERC and applicants, such as stating that:
"1) LNG vapors can only combust when in a vapor-to-air mixture of 5–15%, implying that it is difficult to ignite or explode—even though LNG vapor is significantly more flammable than gasoline vapor. Gasoline vapor is flammable when the vapor-to-air mixture is 1.5–7.6% (a 6.1% flammability range). LNG vapor has a 10% flammability range—nearly 4% more flammable than gasoline.
“2) LNG does not burn or explode—when exactly the same is true of gasoline, and everyone recognizes the hazardous nature of gasoline.
“FERC also did not list as a public concern the fact that LNG terminal applicants inappropriately stamp ‘CEII’ (Critical Energy Infrastructure Information) or other equally restrictive classification on non-qualifying documents filed with FERC. Doing so keeps those documents from reaching public scrutiny,” he said. “However, inappropriately restricting documents as non-public results in no punitive consequences to the applicant, effectively encouraging that abuse. Such treatment by FERC violates the public trust.
“Even the Society of International Gas Tanker and Terminal Operators (SIGTTO) terminal siting best safe practices indicate some applicants’ sitings are inappropriate, yet ‘NIMBY’ is applied to public opposition in agreement with SIGTTO best practices. SIGTTO represents virtually the entire world LNG industry. Thus, FERC also marginalizes and insults the industry’s own best advice regarding safe terminal siting,” he said.
“FERC should represent the facts in a fair and evenhanded manner, and should treat all parties with equal respect. FERC should cease categorizing public concerns as ‘NIMBY,’ and FERC staff owe the public an apology,” Godfrey concluded.
Save Passamaquoddy Bay (SPB) is an alliance of citizens from the U.S., the Passamaquoddy Tribe, and Canada, who oppose siting LNG industrial facilities in Passamaquoddy Bay, and who advocate adherence to world-recognized LNG terminal siting best safe practices as published by the Society of International Gas Tanker and Terminal Operators (SIGTTO). SPB advocates creative-economy, tradition-based, and tourism-based economic development for the international Passamaquoddy Bay area.
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Land Defense and Class Struggle: Building Alliances to Defeat Capitalism
By Stephanie McMillan
Environmental destruction is the most urgent and immediate problem we face. If we don’t solve it, nothing else will matter. I would argue that it’s the principle contradiction of the current period. Through it, the common ruin of contending classes is becoming increasingly likely, but as the economic and ecological crises converge, the possibility of liberation and social transformation also opens up. But only if we organize to make that happen.
The problem is accelerating because of capital’s constant need to expand into new areas. They have entered a period of extreme extraction, on a scale never before seen: fracking, oil from tar sands and deep sea drilling, mountaintop removal. Because of the falling rate of profit, capitalism can never economically catch up with itself and must constantly break through its limits in a vain attempt to resolve its own inherent internal contradiction.
Feudalism and all forms of class society have had internal contradictions that drove them to expand. But capitalism has taken this to a new level, because instead of just requiring more resources to continue existing (to feed an expanding agrarian population, for example), it requires constant growth of production to expand for its own sake. The needs of the population aren’t the point, and commodities aren’t even the point—accumulating surplus-value to expand capital itself is the entire point. This is what pushes it to exceed limits on a scale previously unimaginable.
But we live on a finite planet with physical limits, that are being reached. This is a difference from earlier economic crises. Capitalism is driven to consume everything external to itself, converting it to commodities, and it won’t stop doing so on its own until it kills all life on the planet. Capitalism is fundamentally in contradiction with life itself.
As this problem becomes more acute, and affects people more immediately, more people will come into motion to oppose it. We need to find ways of uniting those who can fight capitalism from both the standpoint of class liberation, and from an environmentalist perspective, or more precisely, biocentrism. Alone, neither can achieve a sustainable and classless future society. These movements are allied and complementary. Each will have different strategies and approaches, but both will have better chances for success the more they cooperate in the immediate period.
Each movement currently has gaps, which are filled in by the other. The major flaw in movements for class liberation has been anthropocentrism, a total focus on human needs and a utilitarian view of nature.
The major flaw of environmentalism (and the contemporary labor movement in the US as well, which has been destroyed or co-opted by sold-out unions) has been a lack of class analysis and a lack of understanding of capitalism as a system that needs to be dismantled, an economic system characterized by class domination and protected by a state that needs to be defeated. Because of this incomplete picture, many fall victim to illusions of reformism, bourgeois democracy, technotopianism, lifestylism, green capitalism, and other dead end schemes.
Many radical or deep green environmentalists get closer to the heart of the problem and fight to defend land and decrease production. These are both necessary, but not alone sufficient. We can not win—we can neither liberate ourselves nor save the planet—without defeating and dismantling the entire system of capitalism and fundamentally transforming the structure of society on a classless basis.
We can attack capitalism on many fronts, but at the center of it is the conversion of raw materials (life) into commodities through the capitalist exploitation of labor. The point is the extraction of surplus value from the worker. There is no other reason for commodities to be produced. So we must break the social relation of class domination that makes exploitation possible, and which characterizes a mode of production that requires the extraction of resources and results in the destruction of the environment.
On the left, the theory of productive forces has led to a widespread productivist/mechanical view of reaching socialism: by developing and fully mechanizing production, we will reach reach abundance and the end of labor itself. It is increasingly obvious that this scenario at odds with the reality around us, yet there is a general reluctance to tell the truth: that a lot of production, everything not necessary for survival, simply has to end. No one likes being the person who brings the bad news that we have to make do with less. It’s harder to organize around.
And so the idea of socialism, the common ownership of the means of production and equitable distribution of goods, also doesn’t go far enough. We need to change our relationship with the natural world. It is not there for us to use, but instead we are part of it and depend on its overall health. We need to define a different relationship with it than as a set of resources. A sustainable economy can only involve production that is subordinate to nature and that fits within its physical limits to reproduce itself—that is determined not by human desires and whims, but by our actual needs, which are dependent on a healthy planet above all.
The system fosters the illusion of a contradiction between the interests of the dominated classes (the working class in particular)—and the ecosystem that we all depend upon for life. Through the dispossession of land-based peoples at its stage of primary accumulation, capitalism creates a situation of dependency for workers, who no longer have access to their own traditional means of subsistence.
This is how they’ve set us up to demand that our needs be satisfied in ways that actually help the enemy and harm ourselves. For example, the demand for jobs is almost unquestioned in the labor movement, but this demand only helps the capitalist to further exploit us at cheaper rates. What we should be demanding is a universal income, which would hinder exploitation, hurt capital, and would be compatible with the ecological necessity of reducing production.
Instead of demanding a temporary job building a pipeline, for example, we need to be insisting on the right to a livable income whether we have a job or not. And if we’re unemployed, we should be spending our time joining those who are putting themselves on the line to stand in the way of oil pipelines, mountaintop removal, and nuclear power plants – such as the five Lakotas who were arrested a couple of weeks ago for participating in a successful community blockade of trucks that were coming onto Pine Ridge Indian land in South Dakota with materials for building the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline.
We must build organizations that bring to bear the energy and interests of all the popular classes and social groupings against capitalism. For reds, a major task is to build autonomous organizations of the working class to break capitalists’ ability to accumulate surplus value. In addition, capital should be blocked at the various points in its flow, and alliances are needed to build mass movements that can attack capitalism at each of these points—including and especially (as the ecological crisis becomes increasingly acute), defending the land by preventing extraction.
Indigenous struggles, in particular, need to be supported and allied with as part of any anti-capitalist initiative. For one thing, it must be acknowledged and addressed that the land that provides all our sustenance has been stolen and colonized. Furthermore, indigenous peoples and subsistence farmers are the only groups who have practice with living sustainably, who can offer alternatives to this way of life that have been proven successful.
The extraction of resources and the exploitation of labor could not even occur without dispossessing people of the land that previously sustained them, a dispossession that continues and a subsequent degradation that has accelerated to an apocalyptic rate. These economic processes are intertwined, mutually compulsory, defining elements of capitalist production, and a combined effort to stop both have a much better chance of defeating our common enemy.
This article is a reprint of a talk that Stephanie McMillan gave as part of a March 18 panel at the Left Forum in New York City.
Stephanie McMillan is a cartoonist and activist. She creates the daily comic strip “Minimum Security” and the weekly editorial cartoon “Code Green.” Among her books is a graphic novel with Derrick Jensen, “As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial.” (Seven Stories Press). Her website is at stephaniemcmillan.org.
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Monday, March 19, 2012
Police State Blues: 'Our Rights Do Not End Where the Caprice of Authoritarian Bullies Begins'
By Phil Rockstroh
At mid-evening, on Saturday, March 17, upon the six-month anniversary of the occupation of Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, the NYPD—because the department suffered no ill consequences from their search and destroy mission launched, in the late fall of 2011, to scour Liberty Square of liberty—initiated another brutal operation to expel OWS activists from the premises, and to discourage, in general, those who might venture attempts to exercise their right to free assembly and free expression across the whole of the city of New York as winter proceeds into spring.
In a police state, unjust actions by authoritarian bullies, operating at the behest of privileged bullies in power, act by caprice and will escalate their level of brutality by the degree that the public at large reacts with support and indifference to the state’s assaults on civil liberties and common decency.
Bear in mind, police agencies, devoid of oversight, comprise a legal form of gang activity; therefore, when one is witness to their acts of brutality, and, as outraged protesters are apt to do, shower their ranks with taunts of “shame, shame, shame”—rather than experiencing feelings of remorse, brutish individual officers regard the scolding as a badge of honor.
Why? Because they view OWS as a rival gang—not a force of democratic passion and outrage.
The defining creed of a violent gang, such as the NYPD, is to ensure their own survival by the modus operandi of violently crushing perceived rivals.
If rank and file police officers ever surrender their arms and change sides, this event will have come to pass because the institutions of power that direct their actions (and that issue their paychecks) will begin to collapse. Anything you can do to challenge and to help facilitate the end of the reign of exploitation and terror that is the neoliberal international superstate will, in turn, prove helpful in achieving the goal of ceasing the brutality inherent to the U.S. police state.
But, and I hope I’m wrong in positing this dismal augury, there will be much blood lacquering the pavements of the city of New York, and scores of other municipalities, worldwide, before that day arrives.
At our best, as a species, we human beings use our minds and imaginations to bring less suffering to the world; at our worst, we use said attributes to rationalize causing so much of it.
Although not widely acknowledged by mainstream opinion shapers, the struggle to retake the public commons by activists facing hostile local municipalities and their police enforcers and the imperative to reduce mankind’s destruction of the ecological balance of the earth are related issues, of which the implications extend far beyond the political realm. The unfolding of these matters determines how you spend your days, from when you rise in the morning, to what you eat, to which locations you proceed during the day, to when and how you sleep at night, right down to the state of your health and the condition of your soul.
To those who proffer the excuse, “in my heart, I know you’re right, but I have to be a realist about this”: you’re letting a crackpot realist mindset falsely frame the matter. Given that the heart is more than a pump—it is the alpha and omega point of the soul of the world i.e., animus mundi, perhaps, you are confused regarding the nature of reality.
Moreover, you sound like George F. Babbitt, giving a book report on Hannah Arrent’s conception of the banality of evil from Eichmann in Jerusalem, and you have missed the point. Apropos: Evil is maintained by mundane means, by people who see themselves as normal and who live ordinary lives.
And it seems to be what you’re actually trying to express is closer to the following: I feel overwhelmed and powerless about the situation. Addressing it makes me feel uncomfortable, so I’ll just accept the matter, maybe grouse about it a bit, but I’ll continue to accept the small comforts the system proffers and I’ll hope that will serve as balm to my empty, troubled soul.
The Cartesian fallacy that one’s joy and suffering are almost exclusively a private matter—the idea that the process all takes place in one’s own mind and body and has no connection to any larger order—has diminished perception and has stressed the environment to the tipping point. This is the dismal litany of Industrial/Commercial Age false consciousness: the paramount function of the intellect is to reduce the vast and proliferate criteria of life down to the “bottom line.”
But anyone who posits the concept that life can and should be reduced to only self-serving, mechanistically controllable verities has much to learn from 20th century death camps, and, moreover, should take note of our present day analogs of Auschwitz: the so-called industrial “farming industry”; the practices of deep sea “fishing” by trawlers (i.e, strip-mining the world’s oceans); deep water oil-drilling practices; and fracking. The list goes on and on, and finds an analog in the mechanistic suppression of dissent by militarized police forces.
Yet the agenda of the corporate/police/commercial/militarist state is to preserve and expand these practices, the very practices that keep its populace alienated, locked into benumbing, destructive habits that leave individuals hollow, anomie-prone, and addicted to distraction. Withal, the acceptance of a way of life that is dependent on a habitual disengagement from the very acts that maintain one’s culture necessitates the construction of an imprisoning wall of psychological separation between oneself and reality.
To awaken to reality is to suffer, allowing oneself to experience feelings of despair, powerlessness, and rage. Speaking the truth sets you free, because emotion engenders motion.
If witnessing peaceful protesters being beaten by police, manacled with zip cuffs (a device that by its structural makeup ensures a loss of circulation) and transported to jail on trumped-up charges, fails to get your blood up, then your absent soul can be located exchanging banalities at a mental dinner party with Adolf Eichmann.
To express indifference or to be an apologist for the quotidian evils of our time is reprehensible. Like the “good Germans” of the 1930’s, you might believe your codified hatreds and commodified longings, manifested by the industrial and military power of the state, will deliver and preserve freedom, but these beliefs, maintained by systems of mechanized force, will, in time, come to debase everything you hold dear.
How can an individual gain a modicum of empathy for the plight of the planet and for those brutalized by the operatives of state oppression when he refuses to gaze upon his own degraded condition?
At this point, the awakening of your heart comes down to a cultural imperative. Even if you don’t quite know where you’re going at first, by moving in the direction of what your heart yearns for, you begin to reveal to yourself who you are. Thus, you wander off the banal path of empty obligation and self-serving rationalization—then, even in moments of doubt and confusion, you can make a home in being lost.
“Show your wounds,” exhorted artist Joseph Bueys. The wound becomes the womb, poets tell us.
Pain and sorrow can induce one to seek out and to join the chorus of a larger order, to give full-throated sorrow to songs emanating from the suffering earth.
You can join this chorus or elect to be self-cast as a supernumerary in a lethal farce that assigns you the dubious role of being both oppressor and oppressed.
The earth’s song, at this juncture, is one of soul-rending lamentation and sacred vehemence.
This song needs you to lend your voice.
And I submit this lyric as the song’s refrain, a riff of the blues inspired by the less than inspired acts of our men and woman uniformed in blue: “Our rights do not end where the caprice of authoritarian bullies begins.”
Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at: phil@philrockstroh.com. Visit Phil’s website http://philrockstroh.com and Facebook.
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Sunday, March 18, 2012
Re-Occupy Yer Lawns: #OccupyRewilding
Michael Pollan sez: “A lawn is nature under totalitarian rule.”
The single most irrigated crop in the United States is…(drum roll please) lawn. Yep, 40 million acres of lawn exist across the Land of Denial and Americans collectively spend about $40 billion on seed, sod, and chemicals each year.
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One of my recent OWS photos:
M17: OWS @ 6 months
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March 23 MZ event:
Mickey Z: #Occupy for All Species (Ecosystem Before Economics)
Let’s welcome the American Spring at Jivamuktea Café on March 23
As the #Occupy movement continues to grow and evolve, how and where do animal rights and other dark green issues fit into the now infamous 99%?
Join New York City’s own Mickey Z. - subversive author of 11 books - for an urgent and inspirational call-to-arms, re: OWS, activism, speciesism, ecocide, veganism, holistic justice, the 2012 election, and so much more - followed by Q&A/discussion.
If you’ve never been to a Mickey Z. event, check your expectations at the door and prepare to be #Occupied.
Friday, March 23 @ 7pm
Jivamuktea Café
(Organic/Vegetarian/Vegan/Non GMO)
Jivamukti Yoga School
841 Broadway, 2nd floor
New York, NY 10003
(212) 353-0214
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Former Small-Town Mayor Slams 'Aggressive' Tactics of Big Shale Gas Producer
By Press Action
Among U.S. shale gas producers, Range Resources Corp. has been the most aggressive in going after residents and activists who complain about the industry’s actions, according to Calvin Tillman, the former mayor of DISH, Texas, and an outspoken critic of the natural gas industry.
Chesapeake Energy Corp. and other leading U.S. gas producers often rely on industry organizations, such as Energy In Depth, to keep tabs on activists. So far, these companies have avoided using the legal system to try to silence their critics, Tillman said. Range Resources, on the other hand, has filed lawsuits and requested subpoenas against its critics. “No one has been as out-front and aggressive as Range,” he told Press Action.
A couple years ago, while still mayor of DISH, Tillman was served with subpoenas from Range Resources. At the time, Tillman opted to stay quiet about the company’s tactics. But when Range Resources recently went after Sharon Wilson, a popular blogger who writes about natural gas issues and works as an organizer for Earthworks’ Texas Oil & Gas Accountability Project, Tillman decided enough is enough. He is now actively challenging Range Resources’ actions against its critics and doing what he can to support Wilson.
As part of a counter-lawsuit against homeowners in Parker County, Texas, who had accused the company of contaminating their water well, Range Resources successfully petitioned a Texas district court to issue a subpoena to Wilson. According to Tillman, Range Resources has gone too far in seeking to bring Wilson into the case. He pointed to a section of the Texas disciplinary rules of professional conduct that outlines how attorneys should “respect the rights” of third parties.
In representing a client, a lawyer “shall not use means that have no substantial purpose other than to embarrass, delay, or burden a third person, or use methods of obtaining evidence that violate the legal rights of such a person,” the rule states.
“You cannot put an undue burden on a third party without cause,” Tillman said, referring to Range Resources’ subpoena of Wilson. “And that’s exactly what they’re doing.”
On her blog, Wilson has written about the legal proceedings in Parker County. But she’s had no direct involvement in the case. Wilson did have direct involvement, though, in another controversy involving Range Resources. She was the person who let the world know that natural gas companies, including Range Resources, are using psychological operations, or psy-ops, against anti-shale gas drilling activists.
Wilson’s employer, Earthworks, paid for her to attend an industry conference in Houston last fall where she recorded a presentation by Matt Pitzarella, Range Resources’ director of corporate communications and public affairs. Pitzarella told the audience that his company has hired several former U.S. military psy-ops experts who are applying their skills in Pennsylvania. After the conference, Wilson shared her recordings with news organizations. She also blogged about what she had learned at the conference, letting her readers know that gas companies are using military-style psy-ops in communities where they are facing resistance.
Wilson’s reporting from the conference almost certainly put her on Range Resources’ radar, if she wasn’t already. The revelation that Range Resources employed psy-ops tactics in the Marcellus Shale region of Pennsylvania was seen as an embarrassment to the company and a public relations fiasco for the industry as a whole.
“This is clearly designed to shut her up,” Tillman said of the subpoena. “But also this is a shot across the bow at bloggers. ‘If you want to write about me, we’ll come after you.’ If Sharon can’t get on her blog site and write honest opinions about what she sees, information she gets, what she hears, what is different about what she’s doing than what people can’t do in China or Russia?”
In the subpoena, not only was Wilson ordered to be deposed by Range Resources’ lawyers, she was told to provide all communications she has had about the water contamination case with a long list of people, including the homeowners in Parker County, Steven and Shyla Lipsky. The other names on the list are a who’s who of industry critics and environmental activists: Josh Fox, who made the popular documentary Gasland; chemist and environmental activist Wilma Subra; Ramón Alvarez, a senior scientist in the Texas office of Environmental Defense Fund; Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director for WildEarth Guardians; Tom “Smitty” Smith, director of Public Citizen’s Texas office; Jim Schermbeck, director of Downwinders at Risk; Kelly Haragan, director of the Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Texas at Austin; and several others.
“She does four or five postings [about the Lipsky case], and all of sudden she gets a subpoena,” Tillman said. “This is obviously an intimidation tactic. I’m not going to take it anymore. So I’m going to defend Sharon.”
‘The Industry Just Absolutely Hates Me’
Calvin Tillman rose to prominence as mayor of DISH, a small town in Denton County, Texas, when he oversaw the commissioning of an air quality study in 2009 that assessed compressors, condensate tanks, and major pipelines that process and transport natural gas extracted from the Barnett Shale play in Texas. The study found seven locations in the town where carcinogenic and neurotoxic emissions violated limits set by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
“In the state of Texas, before we did our [air quality] study in DISH, there was nothing being done. There were no air studies being done,” Tillman said. “After we did our air study, the TCEQ got involved, the EPA got involved. There were actually laws changed because of our air study. The industry just absolutely hates me for that.”
As a result of his battle for tougher regulations for the gas industry in Texas, Tillman’s profile increased across the U.S. Over the past two years, Tillman has given numerous speeches to residents in some of the nation’s communities hardest hit by the “shale gas revolution.”
Tillman’s term as mayor of DISH ended in May 2011. He and his family moved away from DISH to a nearby community, although Tillman said he keeps close ties with the town. “Since moving from DISH, my children have not experienced the periodic nosebleeds that they had while living there, and we have been able to enjoy being outside at our home without the noxious odors,” Tillman wrote on his blog.
While still mayor of DISH, in the fall of 2010, Tillman co-founded ShaleTest.org, a nonprofit organization that collects environmental data and provides environmental testing to lower income families and neighborhoods affected by natural gas exploration. “We are a functioning organization at this point,” he said.
In 2010, prior to the Lipsky case, when Tillman was subpoenaed by Range Resources as part of a separate legal proceeding, his lawyers were able to get the subpoena quashed by the court. But then Range Resources came back and filed an information request for all of the same documents in his role as mayor of DISH. “I’m a government official,” he said. “I gave them everything they asked for.” But “it really seemed like an intimidation tactic,” he added.
This was Tillman’s first encounter with Range Resources. His second occurred at the Annual Conference of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers in April 2011, when he sat on the same panel as David Poole, senior vice president and general counsel of Range Resources. The panel was titled “What Cost Gas Drilling?”
“He spent the entire time attacking me feverishly over every single thing he could read about me,” Tillman said of Poole. “There are some industry groups that have gone after me. He’s reading that stuff. He’s just trying to discredit me.”
A couple months later, the Lipsky case started making headlines. In their lawsuit, filed in June 2011, the Lipskys claimed that Range Resources was responsible for the contamination of their well water at their home in Parker County. In July 2011, Range Resources filed a counterclaim against the Lipskys—“basically a SLAPP suit for millions of dollars,” Tillman said—alleging that the Lipskys and their environmental consultant conspired to mislead the public and defame the company.
Prior to the Lipsky lawsuit, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in late 2010 issued a finding that Range Resources’ drilling in the Barnett Shale “caused or contributed” to the presence of methane in two drinking water wells in Parker County, one of which was the Lipsky’s. But the Texas Railroad Commission ruled in March 2011 that Range Resources was not at fault for the contamination of the water wells, contradicting the EPA’s findings.
This past January, State District Judge Trey Loftin issued an order that the district court could not hear the Lipsky’s $6.5 million lawsuit against Range Resources because it should have been filed in Austin, the state capital, as it involves a Texas Railroad Commission matter. And then on Feb. 16, Loftin issued an order denying a motion by Lipsky and their environmental consultant, Alisa Rich of Wolf Eagle Environmental, to dismiss Range Resources’ multimillion-dollar counterclaim against them.
Taking a Stand against ‘Intimidation’
Less than a week later, on Feb. 22, Wilson was served the subpoena from Range Resources. The subpoena was submitted by David Poole of Range Resources, Mac Smith of the law firm Vick, Carney & Smith LLP in Weatherford, Texas, and Andrew Sims, Russell Barton and Troy Okruhlik of the law firm Harris, Finley & Bogle PC in Fort Worth.
On March 12, Wilson’s attorney filed a motion to quash the subpoena. In the motion, Wilson’s attorney states that she is not a party to the Lipsky case but that she does maintain a blog, TexasSharon.com, in which she discusses issues pertaining to oil and gas programs. Range Resources wants to depose Wilson “even though any knowledge she has of the matters at issue in this case is secondhand and peripheral,” her attorney argued. “Moreover, Range also has served on Wilson requests for production of documents. The requests for production suggest that Range’s true intent is to silence a critic rather than discover evidence relevant to the case,” the attorney asserted.
After learning about the subpoena, Tillman on March 3 sent out an email, urging people “to make a stand against this clear attempt at intimidation and help her avoid a deposition, which will amount to nothing more than a witch hunt.” Tillman suggested that people call Poole and Range Resources’ attorneys at Harris, Finley and Bogle and tell them to “leave Texas Sharon alone.”
On March 5, Poole sent Tillman a letter, saying that his March 3 email “was brought to my attention.” Poole noted that Range Resources has filed a counterclaim against the Lipskys and “is seeking discovery in order to prepare for trial of its counterclaim.”
“Among other things, Ms. Wilson (who you refer to as Texas Sharon) was the recipient of and responded to an email from a high level EPA official regarding the EPA order that is the direct result of the actions Range’s claims are based on; we believe she has a relationship with the ‘expert’ who provided misleading information and we believe she has had communications with the homeowner that are relevant to the issues in the lawsuit,” Poole said in his letter to Tillman. “That is the reason for Range issuing the subpoena for her deposition.”
Later in the letter, Poole said Range Resources “respects the rights of those with an interest in our industry, including yours and Ms. Wilson’s, to comment and provide opinions and views about it.”
“We do, however, expect that dialog to be fact based and to accurately reflect Range, our company’s actions and its intentions,” Poole said. “Unfortunately, your comments about this matter have not been factually accurate. Range simply seeks relevant discovery from people who have relevant information. After all, a deposition is merely an opportunity to provide truthful testimony under oath. Range is not seeking anything other than information from Ms. Wilson and Range does not seek a deposition based on Ms. Wilson’s writing on her blog.”
In his March 3 email, Tillman argued that Range Resources’ “intimidation tactics” are nothing new. “Range Resources (RRC) has tried to do the same kind of thing with me, but I manage to avoid a deposition,” he wrote.
Poole, in his March 5 letter, said this passage from Tillman’s March 3 email “is not based on any facts that I am aware of” and that if Tillman has “evidence or documentation of this occurring, please send it to my attention.”
On his blog, Tillman provided a link to an Oct. 8, 2010, subpoena from Range Resources. The subpoena states that it is “respectfully submitted” by Andrew Sims and Troy Okruhlik, two of Range Resources’ outside attorneys, and David Poole, senior vice president and general counsel of Range Resources. “His name is on the subpoena that was given to me,” Tillman said. “He’s the one who subpoenaed me. And he is saying he didn’t know anything about that.”
“I am certain that they [Poole’s fellow executives at Range Resources] cannot be happy with the letter that he wrote to me,” Tillman said. “If they are okay with it now, at some point they are not going to be okay with it. That exposed them. I sent him back an email that showed all of the depositions and the subpoenas that they tried with me.”
Tillman noted that, during the past few months, Range Resources has been rumored as a takeover target. BP Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc have been mentioned as possible suitors.
“The rationale for any M&A candidate is, do you have access to top quality resource plays and do you have size in those plays?” Andrew Coleman, an analyst at Raymond James, recently told Bloomberg News. “Range definitely checks both of those boxes. It’s a relatively expensive stock with a well-defined track record of growth and a very large acreage position in the Marcellus.”
But Tillman believes the Lipsky legal proceedings and Range Resources’ aggressive legal tactics may be scaring away potential suitors. If the company does get bought out, it will probably be for “certainly less than what they would have” received prior to the Lipsky case, he said.
Photo of Calvin Tillman (from 2011): Citizens Shale Advisors
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Friday, March 16, 2012
Occupy St. Patrick's Day/M17 (#OWS @ 6 Months)
By Mickey Z.
"Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought ... Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction. Be heroes in an army of construction." -Helen Keller
My mother’s side of the family is Irish and I attended St. Patrick’s grammar school from grades 1-through-8. In other words, Mar. 17 has never been just another day on the calendar for me.
This year, however, Mar. 17 takes on a whole new meaning: the six-month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street (OWS).
With that mind, I’d like to share a St. Pat’s-related tale that lives up to the OWS vibe…
#ReOccupy St.Patrick’s Day
During the buildup to the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), scores of immigrant Irishmen joined the army for the $7 a month. “The U.S. anti-immigrant press of the time caricatured the Irish with simian features, portraying then as unintelligent and drunk and charging that they were seditiously loyal to the pope,” Anne-Marie O’Connor wrote in the Los Angeles Times. “But cheap Irish labor was welcome. Irish maids became as familiar as Latin American nannies are today.”
After President James K. Polk incited hostilities by sending U.S. troops into disputed territory, many of those Irish soldiers found themselves heading west to fight a war of conquest were Catholic. “This is a story about assimilation,” historian Peter F. Stevens adds. “A lot of these guys deserted because of the anti-Catholic, anti-foreigner movement.”
One such deserter was John Riley, an Irishman from Galway who swam across the Rio Grande after asking permission to go to Mass. “As the U.S. Army marched through Mexico’s northern deserts, others followed, and Riley became captain of a 200-member rogue column in the Mexican army,” explained O’Connor. “At San Luis Potosi, convent nuns presented them the hand-stitched banner that foreshadowed their eventual romanticization.”
A wartime newspaper correspondent from New Orleans described the banner as made of “green silk, and on one side is a harp, surmounted by the Mexican coat of arms, with a scroll on which is painted, ‘Libertad para la República Mexicana.’ Underneath the harp is the motto ‘Erin go Bragh’ (Ireland for Ever). On the other side is painting ... made to represent St. Patrick, in his left hand a key and in his right a crook or staff resting upon a serpent.”
The group was unofficially known as the “Irish Volunteers,” but Mexicans often referred to the redheaded and ruddy-complexioned men as the “Red Guards.” Formally, the unit was called the “San Patricio Company,” a title that evolved into the more familiar “St. Patrick’s Battalion.”
Mic Check: Please allow me to offer a little context as to how this war came to be. It should sound mighty familiar to anyone who’s been paying attention.
#Occupy Historical Context
When James K. Polk was elected U.S. president in 1844, he had every intention of creating a pretext to stir Americans into action against Mexico. One of the issues of the 1844 election was the annexation or Texas-or “reannexation,” as Polk called it. Apparently, no one bothered to remind him that Texas was not part of the original Louisiana Purchase.
When Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821, the territory of Texas (along with what are now New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, California, and part of Colorado) was Mexican territory. Fifteen years later, Texas claimed its independence as the Lone Star Republic. In Washington, it was viewed as U.S. property.
“Even before Polk’s inauguration, Congress adopted a joint resolution on his proposal to annex Texas,” explains historian Kenneth C. Davis. “When Mexico heard of this action in March 1845, it severed diplomatic relations with the United States.” Undeterred, Polk sent an ambassador, James Slidell, to negotiate a purchase of Texas and California. Slidell was rebuffed. Polk took a new tack and ordered General Zachary Taylor to lead his troops all the way to the Rio Grande, thus testing the defined borders.
“Mexico claimed that the boundary was the Nueces River, northeast of the Rio Grande, and considered the advance of Taylor’s troops an act of aggression,” says Davis. Colonel Ethan Allen Hitchcock, commander of the 3rd Infantry Regiment, said of this move, “It looks as if the government sent a small force on purpose to bring on a war, so as to have a pretext for taking California and as much of this country as it chooses.”
The pretext arrived on cue when Polk ordered Taylor and his 3,500-member “Army of observation” to cross the Rio Grande. Taylor’s quartermaster, Colonel Cross went missing, his body found 11 days later with his skull crushed. The day after Cross’ high-profile public funeral, a patrol of Taylor’s soldiers was attacked by Mexicans. Sixteen were killed.
Taylor sent a dispatch to Polk: “Hostilities may now be considered as commenced.” Declaring “the cup of forbearance” to have been exhausted, Polk announced to Congress, “War exists.”
#Branded
In five major battles, the San Patricios earned a reputation for bravery that peaked Aug. 20, 1847, at Churubusco where, over the course of three hours, 60 percent of the San Patricios were killed or captured by a numerically superior American army. One of the prisoners was Brevet Major John Riley.
“At their court-martial,” O’Conner stated, “most San Patricios said they had been forced to desert by the Mexicans, or had too much to drink.”
“They needed an excuse. They couldn’t say “I hated the United States,” so they said they weren’t responsible,” said Miller. In some cases—including Riley—this defense was effective. While 50 San Patricios were sentenced to death, five others were pardoned and 15 others received a reduced sentence.
Riley himself was given 50 lashes and was hot-iron branded with a two-inch letter “D” for deserter. The San Patricios who faced the gallows were hanged in their Mexican uniforms and buried in graves dug by Riley and the other branded prisoners. The war was over and in the name of historical cleansing, the legend of St. Patrick’s Battalion was essentially banished north of the border.
Ulysses S. Grant later called the Mexican-American War “one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation.” In retrospect, it can be more accurately described as merely a preface in the U.S. military intervention playbook.
#OccupyM17
With all of the above serving as background, it should be easy to see why M17 is so important this year.
We need so much more than a parade that features military “heroes” and Mayor Bloomberg’s private army sauntering down Fifth Avenue.
Come out and join your local occupation Mar. 17 to mark six months of revolution, the launching of the American Spring, and yet another step towards a more safe and sane future for all life on the planet.
Mic Check: Occupy no war but Class War.
We are the 99%. Expect us. Join us…
#OccupyM17. #OccupyAgainstWar.
Upcoming Mickey Z. event: Let’s welcome the American Spring in NYC on March 23
Mickey Z. is the author of 11 books, most recently the novel Darker Shade of Green. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on an obscure website called Facebook.
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Thursday, March 15, 2012
Occupy St. Patrick's Day/M17 (#OWS @ 6 Months)
It should be easy to see why M17 is so important this year.
We need so much more than a parade that features military “heroes” and Mayor Bloomberg’s private army sauntering down Fifth Avenue.
We need Americans refusing to enlist, current soldiers deserting, and all of the 99% refusing to fight the wars of the 1%.
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One of my recent photos:
Made to be broken...
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March 23 MZ event:
Mickey Z: #Occupy for All Species (Ecosystem Before Economics)
Let’s welcome the American Spring at Jivamuktea Café on March 23
As the #Occupy movement continues to grow and evolve, how and where do animal rights and other dark green issues fit into the now infamous 99%?
Join New York City’s own Mickey Z. - subversive author of 11 books - for an urgent and inspirational call-to-arms, re: OWS, activism, speciesism, ecocide, veganism, holistic justice, the 2012 election, and so much more - followed by Q&A/discussion.
If you’ve never been to a Mickey Z. event, check your expectations at the door and prepare to be #Occupied.
Friday, March 23 @ 7pm
Jivamuktea Café
(Organic/Vegetarian/Vegan/Non GMO)
Jivamukti Yoga School
841 Broadway, 2nd floor
New York, NY 10003
(212) 353-0214
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Pentagon Goes on Solar Energy Expedition in Afghanistan
By Press Action
For more than a decade, Afghanistan has served as a testing ground for a wide array of U.S. military initiatives, some more lethal than others. The Department of Defense has tested many flashy new weapons such as long-range sniper rifles with suppressors and microwave-based active denial systems. Afghanistan also has been the proving ground for such battlefield tools as throwable robots and cargo carrying drones.
The testing of the latest model of weapons certainly generates a high level of shock and awe. But perhaps equally as important as weapons testing has been the military’s ability to conduct research on new energy technologies—more specifically, renewable energy systems. In fact, according to a new report released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, among all government agencies, DOD boasted the largest number of initiatives in 2010 that supported one particular type of renewable energy—solar. The military accounted for more than 20% of the solar initiatives in the entire government.
“DOD’s initiatives supported solar energy in various ways and included a number of efforts to incorporate renewable energy at its installations, as well as to develop technologies that allow it to use solar energy in operational environments, such as the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, to help reduce its reliance on conventional fuel,” the GAO said in the report, “Renewable Energy: Federal Agencies Implement Hundreds of Initiatives.”
After the U.S. invasion in 2003, Iraq had served as an effective proving ground for new technologies, especially urban warfare and surveillance weapons. But with fewer U.S. military forces now stationed in that country, the Pentagon is increasingly using the Afghan people as guinea pigs.
The GAO noted in the report, released March 12, that the Pentagon has determined renewable energy sources could help “achieve its mission by, among other benefits, expanding and securing necessary energy supplies to reduce dependence on foreign oil.”
For example, the Marine Corps’ Ground Renewable Expeditionary Energy System, or GREENs, is a portable hybrid 300-watt solar photovoltaic power system. The Marine Corps worked with the Navy to develop the system under the Future Naval Capabilities Program. The effort “supports the Marine Corps’ focus on meeting operational energy needs with energy renewable energy,” the GAO said in its report.
Using solar power, GREENS provides continuous electricity for Marines in remote field locations. The GREENS project was conceived in the fall of 2008 to address military needs in Iraq. The first unit was tested in July 2009, and a solicitation for a production contract was issued in the fall of 2009. In August 2010, GREENS was deployed along with several other renewable energy technologies to Afghanistan for further evaluation under the Experimental Forward Operating Base approach, a Marine Corps initiative to test and evaluate alternative solutions to reduce deployed forces’ energy and water needs. In its research, the GAO said it found that the tests in Afghanistan yielded “promising results.”
In Sangin District, an area in Afghanistan’s Helmand province that had seen intense fighting, two Marine patrol bases were powered entirely by solar for the duration of a seven-month mission in 2010, David Roberts reported last November in Outside magazine. The Marines are deploying renewable energy in the field, Roberts wrote, as part of an effort to make its soldiers nimbler and more self-sufficient.
The Marines are not alone. “Every branch of the armed forces is working to reduce its consumption of fossil fuels, driven by an increasing preoccupation with rising costs, dependence on hostile oil regimes, and the destabilizing threat of climate change,” Roberts said. ”But in the past two years, the Marine Corps has been particularly aggressive, bulling through the usual government bureaucracy in pursuit of immediate battlefield advantage.”
The Army is conducting its own research focused on using renewable energy to meet its deployed forces’ needs. For example, the Army’s tactical electric power research activities help incorporate renewable energy technologies into tactical electric power generation equipment, such as the Transportable Hybrid Electric Power Station, which uses solar and wind energy to reduce the reliance on fossil fuel generators.
On March 12, the GAO submitted its report to the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. In its research, the GAO was tasked with identifying federal agencies’ renewable energy-related initiatives. The agency reviewed nearly 700 renewable energy initiatives that were implemented in fiscal year 2010. The Departments of Defense, Agriculture, Energy, and the Interior were collectively responsible for almost 60% of all the initiatives, with Defense responsible for the largest number, the GAO said.
Unquenchable Thirst for Fuel
Across DOD, each of the military branches conducts research efforts that include examining how alternative sources of energy could help meet its particular needs. Through their alternative fuel programs, the Air Force and Navy conduct research on new biofuels, biomass, and algae-derived fuels in order to power aircraft and ships.
In testimony before the House Subcommittee on Energy and Power in June 2011, Tom Hicks, the Navy’s deputy assistant secretary for energy, touted the benefits of certain biofuels. “The feedstocks and the refineries needed to produce advanced biofuels to power the fleet or our aircraft can literally be made in all fifty states,” Hicks said. “The camelina grown in Florida and Montana, the algae grown in New Mexico, Hawaii or Pennsylvania, for example, can be turned into fuels blended in existing infrastructure in the Gulf or on the East or West coast to power the Fleet.”
The U.S.-based companies in the biofuels industry are using algae, biomass, yellow grease, jatropha, switchgrass, corn stover, and rotational crops like camelina, according to Hicks.
The U.S. military is the largest energy consumer—and polluter—on the planet. Military officials see the writing on the wall when it comes to peak oil and competing with rapidly industrializing countries such as China and India for fuel. In order to sustain its ability to wage war and maintain bases around the world, the military recognizes it will need to start using alternative fuels. That’s why military officials, such as Hicks, speak highly of the environmental attributes of biofuels, despite the growing body of evidence that their production is extremely harmful to the environment.
Hicks also told the House subcommittee that the Navy is seeking ways to make its ships and aircraft more efficient. “For ships this means that we can increase the days between refueling—underway replenishments—improving both its security and combat capability,” Hicks said. “Better fuel economy for our aircraft means we can extend the range of our strike missions enabling us to base them farther away from combat areas. Being more efficient and more independent, more diverse in our sources of fuel improves our combat capability both strategically and tactically.”
As part of its Alternative Fuels Certification initiative, the Air Force tests and certifies alternative fuels, including renewable alternative fuels such as biomass-derived fuels, and fuel blend technologies in weapons systems, such as aircraft, support and fuel delivery equipment, and storage infrastructure. The Navy’s Alternative Fuels Program focuses on examining whether fuels produced using certain methods can be used in its equipment.
“These efforts contribute to the high level energy goals set forth in the Navy’s Energy Program for Security and Independence, which include sailing the ‘Great Green Fleet’—a carrier strike group composed of nuclear ships, hybrid electric ships running on biofuel, and aircraft flying on biofuel—by 2016, and meeting at least 50% of shore-based energy requirements from alternative sources by 2020, among other energy goals,” the GAO said in its report.
The U.S. military is not entering the renewable energy space because it wants to save the planet. Instead, it’s seeking to harness the sun and harvest crops for fuel in order to preserve American hegemony. Sustaining operations in so many countries around the world requires large amounts of energy. In the countries the U.S. has invaded or is planning to invade, military planners recognize the logistical problems and dangers associated with transporting conventional fuels. The use of solar photovoltaics and other renewable technologies could give the U.S. military the upper hand in both urban and remote regions, making it an even more lethal killing machine.
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Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Reclaiming the Commons: Taking Human Lessons in the Era of H.R. 347, Corporatism and Perpetual War
By Phil Rockstroh
With increasing velocity, since the advent of the post-Second World War national security state, then gaining speed with the incessant search and destroy mission waged on the U.S. Constitution known as the War on Drugs, and kicking into a runaway trajectory in the post Sept. 11, 2001 era, the increase in totalitarian impulses, among both the general population and corporate and governmental elite of the nation, has proceeded at an alarming rate. Yet, baffling as the fact remains to those possessing a modicum of political awareness, large numbers of U.S. citizens persist in believing they dwell in a representative republic, governed by the principles of individual rights and civil liberties.
While Republicans desire to set clocks back to the Bronze Age, Democrats now run on Republican Standard Time, as collectively, the nation’s citizenry continues to roll over and hit the snooze button.
On an individual basis, if a sizable number of the nation’s citizenry’s concept of freedom of expression translates into little more than the act of casting a vote by iPhone involving a choice between a gaggle of cloying, longing-to-be-commodified crooners on American Idol, it follows that the egregious assault on civil liberties posed by H.R. 347 (the so-call Anti Occupy Wall Street Bill that has now made many acts of free speech and freedom of assembly a federal crime) will mean little within such a dim cosmology of diminished perception and even more dismal musical sensibility.
Reflecting how dire the assault on civil liberties has become: The aforementioned bill passed The House of Representatives by a 388 to 3 margin (and was signed, shortly thereafter, by President Obama, on Friday March 9, 2012).
Just what portion of the following admonitions contained within The Bill of Rights remains ambiguous to these legislators: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Notice: The opening sentence: “Congress shall make no law?” Notice as well: The right to “peaceably assemble” is guaranteed as prominently as any other right on the list.
The intent of this bill is clear: Despots and their operatives secure and retain power by rendering opposition to their rule unpleasant for dissenters. Systems of reward and punishment are maintained. For example, a right-wing radio demagogue will reap vast fortunes for his service, while truth tellers will be marginalized, or if they start to grow effective, be crushed by police state tactics and legislative caprice (e.g., the manner that enforcers of the current order have attempted to systemically repress the Occupy Wall Street Movement).
Make no mistake regarding the times we have been given. This struggle will be long and difficult. Despotic personality types, as a rule, are not struck by life-altering epiphanies regarding the emptiness of a life attendant to autocratically imposing repressive measures upon the powerless to ensure the continuance of their privileged status. Do not expect to hear the lamentation of the greedy as they awaken to how their addiction to wealth has isolated them Midas-style in a mode of mind wherein their souls exist in a state of starvation, because the soul is not nourished by hoarded gold (or funneling formations of electronic pixels representing commodity transactions).
On a personal basis, if you insist on standing opposed to despotism, expect trouble. In that case, one loses all certainties—save one: The retention of a viable sense of self.
When one attempts to stand against surging social and political tides, feelings of powerlessness can flood one with anxiety. Accordingly, a single individual can become inundated with feelings of unease and uncertainty. As a result, the social pressure to drown angst-creating individual doubt within the mindless certainties of a mob can become overwhelming. Often, brick by brick, in an attempt to withstand these powerful inner feelings and outward pressures, we build a structure of false consciousness that we, often, mistake for our convictions, and tragically mistake this dismal dwelling for the whole of existence.
How then is it possible to withstand feelings of powerlessness?
Put one foot in front of the other. Write one word after the next on your protest sign. Make your life a flaming arrow aimed at the dry and rotted heart of the system or make your own heart a warm hearth of compassion for its victims, as you negotiate its cold realities. Thus, hope becomes a process of engagement, not a comforting lie; not the stuff of public relations hustlers and political hacks but a quality of honest conviction and persistent labor; and not a cynical marketing tool.
Relentlessly, from early childhood on, our hopes and longings are subject to commodification by the dream-usurpers of the corporate state. The process of mental colonization by the commercial hologram is as pervasive within us as was the dogmatic influence of The Church within the psyches of Dark Age peasants.
The present order’s litany of economic inequity affords few the option of committing the heresy of questioning (or even apprehending) the exploitative and destructive nature of the system. As an example, citizenship as defined by consumerism has created a landscape devoid of public space. (The attempt to redefine what constitutes public space is one of the many threatening aspects of the Occupy Wall Street movement to the current power structure.)
Therefore, the inherent human need for a sense of place and belonging can be easily warped into a belligerent nationalism that deadens the heart as it warps an individual’s libidinous drive for communal engagement into displaced rage, conveniently appropriated by political demagogues into a lust for perpetual war.
Under such conditions, one’s life is not one’s own. A disassociation occurs, an attempt to distance oneself from the demeaning demands of exploitative social arrangements. Under these circumstances, a kind of cultural amnesia can occur. Perhaps, this relates to the U.S. populace’s difficulty involving collective memory, expressed in the well-known witticism that U.S. citizens inhabit: “The United States of Amnesia”.
When one’s authentic identity is not engaged in creating the criteria of one’s life, even one’s memories seem the dismal, evanescent dream of a stranger; it is difficult to store and recall unfolding events when one is in a trance of false consciousness.
Hence, one must insist upon regaining possession of one’s life to regain memory and engage imagination.
Distinct from self-indulgent navel-gazing, this is a call to action. At this critical point, the situation involves more than a search for meaning and resonance (although those things arrive as byproducts of the effort)—for we have been presented with a worldwide crisis involving not only the nature of our lives as individuals—but also a radically worsening crisis involving the health of our environmentally besieged planet.
Therefore, pardon this writer’s brief digression into personal memory.
I buried a turtle in the sky.
While exploring a creek near my home in Georgia, one spring afternoon, when I was ten, I happened upon a group of boys defiling the corpse of a massive—easily five feet in circumference—snapping turtle, by detonating firecrackers, cherry bombs, and M-80s that they had placed in the creature’s putrescent flesh.
Overwhelmed with mortification, I turned and staggered from the scene, before the boys, entranced in vicious revelry, noticed my presence. I retreated to the cover of a swath of scrub brush and pine saplings and vomited.
At that time, I lacked the lexicon, both verbal and emotive, to come to grips with what I had witnessed.
Years later, I had this enigmatic dream. I’m ascending in an elevator into a high tower, a modernist structure that serves as “a college dorm room in the sky”.
I proceed to the top floor. Upon entering the room, after passing two pretty, brunette, female twins in their mid-twenties, who dismiss me as “a poor prospect in a material regard”, I came upon an individual, who, in the waking world, in the years to come, I would mentor and I would come to write the bulk of a spoken word act he still tours with to this day.
Outside the window of this dorm in the sky, earthbound transportation vehicles, such as passenger, freight, and subway trains, made a path through the heavens.
Then, descending from above, with increasing velocity, an object appeared that was on a collision course with our perch. Before we had time to react, it crashed through the ceiling of the room, revealing itself to be the corpse of a massive tortoise, its shell affixed with wings constructed of papier-mâché.
Apparently, during childhood, to paraphrase the poet, the world was too much with me. Its casual cruelty and inherent brutality caused me to retreat skyward. I was a poor prospect in the “material” realm, with its attendant rotting flesh and vicious laughter. I chose to ensconce myself in a psychic university above the stupid and brutal to find a means to bury the corpse of that poor turtle in heaven.
The temptation is still great ... to stay above it all. But, unlike a child, I now have the lexicon to remain on earth, to hold my ground when I am mortified and give voice to my sorrows and outrage.
Therefore, to be true to myself, I must give wings to the living and dead. I must address matters that are hard to stomach.
It is a hard slog—I proceed along, at times, at a turtle’s pace—but there are moments when a terrapin brings me images from the brackish depths, and, on occasion, I can make mundane thoughts fly.
But this is not only about me. On an environmental level, as a global-wide business model and a personal mode of being in the world, we, in our demented revelry, are treating the earth as if it is a dead thing, a corpse we happened upon, and, like those cruel, ignorant boys of my childhood memory, we are blasting our world to bits (e.g., bombing, mining, fracking, defoliating—and the hideous list goes on and on) without reflection or regret.
Given, the rapidly declining ecological balance of our planet, a balance of diverse, interrelated systems that are essential for the continuance of conditions favorable for our species to thrive, an individual can no longer afford to bury one’s outrage in heaven or vault it in the depths of oneself. It is selfish to believe that one’s angst and alienation are exclusively one’s own.
One of the powerful attractions of the OWS movement has been its emphasis on reclaiming the public commons from the corporate state, and the dire need for cultural communion beyond the commercial sphere. Thus, for an atomized, alienated populace, the movement has provided a refresher course in the act of simply being human, on existing together in communal space.
OWS is not about “winning” political advantage; that approach plays into the fallacy of the winner/loser dichotomy of the capitalist superstate. Conversely, by acting in the world in a manner that is unique to one’s character, one awakens memory and reanimates imagination, thereby allowing an individual to occupy his own life and times, and serving to help ameliorate the noxious effects of the internalized false consciousness of corporate state authoritarianism.
Unless we start to see the world and our role in it with new eyes, we will be unable to alter the structure of the present system. Withal, it is imperative to be in full possession of one’s humanity when facing the desperate, dehumanizing forces of an order that has grown ever more brutal in direct proportion to its rapidly declining purpose and legitimacy.
Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at: phil@philrockstroh.com. Visit Phil’s website http://philrockstroh.com and Facebook.
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Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Never Trust a Cop: #OccupyYerRights
By Mickey Z.
13 Magic Words: “I am going to remain silent. I would like to see a lawyer.”
It was at an International Women’s Day celebration at Liberty Square/Zuccotti Park on March 10 that I was handed a copy of The Dissident’s Survival Guide: A field manual to encounters with law enforcement, corporate security, and other hazards, and ended up in a long and important conversation with someone from the Anti-Repression Committee of OWS Activist Legal Working Group.
I knew immediately that I had to write an article that—at the very least—scratched the surface of the ubiquitous threat of police tyranny and trickery. We must learn from the past (e.g. COINTELPRO) and stand united and disciplined as law enforcement types ramp up their aggressive, oppressive, and repressive techniques.
We must learn how to answer this question: What do you do when the gang wears blue?
The pamphlet I mentioned above offers valuable—crucial—information on a wide range of legal issues and serves as a persuasive reminder of what we are up against. Never forget, law enforcement agents are trained to deceive you. They are schooled in tactics like good cop/bad cop, telling you your comrades sold you out, threatening you, “be-friending” you, and tricking you into not remaining silent.
Mic Check: If you are detained and searched, do not remain silent. Silence is consent. State clearly: “I do not consent to this search.” Then, refer back to the 13 magic words: “I am going to remain silent. I would like to see a lawyer.”
“When you’re in custody, once you say I am going to remain silent. I would like to see a lawyer, the police are not allowed to question you—but you actually have to remain silent,” explains Katya Komisaruk. “You can’t talk to the police about anything, not the weather or sports or movies ... Don’t make small talk. Don’t make jokes. Silent really means silent.”
Mic Check: Cops, judges, and lawyers are trained to deal with situations like police stops, arrests, and other legal proceedings while most of us live in a bubble of TV-induced misperceptions. There is so much to know and so many mistakes to be avoided that nobody can afford the luxury of not learning these ropes.
As the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) explains: “Federal law enforcement agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have a dark history of targeting radical and progressive movements. Some of the dirty tricks they use against these movements include: the infiltration of organizations to discredit and disrupt their operations; campaigns of misinformation and false stories in the media; forgery of correspondence; fabrication of evidence; and the use of grand jury subpoenas to intimidate activists.”
However, in the face of such nefarious tactics, we must also make certain a widespread and growing movement is not paralyzed by po-po paranoia. How? Good start: #SolidarityKillsFear
Also: Choose your battles wisely.
While it may feel powerful—natural, even—to defy all authority at every turn, consider the potential ramifications of such behavior within an inherently repressive system.
From The Dissident’s Survival Guide: “Do your best to minimize unplanned contact with law enforcement .... Jumping a turnstile, smoking weed, or shoplifting may feel like everyday ways to subvert ... but getting arrested for this kind of relatively minor violation can seriously undermine your more important work and lead to increased monitoring of your political activities.”
Dylan once wrote: “To live outside the law, you must be honest.” To that I’d add, you must also be disciplined and strategic (among a few other attributes).
Mic Check: Work in tight solidarity within your trusted community and don’t discuss actions with those who don’t need to know such details. Learn more about using mobile technology in a safer way.
Perhaps most important of all, support your allies and ensure that no one in your circle is marginalized and that all within your group understand the obligations of solidarity.
Such unity and trust among occupants can and will serve as a bulwark against inevitable and insidious law enforcement devices. Once we have reached that point, another world is truly possible.
We are the 99%. Expect us. Join us…
#NeverTrustACop. #OccupyYerRights. #SolidarityKillsFear.
RESOURCES:
- For more crucial advice from the CCR, download their booklet, If An Agent Knocks, read and share widely.
- For a copy of The Dissident’s Survival Guide: A field manual to encounters with law enforcement, corporate security, and other hazards, contact the Anti-Repression Committee of OWS Activist Legal Working Group.
If you need specific legal advice:
- National Lawyers Guild: 212-679-6018.
- Center for Constitutional Rights: 212-614-6464.
- Just Cause Law Collective: 510-396-8427.
- NYCLU: 212-607-3300.
- ACLU: 212-549-2500.
Suggested reading: Beat the Heat: How to Handle Encounters With Law Enforcement, by Katya Komisaruk.
Upcoming Mickey Z. event: Let’s welcome the American Spring in NYC on March 23.
Mickey Z. is the author of 11 books, most recently the novel Darker Shade of Green. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on an obscure website called Facebook.
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Monday, March 12, 2012
Never Trust a Cop: #Occupy Yer Rights
13 Magic Words: “I am going to remain silent. I would like to see a lawyer.”
Cops, judges, and lawyers are trained to deal with situations like police stops, arrests, and other legal proceedings, but the rest of us live in a bubble of TV-induced misperceptions. There is so much to know and so many mistakes to be avoided that nobody can afford the luxury of not learning these ropes.
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One of my recent OWS photos:
International Women’s Day celebration at Liberty Square
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U.S. Nuclear Industry Operates as if Fukushima Never Happened
By Press Action
"They shouldn’t build things they can’t control,” -Japanese farmer Muneo Kano, whose farm 28 miles from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant has been deemed too contaminated for farming
Both Democrats and Republicans have had a long love affair with commercial nuclear power, and the relationship is showing no signs of losing steam. Since the 1950s, members of both parties have enthusiastically lavished electric utility companies with expensive gifts, ranging from subsidies to protection from liability for disasters to loan guarantees, all underwritten by U.S. taxpayers.
The political calculus is simple: nuclear power enjoys unanimous support in Washington. Try to name one member of the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives who favors shutting down the nation’s 104 commercial nuclear reactors. Federal agencies, from the Atomic Energy Commission to the Department of Energy to the Nuclear Regulatory, have worked diligently through the years to promote nuclear power. At the state level, support for nuclear power also is extremely strong, although there are some politicians—albeit a tiny number—who have publicly called for the closure of certain nuclear plants.
On the one-year anniversary of the start of the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan, one would assume a voice in official Washington would have emerged calling for an end to the nation’s experiment with nuclear power. In Germany, government officials made the decision to phase out nuclear power by 2022 in response to Fukushima. There’s no such sentiment among the ruling elite in the United States. Locating a member of Congress opposed to the continued operation of nuclear power plants is as hard as finding a lawmaker who favors breaking ties with Israel over its mistreatment of Palestinians for the last 60 years. In fact, it’s more than hard, it’s impossible.
It’s very rare to find an issue where there is a noteworthy difference between Democrats and Republicans. When there are differences, they tend to be subtle, although party officials and the corporate media will attempt to sensationalize a slight difference to create an impression that the U.S. political system permits honest and real debate.
On the issue of U.S. wars abroad, for example, Republicans and a huge number of Democrats are willing to pursue their imperial ambitions in full view of the international community, while liberal lawmakers prefer to keep their imperial agenda hidden behind the cloak of multilateralism. The ruling elite prefers to keep the range of permissible debate as narrow as possible. Just take a look at the almost unanimous support among both Democrats and Republicans for the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011, anti-free speech legislation that President Obama signed into law on March 8.
As with their Republican counterparts, every Democratic presidential administration of the last hundred years has been beholden to the interests of Corporate America. Serving the interests of big business often results in incredible handouts to private corporations. Despite his Republican philosophy of a free-market approach, President Dwight Eisenhower, with the blessing of Congress, poured billions of tax dollars into the development of nuclear power. Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, both Democrats, would follow suit with similar levels of support for the industry.
“It was only with government-insurance guarantees, fuel subsidies, and lavish research and development help that commercial atomic power moved ahead,” Harvey Wasserman and Norman Solomon wrote in their 1982 book, Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America’s Experience with Atomic Radiation. “Even at that, private utilities did not become heavily involved until faced with the threat of being squeezed out of business by federal competition in the form of the Tennessee Valley Authority and other government-owned utilities.”
With a few exceptions, electric utility executives were worried about the dangers of a nuclear accident and the risks of sinking so much capital into an untested technology. But the federal government pushed hard for using the knowledge gained from the nation’s atomic weapons program to build a nuclear power program.
Atoms for Peace
Nuclear reactors had been used in the U.S. since the early 1940s, primarily to generate plutonium for use in the atomic bombs dropped on Japan and in later nuclear weapons tests after World War II. As a byproduct, these reactors also generated large amounts of heat. Federal officials recognized that by harnessing this heat to boil water, steam would be created to turn turbines and generate electricity.
In these early years, the government and nascent nuclear industry relied on public relations campaigns to counteract any antinuclear bias generated by groups such as the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, informally known as the Einstein Committee. The group was formed in 1946 by Albert Einstein and other scientists to educate the public about the nature of nuclear weapons and nuclear war. To counter the skepticism of the Einstein Committee and others, the federal government developed public relations campaigns featuring slogans such as President Eisenhower’s “Atoms for peace” and such statements as electricity “too cheap to meter,” coined in 1954 by Lewis Strauss, then head of the Atomic Energy Commission, Alan Herbst and George Hopley explained in their 2007 book, Nuclear Energy Now: Why the Time Has Come for the World’s Most Misunderstood Energy Source.
But it wasn’t only the members of the Einstein Committee that the government was up against. Executives with investor-owned electric utilities were also doubtful about spending huge amounts of capital on a new and controversial technology. Sam Day, former editor of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, told Wasserman and Solomon, “The private electric companies did not jump into nuclear power. They were kicked in.”
About 10 years after the war had ended, though, many utility executives began jumping on the nuclear bandwagon when they recognized that the federal government would be willing to give away the farm and more in order to get nuclear power plants built.
“In the mid-1950s, when commercial nuclear power was being debated in Congress, corporate leaders of the prospective nuclear firms testified that before the first stone could be put into place they would need a … limitation on financial liability and assurance that they would not go broke with the first plants,” Ralph Nader and Richard Pollock wrote in an essay that appeared in the 1982 book Nuclear Power: Both Sides. “Their demands were acknowledged: Uncle Sam told the electric utility companies that they initial reactors would be no-risk ventures. Washington would cover the companies’ losses if the atomic reactors proved to be a losing proposition.”
In testimony before Congress in 1999, Nader said the nuclear power industry “is completely a product of U.S. government research and development.” Having emerged from massive government investments, “the nuclear industry has never cut its umbilical cord tie to the government,” he said.
Unable to Purchase Insurance in the Normal Way
Because of the uncertainty about the safety of nuclear power and the possibility of a major accident causing considerable loss of life and potentially billions of dollars in property damage, insurance companies were reluctant to provide nuclear power plants with coverage sufficient to deal with such a disaster. Congress came to the rescue. In 1957, the Price-Anderson Act was signed into law and has since been renewed several times. The law was considered necessary as an incentive for the private production of nuclear power.
“The industry has gone through a full life cycle, but somehow it never outgrew the need for a federal insurance scheme and liability cap,” Nader said in his congressional testimony. “The result has been a massive subsidy to nuclear power companies.”
Harry Henderson argued in Nuclear Power, a book published in 2000, that the federal government offered an incentive that amounted to “no-fault insurance” for nuclear plant operators. Antinuclear activists strongly objected to the insurance program because they “believe it represents an unwarranted government subsidy to an industry that should not be allowed to operate if it is not safe enough to acquire insurance in the normal way,” Henderson wrote.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 extended the Price-Anderson Act’s liability coverage for a period of 20 years. The Energy Policy Act passed Congress with overwhelming support from both Democrats and Republicans, including President Obama when he was a senator from Illinois.
Aside from giving the Price-Anderson Act another extension, the Energy Policy Act provided several new financial incentives for the nuclear power industry. The act provided loan guarantees, risk insurance for nuclear developers and production tax credits for “new build” advanced nuclear plants, defined as those including a reactor design approved after December 1993 by the NRC.
“Some critics of this plan describe the incentive package signed into law, which exceeds $8 billion in value as ‘corporate welfare’ for various Fortune 500 corporations and assert that the industry would never consider building new nuclear units without the U.S. taxpayer taking on the associated risk,” Alan Herbst and George Hopley wrote in their 2007 book, Nuclear Energy Now: Why the Time Has Come for the World’s Most Misunderstood Energy Source.
Herbst and Hopley, both supporters of nuclear power, argued in the book that “to reawaken the industry and ultimately to construct a new generation of nuclear reactors will require direct involvement from the federal government.”
A Radioactive Presidency
President Obama is doing what he can to continue to promote the construction of new nuclear power plants. In 2010, the Obama administration awarded Southern Co. and its partners a total of $8.33 billion in loan guarantees to support the proposed construction of two new units, Vogtle 3 & 4, at the company’s Vogtle nuclear plant near Waynesboro, Ga. The U.S. Energy Department’s loan guarantee program, created under the Energy Policy Act, received at least $122 billion in applications for total of 21 new reactors.
In February, the NRC, in a split vote, voted to grant the developers of the Vogtle expansion project a combined construction and operating license. In the lone dissenting vote on the five-member commission, NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko said: “I cannot support issuing these licenses as if Fukushima had never happened.” Jaczko was referring to the debate over how to implement lessons learned from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster in Japan.
Federal loan guarantees for new reactors are essentially a taxpayer bailout of the nuclear industry. Wall Street considers investment in nuclear reactors too risky, making it difficult for utilities to finance these high capital projects. So the government continues to step in and shift the risk to taxpayers.
“Subsidies were originally intended to provide temporary support for the fledgling nuclear power industry, but the promised day when the industry could prosper without them and power from nuclear reactors would be ‘too cheap to meter’ has yet to arrive,” the Union of Concerned Scientists said a 2011 report titled “Nuclear Power Subsidies: The Gift that Keeps on Taking.” “It is unlikely to arrive any time soon, as cost estimates for new reactors continue to escalate and the nuclear power lobby demands even more support from taxpayers. Piling new subsidies on top of existing ones will provide the industry with little incentive to rework its business model to internalize its considerable costs and risks.”
Aside from the efforts of the federal government to spur a “nuclear renaissance,” many states are giving nuclear-owning utilities permission for early cost recovery of proposed nuclear power projects. In the four states in the Southeast where funds are being collected from ratepayers under new advanced cost recovery for nuclear reactor construction, each individual nuclear reactor project costs $15 billion to $20 billion, according to a new report authored by Mark Cooper, senior fellow for economic analysis at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at the Vermont Law School. Over $4 billion has already been approved for advanced cost recovery, yet it appears increasingly unlikely that the most of reactors will ever be built, the report said.
“In addition to the dismal economics of nuclear power, the primary reason that the practice is limited to a very few states is that advanced cost recovery is fundamentally flawed, placing ratepayers at extraordinary risk for an excessive and unnecessary cost burden that runs into the billions of dollars.” Cooper wrote in the February report, “Nuclear Socialism Comes to the Heartland of America: Early Cost Recovery for New Nuclear Reactors in Iowa and the Return of Electricity Rate Shock.”
Cooper also argued that in order to build new nuclear reactors, utilities are demanding the suspension of the regulatory rules and financial market mechanisms that protect ratepayers and balance the interests of consumers and utility shareholders.
“Major nuclear incidents require the authorities responsible for oversight of the nuclear industry to re-examine the technology,” he said. “If the accident at Fukushima causes them to abandon early cost recovery as a subsidy for nuclear reactors consumers will be a lot better off.”
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Sunday, March 11, 2012
Environmental Defense Fund Stays Loyal to Natural Gas Industry
By Press Action
Soon after taking over as leader of the Sierra Club, Michael Brune recognized the environmental organization was facing a credibility crisis. Former Executive Director Carl Pope had developed cozy relationships with Corporate America, including Chesapeake Energy Corp., a major U.S. natural gas producer.
“While Pope partnered with gas companies, a grassroots revolt against fracking began from the Marcellus Shale in the Northeastern United States to the Barnett Shale in Texas to the mountain states,” Red Emma wrote in a February article titled “Big Greenwashing 101 (Or How Sierra Club Learned To Stop Worrying About The 99% And Love Wall Street)” “Organizers are fighting it in the permitting hearings and legislatures, municipalities are banning it from their city limits and civil disobedience at corporate offices and drilling sites are growing in frequency.”
The Sierra Club, under Pope’s leadership, believed embracing natural gas as a fuel for power generation was a winning formula. The organization would look good in the eyes of its members who would applaud its anti-coal campaigns. And Corporate America, including oil and gas companies, would view the Sierra Club as a reasonable partner based on the group’s decision to accept natural gas as a “bridge fuel” to a point in the future when renewable energy resources could meet a much larger portion of the nation’s electricity demand.
The Sierra Club and its fellow Group of Ten members—most notably, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council—chose not to oppose the shale gas revolution. As these Big Green groups were building corporate partnerships and championing the benefits of natural gas, grassroots activists were developing networks of resistance against the natural gas industry.
The Sierra Club finally woke up and smelled the mercaptan about a year ago, long after individual activists and groups had started fighting back against the industrialization of their communities.
Brune revealed in a February interview with Time magazine that from 2007 to 2010 the Sierra Club had accepted $26 million from Chesapeake Energy Chairman and CEO Aubrey McClendon and other people associated with the natural gas producer.
“At the same time I learned about the donation, we at the Club were also hearing from scientists and from local Club chapters about the risks that natural gas drilling posed to our air, water, climate, and people in their communities,” Brune wrote in a Feb. 2 post on his Coming Clean blog. “We cannot accept money from an industry we need to change. Very quickly, the board of directors, with my strong encouragement, cut off these donations and rewrote our gift acceptance policy.”
The Sierra Club had to make a choice: continue to accept donations from energy extraction industries or lose its standing as the most grass roots-oriented of the Group of Ten environmental groups. The organization looked at its balance sheet and, based on the calculations, recognized it could remain financially strong without taking money from Chesapeake Energy. Generous donations from other companies and from New York City’s billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg, for its Beyond Coal campaign would keep the organization financially healthy. Today, the Sierra Club is noticeably more active in campaigning against the use of hydraulic fracturing in natural gas production and against the export of domestically produced natural gas in the form of liquefied natural gas.
Cozy Corporate Relationships
Unlike the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund, another corporate-minded environmental group and charter member of the Group of Ten, has refused to distance itself from the natural gas industry. In its literature, EDF highlights the risky practices of the natural gas industry. Nonetheless, it continues to maintain cozy relationships with industry members.
On March 9, for example, EDF teamed up with the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, utility company Xcel Energy and others to issue a joint statement lauding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for granting preliminary approval of Colorado’s plan to reduce pollutants from industrial facilities to meet a federal regional haze rule.
Tisha Conoly Schuller, president and CEO of COGA, in the joint statement, said the EPA’s approval “is an important endorsement of Colorado’s state-led collaboration.” She said the Colorado government’s efforts “will support job creation in Colorado’s natural gas sector while measurably reducing air pollutant emissions.”
COGA is an industry trade group that lobbies for oil and gas companies in Colorado and throughout the Rocky Mountain region. Since the start of the shale gas revolution in the mid-2000s, COGA has been one of the loudest industry voices calling for the government to adopt a hands-off regulatory approach to hydraulic fracturing. COGA closely monitors groups and individuals opposed to the industry’s activities. On March 14, for example, COGA will be holding an event in Denver to counter the claims in Josh Fox’s anti-fracking documentary Gasland and to tout the oil and gas industry’s contribution to growing Colorado’s economy. Anti-fracking activists are expected to protest outside the event.
Despite COGA’s aggressive campaigning for natural gas drilling in producing regions across Colorado, EDF still chose to partner with the industry trade group on drafting a statement in response to the EPA’s preliminary approval of the Colorado haze plan. In the same press release in which COGA’s Conoly Schuller highlights the natural gas industry’s job-creation efforts, Pamela Campos, an attorney in EDF’s Colorado office, claims the EPA’s decision to approve Colorado’s “bipartisan” plan will lead to clean air “while strengthening our economy.”
‘Progressive’ Gas Companies
On its website, EDF pats itself on the back for “working with progressive gas companies [emphasis added] to develop a set of model regulations that every shale gas state can use to ensure that well construction and operation does not damage groundwater or public health.”
Fred Krupp, the long-time president of EDF, was appointed to serve on the U.S. Department of Energy’s subcommittee on shale gas production. In November 2011, the panel issued a report that contained a proposed series of steps to increase industry oversight and transparency. Nowhere in the report did the subcommittee list a moratorium on fracking or a halt to shale gas production as options. Instead, the members of the committee urged the industry to clean up its act to avoid “the consequent risk of public opposition to its continuation and expansion.”
DOE’s shale gas subcommittee was “not in the business of considering whether this should be halted,” said Stephen Cleghorn, an organic farmer and anti-fracking activist who testified before the subcommittee. The panel’s “charge is to figure out for [Energy Secretary Steven] Chu and the president how to make this gas drilling happen in a responsible way,” Cleghorn explained.
EDF, as with the other members of the Group of Ten, are not in the business of questioning the premise of industrial capitalism. Roxanne Amico, a Buffalo-based artist, independent radio producer and activist, noted that experts and scientists who are generally sympathetic to the issue of preserving environmental health and safety “never touch” the issue of rolling back economic growth and its attendant energy use.
“Industrialization is the tacit premise, that’s assumed to be what needs to be saved, rather than the world that it’s threatening,” Amico said.
EDF proudly linked arms with COGA and Xcel Energy, a utility company that operates coal, natural gas and nuclear power plants, to salute the state of Colorado for producing a plan on reducing haze that the EPA is likely to accept later this year. Krupp, who Inc. magazine once praised for his ability to “speak capitalism,” agreed to serve on a federal panel whose mandate was not to question the legitimacy of shale gas drilling, but to issue recommendations aimed at quelling anti-fracking protests.
EDF also has been working closely with Southwestern Energy, a major shale gas producer based in Houston, on a draft set of model regulations aimed at ensuring the integrity of gas wells and protecting underground water sources that are sources or potential sources of drinking water. The environmental group and shale gas producer say that additional parties, who have not yet gone public, are joining the effort to forge an industry-environmentalist consensus on regulation of fracking.
‘We Are Realists’
Elena Craft, a health scientist with EDF, said during an appearance on MSNBC’s The Dylan Ratigan Show in 2011 that from her organization’s perspective, there are risks associated with extracting any natural resource. “At Environmental Defense Fund, we are realists,” she said. “We realize that natural gas is part of a diverse energy portfolio. What we are concerned about is that regulations are not in place to effectively protect the public.”
There are certain criteria that need to be addressed, such as well construction, air emissions associated with oil and gas drilling, and what to do with the produced water once it is extracted, Craft said.
Craft’s message is one that is often heard from natural gas industry lobbyists in Washington. In its partnerships with shale gas drillers, EDF is essentially serving as the environmental compliance officer for natural gas companies, not as a true environmental advocate seeking to end the creation of toxic drilling zones in large areas of the United States.
Ecologist Sandra Steingraber Ph.D., author of Living Downstream: An Ecologist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment, contends that mitigation measures, such as the criteria proposed by Craft, do not reduce the ultimate risk and harm caused by gas drilling. “Mitigation strategies make fracking seem less destructive than it really is. Mitigation builds time bombs with longer fuses. To advocate for mitigation is to sanction gas drilling,” Steingraber said in a Jan. 9 presentation at a conference sponsored by Physicians Scientists & Engineers for Healthy Energy and Mid-Atlantic Center for Children’s Health and the Environment.
Gang Green
Jeffrey St. Clair, author of several books and editor of the Counterpunch newsletter and website, wrote in 2007 that U.S. environmental policies are now engineered by groups such as EDF and the NRDC, groups without voting memberships and little responsibility to the wider environmental movement.
“They are the undisputed mandarins of technotalk and lobbyist logic, who gave us the ecological oxymorons of our time: ‘pollution credits,’ ‘re-created wetlands,’ ‘sustainable development,’” St. Clair wrote. “The Group of Ten (aka: Gang Green) now manifest all the intensity of an insurance cartel; their executives and administrative underlings are much more likely to own dog-eared copies of Donald Trump’s The Art of the Deal or (god forbid) Kissinger’s Diplomacy, than Donald Worster’s Rivers of Empire, Jack Turner’s The Abstract Wild, Bill Kittridge’s Hole in the Sky or Doug Peacock’s Grizzly Years.”
Thomas Linzey, executive director and co-founder of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, noted in a speech last November that residents in communities affected by natural gas drilling are beginning to realize that their concerns will not be addressed by contacting state regulators or enlisting a big environmental group. A more effective strategy involves fighting back at the community level.
Lawyers with groups such as EDF and the NRDC will often surrender to the will of corporations even before they get to work on a legal challenge, Linzey said. The attorneys may suggest taking certain legal action to delay harm to the environment. Or the attorneys may tell concerned residents that they could try to make the regulatory system “work a little better so it causes a little less harm,” Linzey said. But victory is not in their vocabulary.
The state Departments of Environmental Protection and the lawyers for the big environmental groups “send folks right down the regulatory chute and they all end up in the same place ... shot through the head,” he said, metaphorically speaking. “Our activism is not effective because we’re channeled like cattle down into that place. How stupid are we to think that we can make the regulatory system work when it’s written by the very corporations that ostensibly it’s supposed to be regulating.”
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Friday, March 09, 2012
Occupation is Free: Love, Life & More
At the end of the day, it’s a simple equation: The 1% wants to suppress liberty while the 99% wants to amplify it.
Thus, in the spirit of liberty amplification, I offer some tidbits in the areas of health, love, and lifestyle…
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One of my recent photos:
Old School PR for my upcoming talk
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United State of Emergency: Outlawing Dissent
By Zakk Flash
During the 1967 Six Day War, a series of strict emergency laws were enacted across the Arab World, most notably in Egypt and Syria. Police powers became absolute while constitutional rights were suspended; any non-governmental political activity such as street demonstrations, rallies, protests, and organization of dissident political groups was quickly crushed by the iron fist of dictators. The laws were called temporary defensive measures, emergency acts that would be lifted once the nation was safe again.
The laws were simply left in place. The rulers of Egypt and Syria, content with their power, decided to concede nothing to their citizens. Tens of thousands of people found themselves imprisoned for extended periods of time, simply for demanding the principles of democracy already encoded in their constitutions or being critical of the government. The emergency laws provided these autocratic regimes with the authority to force their will onto to their people without opposition.
H.R. 347/S1794, otherwise known as the “Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011,” passed unanimously in the House and receiving only three negative votes in the Senate, makes it a felony—a crime defined by the federal government as punishable by death or imprisonment in excess of one year—to “enter or remain in” an area designated as “restricted.” The law makes no exception for demonstrators who unknowingly gather outside of federally-designated free-speech zones; you may not have willfully or knowingly done anything other than exercise your free speech and free assembly rights, but if you “in fact” “[impede] or [disrupt] the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions,” you’re going to prison. And since Obama’s ink dried on the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 and America was declared a battleground, you could be held indefinitely.
When, and if, demonstrators get released from incarceration, they will continue to suffer the long-term legal consequences termed by prisoner-rights advocates as “civil death.” Felons are barred from multitude vocations, associating with certain people or even living in particular areas, ineligible to serve on a jury or receive government assistance, and even denied the right to elect their own public servants. As of 2008, over 5.3 million people in the United States are currently left without the right to vote because of felony disenfranchisement. A sure-fire way of controlling political opposition is to deny it the ability to participate in political life.
Restricted areas spoken of in HR347, interpreted under existing law and court precedents, include any “building or grounds where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting” and “a building or grounds so restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance.” This definition, kept intentionally broad and vague, allows anti-protest measures to be applied at the whim of the political elite. Already in Chicago, Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel presides over crippling restrictions on public activity brought as a result of the upcoming NATO conference—and the simultaneous anti-globalization protests—on May 20-21st, 2012.
While the laws were called a temporary response to the G8 summit taking place in Chicago alongside the NATO conference, the Obama White House made a last minute decision to move G8 to the presidential compound at Camp David, a restricted military installation. The laws in Chicago will remain. Draconian laws enacted in the name of national defense in the Other Civil War are nothing new.
On September 14, 2001, President George W. Bush declared a national emergency due to the terrorist attacks of three days earlier. The National Emergencies Act of 1976 requires the President to renew this state of emergency on an annual basis if he wishes it to remain in effect; Bush renewed it every year he was in office and Obama has continued the trend.
According to Harold Relyea, a specialist working for the American government in the Congressional Research Service, the president “may seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation and communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise, restrict travel, and, in a variety of ways, control the lives of United States citizens.”
The nature of neoliberal globalization virtually ensures that fascist cartels will force their monopolies onto unwilling nations or unknowing populations; plurilateral agreements like the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, are created in secret by leaders of a select handful of the wealthiest countries and designed with the intention of forcing them upon developing nations. ACTA includes provisions that profoundly restrict fundamental rights and freedoms, most notably the freedom of expression and communication privacy. It also severely restricts generic drug creation and use in underdeveloped countries. They are nonnegotiable.
Kader Arif, the European parliament’s rapporteur for ACTA, resigned from his position in January 2012 denouncing the treaty "in the strongest possible manner” for having “no inclusion of civil society organizations, a lack of transparency from the start of the negotiations, repeated postponing of the signature of the text without an explanation being ever given, [and] exclusion of the EU Parliament’s demands that were expressed on several occasions in [the] assembly," concluding with his intent to "send a strong signal and alert the public opinion about this unacceptable situation” and refusal to “take part in this masquerade."
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution states:
It is little wonder that HR 347/S1794 has been called by Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI), one of only three members of Congress to vote against the bill, the “First Amendment Rights Eradication Act.” While the NDAA seeks to remove your 4th, 5th and 6th Amendment rights, this newest attack on self-determination is aimed at the heart of 1st Amendment rights including Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Assembly, and Freedom to Petition.
The Supreme Court ruled in Boos v. Barry, 485 U.S. 312, 318 (1988), that protesting outside an embassy was worthy of Constitutional protection, recognizing that freedom of speech, even if it may interfere with normal governmental activity “reflects a ‘profound national commitment’ to the principle” and “‘debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.’”
In 1783, twenty-four year old William Pitt, then the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was petitioned to change the law based on the “necessity” to save the East India Company from bankruptcy. His reply was brief.
The arguments of a tyrannical Congress would have you believe that HR 347/S1794 is a necessity, that demonstrations against the actions of government and business cause it undue hardship. While the government’s ability to permissibly restrict expressive conduct is limited by reasonable time, place, and manner regulations, the restrictions must, by law, be narrowly tailored to prevent unconstitutional adversity.
Of course, the crypto-fascists in Congress will argue that protecting themselves from the sight of the “unwashed masses” is a compelling state interest. They wouldn’t be incorrect. The nature of power is self-preserving; by surrounding themselves with a no-free-speech zone, the State can continue its self-congratulatory paternalism, content in the false knowledge that they’re “looking out for the little guy.”
Media and communication play a central, perhaps even a defining, role in the ability of police-state measures to pass. Where is the outrage over the state of emergency laws that have gripped this country for almost a dozen years? How can unelected bankers wrest power from leaders in Greece, the birthplace of democracy, while the rest of the world fumbles with “austerity measures” to save their own necks? Consolidation of the global commercial media system can be easily linked to deregulation in the name of neoliberal “progress.”That deregulation—and the resulting monopoly that keeps alternate news sources like Democracy Now! and Al Jazeera English off the air—has allowed only capitalist rhetoric to flourish.
American anarchist Noam Chomsky, long known for his critiques of U.S. policy, has often written about the “manufacture of consent,” something propaganda maven (and Freud nephew) Edward Bernays happily called the art of manipulating people. In his criticism of the global commercial media system, Chomsky posits that mass media, as a profit-driven institution, tends to serve and further the agendas and interests of dominant, elite groups over the social well-being of entire societies. His writing firmly rejects the kinds of censorship that HR 347/S1794 proposes.
What does this mean for us? Simply put, this is not a battle of the Left versus the moderate Right. This is a direct attack on the United States Constitution, a charter written expressly to limit the government’s power over its citizens.
Around the world, the working and middle classes have risen up against the duplicity of their governments, the engineering of political realities by corporate interests, and the social stratification enforced by capitalist exploitation. In the United States, both Occupy Wall Street and the libertarian wing of the Tea Party have demonstrated against the excesses of the US federal government. These protests, however, have been relatively small compared to the injustice being perpetrated upon the American people.
Organized labor has tried to make up for their decline in membership and economic power in recent years by abandoning any pretense of non-partisan organizing and pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars of member dues money into the campaigns of Democrats. The opponents of organized labor are allowed to paint it as a partisan special interest group in the pocket of the Democratic Party. This has proven to be the case for far too long. The Democrats, in turn, have taken labor’s vote as a matter of course and done little to advance the political agenda of the working class. The vast majority of workers who remain outside of traditional unions see no use in joining one; management sees suppression of organization as just another cost of doing business. A return of radical unionization, exemplified by the Industrial Workers of the World call to organize the entire working class into One Big Union to abolish the wage system, would do much to stop the pitting of worker against worker, allowing for people over profit, cooperation over competition. The Preamble to the IWW Constitution still reflects this.
Organized labor can, and should be, a force to reckon with. It cannot do so, however, as long as it continues to blindly support a party that has forgotten the farmers, laborers, labor unions, and minorities that have made up its traditional base. Regardless of whether organized labor feels it must undergo a transitional program from capitalism to participatory economics, it must divorce itself from unwavering allegiance to the Democrats. Labor would be more effective supporting individual politicians who promote a working class agenda, whether they are Green Party, Libertarians, Social Democrats, or independents.
Civil libertarian organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, the First Amendment Coalition, and the Center for Constitutional Rights have a long history of defending the inalienable rights retained by—as opposed to privileges granted to—citizens of the United States under the Constitution. As nonpartisan organizations, they have the ability to denounce legislators of any camp for transgressions of civil liberties. It is expected that they will use test cases to undermine the illegal laws being propagated by the political elite; as part of a diversity of tactic, these kinds of cases should be applauded, even as the larger movement forges ahead with broader goals. Embracing different tactics allows radical proponents of liberty and democracy to work with mainstream advocacy groups to advance our larger strategy in accordance with our common goals. The Saint Paul Principles provide a framework for that cooperation without sectarian breakdown.
The fiscal conservatives, moderates, and libertarians who make up the Republican base have seen the party of Lincoln hijacked by social conservatives like Leo Strauss, who said the “crisis of our time” was a “permissive egalitarianism” embedded in liberal democracy and neoconservatives like Jeanne Kirkpatrick, who prompted Reagan to give financial and material support to pro-Western authoritarian regimes.
Libertarians and fiscal conservatives have little in common with the state-enforced conservative social policies pushed by the religious right wing that seems to dominate the Republican Party. The interventionist war machine driven by neoconservative thought—to say nothing of the government intrusion into privacy via the Patriot Act, REAL ID, and NSA domestic spying program—runs contrary to principles of state sovereignty and self-determination held in high esteem by traditional conservatism, principles that Thomas Paine instilled into American body politic under the phrase “Common Sense.”
Communist Karl Marx borrowed the term “proletariat” as a description for the working class from the Ancient Roman Empire, whose rulers believed the only contribution the masses could make to Roman society was the ability to raise children to colonize new territories. The crypto-fascist authority today, encompassing both the Democratic and Republican Parties, continues this view; to capitalists, workers are not individuals but only the rungs of a ladder designed to lift them higher on the pyramid scheme of capitalist economics.
H.R. 347/S1794, rightly nicknamed the “First Amendment Rights Eradication Act,” has been passed by both chambers of Congress. It now sits on President Obama’s desk, awaiting his signature. If his capitulation to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012—and its promise of indefinite detention—is any indication of his future action, he’ll sign it.
This issue transcends traditional party politics. Political opposition will be outlawed immediately. Pro-life rallies will effectively end with ban on public demonstrations, as well as pro-choice demonstrations. The government will not hesitate to prohibit any and all organizations it defines as dissenting or subversive, including alternative parties, labor unions, veterans’ associations, and others. Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party can both kiss the promise of reforming government goodbye.
Congress has already declared America a battleground. They now want to silence us. It is time to bring the battle home.
Dr. Zakk Flash is an anarchist political writer, radical community activist, and editor of the Central Oklahoma Black/Red Alliance (COBRA). He lives in Norman, Oklahoma.
Find more about the Central Oklahoma Black/Red Alliance (COBRA) at http://www.facebook.com/COBRACollective.
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Thursday, March 08, 2012
Heritage Foundation Touts Nukes as Vital to American Way of Life
By Press Action
The one-year anniversary of the start of the disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan has spurred the U.S. nuclear power industry to engage in an all-out media blitz to promote the technology as a safe and reliable source of energy. Anti-nuclear activists also are using Fukushima’s one-year anniversary, on March 11, to urge policymakers and the public to re-think their embrace of nuclear power.
In one of the industry’s pro-nuclear efforts, the right-wing Heritage Foundation has released a new documentary, “Powering America,” that touts nuclear power as a viable energy source for the 21st century.
In a slick trailer for the documentary film, one of the people interviewed says the public should not fear nuclear power. “Radiation simply is energy in motion. That’s from cosmic rays. That’s from radon that comes out of the ground. That’s from the food you eat,” he says. “The issue is not to be afraid of radiation. The issue is to understand it and to respect it just like any other energy source.”
The talking head correctly notes that almost all rocks in the ground contain natural radioactive compounds. These compounds emit alpha and beta radiation. But the talking head fails to note that most of this radiation gets absorbed by the rocks themselves and never makes it into the air.
Also, naturally radioactive compounds are found in the air, soil and water. So, yes, the food we eat is slightly radioactive. Our bodies are made from the food we eat so we are also a little bit radioactive.
But the documentary film trailer fails to highlight the serious and real risks from core meltdowns or partial core meltdowns at nuclear power plants. The trailer also does not mention the creation of huge quantities of long-lived radioactive waste from both commercial power plants and military facilities. Although the hazards of radioactive waste are less visible than some other problems associated with nuclear power, such as reactor accidents and nuclear weapons, they are no less dangerous, and decisions made concerning this waste will be felt far into the future.
The most poignant parts of the film trailer are when the talking heads argue that nuclear power should continue to play an integral role in the world’s energy future. The talking heads repeat clichés about energy being a vital component of the American way of life. “In America, we live in a modern society and energy is a critical part of our life,” one taking head says. No one appears in the trailer espousing the benefits of reduced energy consumption or advocating for alternatives to industrial capitalism.
Another talking head adds: “The United States has a thirst for electricity and energy in general and that’s not going to change,” he says. Yes, the thirst for energy will remain as long as the current grow-or-die mentality rules our culture. But the talking head fails to mention the obvious: in the not-too-distant future, we’re going to run out of the energy and raw materials needed to operate our industrial society, and the nonstop industrialization and development will lead to global environmental collapse.
The most hideous part of the trailer is when a talking head says, “So we’ve always been evolving, as we evolve, we need more and more clean, reliable, affordable energy.”
According to Merriam-Webster, to “evolve” is to undergo evolution. And “evolution,” according to Merriam-Webster, “is a process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse to a higher, more complex, or better state: a process of gradual and relatively peaceful social, political, and economic advance.”
No sane person would argue that the environment is now in a “better state,” more than 250 years after the start of the industrial revolution. Competition among humans will intensify as the energy sources and raw materials needed to sustain industrial society grow scarce. This will lead to an even greater rate of violence at all levels of society—from the nation-state down to individual communities. No rational person would describe such a scenario as “relatively peaceful.”
Powering America Trailer from Heritage Foundation - Marketing on Vimeo.
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Tuesday, March 06, 2012
Shale Gas Watchdog: Sharon Wilson Fills Void Left by Industry Lapdogs
By Press Action
“When oil and gas producers confined themselves to fracking in the wide-open spaces of Texas and Oklahoma, nobody much gave a damn.” -Jeff Goodell, “The Big Fracking Bubble: The Scam Behind the Gas Boom”
Not everyone in Texas kowtows to the natural gas industry. Texas may have the reputation of being a state where the industry always gets what it wants, especially at the legislative and regulatory levels. But at the grassroots, where activist Sharon Wilson is fighting to raise awareness about the dangers of natural gas drilling, more and more Texans are getting to know the ugly truth about the industry.
Wilson, organizer for Earthworks’ Texas Oil & Gas Accountability Project, believes the best opportunities for making a difference are found at the local level. She gives talks to community groups, big and small, in gas producing regions up and down the state.
Getting local groups to speak in one voice against gas drilling is sometimes easier said than done. Recently, in Fort Worth, a group was fighting to keep salt water injection disposal wells out of the city limits. “That is kind of just kicking the can out into another community that is less fortunate,” Wilson said in a recent conversation with Press Action. “What works best most of the time is to have small community groups that band together.”
Aside from explaining the negative health impacts associated with gas drilling in the Barnett Shale in North Texas or the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas, Wilson seeks to empower community groups by suggesting tools for defending themselves. For example, she recommends that groups and individuals operate a website or blog that they update regularly, providing the latest information on the effects of the gas industry’s activities in their communities.
By maintaining blogs that focus on the activities of gas operators at the community level, people who search online “will get an answer that is very local and that really helps a lot, especially in Texas because Texans don’t like anybody else telling them what to do,” Wilson said.
For example, one neighbor will say, “There was a horrible toxic chemical release last night. Two of my children woke up with bloody noses. I have a rash. My husband has a headache,” Wilson explained. “And then they’ll say, ‘Funny thing, I had a rash last night too.’ And then they’ll start connecting the dots. Organizing by neighborhood and community is probably one of the best ways to go as far building an opposition.”
Building an Insurgency
Wilson gained national attention last fall when she exposed the radical tactics used by the natural gas industry in its fight against the growing anti-shale gas movement.
In November, Wilson attended a gas industry conference in Houston for public relations professionals called “Media & Stakeholder Relations: Hydraulic Fracturing 2011,” where she recorded presentations by industry officials. At the conference, Matt Carmichael, external affairs manager at Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, suggested attendees “download the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Manual because we are dealing with an insurgency.”
Matt Pitzarella, director of corporate communications and public affairs at Range Resources, a leading U.S. shale gas producer, followed Carmichael on the conference agenda and explained how his company has hired several former U.S. military psychological operations, or psy-ops, experts. “It was like he didn’t want to be outdone by Carmichael,” Wilson said. “He bragged about this psy-ops. I was like, ‘Holy cow! I can’t believe I’m hearing this.’”
On Wilson’s recording, Pitzarella can be heard saying: “We have several former psy-ops folks that work for us at Range because they’re very comfortable in dealing with localized issues and local governments. Really all they do is spend most of their time helping folks develop local ordinances and things like that. But very much having that understanding of psy-ops in the Army and in the Middle East has applied very helpfully here for us in Pennsylvania.”
Thanks to Wilson’s gumshoe work, a conference designed to hone the skills of corporate communications professionals and refine the message of shale gas producers turned into a public relations disaster. “What’s ironic is this conference was promoted as the new way forward for an industry that was losing the war on fracking,” Wilson said. “But nothing has changed. It was the same old lies.”
Along with the recommendation of hiring former military psy-ops experts, one of the other key takeaways from the conference was to make better use of social media, including Twitter and Facebook, she said.
Each week, Earthworks plans to release excerpts from the recordings Wilson made at the PR conference. Two weeks ago, for example, the group released an excerpt of the comments of another Anadarko Petroleum official, who can be heard recommending that attendees avoid the term “biocide” when describing the chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing process. “We talk about biocides. Wow, that’s a big word. That’s bleach. So we’ve got to start talking bleach,” the Anadarko official said. “So we need to kind of bring what we put in there down to where people can understand.”
In response to her activism, Wilson has appeared on the radar of the gas industry’s attack groups. “You’re nobody until Energy In Depth writes about you,” she said. “We wear that as a badge of honor. You can be very proud that you’re having an impact if they do that.”
All across the country, activists are getting noticed by energy companies and, in some cases, are gaining the upper hand. Environmental and citizen groups are using various tactics, some more effective than others, to express their frustration with how energy companies conduct their business. Along with concerns about the impact of energy resource extraction, activists are also targeting the companies that burn fossil fuels.
“Non-governmental organizations like Sierra Club and Greenpeace are targeting utilities, particularly ones that rely heavily on coal, in an effort to change decision-making in the executive suites,” said John Egan, president of Egan Energy Communications Inc., a utility-industry public relations firm. “Utilities have the tools and opportunities to respond effectively when they are targeted by guerrilla protests, but utilities face significant organizational challenges. Historically, they have been unable to move as quickly as protesters and are uncomfortable with the kind of direct confrontation espoused by activists.”
The Sierra Club’s recent campaign, AEP: What’s Your Number? and the Sierra Club’s ongoing Occupy Duke protests are “eye-catching attempts launched to shame utilities into changing their business practices,” argued Egan. These actions, as well as coordinated public campaigns in some states against electric utility companies installing smart meters in homes, have had an impact. According to Egan, public dissatisfaction with utilities “can carry significant consequences—financial, operational, and managerial—that utilities ignore at their peril.”
As highly regulated entities, electric utilities can be more easily swayed by public opinion than companies that operate at the upstream end of the industry. Natural gas producers have historically conducted business with much less oversight than utility companies. But times have changed for the exploration and production sector, thanks to the dedication of Wilson and other nongovernmental watchdogs.
“The trouble started in 2007, when drilling operators made a run on the Marcellus Shale, a broad region of gas reserves that stretches through Pennsylvania and up into Ohio and New York,” Jeff Goodell, author of Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America’s Energy Future and other energy-related books, explains in an article in the current issue of Rolling Stone magazine. “Almost overnight, fracking’s technological miracle was recast as the next great environmental menace.”
The growing resistance to hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus Shale forced the gas industry to create groups such as the Marcellus Shale Coalition, America’s Natural Gas Alliance and Energy In Depth to tell the industry’s side of the story. Before gas companies moved into regions of the country unaccustomed to large-scale oil and gas activity, the industry operated under a relative cloak of anonymity. But that changed when the companies started poking around in states like Pennsylvania and New York. Local residents wanted to know what the gas companies were really doing and, once the drilling started, they wanted the companies to be forthright about the potential risks involved in the industrial process known as hydraulic fracturing.
Having never faced such strong suspicion or opposition, the gas industry initially hid behind the argument that releasing the chemical contents of their fracking fluid would amount to giving away a trade secret that could harm their competitive position among their fellow drillers. But eventually the companies realized they needed to throw the public a bone to get them off their backs. About a year ago, the industry unveiled a database, located at www.fracfocus.org, as a place for companies to voluntarily list the contents of the fluid used in hydraulic fracturing.
At the Houston public relations conference, one of the buzzwords was “transparency,” Wilson said. “If we don’t have anything to hide then we should stop hiding,” the company officials said. But Wilson doesn’t believe the industry really wants transparency. They wouldn’t be hiring former military psy-ops experts or closely monitoring the activities of anti-drilling activists if they wanted to build honest relationships with the communities in which they operate, she said.
EPA Finds a Friend in Texas
Aside from counseling community groups, Wilson provides assistance to the nation’s big environmental groups. “Many actually have come to me when they need legitimacy—because Earthworks organizes on a very grassroots, on-the-ground level,” she said.
In 2010, the Environmental Defense Fund paid to fly Wilson to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s offices in North Carolina to present four case studies of the health impacts caused by shale gas production in the Barnett Shale in Texas. She met with EPA officials in the Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards who were working on new rules for the oil and gas industry.
The EPA officials in North Carolina “were so impressed by the information I had presented to them that EDF then flew me to D.C. to meet with Gina McCarthy’s team to present the same case study,” Wilson said. McCarthy is assistant administrator of EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation.
“While I was meeting with Gina McCarthy, she said it would really be helpful to us if you could get this information out to a wider audience in Texas because every time we try to do something to help Texas, then your governor sues us,” Wilson said.
A few months after the meeting with McCarthy, Earthworks issued a report, titled “Natural Gas Flowback: How the Texas Natural Gas Boom Affects Health and Safety,” that was widely circulated in Texas. Among the recommendations in the report were:
- The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality should step up its efforts to protect public health by strictly enforcing emission limits from oil and gas exploration and production equipment.
- The Texas Railroad Commission should implement rules requiring closed-loop drilling systems and water-based drilling fluids.
- The Texas Water Development Board should exercise its authority to evaluate groundwater resources and the impact that hydraulic fracturing withdrawal is having on groundwater resources.
- Authority to regulate air emissions from oil and gas exploration and production equipment should be overseen by the U.S. EPA.
Last July, the EPA issued regulations “to reduce harmful air pollution from the oil and natural gas industry while allowing continued, responsible growth in U.S. oil and natural gas production.” Wilson welcomed the EPA’s decision to develop the rules but described them as “not anywhere near stringent enough.”
In Texas, Wilson realizes she faces an uphill battle to get the gas industry to clean up its act and ensure that communities are protected. She has no faith in the state regulatory system. “They’re industry lapdogs, not citizen watchdogs,” she said.
But she is beginning to notice a slight shift in public opinion. “It’s kind of sad, but the best way to raise awareness is to have them drill next to somebody and let them find out how horrible it is,” she said. “And they change their mind about drilling.”
In Arlington, Texas, for example, a group of Tea Party activists are now having second thoughts about gas drilling. “They were very much for drilling. They just knew they were going to get rich. They were screaming about property rights and then they drilled next to them and now they’re writing emails saying, ‘we’ve been misled,’” Wilson said. “They hate the government and don’t want anything regulated except oil and gas. Even some Tea Party people now seem to like the EPA in regard to this one very narrow issue.”
Earthworks’ EARTHblog can be found here. Click here to visit Sharon Wilson’s blog. Wilson can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.
Top photo, Sharon Wilson (Courtesy photo)
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Monday, March 05, 2012
No Moore, No Moore: #DeOccupyThePhonyLeft
By Mickey Z.
"A liberal is the guy who leaves the room when a fight starts.” -Big Bill Haywood
“An occupant is the person who starts the fight.” -Mickey Z.
Mar. 3, 2012—This just in: At the 2012 “Left” Forum, attendees will have the opportunity to experience pearls of wit and wisdom rained down upon them during a special address from none other than—wait for it—Michael Moore.
When I learned of this seemingly inevitable decision, I just had to reach back into some previous writing of mine to help make certain that authentic radicals fully understand why Moore is less.
Mic Check: Michael Moore is not a leftist… but he does play one on TV.
Michael Moore makes movies, writes books, produces TV shows, and has built-in pacifist radar (hey, he endorsed “anti-war” candidate Wes Clark in 2004, didn’t he?). But that’s not the extent of his varied skills.
- Savvy geo-political analyst: Playboy magazine once asked the proud Democrat this question about Osama bin Laden: “How do you propose accomplishing what American military and intelligence forces have been unable to accomplish?” Moore’s reply: “Hire the Israelis to find Osama and kill him.”
- Accomplished electoral analyst: “Draft Oprah."
- Erudite legal expert: “Mumia probably killed that guy."
- Wise parenting icon: “It’s really a bad idea to have sex before you’re eighteen” and “Your children do not have a right to privacy."
- Born naturalist: “Getting back to nature is a dumb idea. Nature doesn’t want you anywhere near it. That’s why nature created cities—to keep you as far away as possible!"
- Blatant animal lover: “Animals don’t have rights. Yes they should be treated ‘humanely.’ Yes, Tyson Foods and all the others that ‘harvest’ chickens are disgusting. But ‘freeing’ chickens from heir factory farms is idiotic. They don’t know how to survive in the wild and they’re just going to get hit by a truck."
(Since more than 100 humans get killed in motor vehicles each day in America, they must not be so adroit in the “wild,” either.)
Besides the impressive credentials listed above, the intrepid Mr. Moore (or better yet, McMoore) has got it going on when it comes to the kitchen. As you might expect, he’s quite the maverick… unafraid to step on toes. For example, he defiantly urges his readers to “lay off carrying on about the milk, no matter how bad it is for you.”
The corporate avenger also admits: “I like Whoppers. Flame-broiled, juicy, chock-full of onions and lettuce and loads of secret ingredients. They’re big too; bigger than the Big Mac.”
Besides sharing such deep insights about dairy products and mass-produced death burgers made from doomed cattle on land cleared in rainforests, the food maven has this to offer in terms of nutritional advice:
- "Vegetarianism is unhealthy."
- "Humans need protein, and lots of it."
- "Put down those sprouts and pick up a T-bone!"
I could go on (and on and on and on) breaking down McMoore’s all-around acumen but let’s sum things up with something particularly timely: His January 2012 declaration that it’s fine and dandy to be critical of the current War-Criminal-in-Residence—as long as you still vote for him. (insert rimshot here)
Translation: McMoore and his ilk (and do I really have to name names?) will speak in occupied tongues all the way to the Democratic Convention—until it’s time to fall in line behind the status quo that is threatening all life on earth.
The liberal-in-radical-clothes list grows by the day—including, yes, the Left Forum itself—all seeking to co-opt the energy, creativity, momentum, and rage of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement.
But it ain’t gonna happen...
To you on the predator drone-Left, I echo Ralph Nader’s words to McMoore: “Redeem yourself or forever be consigned to history’s judgment of political turncoats, renegades and saboteurs.”
To the rest of you, I implore: #OccupyNoLeaders.
The media desperately wants and needs to identify leaders therefore, self-serving charlatans like Clueless Mikey McMoore are ever ready to step up and fill that alleged void.
Mic Check: As those on the ground with OWS long ago realized, we don’t need no stinkin’ leaders.
Instead, let’s all #occupy, participate, communicate, listen, and learn because (as usual) the reality is diametrically opposed to the conventional wisdom: Everyone at OWS is a “leader.” It is a movement comprised of thousands of “leaders” from all walks of life—working collectively and sharing skills.
In the words of Mumia Abu-Jamal: “This is People’s Power, sparked, in part by the mass protests in Cairo and Wisconsin. Other sparks were the Troy Davis injustice, the assault on several demonstrators by New York cops, the repression on the poor and working class by the political class, and discontent with the long, wasted years at mindless wars abroad. This is people’s power. May it remain so.”
To which I’d urgently add: May people’s power also involve love and respect for the power of non-humans and the entire eco-system.
We are the 99%. Expect us. Join us…
#DeOccupyThePhonyLeft. #OccupyNoLeaders. #OccupyParticipation.
Mickey Z. is the author of 11 books, most recently the novel Darker Shade of Green. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on an obscure website called Facebook.
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#Occupy4Primates (Hint: that includes us)
By celebrating our primate status rather than denying it, we are able to create connections to other humans and to the natural world that have the potential to lessen violence, exploitation, and ecocide.
Mic Check: We’re Monkeys With Delusions of Grandeur
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One of my recent photos:
The St. Pat’s For All Parade (March 4)
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Sunday, March 04, 2012
Chomsky: Occupy Movement vs. Atomized, Disintegrated Society
By Press Action
The Occupy Wall Street movement represents the first major public response to more than 30 years of class war—orchestrated by the ruling elite—that has led to social, economic and political arrangements in which the democratic system has been shredded, according to MIT professor Noam Chomsky.
“Concentration of wealth leads almost reflexively to concentration of political power, which in turn translates into legislation naturally in the interests of those implementing it. That accelerates what has been a vicious cycle, leading to … bitterness, anger, frustration—a very atomized society,” Chomsky said in a recent interview with Edward Radzivilovskiy. “That’s why the linkages being created in the Occupy movement are so important. This is really the first sustained response to this.”
One of the striking features of the Occupy Wall Street movement has been the creation of cooperative communities, “something very much lacking in an atomized, disintegrated society,” Chomsky told Radzivilovskiy. “That includes general assemblies, which carry out extensive discussion, kitchens, libraries, support systems and so on. All of that is a work in progress leading to community structures, which if they can spread out into the broader community and retain their vitality could be very important,” he said.
Chomsky noted that some political observers also refer to the Tea Party as a response to the growing concentration of economic and political power. “But that’s highly misleading,” he said. The Tea Party does have influence and power. “But that comes from the fact that it has enormous corporate support,” Chomsky said. “Parts of the corporate world simply see them as their shock troops. But it’s not a real movement in the serious sense.”
As for whether what is occurring in the streets and communities of the United States can be called a “revolution,” Chomsky balked. “I don’t think anyone is seriously talking about a revolution,” he said. “To have a meaningful revolution, you need a substantial majority of the population who recognize or believe that further reform is not possible within the institutional framework that exists. There’s nothing like that here [in the United States], not even remotely.” Chomsky argued the United States is “nowhere near the limits of what reform can carry out.”
“People can have the idea of a revolution in the back of their mind if they want, but there are very substantive actions that should be taking place,” he said. “In this case, there are very specific short-term goals that have large support: fiscal policy, controlling financial institutions, dealing with environmental problems, which are extraordinarily significant. All of these are very direct, immediate concerns.”
In the longer term, there are many things that can be done, Chomsky explained. For example, in parts of the country, particularly in Ohio, there has been “quite a significant spread” of worker-owned enterprises. These efforts partly derived from when U.S. Steel Corporation decided to close down its operations in Youngstown, Ohio. Instead of just giving up, the workers in the communities offered to buy the plant and run it themselves. The union took the case to court to try to get the right to do it, but the workers lost in court.
“But even the failure [in Youngstown], like many failures, has spawned other efforts. And by now there is a network of worker/community-owned enterprises spreading over the region,” Chomsky said, referring to the Youngstown effort as an example of traditional anarchism. “Is that reform or revolution? If that extends, it’s revolution. It changes the institutional structure of the society.”
In a 1991 interview with Anarchy magazine, Chomsky said he has “always felt more attuned with the parts of the anarchist movement that were interested in and took for granted the existence of industrial society and wanted to make it free and libertarian.” Chomsky explained that he has always leaned more toward the anarcho-syndicalist tradition. “Something’s got to happen to the 5 billion people in the world,” he told Anarchy. “They’re not going to survive in the Stone Age.”
Looking forward, Chomsky told Radzivilovskiy that anarchism essentially would resemble “a highly organized, highly structured society” with power at the base, “but organized on the basis of free and voluntary participation.”
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Saturday, March 03, 2012
No Moore, No Moore: #DeOccupyThePhonyLeft
This just in: At the 2012 “Left” Forum, attendees will have the opportunity to experience pearls of wisdom rained down upon them during an address from none other than – wait for it – Michael Moore.
Mic Check: Michael Moore is not a leftist…but he does play one on TV.
When I learned of this seemingly inevitable decision, I just had to reach back into some previous writing of mine to help make certain that authentic radicals fully understand why Moore is less.
+++
One of my recent photos:
‘round and ‘round the world
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Opposing LNG Exports for All the Wrong Reasons
By Press Action
"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” -Edward Abbey
Nowhere in a new report on liquefied natural gas exports, released March 1 by U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., do the authors mention how exporting domestically produced natural gas will lead to even greater levels of forest clear-cuts, ecosystem damage and industrialization of rural America.
Instead, in the report, Markey’s staff focuses only on how exporting domestically produced natural gas, in the form of LNG, could raise domestic natural gas prices by 24 to 54%, “which would substantially increase energy bills for American consumers and could potentially have catastrophic impacts on U.S. manufacturing.”
“Industrial and manufacturing facilities are the largest consumers of natural gas in the United States … and would be especially hard hit,” the report says.
But even harder hit will be the natural world, which has already taken enough sucker punches and abuse from humans.
Let’s review the impact of the LNG export scheme. The export of LNG will lead to additional shale gas extraction, induce additional coal consumption for electricity generation, and increase greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. Rural areas are already getting taken over by gas companies and contractors, with their drilling sites dominating the landscape. Drilling accidents, including the release of hydraulic fracturing fluids into surface waters, are routine.
Enough is enough, don’t you think? Markey’s staff should try to avoid the bombast about LNG exports having a “catastrophic” impact on manufacturing. It’s the environment, stupid. The never-ending industrialization of the planet qualifies as “catastrophic.” The impact of LNG exports on the U.S. manufacturing sector hardly qualifies as a “problem” for industrial end-users of natural gas, let alone a “catastrophe.” And why would people concerned about living sustainably worry about a reduction in manufacturing output? Instead, wouldn’t they view a slowdown in the industrialization of the world as a blessing?
Markey’s staff lists several industries whose business operations could be affected if LNG exports lead to higher domestic natural gas prices. The list includes steel, plastics, chemicals, fertilizer, cement, and refining. Natural gas price is a very significant determinant in whether facilities engaged in these manufacturing processes are sited domestically or overseas, says the report, titled “Drill Here, Sell There, Pay More: The Painful Price of Exporting Natural Gas.”
Instead of worrying where the members of these manufacturing sectors will site their plants, people who believe in a sustainable way of life should be doing whatever it takes to curtail these corporations’ harmful activities. The reasons to take action now are numerous: their operations require tremendous amounts of fossil fuels as feedstock, cause horrific damage to the environment, and produce illness and death among human and nonhuman animals, to name only a few.
“In some sectors, like fertilizers and chemicals, natural gas can constitute 80 to 90 percent of the cost of production. For businesses like these, the cost of energy may be the number one determining factor in whether to site production in the United States and employ American workers or whether to move production overseas,” the report says.
For those people who believe in a just and sustainable world, there can be no rationalization for an economic system based on endless growth and nonstop consumption of natural “resources.” The economic downturn that started in 2008 turned out to be a godsend for the extractive and polluting industries. They can now further justify their activities by claiming they create jobs. It doesn’t matter if their practices are intensifying the toxicity of the planet ... as long as they are creating jobs.
“The capitalist system sets up a false jobs vs. environment conflict, that serves the system on both sides,” cartoonist and activist Stephanie McMillan writes. “If people’s land wasn’t stolen and destroyed, they wouldn’t be able to be forced into a position of dependency and into the labor force in the first place.”
Certain segments of the industrial world are more hideous than others. The fertilizer and chemical sectors—both cited in the Markey report as potential victims of domestic natural gas price increases caused by LNG exports—are two that policymakers should not be promoting as job creators. These are sectors that are helping to send the planet to an early grave. They should be reined in.
The products manufactured by these sectors are used extensively in industrial agriculture. Anna Lappé writes that industrial agriculture should be called “water, chemical, and fossil-fuel-intensive farming” because it requires external inputs to boost productivity. “Industrial agriculture gobbles up much of the 70 percent of the planet’s freshwater resources diverted to farming, for example,” she writes. “It relies on petroleum-based chemicals for pest and weed control and requires massive amounts of synthetic fertilizer.”
In fact, in 2007 industrial agriculture used 13 million tons of synthetic fertilizer, five times the amount used in 1960. Crop yields, by comparison, grew only half that fast. “And it’s hardly a harmless increase,” Lappe writes. “Nitrogen fertilizers are the single biggest cause of global-warming gases from U.S. agriculture and a major cause of air and water pollution—including the creation of dead zones in coastal waters that are devoid of fish. And despite the massive pesticide increase, the United States loses more crops to pests today than it did before the chemical agriculture revolution six decades ago.”
Because of their destructiveness, the fertilizer and chemical industries should not be coddled by policymakers. Ed Markey and other policymakers should be doing whatever it takes to free the world from their grip.
One could argue that Markey is focusing only on how LNG exports will affect the U.S. economy and its manufacturing base in this report because these are the issues that will likely grab the attention of the 1%. The ruling elite don’t care how industrial practices harm the environment, but they do care how a policy could be portrayed as a drain on the U.S. economy or a jobs-killer. Some environmentalists may welcome Markey’s report. “Whatever it takes to stop LNG exports, even if it means arguing against exports for all the wrong reasons, is fine with me,” some environmentalists may say.
Whether U.S. policymakers ultimately allow exports or not, the impact of the shale gas revolution on the environment has already been felt. And it hasn’t felt good. Shale gas production is currently not being exported in the form of LNG. And yet, look at the environmental damage and health issues this industrial practice has caused in the Barnett and Eagle Ford shale plays in Texas, the Fayetteville Shale play in Arkansas, the Marcellus Shale play in Pennsylvania and other gas plays across the country. Allowing LNG exports will simply make a terrible situation, caused by the current rush to drill for shale gas, even worse by creating new markets and greater demand for U.S. natural gas.
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Friday, March 02, 2012
DeOccupy GMOs: #CreateFoodDemocracy
By Mickey Z.
"We must occupy the food system to create food democracy.” -Vandana Shiva
Mic Check: The health risks of genetically modified foods are well documented for anyone willing to learn and #occupy the awful truth.
In a corporate-dominated society, of course, profit typically trumps truth… until now. Thanks to the ever-growing Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, the realities about genetically engineered foodstuffs—and the humans responsible for them—are becoming more widely known and challenged.
“Occupy Wall Street is about more than, well, occupying Wall Street,” writes Beth Buczynski. “Banks and politicians aren’t the only ones responsible for declining health, freedom, and equality in this country. Today, the Occupy movement has challenged us to go deeper, to acknowledge a corrupt system that can do more to destroy our way of life than any other arm of the 1%: the agricultural business.”
With up to 70 percent of processed food containing at least one genetically modified ingredient, Buczynski adds: “The truly shocking fact isn’t that corporations created these mutant seeds and pesticide-resistant plants. The shocking fact is that they’ve been allowed to introduce them into our food supply without asking our permission, or even acknowledging which foods they are.”
Mic Check: It’s time to occupy the truth about GMOs.
GMOs have not been proven safe. The burden of such proof, in fact, should always be on those who will profit… or else we pay to become the laboratory subjects.
GMOs are bad for the environment. GMOs, explains Greenpeace, “can spread through nature and interbreed with natural organisms, thereby contaminating non ‘GE’ environments and future generations in an unforeseeable and uncontrollable way. Their release is ‘genetic pollution’ and is a major threat because GMOs cannot be recalled once released into the environment.”
GMOs are not the answer to world hunger. The 2008 Friends of the Earth report, “Who Benefits From GM Crops,” sums it up well: “The majority of GM crops are not destined for hungry people in developing countries, but are used to feed animals, generate biofuels, and produce highly processed food products—mainly for consumption in rich countries. GM crops have not increased food security for the world’s poor. None of the GM crops on the market are modified for increased yield potential and research continues to focus on new pesticide-promoting varieties that tolerate application of one or more herbicides.”
Companies like Monsanto seeks only profit and control. In my 2010 interview with journalist, Marie-Monique Robin, she told me: “Monsanto is the world leader in biotechnology and the first seed company. Ninety percent of the GMOs grown in the world belong to it. During the last decade, the firm bought dozens of seed companies all over the world, pushing its transgenic seeds, which are patented. A patented seed means that the farmers who grow it may not keep a part of his crops to re-sow it, the next year, as farmers used to do everywhere in the world. In the United States and Canada, farmers who grow transgenic crops must sign a ‘technology agreement’ the no-sowing requirement is clearly expressed. If they don’t respect the agreement and violate the patent, they are harassed by the ‘gene police’ and sued by Monsanto. Clearly transgenic crops are just a tool to control the seeds supply—which is the first link in the food chain—by forcing farmers to buy seeds each year.”
#DeOccupyGMOs
- Avoid buying ‘em
- Occupy this non-GMO shopping guide
- Label ‘em yourself
Of course, there’s no better way to de-occupy GMOs than to #occupy.
OWS has heightened awareness to such a wide range of crucial issues that this movement is the ideal venue for food activists to educate and agitate.
“OWS Sustainability and OWS Food Justice will continue to work closely with other Eco Occupy Groups across the country to plan creative actions all through the spring as a way of heightening public awareness to the perils of GMO consumption,” explains Winnie from OWS Sustainability. “We’ll be working with great national organizations such as Food Democracy Now and Rainforest Action, and we have important allies in Vandana Shiva, Michael Pollan, Willie Nelson, and many others committed to the fight of illuminating the masses to health dangers they are unknowingly susceptible to.”
As Winnie sums up: “Sustainability will be directing our energies toward challenging and exciting adventures in the realm of Urban Food Production. Look for us in the park all spring. Our mission is simple: GROW FOOD EVERYWHERE. In your windows, on your balconies, at the community garden, and on ROOFTOPS.”
Mic Check: 2012. The Revolution GR(OWS).
We are the 99%. Expect us. Join us…
#OccupyFoodDemocracy. #DeOccupyGMOs. #OccupySeedsNotGreed.
Mickey Z. is the author of 11 books, most recently the novel Darker Shade of Green. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on an obscure website called Facebook.
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Thursday, March 01, 2012
Federal Court Decriminalizes Killing of Migratory Birds by Oil, Gas Companies
By Press Action
A recent federal court decision vividly illustrates how the dominant culture views the natural world as subservient to industrial capitalism. If animals are killed or ecosystems destroyed, there is no accountability as long as the perpetrators can demonstrate the killing and destruction were part of the dominant culture’s normal way of doing business.
The court case revolved around oil and gas companies whose drilling operations in the Williston Basin of North Dakota resulted in the death of migratory birds. The case against the energy companies was brought by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which charged that migratory birds had died from exposure to chemicals in oil reserve pits near drill sites operated by the companies.
Richard Grosz, a special agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, inspected several drilling sites and discovered several dead ducks. At one site operated by Brigham Oil & Gas LP, Grosz concluded that “it reasonably appeared the two mallards died as a result of exposure to the contents of the oil pit.”
The contents of an oil company’s reserve pit, located near a drilling site, can vary depending on “the type of drilling mud used, the formation drilled, and other chemicals added to the well bore during the drilling process,” the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota explained in its Jan. 17 decision. In his report, Grosz listed about 18 chemicals, minerals or other substances that might be found in reserve pits and how birds could be exposed to these harmful chemicals.
The government charged the oil and gas companies with Class B misdemeanors. The penalty for a Class B misdemeanor may include a fine up to $1,000, or imprisonment for up to 90 days, or both. For a repeat offender, the term of imprisonment increase up to two years.
Brigham Oil & Gas was charged with “taking”—government-speak for killing—two migratory birds found dead near one of its reserve pits. Newfield Production Co., another oil and gas producer active in the Williston Basin, was charged with “taking” four migratory birds found dead on property located adjacent to one of its reserve pits. And another producer, Continental Resources Inc., was charged with “taking” one migratory bird found dead near one of its reserve pits. Three other defendants were also accused of “taking” migratory birds found dead near their respective reserve pits.
In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland rejected the government’s complaints, which were filed under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The court found the oil and gas companies not to be criminally liable.
“The court finds that under the federal statute as it is currently written, the conduct of Brigham Oil and Gas, Newfield Production, and Continental Resources is insufficient as a matter of law to trigger criminal liability,” Hovland wrote in his decision.
The judge explained that the “ordinary meaning” of the word “take,” when applied to wildlife, “denotes intentionally reducing the wildlife to possession.”
“Webster’s Third New International Dictionary defines ‘take’ as ‘to get into one’s hands or into one’s possession, power, or control by force or stratagem … to get possession of (as fish or game) by killing or capturing ... This definition involves deliberate, not accidental, conduct. It refers to a purposeful attempt to possess wildlife through capture, not incidental or accidental taking through lawful commercial activity,” Hovland said.
According to the court, the Webster’s definition comports with the definition of “take” that is found in the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The act says that “take” means “to pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or attempt to pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect.”
The court, in its decision, said “the use of these action words in the regulations reinforces the dictionary definition, and confirms that ‘take’ does not refer to accidental activity or the unintended results of other conduct.”
Hovland contrasted the definition of “take” under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act with the definition of “take” under the Endangered Species Act, which defines “take” broadly to include “harass” and “harm,” in addition to the verbs included in the Migratory Bird Treaty Act definition.
The District of New Mexico declined to apply the Migratory Bird Treaty Act to commercial activity in a case similar to the North Dakota, Hovland said. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act covers more than 800 types of birds, including ducks, pigeons, sparrows and crows.
The judge explained that the reserve pits of Brigham Oil and Gas, Newfield Production and Continental Resources are excavation areas used to contain drill cuttings and oil and gas fluids accumulated during commercial drilling operations. “The reserve pits have little effect on bird habitat, except to attract occasional birds which mistake the pits for a pond or lake,” the judge said. “In all of the cases before the court the reserve pits were not created to effect the habitat of migratory birds.”
The judge said that the government’s case “is premised on an expansive interpretation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.” The government wants the court to apply a broad interpretation of the words “take” and “kill” in the Migratory Bird Treaty Act to encompass not only physical activity directed against a bird, but also habitat modification and other impacts that arise from lawful commercial activity, Hovland argued.
“If there is a desire on the part of Congress to criminalize commercial activity that incidentally injures migratory birds protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, it may certainly do so—but the criminal laws should be clear and certain,” he wrote. “If the Department of Justice desires to prosecute such commercial activity, it should lobby Congress to make the necessary changes in the law. The current law, which was enacted by Congress in 1918, is vague and ambiguous as it relates to criminal sanctions for lawful, commercial activity that may indirectly injure or kill migratory birds.”
Birds face tremendous challenges to their survival every day, most of which are related to human activities. The challenges include:
- Collisions: In the United States, building window strikes may account for up to 976 million bird deaths each year. Communication towers conservatively kill 4 million to 5 million birds annually (possibly closer to 40 to 50 million). Strikes at high tension transmission and distribution power lines very conservatively kill tens of thousands of birds annually. Taking into account the millions of miles of bulk transmission and distribution lines in the U.S., and extrapolating from European studies, actual mortality could be as high as 174 million deaths annually. Electrocutions probably kill tens of thousands of birds but the problem is barely monitored. Cars may kill 60 million birds or more each year, private and commercial aircraft far fewer, while wind turbine rotors kill an estimated 33,000 birds annually.
- Poisoning: In one recent study, pesticides were estimated to result in the direct deaths of at least 72 million birds annually. This is an underestimate of the total deaths, given that delayed deaths from poisoned prey, orphaned chicks, and neurological problems were not included and the study site was limited. Oil spills may kill hundreds of thousands or more, depending on the severity and timing of the spill. Up to 2 million birds are killed annually in oil and wastewater pits, mainly in the Western states.
- Cats: Domestic and feral cats may kill hundreds of millions of songbirds and other avian species each year. A recent study in Wisconsin estimated that in that state alone, domestic rural cats kill roughly 39 million birds annually. Add the deaths caused by feral cats, or domestic cats in urban and suburban areas, and this mortality figure would be much higher.
- By-Catch: Tens to hundreds of thousands of seabirds are estimated to die in U.S. fisheries each year. Monitoring for this, however, is very limited.
In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland argued that to be consistent, the government would have to criminalize driving, construction, airplane flights, farming, electricity and wind turbines, which cause bird deaths, and many other everyday lawful activities.
“As one commentator noted, extending the MBTA’s reach beyond activity directed at wildlife would hamper normal land use activities that often result in bird death—such as farming, timber
harvesting, and brush clearing,” Hovland said. “Just as in the case of driving, flying, or farming, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act cannot reasonably be read to criminalize the legal operation of a reserve pit at an oil exploration site.”
The judge said he believes that it is highly unlikely that Congress ever intended to impose criminal liability on the acts or omissions of persons involved in lawful commercial activity that may indirectly cause the death of birds protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
The remedy for the death of migratory birds found in or near reserve pits in the oil fields of North Dakota, according to the Hovland, “is probably best left in the hands of the North Dakota Industrial Commission which can easily address the perceived problem in its administrative rules and regulations.”
According to its website, the North Dakota Industrial Commission was created by the state Legislature in 1919 “to conduct and manage, on behalf of the state, certain utilities, industries, enterprises and business projects established by state law.” Given its name and its stated mission, the North Dakota Industrial Commission does not seem like a state agency that would place much importance on protecting birds from industrial activities in the state. Why a federal judge would believe that birds would be better protected under the oversight of such a commission is baffling.
Within the North Dakota Industrial Commission, there is a unit called the Oil and Gas Division. Its website states: “The Oil and Gas Division regulates the drilling and production of oil and gas in North Dakota. Our mission is to encourage and promote the development, production, and utilization of oil and gas in the state in such a manner as will prevent waste, maximize economic recovery, and fully protect the correlative rights of all owners to the end that the landowners, the royalty owners, the producers, and the general public realize the greatest possible good from these vital natural resources.”
Nowhere in its mission statement does the Oil and Gas Division state that one of its goals is to protect birds or animals. Instead, the division’s goal is to “encourage and promote” oil and gas development in North Dakota. The only protection that the division offers is the protection of the rights of companies and landowners to maximize revenue generated from the exploitation of oil and gas resources in the state.
Once again, it is inexplicable that a federal district court judge would suggest that a state agency, whose clearly stated mission is to promote industrial activity, is well-suited to protect birds from the deadly industrial operations of oil and gas companies.
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DeOccupy GMOs: #CreateFoodDemocracy
Mic Check: The health risks of genetically modified (GM) foods are well documented for anyone willing to learn and accept the awful truth.
In a corporate-dominated society, of course, profit typically trumps truth…until now. Thanks to the ever-growing Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, the realities about genetically engineered foodstuffs—and the humans responsible for them—are becoming more widely known.
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Courtesy of Rick the Cartoonist:
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March 23 MZ event:
Mickey Z: #Occupy for All Species (Ecosystem Before Economics)
Let’s welcome the American Spring at Jivamuktea Café on March 23
As the #Occupy movement continues to grow and evolve, how and where do animal rights and other dark green issues fit into the now infamous 99%?
Join New York City’s own Mickey Z. - subversive author of 11 books - for an urgent and inspirational call-to-arms, re: OWS, activism, speciesism, ecocide, veganism, holistic justice, the 2012 election, and so much more - followed by Q&A/discussion.
If you’ve never been to a Mickey Z. event, check your expectations at the door and prepare to be #Occupied.
Friday, March 23 @ 7pm
Jivamuktea Café
(Organic/Vegetarian/Vegan/Non GMO)
Jivamukti Yoga School
841 Broadway, 2nd floor
New York, NY 10003
(212) 353-0214
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Tuesday, February 28, 2012
The Other Civil War: Capitalism's Uncivil Peace
By Zakk Flash
Gaunt figures wander like the dead through streets and alleyways, worn clothing hanging from emaciated bodies, their rough faces frozen in an image of utter desolation. Foodstuffs are sold at exorbitantly high rates by monopoly agro-business; those who can’t afford to buy food starve almost immediately, while those who can scrape together the funds succumb to slow death from the poisons within. Old folks, little children, widows, and former national heroes—all these are thrown from their homes while those houses are left to rot, shiny new locks gleaming on the door. The entire time, plutocrats sleep in virtual fortresses, hidden in gated communities while people starve in the streets.
The first American Civil War has never seemed to reach an end; issues of states’ rights versus the federal centralization of power play themselves out on the nightly news, while the real question of lasting peace goes unanswered. But this issue is bigger than the United States and deeper than any partisan divide. The other Civil War is one of crypto-fascism, of neo-colonization, a war on the environment, on the right of people to privacy, and on democracy itself. It is a war of attrition. When Chris Hedges wrote in January of 2011 that “corporations have no use for borders,” he was only partially correct.
Corporate power is indeed global, but national boundaries play easily into capitalist power games. Countries are viewed as holding pools for cheap labor to exploit; when the race to the bottom within a country ends with the inevitable crash, xenophobia and racism make nationalism and patriotism the customary tools for dividing people across state lines. It becomes “un-American” to question, say, a transnational oil pipeline moving costly and toxic sludge from the largest intact forests on Earth across pristine aquifers, public and private property, indigenous communities, and the rights of all within. Resistance against digging up the Black Hills and the areas around the Grand Canyon in search of radioactive uranium is met with equal derision. After all, won’t the job creation and financial payoff be worth the destruction of a few natural wonders? It is all done, happily, in the name of progress.
Because corporate capitalism seeks to maximize profit at the expense of sabotaging work safety conditions and standards, labor hiring and compensation standards, environmental conservation principles, and the self-determination of individual communities, our resistance must indeed be worldwide. Any other efforts will stop short of defeating neoliberal “progress.”
Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, measures the market value of all goods produced in a particular country and is used as an indicator of standard of living within that country. It is the measure by which capitalists determine which countries are on top. But while economic “goods” are evaluated, socio-political and environmental “bads” are not. GDP is an abstraction, devoid of any real connection to the world. A few examples:
- GDP treats crime as economic gain. As crime rates increase, so does the prison-industrial complex push for more police, jails, surveillance systems, and the like. The dominant culture uses mass media to perpetuate stereotypes of people of color, poor people, immigrants, and dissident political groups to justify cycles of systemic and institutional violence. Fear of “the other” is exploited as a mechanism to control the working class. Shadow government groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council create laws to be rubberstamped by politicians of the major political parties; the fascist’s wars, domestic and abroad, are fought with weapons made by her prisoners. Like all other capitalist industries, the prison-industrial complex requires continual growth and acquisition of raw materials—in this case, people.
- GDP treats environmental disaster as economic gain. Cleanup of contaminated Superfund sites (1,280 sites listed on the National Priority List as of November 2010) and massive oil spills like Exxon Valdez and the Deepwater Horizon oil gusher (4.9 million barrels of crude over 68,000 sq mi) mean big business for those interested in GDP rankings. Not only does environmental remediation pump money into the economy, inflating growth rates, but GDP factors in the economic activity that generated the waste in the first place. Pollution is a boon for capitalist ideology.
- GDP treats nonmarket economies as worthless. The amount of time spent volunteering in a homeless shelter, providing free assistance to veterans, running Food Not Bombs, an Infoshop or other community center—none of this matters. At least not in the capitalist system. Capitalism doesn’t care for community enrichment; it only seeks profit and growth.
While policy wonks should strive to determine new metrics that can measure the wealth as the intersection of natural, built, financial, human, and social resources, we must strive to determine our own measure of progress in the physical world. The ratchet effect is locking in the disastrous results of cancer-stage casino capitalism; overpopulation, overconsumption and environmentally risky technologies are pushing us over a precipice.
Environmental and social costs must be factored into any analysis of technology and its application. The revelation in 2012 that the Sierra Club had accepted more than $26 million dollars from Chesapeake Energy—the most active driller of natural gas wells—was a shock to some environmental groups. It shouldn’t have been.
Bright green environmentalism has long worshipped technological change as the primary vehicle for ecological interests, often jumping onto the bandwagon of untested or greenwashed technologies. The newest director of the Sierra Club has rejected notions of natural gas “as a ‘kinder, gentler’ energy source” and apologized for the group’s former support of the industry over coal. While dumping natural gas and hydraulic fracking—the dangers of which are illuminated in Josh Fox’s award-winning documentary Gasland—is to be commended, a valuable lesson remains: myopic views of industrial solutions can lead to entirely new problems. Environmental ethics must include a holistic worldview beyond anthropocentric environmentalism, the idea that the natural world is merely a resource to be exploited by humans. Our progress requires transcending mere ecology to accomplish what Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss called an ecosophy: an “evolving but consistent philosophy of being, thinking and acting in the world that embodies ecological wisdom and harmony.”
Subsidies and legislative mismanagement of sectors that create environmental and social costs, such as energy, transportation and agriculture, must be eliminated in favor of sustainability and biodiversity. Eighteen past winners of the Blue Planet prize—the unofficial Nobel for the environment—have released a statement on environmental and development challenges, calling it an imperative to act. Society has “no choice but to take dramatic action to avert a collapse of civilization. Either we will change our ways and build an entirely new kind of global society, or they will be changed for us.”
In this new society, decision-making processes must also empower marginalized groups. Being marginalized doesn’t necessitate being a member of a minority group—being wealthy is indeed a minority position; marginalization means instead that society has refused to acknowledge a particular community’s needs, beliefs, and concerns. Think apartheid South Africa.
The Occupation of New York City released their Declaration on 29 September 2011, calling for an end to “inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.” This is a good start. Our progress, however, must go beyond the workplace; we also have the obligation to include the voices of the poor, the uneducated, the mentally and physically disabled, single mothers, criminals, and other groups silenced by the mainstream. We must not stop there; too often, analysis of marginalization focuses on the marginals themselves and not the processes responsible. We must seek new understanding of the connections between life circumstances of members in various marginal groups and the larger socio-political and economic processes at the root of the American political establishment.
Émile Durkheim, the father of sociology, claimed that social deviance was “a normal and necessary part of social organization”; the role of the marginalized group under traditional sociology, therefore, is to “define moral boundaries for the larger group.” Durkheim saw two reactions to deviance by marginalized groups and others: either the larger society would unite in opposition to people who violate a culture’s values (think of Dick Cheney’s call for a new Pearl Harbor moment) or that deviance would push society’s moral boundaries which, in turn, would lead to social change. Social change is exactly what we’re after.
As capitalism continues its race to the bottom, bankers and their servants in government cry out for harsh measures to save their skin. Privatization of the commons, deep cuts to social services, and dismemberment of labor unions are enacted as a way to “save the economy.” Austerity has become a reality for so-called developed nations, but the true meaning and impact of these words have been understood and felt within the developing world for decades. Even in the United States, which touts its high standards of living, there are places like Pine Ridge Indian Reservation with an average life expectancy of 48 years of age for men and an infant mortality rate 5 times higher than the national average. Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells has dubbed these areas the Fourth World; Russell Means, an Oglala Sioux activist, goes further with his solemn pronouncement linking years of economic terrorism and corruption on Indian reservations with the corporate takeover of the United States:
Franklin D. Roosevelt, in an April 29, 1938 message to Congress, warned that the growth of private power and industrial empire building could lead to fascism:
The other Civil War, the crypto-fascist encroachment on democracy, cannot be ended with a cease-fire or a truce. To surrender now is to surrender forever.
The elites that own the governments behind the world’s largest economies are gathering with NATO in Chicago on May 19-20, 2012 to discuss global political and economic policy. Far from healthy international cooperation seeking to end worldwide issues like poverty and disease, summits like these push capitalist ideology into local communities, disrupting traditional ways of life. The horrifying trend of farmer suicides in India—at least 17,368 in 2009 alone—illustrates the results of globalization from above. Don Welsh of the Chicago’s Convention and Tourism Bureau illustrates the summit’s goals precisely:
The Group of 8 (G8) would rather the world’s citizens ignore the fact that multi-national corporations having unregulated political power has effectively derailed democratic representation by installing technocrats over elected officials in places like Greece and Italy, that elections in the United States are being turned into auctions for the highest bidder, and that deregulated financial markets and neoliberal trade agreements decimate the environment and worker’s rights in the Global South while ignoring basic issues of economic inequality in developed countries.
Draconian measures are already being put into place to squelch dissent. Under the rule of former White House Chief of Staff and current Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, police powers are being extended, along with public surveillance without oversight, restrictions on public activity, amplified sound, morning gatherings, and parades. New requirements for parades include a $1 million dollar insurance purchase and registration of every sign or banner that will be held by more than one person. They also require any organizer to “indemnify the city against any additional or uncovered third party claims against the city arising out of or caused by the parade,” and “agree to reimburse the city for any damage to the public way or city property arising out of or caused by the parade.” In other words, should some outside group decide to crash your event, the City of Chicago could hold you financially responsible. Given the history of police infiltrators and provocateurs, this guideline effectively crushes any activity the City disagrees with. Say goodbye to Saint Patrick’s Day, to say nothing of the Occupy Wall Street movement itself. Naomi Klein quoted Chicago School economist Milton Friedman, a spiritual forefather of deregulation, on the best way for capitalists to enact the reforms they wish to see in her book, The Shock Doctrine:
This call for a crisis, echoed in the aforementioned Project for a New American Century call for a “new Pearl Harbor” sets the stage for authoritarian controls, not only in Chicago, but around the world. Think 9/11 and nation-building, right-wing coups in South America and the Middle East, post-Communist Russia, and in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
After hyping a real or inflated crisis—helped by mass media in Chicago by denouncing “anarchists” and “socialists” and “illegal Occupations” on 24/7 infotainment channels—the next step is to authorize excessive force. Emanuel has set the stage by pushing legislation that allows him to marshal and deputize the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the United States Department of Justice’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), and the entire United States Department of Justice (DOJ); as well as state police (the Illinois department of state police and the Illinois attorney general), county law enforcement (State’s Attorney of Cook County), and any “other law enforcement agencies determined by the superintendent of police to be necessary for the fulfillment of law enforcement functions.”
In addition to the thousands of federal agents who will be descending upon Chicago, this last provision allows Emanuel to hire Blackwater mercenaries and other private paramilitary forces to do his dirty work. Not only will this outsource city activities to private enterprises, a beloved capitalist tactic, but it gives these outside groups protection from lawsuits, while requiring none of the federally mandated civil rights protections. Lawsuits will fall on the backs of taxpayers—socializing the risk and privatizing the cost. These laws, and laws like the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, present a chilling effect on the right to freedom of expression and propagate a culture of fear. The Nuremberg Trial of Hermann Goering further reveals the map used by authoritarian governments:
A bloodless coup by spineless technocrats has taken place. They manufacture consent, using the state to provide a patina of moral legitimacy, while they expand their security apparatus to control every aspect of waking life. Our way out of this authoritarianism will be illuminated by the fires of our resistance.
August Spies, an anarchist known for his aggressive rhetoric in bringing about the eight-hour workday, spoke of the other Civil War before his execution in 1886.
When asked if anarchy was a utopian dream, Rudolf Rocker stated that he was an anarchist not because he viewed anarchism as the final goal, but because there is no such thing as the final goal. But his demand for perpetual reclamation of human rights does not mean that we should have no aspirations.
Dr. Zakk Flash is an anarchist political writer, radical community activist, and editor of the Central Oklahoma Black/Red Alliance (COBRA). He lives in Norman, Oklahoma.
Find more about the Central Oklahoma Black/Red Alliance (COBRA) at http://www.facebook.com/COBRACollective.
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Monday, February 27, 2012
Open the Gates: #DeOccupyConfirmationBias
So, there I am, at the gym—teaching someone how to torque her hips into a left hook—when I hear the griping about health care…a worthy subject of complaint, for sure. Then comes the punch line: “I’d get better treatment if I wasn’t an American,” the griper declared. “The immigrants come here, don’t pay taxes, and exploit the system. Me? I’m screwed because I was born here and pay my taxes.”
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One of my recent OWS photos:
The American Spring nears...
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March 23 MZ Event:
Mickey Z: #Occupy for All Species (Ecosystem Before Economics)
Let’s welcome the American Spring at Jivamuktea Café on March 23
As the #Occupy movement continues to grow and evolve, how and where do animal rights and other dark green issues fit into the now infamous 99%?
Join New York City’s own Mickey Z. - subversive author of 11 books - for an urgent and inspirational call-to-arms, re: OWS, activism, speciesism, ecocide, veganism, holistic justice, the 2012 election, and so much more - followed by Q&A/discussion.
If you’ve never been to a Mickey Z. event, check your expectations at the door and prepare to be #Occupied.
Friday, March 23 @ 7pm
Jivamuktea Café
(Organic/Vegetarian/Vegan/Non GMO)
Jivamukti Yoga School
841 Broadway, 2nd floor
New York, NY 10003
(212) 353-0214
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Pa. Farmer Ratchets Up Battle Against Shale Gas Industry
By Press Action
Stephen Cleghorn, a Pennsylvania farmer, knows the ins and outs of the natural gas extraction process called hydraulic fracturing. He’s studied the risks and dangers. He’s witnessed the damage it’s wreaked on the environment. He’s commiserated with fellow Pennsylvanians who have gotten sick from contaminated water and whose animals have died from toxic fracking fluids.
Soon after hearing about a geological formation known as the Marcellus Shale about six years ago, Cleghorn immersed himself in the topic. Eventually, through a self-education process, Cleghorn concluded that that the method used to extract natural gas from the shale rock and the associated industrialization of communities across Pennsylvania posed serious risks to air, water, public health and the welfare of animals. It was through these discoveries that Cleghorn realized it was his duty to prevent gas companies from ever operating on his 50-acre farm in Jefferson County, Pa., or anywhere near his property.
“I need them to understand that they don’t dare come here. They don’t actually know what I’m capable of. Because I’ll fight them to the death if I have to,” Cleghorn told Press Action in a Feb. 21 interview. “They’ll stay off of this place. And I’ll use methods they won’t understand because they’ll be nonviolent, they’ll be loving, they’ll be embracing of them as human beings but telling them you can’t do this and if you do it, you’re going to suffer the consequences of being exposed for what you are.”
After watching with dismay the workings of a corrupt regulatory system, Cleghorn realized that government officials at the state and federal levels had no intention of slowing down or stopping the gas drilling boom in Pennsylvania—what the gas industry fondly calls the “shale gas revolution.”
When there is a fracking fluid spill at a drill site or reports of people getting sick near a frac job in Pennsylvania, “I get the impression that the DEP does damage control for a day or two and just walks away.”
“People don’t feel protected by that department,” he said.
Cleghorn points his finger at former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and John Hanger, the former secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection under Rendell. “Hanger is a tragic story. He’s a true environmentalist. He and Rendell should have never let this stuff get started,” he asserted. “They let it get started and that’s going to be their legacies, unfortunately.”
Hanger, who left office in January 2011, strongly supports the use of natural gas, instead of coal, as a power generation fuel. He views the drilling boom in Pennsylvania and in shale plays across North America as a welcome development because it means there will be an abundant energy resource that can be used to keep the lights on and sustain economic growth.
As DEP secretary, Hanger tried to get drilling companies to follow the rules—however lax they were—and clean up their mess when there was a fracking fluid spill or a report of water contamination.
Time Bombs with Longer Fuses
But, according to Cleghorn, keeping a tighter leash on the gas companies is not good enough. He cited the work of ecologist and author Sandra Steingraber Ph.D., author of Living Downstream: An Ecologist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment, who contends that mitigation measures, such as recycling of toxic fracking wastewater or triple casings around well bores, do not reduce the ultimate risk and harm caused by gas drilling.
“Mitigation strategies make fracking seem less destructive than it really is. Mitigation builds time bombs with longer fuses. To advocate for mitigation is to sanction gas drilling,” Steingraber said in a Jan. 9 presentation at a conference sponsored by Physicians Scientists & Engineers for Healthy Energy and Mid-Atlantic Center for Children’s Health and the Environment.
Cleghorn also is a Ph.D. and worked as a sociologist before opening his organic farm with his wife in 2005. And when he learned about the recklessness occurring all around him in the gas patch, he couldn’t stay silent. He became an outspoken critic of hydraulic fracturing and unconventional gas production. He turned his personal struggle to protect his farm into an effort to protect the entire state of Pennsylvania from the damage caused by the gas industry.
As part of his activism, he traveled to Washington, D.C., in 2011 to testify before the U.S. Department of Energy’s subcommittee on shale gas production. He told the subcommittee, chaired by former CIA Director John Deutch, that there is no scientific consensus indicating the techniques used to extract shale gas do not cause environmental harm. He emphasized that more information is needed before the industry should be allowed to continue.
In November 2011, the subcommittee released a report that was critical of the lack of progress being made to protect human health and the environment from shale gas drilling. “The Subcommittee believes that if action is not taken to reduce the environmental impact accompanying the very considerable expansion of shale gas production expected across the country—perhaps as many as 100,000 wells over the next several decades—there is a real risk of serious environmental consequences causing a loss of public confidence that could delay or stop this activity,” the subcommittee said in its report.
But nowhere in the report did the subcommittee list a moratorium on fracking or a halt to shale gas production as options. Instead, the members of the committee urged the industry to clean up its act to avoid “the consequent risk of public opposition to its continuation and expansion.”
DOE’s shale gas subcommittee was “probably harder on the gas industry than the gas industry wanted them to be,” Cleghorn said. “But they’re not in the business of considering whether this should be halted. They’re in the business of making it continue. … Their charge is to figure out for [Energy Secretary Steven] Chu and the president how to make this gas drilling happen in a responsible way.”
Unlike the conclusions of the subcommittee, whose members also included Kathleen McGinty, former secretary of the Pennsylvania DEP and Daniel Yergin, author of The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power and chairman of energy industry consulting firm IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, Cleghorn contends there is not enough known about shale gas production right now to say that it can be done responsibly. “The basic problem here is you can’t manage a problem if you don’t know what it is you have to manage,” he said. “That’s what’s happening down in the [well] hole. They don’t know exactly what it is that they have to manage down there. They’re guessing.”
These unknown risks are all about irreparable environmental harm, but the gas companies don’t have to prove that it can’t happen. “And that’s what should be the case,” Cleghorn said. “They should have to prove that it can’t happen. You don’t just go out and experiment with it and see if it might happen down the road. There’s enough evidence to say that it could happen, that we will poison the aquifers of what might turn out to be half the land mass of Pennsylvania. They don’t get to do that without proving that it can’t happen.”
Cleghorn argued that the reason gas industry officials tried and succeeded in getting the industry exempted from federal protections related to injection wells is because they knew that they were going to be inserting toxic substances near aquifers. “If they were held to the standards of injections wells, it would be too expensive to do this damn business,” he said. “A gas well is an injection well. It’s putting toxic chemicals down through and in the presence of aquifers used by human beings. Yes, they take all kinds of measures to keep it from happening. But the long-term common-sense conclusion I draw is steel and concrete bores are not going to hold up forever.”
Cleghorn also is well aware of the differences between drilling a vertical well compared to a horizontal well. “You can be a mile away from a vertical well and you might not be affected by it. But if you’re a mile away from a horizontal well pad, it’s under you baby,” he said.
About 0.49% of the drilling fluids in a frac job are chemicals. That means there are 90 tons of chemicals per well bore in a typical frac job, according to Cleghorn’s estimates. “We’re talking about maybe a ton’s worth of chemicals under every single acre of half of Pennsylvania,” he said. “We don’t know if it will stay down there or where it traveled as it was put down there.”
The Dangers of Unconventional Gas Drilling
In 2005, Cleghorn and his wife, Dr. Lucinda Hart-González, moved to Reynoldsville, Pa., and started building a certified organic farm and licensed goat dairy. The farm, Paradise Gardens and Farm, has been successful, paying for itself and making a small profit by producing healthy organic vegetables and fresh goat milk products. Cleghorn attributes the farm’s success to loyal customers who seek food free of the harmful chemicals and additives in food produced by the industrial model.
When Cleghorn and his wife purchased the farm and the land in western Pennsylvania, they understood that they were acquiring only the surface rights, not the rights to any oil, gas and coal that might be located underneath.
“We were aware that this severance had happened when we bought this place,” Cleghorn said. “We expected that at some point in time that someone would want to put in a shallow gas well. We thought, well, that’s pretty common out here. It doesn’t take up too much of your land—maybe less than a third of an acre when it’s finished. Oftentimes the surface owner would negotiate an agreement with the gas owner to pipe over some gas over to your house. We use natural gas for our heating. We didn’t know anything about Marcellus when we bought this place. We had no idea of the scale of operation involved in unconventional drilling as well as the dangers of it.”
But after Range Resources Corp. drilled the first natural gas well in the Marcellus Shale back in the mid-2000s, the gas rush was on in Pennsylvania.
The drilling in Jefferson County, where Cleghorn’s farm is located, has not been as intense as in counties in the southwestern and northeastern parts of the state. Residents in Butler County, in the southwestern part of the state, have been heavily affected by gas drilling. Janet and Fred McIntyre and several other families living near Rex Energy drill sites are experiencing contaminated water.
“Their water was clean and pure until [the gas drillers] came along and now they’re getting rashes, vomiting, projectile diarrhea and boils and all kinds of stuff and nobody is helping them. We’re trying to get the EPA over there to look into it like they are doing in Dimock [in northeastern Pennsylvania],” Cleghorn said. “But the DEP says the water is okay, no problems. Rex was providing them with water buffaloes, but no longer.”
Rex Energy said the wells of residents who have complained are between 2,100 and 4,600 feet from its drilling locations. The company noted that many other homeowners in the area have not raised complaints or concerns. The company also said there are old oil wells in the region that could affect some groundwater and there were “no notable differences in water chemistry between pre- and post-drill water quality tests of the water wells in question.”
In Jefferson County, the drilling activity has not been as intense as in Butler County. About six additional gas wells were drilled in Jefferson County in 2011, bringing the total to 30 to 40 wells since the drilling boom began. “There still poking around here to see how productive it is,” Cleghorn said. “It’s not real hot and heavy here yet.”
EXCO Resources, based in Dallas, Texas, and CONSOL Energy, a Pittsburgh-based company better known as a coal producer, are the most active gas companies in Jefferson County.
But there still have been cases of harm caused by the gas industry in Jefferson County. One of the respondents in a study conducted by two researchers at the Cornell University School of Veterinary Medicine is Cleghorn’s neighbor. “It was her dog that trekked through some of this frac fluid that was spread on the road nearby her house,” he said. “She had noticed the dog spending a lot of time licking her paws afterwards. This dog was pregnant; seven of 11 pups were stillborn, and another dog died of cancer within a year.”
Also, in another case, one of Cleghorn’s neighbors complained to the township about the truck traffic in front of her house. “When the water trucks are coming for the millions and millions of gallons that are needed for a frac job, they were coming about every half-hour 24/7 for several days,” he said. His neighbor’s home is located very near the road, and she could hardly sleep for days.
In 1995, long before Cleghorn and his wife acquired the property, a speculator purchased the mineral rights underneath where Cleghorn’s farm now sits for $150. In 1999, that same speculator wrangled a deal with a gas company to pay him $1,500 an acre to lease the mineral rights. As part of the contract, the gas company gained the right to “unitize” the mineral rights holdings with other holdings in the region. In other words, the gas company can “join with another company so that they can have maximum flexibility and make it part of a larger parcel to be developed,” Cleghorn explained.
So far, no drilling has taken place on Cleghorn’s property. But a well is planned at a site two farms over from Cleghorn’s property. “It may not be put in there until next year or even the year after,” he said. “But that’s too close and too soon as far as I’m concerned. They shouldn’t even be doing these things in the first place. It’s altogether too risky over the long term and already some pretty terrible impacts documented all over the place, no matter what the gas industry says about that.”
Opening Up a Crack of Concern
In Jefferson County, there has been “a lot of grumbling and complaining” about the gas industry but no coordinated action to stop the drilling. “The entire county has no zoning ordinance,” he said. “This is a real live-and-let-live libertarian, you-do-with-your-land-what-you-want-to-and-I’ll-do-with-mine-what-I-want-to kind of place.”
Even though he’s a newcomer to the community, Cleghorn said he has gained the respect of his neighbors by operating a successful farm and demonstrating that he has no intention of leaving.
Cleghorn refuses to preach about the dangers of fracking to his neighbors. “I’m also respectful of them. I don’t go with the heavy sell about what they should know. I try to present the information factually and completely and hope they hear the parts about how it’s going to hurt them or their farm,” he said. “Jobs are all well and good, but you don’t want to be working on a job that’s going to destroy the place where you want to live or you want your grandchildren to live. If you can just open up a crack of concern or doubt about that, then people will be more inclined to hear.”
Cleghorn bristles at the behavior of the gas companies and their attack groups, such as the Marcellus Shale Coalition, America’s Natural Gas Alliance, and Energy In Depth. People in the community constantly hear assurances from the gas industry about the safe nature of the operations. The gas companies will tell long-time residents of Jefferson County that the “folks who move out from the city just want you to stay poor and they don’t want you to have any money,” Cleghorn said.
“They do that kind of shit all the time, where they try to drive a wedge between the newcomers and the country folks,” Cleghorn said.
While people in the region generally try to avoid confrontation with the industry, there’s a general suspicion of the gas companies. “It’s a place that’s been overrun with extractive industries in the past,” Cleghorn said. “The power of the gas companies and the notion that they’re all in bed with the politicians and got them all paid off, that’s a pretty common perception.”
Not everyone is avoiding confrontation in Jefferson County. One of Cleghorn’s neighbors, Mike Bennett of Bennett Farms and Greenhouse, recently engaged in what Cleghorn described as a “mad-as-hell-not-going to-take-it-anymore” action when he parked his pickup truck in the middle of the road next to his farm to prevent big drilling trucks from passing by on their way to a well site.
The trucks were not permitted to travel the road next to Bennett’s property. But the drivers got tired of taking the prescribed route, with all of its twists and turns, so they decided to follow the road with the easier path. 
The local township had given the drilling companies permission to use the windy road. “They bonded that road,” Cleghorn said.
But when the trucks started driving by his house, down the road that had not been bonded, Bennett told them to stop, but they ignored him. What became known as the “Bennett blockade” occurred on Friday, Feb. 17, when Bennett parked his pick-up truck strategically on Big Run-Prescottville Road, which runs through his vegetable farm, so that he could block the big trucks but allow car vehicle traffic to go by.
“I don’t think he’ll get cited. I actually think the state troopers were sympathetic with him.”
During the blockade, Bennett called the township’s supervisors and the state police. The state police told him that given the weight of the trucks, they could be fined up to about $80,000 a piece. “There might have been six or eight of the big trucks backed up,” Cleghorn said. “They face a pretty substantial violation and they were caught red-handed by Mike—a classic citizen’s arrest.”
Along with fighting nonstop truck traffic, Bennett also is getting bombarded from the air. Prior to starting drilling operations, gas companies will conduct seismic testing. Bennett refused to have his land bored and seismic-tested.
But then the seismic testing company made the mistake of dropping a bundle of testing equipment from a helicopter onto his property. “In the countryside, they bring a bundle by helicopter and they drop it on the ground,” Cleghorn said. “Mike saw them do that on his property and he went with his truck and picked it up and put it in his barn. They came out looking out for it. They called the state police on him.” Bennett eventually reached an agreement with the seismic testing company to return the equipment.
Along with Bennett, according to Cleghorn, many people in his community and across Pennsylvania are distrustful of the natural gas industry—“and that’s a start.”
“Whether they’ll think the next time they go to vote to throw [state Rep.] Sam Smith and [state Sen.] Joe Scarnati out of office, I don’t think so. Not that quickly,” Cleghorn said. “In Pennsylvania, unfortunately, I think there’s going to have to be a lot more people being hurt, sickened, dying before there’s change.”
In New York, it’s a different story. “I think New York is doing a darn good job. I think there will be hell to pay if Gov. Cuomo allows this to go forward,” Cleghorn said, referring to a decision that is expected later this year on whether or not to allow high-volume fracking in the state. Cleghorn emphasized that anti-fracking activists in New York have worked within the official channels and have adequately demonstrated the risks of fracking.
“You’re going to see a lot of direct action in New York. You’ve already got a lot of municipal level banning of the drilling,” he said.
While activists probably won’t be able to stop drilling in Pennsylvania anytime soon, there is still great value in their work. Several grass-roots organizations, such as Damascus Citizens for Sustainability, Marcellus Shale Protest and the Pennsylvania Alliance for Clean Water and Air, are having an impact with their educational campaigns, protests and other activities.
“It does throw some sand into the gears of these companies. They would rather go operate where there’s no friction,” Cleghorn said. “I think overall you don’t get anything unless you struggle for it.”
A New Kind of Surface Right
Stephen Cleghorn faced a personal tragedy when his wife, Lucinda Hart-González, died of cancer on Nov. 14, 2011. “Not knowing at the start of 2011 that her time with me would be so short, I am especially angry that she had to spend a single moment of her last year worrying about this farm’s destruction,” Cleghorn wrote in an article last month.
This spring, Cleghorn will be holding a memorial service for Lucinda at their farm. “We’re going to scatter her ashes on this place,” she said.
Two days prior to the memorial service, on May 10, Cleghorn is planning a press conference where he hopes to raise awareness about the dangers of shale gas drilling. He hopes to gather people who have been victimized by the gas drilling, along with gas rights owners. He also intends to invite his state representative, Sam Smith, who serves as the speaker of the House, and his state senator, Joe Scarnati, who serves as the Senate president pro tempore. Both Smith and Scarnati have been big supporters of the natural gas industry in Pennsylvania.
“If they come and they listen, they get to speak. If they don’t come, they have big cardboard cutouts of themselves in the chairs. I’ll make sure people know they’re too chicken shit to come,” Cleghorn said.
Following the press conference, Cleghorn said he will then begin the “consecrating of this land with Lucinda’s ashes, declaring a new kind of surface right that no drill can penetrate.”
In January, Cleghorn released a PowerPoint presentation titled “The Case for a Moratorium in Shale Gas Drilling in Pennsylvania.” According to Cleghorn, the presentation “offers a deeply researched and deeply personal appeal to fellow citizens to understand the risks of this type of drilling and to advocate for a halt to it until it is known that it cannot cause irreparable harm to the environment and public health.” Click here to view the presentation.
Top photo: Delaware Riverkeeper
Middle and bottom photos: Stephen Cleghorn
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Saturday, February 25, 2012
Occupy Yer Mind: #RightHereRightNow
By Mickey Z.
"It has to start somewhere. It has to start sometime. What better place than here? What better time than now?" - Zack De La Rocha
Where are you? Here.
What time is it? Now.
This is an insidiously ingrained culture we’re trying to transform and such a transformation often begins by changing minds—starting with our own. On that note, while perusing the Wild Mind Buddhist Meditation website, it struck me how crucial living “in the moment” can be to the expansion of the #Occupy movement.
Mic Check: “A lot of the time we are like robots, automatically living out habitual patterns of self-pity, anger, wish fulfillment, fear, etc. We dwell on and brood over past hurts even though we know we can’t go back and change anything. We daydream about fantasy futures and imagined paradise that lie ahead. Meanwhile, life goes on in the present.”
Here are some thoughts on having less thoughts and living more in the here and now...
#OccupyMindfulness
In the Buddhist/meditation sense, this is defined as “concentrated awareness of one’s thoughts, actions or motivations.” In more radical terms, it might be best described as recognizing and accepting accountability. As Noam Chomsky reminds us, we are “responsible for the predictable consequences of our actions.” You see, being mindful is more than just having the oft-discussed “awareness.” Most of us are aware of global warming and its causes, factory farms, environmental degradation, species extinction, the health care crisis, etc. We know about it but are we doing anything about it? That is #occupied mindfulness.
#OccupyIndependentThought
The next time you reach for a container of “fair trade” coffee, consider that—by definition—everything else is “unfair trade.” Or when you walk through a supermarket, passing aisles of poison packaged in toxins until you find the tiny “Natural Foods” section, ask yourself this: Why not just label the rest of the store “Unnatural Foods”? We are so inundated with corporate propaganda on a minute-to-minute basis that we rarely even stop to consider what a word like “natural” means. After all, arsenic is natural, isn’t it? So are uranium and E. coli, for that matter. Each day—many, many times a day—our view of the world is being honed and refined into what can only be labeled a consumer mentality. Good news: That programming is rendered powerless by critical thinking.
#DeOccupyCorporateMedia
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.
#OccupyBeginner’sMind
See things as they are, not as you wish they were. If you told a child about climate change, that child would likely ask, “What causes climate change?” You might answer, “Many things, especially the meat-based diet and petroleum-based industry.” The odds are that kid would promptly deliver the obvious, baggage-free, beginner’s mind question: “So, why doesn’t everyone just stop eating meat and using oil?” As they say in South Florida: BINGO.
#OccupySimplicity
Albert Einstein sez: “If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.” Okay then, with all due respect for Einstein’s tailor, here’s some truth for ya: 90 percent of the large fish in the ocean and 80 percent of the world’s forests are gone. Eighty-one tons of mercury are emitted into the atmosphere each year as a result of electric power generation. Every square mile of ocean hosts 46,000 pieces of floating plastic. Each day, 200,000 acres of rain forest are destroyed; 150 plant and animal species go extinct; and 13 million tons of toxic chemicals released across the globe. Ludwig Wittgenstein sez: “Let’s cut out the transcendental twaddle when the whole thing is as plain as a sock on the jaw.” Get ready to duck because the “whole thing” is mostly caused by our beloved way of life and here’s the inelegant truth: The path towards a more sane and just culture begins with the simple choice to change how we live and more importantly, what we allow the 1% to get away with.
Where is the best place to start? Here.
What’s the best time to start? Now.
#OccupyTheMoment
More from Wild Mind: “Being in the moment does not mean that we are stuck in the moment. We can mindfully and creatively call to mind past events, or imagine what might happen in the future. We can think about the past and think about how we might have acted differently, or wonder why something happened the way it did. We can think about possible futures, and of how the actions that we commit now will make those futures more or less likely. When we are thinking about the past or future while being in the moment, we are conscious that we are reflecting and we’re not lost in thought. We don’t confuse fantasy with reality.”
In the spirit of #occupying reality, I will remind you of the last line of the RATM quote I offered up top: “It has to start somewhere. It has to start sometime. What better place than here? What better time than now? All hell can’t stop us now.”
We are the 99%. Expect us. Join us…
#OccupyYerMind. OccupyRightHereRightNow. #DeOccupyPropaganda.
Mickey Z. is the author of 11 books, most recently the novel Darker Shade of Green. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on an obscure website called Facebook.
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Skepticism Surrounds Gas Industry's Export-or-Die Narrative
By Press Action
Ten or so years ago, I was having a seemingly innocuous conversation about the state of “the economy” with a co-worker. The discussion took an unusual turn, though, when she went off the deep end. “I don’t care if we have to cut down all the trees and pave over all the land, as long as it creates jobs,” she asserted. “Concerns about the environment or animals should never get in the way of economic progress.”
The details of the conversation have stuck in my mind because of the starkness of her words. This person’s worldview was diametrically opposed to my own. Understanding that she was a lost cause, I decided not to waste my time with her. I simply responded, “Hmm, that’s interesting.” And then I walked away.
That conversation took place in a workplace environment. Neither of us were policymakers, lawmakers or regulators. Our discussion had no direct impact on whether or not acres of forest would be cut down to build a new natural gas pipeline or farmland would be paved over to build a road to a natural gas compressor station.
Unfortunately, my co-worker’s views on the environment, outrageous as they may sound, are not rare. Even more troubling is the fact that her views are the prevailing opinion among the nation’s ruling elite whose primary concern is that the system we call “the economy” keeps humming along without interruption.
It would be a mistake to label people with such depraved views insane or crazy. They are generally rational people who have goals and are attempting to move toward those goals. Environmental destruction would be a trivial problem if only those with some kind of psychopathology were engaging in activities detrimental to the natural world.
But the destruction of the environment, or ecocide as it is aptly called by astute observers, is ingrained in the American way, although many people don’t even realize it. Just as most Americans chose not to care about the hundreds of thousands of children killed in Iraq in the 1990s from U.S.-led sanctions and bombings, most Americans go about their daily lives indifferent to the ongoing destruction of the environment.
More insidious than the indifference of “average” Americans is the work of investment bankers, economists, academics, consultants and other cogs of the American economic machine as they attend to their daily duties in support of unlimited growth. Their jobs are to keep the system functioning smoothly. They look askance at people or groups who have the audacity to bring the health of the environment into the equation when discussing economic policy.
While the people who fill the ranks of these professions may not make the final decisions, they do play a role in the ongoing destruction of the planet. To paraphrase Ward Churchill, these professionals form a “technocratic corps” at the very heart of industrial capitalism.
One of the members of this technocratic corps is Bernard Weinstein, associate director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. As a professor at a large university, Weinstein has the ability to influence public policy more effectively than, for example, a junior analyst at an energy industry consulting firm such as IHS CERA or a welder working at a natural gas well site in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale region.
In an op-ed posted on The Hill newspaper website on Feb. 22, Weinstein called for the U.S. government to allow liquefied natural gas exports because it will help to drive up natural gas prices here in the United States. “Over the long-term U.S. producers will need higher prices if they are to remain profitable, and selling our [emphasis added] gas abroad offers the best opportunity for boosting demand,” he wrote.
At least Weinstein is honest about why many in the natural gas industry are pushing hard to get the LNG export party started: it will drive up gas prices and, in turn, boost profits for many sectors of the gas industry. Other technocrats, the ones who aren’t straight-shooters like Weinstein, are claiming that LNG exports will not drive up natural gas prices in the U.S. These fabricators understand that advocating for a policy by saying it will drive up gas prices is not a sound formula for winning the LNG export debate.
There’s currently not enough demand for natural gas in the United States to satisfy the needs of the major players in the exploration and production sector and their shareholders. Natural gas producers have gotten rich off extracting gas from the various shale gas plays across the U.S., but now they want more. By extracting gas from these underground formations and then absconding with it, natural gas producers are hoping to find new markets for their “product” to boost shareholder value and to drive up the price of natural gas here in the United States. Until prices increase to a suitable level, many producers are shutting in gas production and diverting capital to the currently more lucrative oil production business. From a pragmatic perspective, producing natural gas only when we need it seems to make sense. But the idea of producing gas based on human need rather than corporate greed does not register with Weinstein and other members of the technocratic corps who are married to a grow-or-die economic system.
Later on in the op-ed, Weinstein complained that “liberal” members of Congress and environmental groups are pressuring the U.S. Department of Energy to go slow on LNG exports.
“Some environmental activists, such as the Sierra Club, are opposed to LNG exports because, they claim, the liquefaction process results in air and coastal water pollution while endangering wildlife,” Weinstein wrote. “They also argue, with little basis in fact, that processing plants and LNG tankers are inherently unstable and prone to explosions. But their real objective is to prevent any undertaking that results in more fossil fuel demand.”
Once again, to his credit, Weinstein does attempt to give voice to what environmentalists are saying about LNG exports. But, unfortunately, as someone who has spent his career mainly focused on sustaining a grow-or-die economic system, he misrepresents the key arguments that environmentalists are using in their case against LNG exports.
The export of LNG will lead to additional shale gas extraction, induce additional coal consumption for electricity generation, and increase greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. These are recipes for environmental disaster in the communities where the gas drilling and ancillary activities are occurring and for the nation as a whole.
Rural areas are getting taken over by gas companies and contractors, with their drilling sites dominating the landscape. Drilling accidents, including the release of hydraulic fracturing fluids into surface waters, are routine. If Weinstein and his colleagues in the industry get their way, a large portion of the natural gas that producers extract from underground will get shipped overseas, leaving the land in tatters and domestic natural gas prices much higher.
The promoters of a grow-or-die economic system have piles of cash on their side to continue their ecocidal crusade. But there is a growing resistance movement to the shale gas onslaught and the push to export LNG. Because their cause is righteous, the members of this resistance movement are not motivated by financial gain unlike the technocratic corps on the other side of the battle.
About a year ago, the Sierra Club finally realized, after listening to the message of smaller, grass-roots anti-fracking groups in Pennsylvania and New York, that the shale gas revolution was doing great harm to the environment. Since then, the mainstream environmental group has been building its own anti-shale gas campaign, paying close attention to the push for LNG exports.
In a new campaign, the Sierra Club is telling its members to let policymakers in Washington know that the gas industry is attempting to export LNG, regardless of the damage it does.
“Exporting natural gas means more than increased fracking across the country,” the Sierra Club says. “Imagine a massive network of pipe lines cutting through our state and national forests, rivers, and family farms to reach export facilities on our coasts.”
“We’ve already seen wildlife habitat destruction, water contamination and air pollution from this drilling practice and exporting gas will mean more harm to our communities,” the Sierra Club argues. “This is because the gas industry is exempt from many essential federal environmental laws. The Department of Energy’s own subcommittee concluded that major reforms are necessary.”
The Sierra Club is devoting some of its financial resources to an anti-LNG export effort as part of its “natural gas reform campaign.” That’s a good thing as are the efforts by certain “liberal” members of Congress to stop LNG exports. But the truly effective work in opposition to the mindset of cutting down all the trees and paving over all the land is occurring at the local level where individuals and grass-roots organizations are building resistance movements with the goal of shutting down shale gas production in as many producing regions as possible. These committed activists have no intention of shutting up, backing down or walking away from a battle to protect human health and save the natural world.
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Thursday, February 23, 2012
#Occupy Yer Mind
#OccupyBeginner’sMind: See things as they are, not as you wish they were. If you told a child about climate change, that child would likely ask, “What causes climate change?” You might answer, “Many things, especially the meat-based diet and petroleum-based industry.” The odds are that kid would promptly deliver the obvious, baggage-free, beginner’s mind question: “So, why doesn’t everyone just stop eating meat and using oil?”
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#Occupy Fists of Fury:
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The Time Is Ripe for Making Our Victories Permanent
By Press Action
The strikes in France that shut down oil refineries and strategic fuel terminals in October 2010 are examples of what serious activists in the United States could be doing today to disrupt the day-to-day operation of industrial capitalism, according to environmental author Derrick Jensen.
Speaking on Michael Ruppert’s “The Lifeboat Hour” radio show on Feb. 19, Jensen said “it is possible to shut down the system through nonviolent means.”
“The French recognized that oil is the black blood of the economy,” Jensen said. “Instead of doing random sit-downs, they blockaded oil refineries. They occupied the strategic reserves.” During his conversation with Ruppert, Jensen emphasized that it was not his intention to belittle the work of the Occupy Wall Street activists in the U.S. “I’m not trashing Occupy,” he said.
While not as sustained as the blockades in France, Occupy protesters in the U.S. have successfully shut down the Port of Oakland in recent months and disrupted activities at other West Coast ports. Neither Jensen nor Ruppert mentioned these port shutdown actions. According to the Occupy the Ports website, the coordinated West Coast port shutdown effort on Dec. 12, 2011, aimed “to disrupt the economic machine that benefits the wealthiest individuals and corporations at the expense of the vast majority of the people of this planet.”
In France, workers ended their strikes at the oil refineries and fuel terminals without getting what they wanted. The workers were protesting President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62. The tactic of blockading refineries and fuel terminals ultimately failed. Sarkozy’s bill to raise the minimum and full-pension retirement ages won final approval in parliament in late October 2010.
But the workers and other protesters learned from the blockades that they could have severely crippled France’s industrial economy if they had continued the strikes and had succeeded in fending off French police and paramilitary forces.
Despite the disruptions and fuel shortages, a large percentage of the French population remained supportive of the protesters. During the height of the strikes, when the largest number of French people were the most inconvenienced, only 54% of respondents to one poll said they were against the blockade of oil refineries.
While the French have grown accustomed to disruptions in their daily lives caused by strikes that routinely hit various sectors of the economy, the blockade of the refineries and fuel terminals was a much bolder and more militant action than even the French are used to witnessing. The fact that only 54% of respondents opposed the blockades bodes well for future militant actions being able to sustain a large level of public support.
According to Reuters senior correspondent Brian Love, the reason why French people are more supportive of strikes and direct action than Americans and the British is that they “are uncomfortable with ‘Anglo-Saxon capitalism’ and tend to shun the live-to-work philosophy.”
Back in the U.S., Jensen told Ruppert that “the problem with the Left or resistance, or whatever we want to call it, is we haven’t figured out what we want.” However, if activists in the U.S., particularly environmental activists, can establish a clear set of goals, there is a chance for success, given the extremely serious financial troubles facing the corporate state. “It is possible for our victories to become permanent,” Jensen said. “At this point, they don’t have the money” to continue rebuilding industrial infrastructure and systems that activists may succeed in dismantling, he said.
During the show, Ruppert also asked Jensen how he views the actions of the Weather Underground in the early 1970s. “One of the good things about the Weather Underground is that they manifested a rage that many people felt,” Jensen said. However, on the negative side, the Weather Underground demonstrated there “needs to be a firewall between above-ground and below-ground organizations,” he said.
Jensen also mentioned what he calls the “Gandhi shield” and how certain pacifists will say the names Gandhi, Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King again and again real fast to keep all evil thoughts at bay in response to anyone who suggests that violence should even be considered. But in reality, these types of pacifists come from a position of privilege and are not forced to deal with the violence of the state on a daily basis like so many people around the world. “You can’t take violence off the table because the people in power are already using it,” Jensen told Ruppert.
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Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Cash of The Titans: Against The Noxious Fantasy of Limitless Growth
By Phil Rockstroh
The concept of endless economic growth, accepted as sacrosanct by both U.S. mainstream political parties, and internalized as the dominant mode of mind by the general population of the corporate/consumer state is mirrored in the exponential mathematics of a malignancy.
Cancer, if given voice, would proclaim itself to be a believer in “free market values”—devoted to the principle of endless growth—until, of course, it would silence its own voice by killing its host.
Likewise, all life seeks limits or prematurely dooms itself.
The same holds true with addiction to unlimited economic expansion; the craving for incessant ascension is, in fact, a doomed Icarusian flight.
In our time, politics as usual has failed to address the most pressing issues of the age: The manner by which neoliberal economic agendas exploit the masses in the service of a corrupt elite, and in so doing, decimating individual hopes and aspirations, as, all the while, the environmental dangers, endemic to the unchecked system, imperil the survival of humankind.
Although, alarmingly, both political parties continue to serve the status quo: Contemporary conservatives promote—in fact, seem to outright revel in—the litanies of a gospel of global-wide destruction (in the case of religious fundamentalists even going so far as to implore the forces of heaven, with fervid prayers, to expedite doomsday’s date of arrival) by means of militarist aggression and environmental carnage--while squeamish liberals are devotees of the cliché-worshipping temple of incremental change.
From the right flank of this disastrous cosmology of convenience, Rick Santarium insists that a literal interpretation and societal application of “The Scriptures” i.e., an ad hoc collection of the laws, legends and beliefs of Middle Eastern, Bronze Age, hill country barbarians will remedy our national woes. Accordingly, what is one to make of this lovely bit of wisdom from Isaiah (13:9,15?18)?
“Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger ... Every one that is found shall be thrust through ... Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes ... and their wives ravished. Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them ... [T]hey shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children.”
Lovely, huh? Surely, we’ve evolved past such barbaric sentiments. What kind of a blood-besotted people would accept such an abomination to the tenets of modern civilization and basic human decency?
Tragically, this is who: Both political parties of U.S. duopoly and their supporters, comprising a nation of people, who by large majorities support, for example, the Obama administration’s policy of warfare waged by predator drone attack. Military actions that often result in an Old Testament-style “dashing to pieces” the bodies of children.
What does it matter now to the dead whether the reason given for perpetrating these monstrous acts are based on Santarium’s psychotic concretization of religious lore or Obama’s slick, national security state rationalizations?
As neocons press the petal to the metal of the war machine, mainstream liberal apologists for the status quo, luxuriating upon the hurtling juggernaut, counsel us that any change in direction and velocity must be incremental, as they proffer other brain-dead, political clichés about the need for"civility" and “political realism” involving the criteria of sausage making.
First, clichés are zombies; they are dead to the novelty of the living moment, and they eat the brains of inspiration. They are worse than lazy thinking—they are putrefied thought. Worse, clichés will not die, because they are already dead. Burn them with fire; reduce them to ashes; let the ash mulch the soil where future inspiration will grow.
Second, an incremental approach is an utterly useless, if not delusional, response to the situation. The U.S., through the decades of the post-war era, has been moving with increasing rapidity towards becoming an outright national security/corporate authoritarian state. At this point, this much is evident regarding mainstream liberals who tout the virtues of “incremental change”: they, from their comfortable perch of privilege, do so, because they harbor scant desire to alter the present order.
Still, mainstream liberals are baffled as to why people find them so unbearable, when, in their swoons of self-regard, they believe themselves to be oh-so reasonable sorts who selflessly wish everyone the best.
If you are an advocate of incrementalism, then you co-sign the present order--and the present order consists of corporate/military/police state dominance over almost every aspect of life in the U.S. In short, “reasonable”, “well-meaning” liberals—you are complicit in crimes against human dignity when you bandy your incremental change fantasies.
This is what your reasonable, well-meaning, piecemeal approach is worth ... Not a drop of blood of the innocent slaughtered in your predator drone-besotted president’s wars of imperium whose blood-drenched deeds you co-sign with your casuistry. Your faux civil pose is worth about a handful of dust. Obama apologists you can keep making excuses for dear leader—although, it strains credulity as to how anyone with a working moral compass can continue to defend him, or any leader, who has proven himself to be a stalwart defender of the dominant order.
Regarding which, the defining trait of the financial and corporate elite, who lord over the present system has proven to be an all-consuming lust for riches that an individual could not spend in a thousand lifetimes. Their concept of what constitutes acts of trade and commerce is analogous to what pornography is to erotica. Accordingly, one would regard the greedheads of the one percent with the same compassion that one grants to a porn addict, if not for the fact that acts of autoeroticism are not responsible for climate chaos nor did the activity bring down the global economy.
In contrast, this ongoing, noxious, degrading circle jerk of the elite did.
And this brings us to what is at the root of the current siege mentality of the architects and operatives of the corporate/militarist state: Below the armament-bristling surface, and at the dark heart of the subterfuge of one percenters, yawns this abysmal psychology: If an individual insists on existing in a fortified tower of the mind, the truths of his own heart, as well as those arriving from the soul of the world, will appear to him to be acts of sedition; the longings of his own heart for compassion will be misinterpreted as signs of weakness and emotionally displaced as a malignant, paranoid fantasy in which his own desire for resonate human contact will seem to be the attack of an invading army of rebels.
By reflex (mirrored outwardly in the modus operandi of the one percent against a rising, global chorus of political protest and social unrest) he will attempt to block out and silence the admonitions of his own besieged heart, doubling down on his paranoid actions, until the fortifications in and around himself (the mass psychology of a national security state) have grown to titanic proportions.
An inhuman system that has come to stand for little but the empty perpetuation of itself, according to the metaphoric lexicon of the ancient Greeks, is tantamount to approaching existence as a Titan—and they did not mean the metaphoric designation to be taken as laudatory: The Greek poets believed an evincing of titanic traits was an anathema to human life and an affront to the gods.
According to Homer, after returning from a long military campaign, the reluctant warrior, Hector, who upon seeing his young son, Astyanax, for the first time, in a misguided attempt to bestow a hug on his son, pressed the boy, with too much force, to his armored breastplate, causing the child to cry out in pain. Upon noticing his son’s distress, Hector eased the pressure (an act of sensitivity; conversely, some father’s never notice the agony they inflict on their sons in their wrong-headed attempts to show their love).
Then Hector held the boy skyward and offered him to Zeus. We should all be so lucky.
Zeus, after all, is the father of the gods; therefore, Hector granted his son the right to choose his own unique destiny; he was given free will.
In contrast, at present, the collective fathers of this culture have given us—and we now give our own children—to the Titans of the corporate/militarist state. Titans, who, as Titans are prone to do, eat their young.
According to Greek mythology, human beings could not exist on earth until Zeus banished and imprisoned his father, Cronus, a Titan, and the other Titans to the depths of Hades.
In human terms, we call this an uprising.
At present, daily life has become defined by the caprice of titanic forces (forces that devour our humanity). Fellow human beings, we are long overdue for this: The hour has arrived to demand an end to the destructive reign of these self-serving elites who have proven, time and time again, they care nothing about the suffering they bring to humanity nor the damage they inflict on this living planet.
In our time, when feedback loops of methane gas are melting arctic ice at an exponential rate, yet the powers that be continue their pursuit of ruthless agendas that perpetuate this death-worshiping trajectory, it is evident that politics as usual has failed.
Incremental change will not slow a runaway train. Awareness and action might. In our case, at this late date, if the corporate elite, who control the agendas of the state, are not challenged and brought to heel, and soon, then there is little else left for us to do, other than become hospice workers for our doomed species.
Even the notion of (much less the cultural imperative) of constant, endless growth causes one to feel diminished. Resultantly, the imagination seeks to fall in love with limits—a process we mislabel as depression, a form of repressed grieving that brings feelings of powerlessness, but when tweaked by an active participation in confronting malignant power can be transformed into a life-vivifying vehemence to bring meaning and structure to an overly complex system.
“All around us, the fundamentals of life are crying out to be shaped, or created."--Joseph Beuys
Conversely, personal devotion to a fear-bulwarked, habitually self-serving egoism, as opposed to embracing a soul-infused selfhood, creates a catastrophe of malignant greed—a disastrously narrow, resonance-bereft approach to consciousness that alone cannot carry the multiverse of the self into the world. Hence, a selfish man’s relentless obsession to possess the bounty of our planet can never assuage his sense of insecurity and emptiness, not even if all the plundered riches of the ravaged earth were laid before him for his taking.
Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at: phil@philrockstroh.com. Visit Phil’s website http://philrockstroh.com and Facebook.
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Natural Gas Industry Eschews the Precautionary Principle
By Press Action
Since the dawn of industrial capitalism, the onus has been on the individual or communities to prove an industrial practice is harmful to human health and the health of the environment. True believers contend it would be the end of “progress” if the burden of proof were on companies and their advocates to show that the action or policy is not harmful before taking the action.
This “do harm first” principle plays out on a daily basis in communities around the world. Members of the U.S. natural gas industry, for example, are seeking to maximize their profits by tapping into shale gas plays across the country using an extraction process called hydraulic fracturing. Given the government’s deference to commerce over health, communities are often forced to take matters into their own hands to ensure their members are protected from industrial activities.
Right now, the gas industry has the upper hand in most regions of the U.S. as it seeks to fracture shale rock by injecting highly pressurized fracking fluid that contains large amounts of harmful chemicals. The government is letting the drilling companies inject these chemical cocktails underground without knowing the true risks of the process. But communities and individual activists are fighting back. People are raising awareness about the risks involved in hydraulic fracturing and, in some cases, are preventing drilling in their neighborhoods.
On Feb. 21, people opposed to natural gas drilling in their community claimed a rare victory as a New York state judge ruled that the town of Dryden in Tompkins County, N.Y., can ban natural gas drilling within its boundaries. Last August, Dryden’s Town Board used its zoning laws to pass a drilling ban. A month after the ban’s passage, Anschutz Exploration Corp., a Colorado-based company owned by billionaire right-wing political extremist Philip Anschutz, filed a lawsuit arguing that the town’s authority did not extend to regulating or prohibiting gas drilling. Anschutz Exploration has about 22,200 acres under lease in the town.
Justice Phillip Rumsey of the New York State Supreme Court said that state law does not preclude a municipality from using its power to regulate land use to ban oil and natural gas production. The ruling is the first in New York to affirm local powers in the controversy over drilling in the Marcellus Shale.
The ruling is expected to give the anti-drilling movement even more momentum. Dozens of other municipalities in New York have also adopted drilling bans and limits. “By upholding Dryden’s fracking ban, Judge Rumsey has brought a renewed sense of hope to the many cities and towns concerned with fracking,” Katherine Nadeau, water and natural resources program director for Environmental Advocates of New York, said in a statement.
In her statement, Nadeau emphasized how local communities and grass roots organizations have adopted a position that natural gas companies must be able to demonstrate that their activities will not cause harm to humans and the natural world before they are allowed to operate.
“Regardless of fracking’s documented dangers—particularly New York’s failure to study industrial gas drilling’s health impacts or responsibly plan for the treatment, transport, or disposal of hazardous fracking waste—the communities targeted for drilling have defended their rights to determine for themselves when, where and if fracking is permitted,” Nadeau said.
Communities across the country are resisting attempts by the gas industry and government officials to use them as guinea pigs in their quest to maximize profits. Communities living near hydrocarbon gas drilling operations “have become de facto laboratories for the study of environmental toxicology,” Michelle Bamberger, DVM, and Robert Oswald Ph.D. said in a new study, “Impact of Gas Drilling on Human and Animal Health.” The close proximity of these operations to small communities has created a variety of potential hazards to humans, companion animals, livestock and wildlife, they said.
The hazards are being amplified, the researchers explained, due to the large-scale development of shale gas drilling, which is being encouraged by U.S. government agencies. “This large-scale industrialization of populated areas is moving forward without benefit of carefully controlled studies of its impact on public health,” wrote Bamberger and Oswald, who are researchers at the Cornell University School of Veterinary Medicine.
All phases of natural gas production involve complex mixtures of chemical substances. In hydraulic fracturing fluids, chemical substances other than water make up approximately 0.5 to 1 percent of the total volume. However, the very large volumes used require correspondingly large volumes of a variety of compounds. These substances range from the relatively benign to the highly toxic, according to the study.
“The large-scale use of chemicals with significant toxicity has given rise to a great deal of public concern, and an important aspect of the debate concerns the level of proof required to associate an environmental change with activities associated with gas drilling,” Bamberger and Oswald wrote.
Environmental groups, they noted, typically invoke the “precautionary principle,” which states that if an action is suspected of causing harm to the environment, then in the absence of a scientific consensus, the burden of proof falls on the individual or organization taking the action. The principle implies that there is a social responsibility to protect the natural world from exposure to harm when scientific investigation has found a plausible risk.
“The oil and gas industry has typically rejected this analysis and has approached the issue in a manner similar to the tobacco industry that for many years rejected the link between smoking and cancer,” Bamberger and Oswald argued. “That is, if one cannot prove beyond a shadow of doubt that an environmental impact is due to drilling, then a link is rejected. This approach by the tobacco companies had a devastating and long-lasting effect on public health from which we have still not recovered, and we believe that a similar approach to the impacts of gas drilling may have equally negative consequences.”
In their research, Bamberger and Oswald found many types of effects on animals from hydraulic fracturing. The most dramatic case, they said, was the death of 17 cows within one hour from direct exposure to hydraulic fracturing fluid.
“Without complete studies, given the many apparent adverse impacts on human and animal health, a ban on shale gas drilling is essential for the protection of public health,” the researchers said. “In states that nevertheless allow this process, the use of commonsense measures to reduce the impact on human and animals must be required in addition to full disclosure and testing of air, water, soil, animals, and humans.”
While the gas industry argues that hydraulic fracturing has been used without incident for 60 years, an entirely new combination of technologies entailing many known risks and many risks not known or very poorly understood are being used by the industry at this time, according to Pennsylvania farmer and anti-drilling activist Stephen Cleghorn.
In his activism, Cleghorn cites the precautionary principle and the notion that in the absence of scientific consensus that an activity cannot cause irreparable harm, the burden of proof for proceeding with the activity falls upon those who wish to undertake it. “Such proof has not been provided by the gas industry, nor by science, nor by government,” Cleghorn says in a PowerPoint presentation. “This makes the current activity, which risks irreparable environmental harm, fundamentally unethical.”
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Tuesday, February 21, 2012
#OccupyHemp: Don't let the truth go up in smoke
Wrestler-turned-Governor Jesse Ventura sez: “Industrial hemp is a very useful plant. I challenged the attorney general to get rid of the criminal stigma associated with hemp so we can look at it in terms of how it might be useful.”
Actor-turned-Governor Ronald Reagan sez: “I have absolute proof that smoking even one marijuana cigarette is equal in brain damage to being on Bikini Island during an H-bomb blast.”
Obviously, there are more than a few ways for us to view hemp, e.g.
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One of my recent OWS photos:
Occupy4Prisoners event (and more): Feb. 20, 2012
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Courtesy of RMJ:
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Monday, February 20, 2012
Anarchism's Enemies on All Sides
By Press Action
Chris Hedges’ continuous attacks on anarchists are providing a valuable service. His outbursts are successfully smoking out the poseurs among the radical left.
Hedges and the poseurs would rather rail against the “black bloc” bogeyman than work to dismantle a system that produces war, poverty and environmental devastation. It is valuable to know who these people are. They are not our allies.
The poseurs applauded when Hedges ranted in his Feb. 6 “The Cancer in Occupy” article about “black bloc anarchists” being “infected with a deeply disturbing hypermasculinity.” But don’t be fooled into thinking that Hedges and his legion of admirers are targeting only “black bloc anarchists.” Hedges and the poseurs are waging an attack on all anarchists and their allies who favor a radical restructuring of society. They are attacking the notion of non-hierarchical association based on mutual aid and collective organization.
Police forces oversee huge arsenals of weapons and are using them every day against people seeking self-empowerment and various forms of liberation. As author Derrick Jensen says (not in Hedges’ “Cancer” article, mind you), “You can’t take violence off the table because the people in power are already using it.”
In the face of this state violence, anarchists and other militants continue to work tirelessly in communities to improve the lives of people around the world. Instead of expressing solidarity with these activists for their good work, Hedges opts to dismiss them as “obstructionist” and labels them a “cancer.”
“One expresses what solidarity one can with others who share the same struggle, and if one cannot, tries one’s best to ignore or avoid them, but above all, one keeps the focus on the actual source of violence, without doing or saying anything that might seem to justify that violence because of tactical disagreements you have with fellow activists,” David Graeber, an anarchist and professor of anthropology, wrote Feb. 9 in an open letter to Hedges.
Peter Gelderloos, author of Anarchy Works and How Nonviolence Protects the State, wrote in response to Hedges’ article that “the medical language of Hedges’ title, referring to the anarchists as a ‘cancer,’ should immediately ring alarm bells.”
“Portraying one’s opponents as a disease has long been a tactic of the state and the media to justify the repression,” Gelderloos said. “This language was used against the Native Americans, against the Jews, against communists, and many others. Recently the police and the right wing used this same language of hygiene to talk about the occupations around the country as health threats so as to justify their eviction and generate disgust and repulsion.”
Such language also was used against anarchists in earlier periods when anarchism was a defining ideology. The exhortations against anarchists by left-wing statists since the launch of the OWS movement are beginning to rhyme with the ugly calls against anarchists from these earlier periods. In previous revolutionary times, rivalries, along with clear political differences, contributed to left-wing statists seeking to sabotage anarchists’ efforts for real change.
Is Hedges’ in league with assorted liberal groups to manipulate the dynamics of the Occupy movement to protect the status quo? Hedges is a newcomer to radical politics. It was only in the mid-2000s, while working as a reporter at the New York Times, that Hedges rose to prominence with his expressive critiques of U.S. war policy and the machinations of the ruling class. After banking credibility among political radicals through his writings of the past few years, Hedges is now cashing out by urging activists to restrain themselves and not to alienate mainstream America.
Was it Hedges’ intention to put on radical airs and then use his newly acquired credentials to discredit groups of people working for radical change in the United States? Do Hedges’ motivations matter at this point? The fact is Hedges, as noted by author and activist Mickey Z., is “splintering the movement with counterproductive and misguided attacks.”
According to anarchist writer and activist Zakk Flash, Hedges’ recent diatribes are “typical flaccid liberal double-think.” In Hedges’ world, “the fault lies not with the ruling class for establishing and directing a police state, nor with the police themselves for acting like thugs and fascists—no, the fault lies solely with protesters who defied authority and therefore brought down the violence of the state,” Flash writes.
“Anarchists, like many others, believe in a diversity of tactics. It is this diversity that is our strength,” Flash argues. “We cannot allow slander and fear to separate us; sectarianism is the real cancer of Occupy. The enemies that we face—fascism, authoritarianism, militarism, and the like—are legion in their attacks; our response should be equally multifaceted.”
As with anarchists of previous revolutionary periods, it is now obvious that anarchists of today cannot presume solidarity with their supposed brethren on the political left. Through Hedges’ words and the high-fiving by liberals and leftists in response to his articles, it’s readily apparent that anarchists and their allies remain exposed to enemies on all sides.
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Sunday, February 19, 2012
Occupy for All Abilities: #PissOnPity
One Sunday afternoon last November, in the pre-eviction Liberty Square/Zuccotti Park encampment, my eyes lit up when I saw a sign that read: KRIPS OCCUPY WALL STREET.
Mic Check: The sight of dozens of disability rights activists occupying one end of the park provoked a particularly wide smile—and it wasn’t solely based on my commitment to holistic justice.
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One of my recent OWS photos:
OWS Poetry Reading: Feb. 17
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Courtesy of RMJ:
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Saturday, February 18, 2012
Economic Slump, not EPA Rules, Helping to Restore Environmental Health
By Press Action
The planet desperately needs a major economic contraction. Ecosystems are under tremendous stress from pollution and destruction caused by the effects of a grow-or-die economic system. One of the best ways to restore the health of the planet would be for humans to curtail needless consumption.
When consumption slows down, there is less need for industrial activities. Fewer goods need to be transported. Fewer houses and commercial buildings need to be built. Fewer factories need to run. Fewer tons of coal need to be produced and burned.
The nation’s economic slowdown since 2008 is demonstrating how the environment can benefit from reduced industrial activity. When the economy grows at a slower rate or when it contracts, much less energy is used. Many pro-economic growth commentators are predicting that new rules proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will lead to a shutdown of a large number of coal-fired power plants, which in turn will reduce the number of jobs and potentially further harm the nation’s economy.
But a new report concludes that the EPA’s proposed clean air rules are not the reason why electric utilities are deciding to shutter their coal-fired power plants. Instead, the economic recession, combined with lower natural gas prices and higher coal prices, are the primary contributing factors in the decision by utilities to retire some of the country’s oldest and dirtiest coal-fired generating units.
The economic recession has led to reduced demand for electric power by industrial, commercial and residential customers. These trends started well before the EPA issued its new air pollution rules, Susan Tierney, managing principal for the Analysis Group, a Boston-based consulting firm, writes in a white paper released Feb. 16.
“Low demand for electricity moderates electricity prices by reducing the amount of time a relatively inefficient coal plant might otherwise be called upon to operate,” Tierney explains. “In 2009, electricity consumption by industrial customers was at its lowest point in ten years. Although consumption has increased since then, it still remains below the levels prior to the economic collapse in 2008.”
Tierney also points out that in the past year coal plants have been facing “a perfect storm of falling natural gas prices, a continued trend of high coal prices, and weak demand for electricity.”
Increasingly, however, electric utilities have been attributing their decision to mothball or shut down coal-fired power plants to various rules proposed by the EPA, including the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, or MATS, rule and the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule. But Tierney argues that a closer examination of the facts reveals that the recent retirement announcements are part of a longer‐term trend, unrelated to the EPA rules, that has been affecting both existing coal plants and many proposals to build new ones.
In late January, FirstEnergy Corp. announced plans to retire six older coal-fired power plants in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland. The company cited EPA’s MATS rule as the cause. But Tierney contends that the facts suggest otherwise. Reduced demand and low natural gas prices, combined with the remaining useful life of the plants, played a significant role in the company’s decision.
“FirstEnergy had already idled most of these units beginning in 2010 because of reduced demand for electricity and the need to reduce operating costs,” Tierney writes in the white paper. “FirstEnergy’s prior decision to retire the units by September 1, 2012 suggests that market fundamentals led the company to reach the conclusion now, rather than closer to the date on which the company would need to comply with EPA’s mercury and air toxics rule (which is March 2015, at the earliest).”
Pro-pollution politicians across the country, including Sen. James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, and Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, have agreed to go to war against the EPA, blaming the agency’s new and proposed rules for killing coal and threatening electric reliability. But Tierney shows that even if the EPA had not proposed the clean air rules, companies would still be pursuing the closure of many coal-fired power plants, particularly older ones, due to diminished demand and other factors unrelated to environmental regulations.
Given the sky-is-falling rhetoric coming from pro-pollution politicians and industry lobbyists such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, it is very possible that the EPA will ultimately be prevented from implementing its proposed measures—as modest as they are—to curb harmful emissions from power plants. But even if the EPA’s rules are overturned, the health of the environment could get a boost from a global economy that continues to sputter. If huge rates of economic growth become the exception, not the rule, and if economic contraction strikes some regions of the industrialized world, an opening may be created for people fighting to end industrial capitalism’s destruction of the planet.
Time is running out, though. There are reports everyday of human activities spreading sickness across the natural world. For example, the Washington Post reported this week that a large number of turtles in Maryland are dying from the sudden appearance of ranavirus. Experts believe the disease has been lurking in the U.S. for a century, but is only now causing havoc among reptiles and amphibians because “local ponds and wetlands are becoming more susceptible to disease under the stress of climate change, pollution and development.”
What humans are doing to these turtles in Maryland is not unique. Animals, forests, soil, air and water across the country are under a relentless attack by humans who believe the natural world exists for them to exploit for their own short-term financial gain and comfort.
The Northeast blackout of 2003 offered a clear example of how the environment benefits when industrial culture takes a holiday.
A 2004 study by researchers at the University of Maryland revealed that skies were dramatically bluer and the air was much healthier during the August 2003 blackout that hit the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. “The findings shed new light on the contribution of power plants to air pollution along the east coast of the United States,” the researchers said.
Atmospheric measurements taken by scientists 24 hours after many power plants had essentially shut down during the blackout found a 90% reduction in sulfur dioxide, a gas that leads to haze and acid rain, and a 50% reduction in smog, or ground-level ozone. The Maryland scientists also found that the amount of light-scattering particles in the air dropped by 70% and visibility increased by some 20 miles.
“What surprised us was not so much the observation of improved air quality during the blackout, but the magnitude of the observed improvement,” said research scientist and lead author Russell Dickerson, professor and chair of the University of Maryland’s Department of Meteorology. “Scientists long have speculated about what would happen to air quality if all the power plants suddenly disappeared. The blackout performed for us an experiment that would have otherwise been impossible.”
The resulting clean air was observed over large areas of rural Pennsylvania, where many coal-fired power plants are located. Since the toxic emissions from these power plants can travel hundreds of miles, cities from Washington to New York reaped the benefits of the plant shutdowns due to the blackout, at least for a few days, Dickerson said.
Imagine if a de-growth movement were to gain traction across the U.S. and the rest of the industrialized world. Given the environmental benefits that were witnessed during the relatively brief blackout of 2003, a sustained movement to shut down large numbers of power plants and dismantle a significant portion of industrial society would have an incredible impact on restoring the health of the planet.
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Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Anti-LNG Export Train Sounding Louder
By Press Action
The movement to stop the export of domestically produced natural gas in the United States continues to gain momentum, as Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., introduced two pieces of legislation this week that would limit the ability of companies to ship liquefied natural gas overseas.
One bill would require that any natural gas extracted from federal lands be resold only to consumers in the United States. The other bill would prevent the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from approving new terminals that would export domestically produced natural gas.
Increased discoveries of natural gas in the United States, combined with new extraction technologies, have led to a sharp decrease in domestic natural gas prices, driving down electricity bills, costs for farmers and other businesses, and encouraging a shift away from dirtier fuels such as coal.
Among lawmakers, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., was the first to raise concerns about the export of domestically produced natural gas. Back in 2008, Wyden asked the U.S. Department of Energy to revoke an order allowing natural gas produced in Alaska to be exported to Japan and other countries in the Pacific Rim.
“The administration is trying to have it both ways—arguing that we need to drill everywhere because we don’t have adequate energy supplies, while finding that we have so much energy that big oil companies can export it overseas and keep prices here at home higher than they would otherwise be,” Wyden wrote in a September 2008 letter to then Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman.
In his letter, Wyden was concerned about the export of LNG from the Kenai LNG plant in Alaska, which is owned by ConocoPhillips and Marathon Oil. Wyden wrote the letter almost three-and-a-half years ago. Since then, several other owners of LNG import terminals in the Lower 48 states have filed applications with DOE and FERC seeking permission to export LNG.
In fact, companies have submitted plans for eight natural gas export terminals—one has already been approved—that could lead to as much as 18% of U.S. natural gas supplies being exported, according to a Feb. 14 news release issued by Markey’s office. Recently, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said that exporting that much natural gas could lead to an increase in the price of the fuel for U.S. consumers by up to 54%.
The first bill introduced by Markey, the Keep American Natural Gas Here Act, would require the U.S. Department of the Interior to accept bids to extract the fuel on taxpayer-owned land only from natural gas drilling companies that certify that they will offer the domestic natural gas for sale on the domestic market. The bill also says that any natural gas pipeline for which a right of way is issued to cross federal lands must offer that natural gas for domestic sale only. The second bill, the North America Natural Gas Security and Consumer Protection Act, would forbid FERC from approving any natural gas export terminal in the United States until 2025.
Among environmentalists, the Sierra Club has come out strongly against LNG exports. The group has moved away from its pro-natural gas stance and is now aggressively campaigning against LNG exports. The environmental group has come under fire recently in response to the $26 million in donations it accepted from Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon and other people associated with the natural gas producer.
The Sierra Club used the Chesapeake Energy money to fight coal-fired power plants. Carl Pope, the group’s executive director at the time, was promoting natural gas as a cleaner “bridge fuel” to a low-carbon future. The group’s new executive director, Michael Brune, said he decided to cut off the donations from Chesapeake Energy after he took over in 2010. In a Feb. 2 blog post, Brune said:
"It’s time to stop thinking of natural gas as a ‘kinder, gentler’ energy source. What’s more, we do not have an effective regulatory system in this country to address the risks that gas drilling poses on our health and communities."
In Feb. 6 comments filed with DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy, the Sierra Club protested Dominion Resources’ plan to export up to 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas from its Cove Point LNG import terminal in Maryland.
Dominion’s proposal to export LNG from the Cove Point terminal would raise domestic gas prices, which, according to EIA, would harm consumers and increase the use of highly polluting coal-fired generation, the Sierra Club said. Dominion also “entirely fails to acknowledge the significant environmental harms associated with natural gas production and LNG export—harms which are more than substantial enough to outweigh any benefit of export,” the group said.
Moreover, Dominion’s proposal for its Cove Point terminal “is the leading edge of a wave of export proposals which, considered cumulatively, will significantly exacerbate the harm [Dominion Cove Point] alone would cause,” the group added.
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Corporate Power vs. Animal Rights: #DeOccupyAETA
The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act—passed by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush on November 27, 2006—specifically targets anyone who “intentionally damages or causes the loss of any real or personal property (including animals or records) used by animal enterprise, or any real or personal property of a person or entity having a connection to, relationship with, or transactions with an animal enterprise.”
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My 5-month OWS photo slideshow:
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A Principled Stand on Diversity of Tactic: Avoiding Uniformity of Failure
By Zakk Flash
The St. Paul Principles
1. Our solidarity will be based on respect for a diversity of tactics and the plans of other groups.
2. The actions and tactics used will be organized to maintain a separation of time or space.
3. Any debates or criticisms will stay internal to the movement, avoiding any public or media denunciations of fellow activists and events.
4. We oppose any state repression of dissent, including surveillance, infiltration, disruption and violence. We agree not to assist law enforcement actions against activists and others.
The recent wave of protests sweeping the United States under the banner of Occupy Wall Street—and elsewhere around the world under other monikers, like the Indignant Citizens Movement, ¡Democracia Real YA!, and the various blossoms of Arab Spring—has captured the imagination of millions on the egalitarian Left and libertarian Right. Inevitably, thankfully, it has also ignited fierce debate about the nature of sociopolitical and economic inequality and of democracy itself. But as the cogs of corporate media seek to bewitch us with the specter of political gameplay, they also scheme to pacify the lonely rage of societies under fascist colonization by using an ancient tactic: divide and conquer. We are left to feed on one another like jackals.
Our strength—as the surveillance state well knows—lies in our solidarity. The IWW slogan “an injury to one is an injury to all” is apt; the people of Tunisia, frustrated by widespread poverty, political corruption, and poor living conditions, rose to defeat the iron fist of their dictator after the self-immolation of vegetable vendor Mohamed Bouazizi. In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak was ousted, in part, because of outcry over the brutal police murder of Khaled Saeed. Pictures of his viciously battered face, when added to growing social and political unrest, launched a wave of revolutionary fury.
It is no wonder, then, that the Occupy Movement gained its initial support when members of the New York City Police Department were caught on amateur video dousing peaceful protesters with pepper spray and beating others with truncheons. In Oakland, the community rallied behind protesters when Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen was critically injured by a police projectile. The City of Oakland, long known for the kind of illegal actions that gets one placed into federal receivership, turned a nonviolent gathering of its people into a war zone, complete with rubber-coated steel bullets, rifle-launched CS gas canisters, and explosive flashbang grenades. The Reich-wing assaults on liberty have united an erstwhile estranged citizenry; the American proletariat, like other people globally, is beginning to shake off useless notions of the intrinsic goodness of government.
Worldwide, people were sold on the idea that elections equal freedom, that representation was self-determination. We looked toward politicians to solve our problems and when they failed, we replaced them with other politicians. Regime change meant nothing.
The hollow promise of capitalist advancement has been revealed to be a pyramid scheme and the men behind the curtain are scrambling to use the mechanisms of authoritarianism in a last ditch effort to “restore order.”
Their order is, of course, unwinnable war, ecological disaster, and grievous imbalance of wealth and power. They use their established cultural dominance to justify their status quo as inevitable and beneficial to all, instead of as a social construct beneficial only to a handful of oligarchs. Futhermore, they maintain that false construct by painting their opponents as the bastard children of Chaos, violent and unorganized outsiders who have come to disrupt the natural state of things. They did it in Egypt, they’re doing it in Bahrain, and they’re doing it here.
That the people want violent upheaval is a lie equivalent to the neoconservative statement that “they hate us for our freedom.” There are no people on Earth who desire a permanent state of war—unless you buy the propaganda proclaiming that corporations are people and have equal rights, including the pursuit of happiness. Their happiness lies at the feet of the fascist state’s false god—terror in the name of national security.
Overcoming our fear doesn’t require a movement; it requires us to move. While Howard Zinn, author of You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train makes impassioned calls for “nonviolent direct action, which involve[s] organizing large numbers of people” he reminds us that those who question the war machine are often called “unrealistic” and advises his readers to keep all options on the table.
To be “respectable” is all too often to sit on the sidelines of history, remaining neutral or moving at a marginally useful pace. However, if resistance movements are to avoid violence and bloodshed, they must work out ways in which the radical and the respectable can work, hand-in-hand, to both mobilize the greatest amount of people and, at the same time, remain an effective force for change. Power concedes nothing without a demand.
When our movements split on sectarian lines, we save the enemy the trouble of dividing before they conquer us. In every resistance movement, the story becomes the same: the defenders of the status quo placate some of their adversaries, and then stop at nothing to crush those who won’t compromise. The opposition is divided in two by a mixture of seduction and violence. Energy is wasted in dispute and recriminations, each faction insisting the others are messing things up by “not getting with the program.”
Our task is to do away with exploitation and oppression, not reconcile ourselves with lesser versions of them. By supporting a diversity of tactics, activists gain the freedom to adapt to quickly changing situations; each tactic accomplishes a particular goal, contributing toward the larger goal. Diversity of tactic is truly an experiment in democracy, the process of solidarity spelled out with regard for the contributions of each of the people involved. By avoiding needless arguments on the merits of a particular tactic, resistance movements are free to focus on strategy—the culmination of tactical achievements towards to broader objective.
However, without general agreed-upon principles of unity, there is no movement—just collection of individuals in close proximity. Shared purpose is essential to community, however disagreed upon particular tactics are. Here we should keep in mind the words of English writer G.K. Chesterton: “Merely having an open mind is nothing; the object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.”
Direct action gets the goods and accomplishes that shared purpose. Utilizing the St. Paul Principles as a compass, different groups apply different tactics according to what they believe in and feel comfortable doing, with an eye to complimenting other efforts. Activists codified them in 2008 during demonstrations at the Republican National Convention as a way to have a concrete declaration of standards in the context of a broad spectrum of activists and to actively extinguish divisiveness from respective groups. They allow for organization to maximize our potential, without the paralyzing bureaucracy of hierarchical leadership. They work.
It behooves each individual to determine whether a particular action is a tactic that furthers the goal of the movement or particular grievance or whether such tactic acts as mere symbol. Acts that rely on symbolism are only effective if they bring inspiring attention to the cause; the occupation of Alcatraz by members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) brought the attention of the nation when it highlighted economic disparity on tribal reservations and the refusal of the US government to honor treaties it had signed with indigenous people. Effective resistance focuses on that sort of long-term strategy over ceaseless debate on tactic, allowing links to form between autonomous resistance groups to create larger coalitions within the working class.
Generally, violence on behalf of the State is not as open in the United States as it is many other places; sociopolitical hegemony ensures it isn’t often necessary. Therefore, it is often needless to blockade neighborhoods against paramilitary police forces, for instance. This is not the case in places like Syria, where harsh measures by the government silence dissent and a commitment to passive resistance could mean death. Diversity of tactic means flexibility in the face of inflexible violence. The specific context, time, and nature of the struggle dictate whether defensive measures such as the shields carried in Oakland to protect from riot police assault are necessary or not.
Coupled with respect for diversity of tactic is a separation of space. This seems to be the most misunderstood of the St. Paul Principles and, as such, it is the most important. Separation of both time and space ensures that peaceful marches, boycotts, and pickets remain peaceful—unless, as all too often happens—agents of the police state find it necessary to escalate towards violence, as they have in New York, Oakland, Bahrain, Tahrir Square, and elsewhere.
Keeping actions that may be deemed radical by reactionaries—like the appropriation of abandoned buildings for free social collectives like Infoshops and community organizing—separate from uncontroversial marches and pickets makes it less likely that the police will escalate their use of force. Unfortunately, it is no guarantee. The revolutions sweeping the Middle East, Europe, and North Africa have rulers quick to suppress any dissent, peaceful or otherwise. There is no such thing as American exceptionalism.
The Occupy Movement is an alliance of sovereign peoples coming together for a common cause. The individualism of its members, in the midst of a movement, must be recognized and respected. We gather under a common name, with similar goals, but with individual backgrounds, needs, and visions of the future. To achieve real and lasting peace, however, the branches of the Occupy Movement and its many members must stand in solidarity. Discussion is a necessary component of healthy democracy and should be encouraged. However, it behooves us to remember that the health of democratic movements is also impacted by the cancer of sectarianism. Internal divisions and rivalries will rip any movement apart at the seams.
Mahatma Gandhi named some of the roots of violence as wealth without work, commerce without morality, and politics without principles. The capitalist state uses violence to perpetrate itself and calls those who oppose it the perpetrators of violence. To guard against state repression of dissent, a certain security culture must be cultivated. Tactics such as the black bloc, which was developed by the Autonomist movement to combat fascism, are wonderful tools that can be used to protect protesters from governments who devoured George Orwell’s 1984 thinking it was a training manual. The surveillance state hasn’t been content to place CCTVs on every street corner; at every rally or protest, one is sure to find police officers filming the people gathered. It is not paranoia to think that dossiers are being assembled on “persons of interest.”
On the other hand, care must be taken to not succumb to an atmosphere of suspicion and fear. Assume that infiltrators are among you already and act accordingly. It is counterproductive to avoid addressing injustice. John F. Kennedy was correct in his assertion that “there are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.”
To conquer what Martin Luther King, Jr. called the “giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism,” we must recognize human rights as our ultimate goal. We face a Leviathan that pits us against each other, eliminates us by co-opting our movements or brutally suppressing them, and does it by manipulating societal beliefs, explanations, perceptions, and values. To address the needs of the people, pacifism as pathology must be abandoned and a less dogmatic critique needs to be adopted and put into practice. A diversity of tactics, with the St. Paul Principles as a foundation to stand on, provides the freedom for that critique. And freedom is what we’re all about.
Dr. Zakk Flash is an anarchist political writer, radical community activist, and editor of the Central Oklahoma Black/Red Alliance (COBRA). He lives in Norman, Oklahoma.
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Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Major Electricity Rate Shock Expected if Iowa Lawmakers Embrace 'Nuclear Socialism'
New Report by Mark Cooper
A leading U.S. expert on nuclear reactor financing is warning that a bill pending in the Iowa Senate to allow MidAmerican to charge in advance for the construction of new nuclear reactors could lead to significantly more expensive utility bills for state consumers, up to $70 higher a month ($840 per year).
In a report titled “Nuclear Socialism Comes to the Heartland of America: Early Cost Recovery for New Nuclear Reactors in Iowa and The Return of Electricity Rate Shock,” analyst Mark Cooper shows how the examples of four Southeastern U.S. states—North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Georgia—have led to major harms to consumers when “early cost recovery” or “construction work in progress” (CWIP) is used to finance nuclear reactors. If the Iowa Senate measure becomes law, Iowa would become only the fifth state in the U.S. to impose such confiscatory, anti-consumer special interest legislation at the request of the nuclear power industry.
Cooper’s analysis concurs with the staff of the Iowa Utilities Board, which examined the controversial nuclear financing scheme before the state legislature (HF561), and concluded that it poses a serious threat to Iowa ratepayers. The Cooper report notes: “In addition to the dismal economics of nuclear power, the primary reason that the practice is limited to a very few states is that advanced cost recovery is fundamentally flawed, placing ratepayers at extraordinary risk for an excessive and unnecessary cost burden that runs into the billions of dollars. The staff of the IUB has raised a number of concerns about the advanced cost recovery legislation now stalled in the Senate that reflect the long-standing and well-documented concerns of ratepayer and consumer advocates.”
Cooper is senior fellow for economic analysis, Institute for Energy and the Environment, Vermont Law School, and author of “Policy Challenges of Nuclear Reactor Construction, Cost Escalation and Crowding Out Alternatives” (2009).
Commenting on his report, Cooper said: “Past experience and current developments in the few Southeastern U.S. states that have allowed advanced cost recovery for nuclear reactors indicate that removing consumer protections will impose significant costs on Iowa ratepayers and expose them to extraordinarily dangerous risks. The push for early cost recovery for construction of nuclear reactors in Iowa and elsewhere is driven by one basic truth about new nuclear reactors: They are totally uneconomic. The markets won’t touch these projects so the industry’s only alternative is to enlist state lawmakers to leave consumers holding the bag.”
Steven Falck, senior policy advocate, Environmental Law & Policy Center (Des Moines, IA), said: “If this bill passes, Iowans would see massive rate hikes while being stripped of key protections that have served us well. As the IUB staff pointed out, ‘HF 561 would shift nearly all of the construction, licensing, and permitting risk associated with one or more nuclear plants from the company to its customers.’ The ratepayers would be stuck paying for the most expensive power generation and would assume 100 percent of the risk associated with unproven, uncertified, modular nuclear technology.”
The Cooper report notes: “In the four states in the Southeast where funds are being collected from ratepayers under new advanced cost recovery for nuclear reactor construction in the Southeast, each individual nuclear reactor project costs $15 to $20 billion. Over $4 billion has already been approved for advanced cost recovery, yet it appears increasingly unlikely that the most of reactors will ever be built. Ratepayers will have paid billions but received nothing for their money. If reactor construction moves forward as proposed, almost $85 billion of construction costs will move into the utility rate-base causing rapid increases in typical consumer bills within a decade. Less costly, more consumer and environment friendly alternatives will be crowded out of the resource mix.”
The Cooper report also points out:
- New nuclear reactors cannot compete with a large number of alternatives resources that are widely available to meet consumer needs for electricity.
- They are so risky, they cannot raise capital in normal financial markets.
- In order to build new nuclear reactors, the utilities are demanding the suspension of the regulatory rules and financial market mechanisms that protect ratepayers and balance the interests of consumers and utility shareholders.
Click here to read more about the new report.
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Monday, February 13, 2012
Life Outside the Box: #DeOccupyBinaryThinking
We live in a Coke/Pepsi, McDonalds/Burger King, Mastercard/Visa culture and even open-minded activists can find themselves tricked into binary thinking, e.g. the aforementioned two-party farce or the oft-discussed violence/non-violence “debate.”
These are common examples of thinking inside the proverbial box but there’s another issue that provokes dangerous stereotypes and—unfortunately—it’s rarely discussed in mainstream circles. I’m talking about gender identity.
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One of my recent OWS photos:
A healthier world is possible
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Saturday, February 11, 2012
Almost a Year After Fukushima, US Embraces Nuclear Option in Georgia
By Press Action
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s approval of a combined construction and operating license for two new reactors at a nuclear plant in Georgia and the unanimous applause the decision received at the Georgia Public Service Commission might make a curious person wonder why U.S. policy-makers are so eager to pursue the nuclear option as the planet nears the one-year anniversary of the start of the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan.
The answer, of course, is greed and an unwillingness to stop plundering the planet. The nation’s grow-or-die economic system requires a constant supply of energy.
But most Americans have grown to accept nuclear power. Not curious by nature, most Americans don’t care how power is generated as long as their lights come on when they flip the switch. However, there are others who do care about the occasional nuclear disaster, the catastrophic risks of nuclear power, the ever-increasing supply of highly dangerous spent nuclear fuel, the environmental damage caused by uranium mining, the billions of fish and sea mammals killed by the cooling of nukes, and the billions of taxpayer dollars used to subsidize the nuclear industry.
For the typical American, Feb. 9, the day the NRC approved the license for two new reactors at the Vogtle power plant in Georgia, was just another day. They didn’t take notice, but if they did, it was to wonder why there was a 34-year gap in NRC license approvals to build a new nuclear power plant in the U.S.
Unlike the typical American, though, people who care about nuclear power, even some supporters of nukes, were left to wonder on Feb. 9 what drives people to make such reckless decisions. The chairman of the NRC, himself a big supporter of nuclear power, decided to put a damper on the nuclear industry’s victory parade by voting against license approval for the Vogtle expansion project. The vote was 4-1, and NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko made sure to explain the reasoning behind his refusal to make the vote unanimous.
Jaczko cited concerns about post-Fukushima safety improvements that the commission has yet to finalize. “There are significant safety enhancements that have already been recommended as a result of learning the lessons from Fukushima, and there’s still more work ahead of us,” Jaczko said after the vote. “Knowing this, I cannot support issuing this license as if Fukushima had never happened.”
Jaczko had hoped to get “some type of binding commitment” that ensured that post-Fukushima enhancements would be applied to the Vogtle expansion before the new reactors begin operating.
Instead, Southern Co. and its partners on the Vogtle project can now move forward with construction. If the NRC, at a later date, approves new regulatory changes for U.S. nuclear plants as a result of its investigation into the “lessons learned” from the Fukushima disaster, those changes could prove expensive for Southern Co. and its partners to implement at the Vogtle project. But no worries. Southern Co. executives will simply convince the members of the Georgia PSC to allow its utility subsidiary, Georgia Power, to recover the higher costs from its customers.
The nuclear power industry enjoys a cozy relationship with officials at all levels of government. There are state leaders who, for example, complain that the federal government “should not be in the business of picking winners and losers” (Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens) by forcing power plant operators to reduce the level of harmful emissions from their generation facilities. But these same leaders also strongly support the federal government’s program of providing loan guarantees to companies trying to develop new nuclear power plants.
Also, many of the state officials who complain about federal loan guarantees and other types of support for renewable energy resources applaud the federal government’s decision to prop up the U.S. nuclear power industry. At the state level, utility companies are receiving permission from regulators to recover early costs associated with developing new nuclear power plants, whether the plant gets built or not.
Harvey Wasserman, the dean of nuclear power journalists, says, “Without state ratepayers and federal taxpayers being forced to foot the bill, new reactor construction in the U.S. is going nowhere.”
Georgia PSC members were popping champagne corks after the NRC approved the Vogtle license on Feb. 9. They were happy for their good friends at Southern Co. The Georgia PSC, all five members, demonstrated once and for all that, as a regulatory body, they are not honest brokers. Their jobs are to ensure utility companies in Georgia make as much money as possible. Their jobs are not to provide a service that is in the best interest of the public, despite the words contained in the name of their government agency.
If you’re opposed to nuclear power or don’t believe utilities should be allowed to recover nuclear power project financing and other costs, even if the facilities don’t get built, don’t go whining to the Georgia PSC.
“Getting the license to complete construction for our [emphasis added] two new reactors is a great victory for Georgia, and nuclear power in general,” Georgia PSC Chairman Tim Echols said in a Feb. 9 statement.
Is Echols on the payroll of Southern Co. or one of the other developers of the Vogtle expansion project? Does he personally own a financial stake in Vogtle? If not, why is he referring to this “private” energy project as “our two new reactors”? Stupid questions. It’s obvious that what’s good for Southern Co. is good for the Georgia PSC.
UPDATE: Former NRC Commissioner Peter Bradford points out that the only other nuclear plant likely to go forward with expansion, along with Vogtle, is the V.C. Summer nuclear project in South Carolina, operated by energy company SCANA.
“Vogtle and Summer are both uneconomic plants,” Bradford told Orlando Montoya of WSVH in Savannah, Ga. “They’re both being built only because the state utilities commissions are requiring that the customers pay for them many years in advance of their completion.”
Even with the federal government’s loan guarantees, the average Georgia Power customer will be paying about $120 a year more to build the new Vogtle reactors, Montoya reported. Georgia PSC Commissioner Stan Wise and other PSC members often comment about how new EPA rules will drive up the monthly bills of Georgia Power customers. “You can be sure that when the costs of these rules are passed on to the ratepayers, it will get their attention,” Wise has said.
However, in press statements or at industry conferences, the commissioners in Georgia always decline to highlight how the Vogtle nuclear expansion project already is driving up prices for power customers in their state.
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Thursday, February 09, 2012
#Occupy Yer Spine
Without the spinal cord, you could not move your body.
Without the spine itself, you could not stand tall and keep yourself upright.
Without a healthy backbone—literally or figuratively speaking—we cannot stand up for ourselves or others. We are symbolically spineless.
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One of my recent photos of my recent paintings:
#SprayCanProphet
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An article by Expendable Michael:
Huffing, Puffing and Blowing the UK House Down
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Tuesday, February 07, 2012
Hedging Our Bets on the Black Bloc: The Impotence of Mere Liberalism
By Zakk Flash
Chris Hedges has written some of the most insightful analysis of the U.S. war machine in recent years. His 2009 book The Empire of Illusion was an exploration of how exhibition has eclipsed truth and meaningful connection in American society. His acknowledgment of the ease in which one can buy into such spectacles is a small part of why it was so odd to read his article on Truthdig attacking both anarchists and black bloc tactics entitled “The Cancer in Occupy.”
It is patently clear that Hedges’ statements on anarchist theory and tactics of organizing are either false, unsubstantiated, or directly misleading. He has bought into the American Empire’s fallacy that direct action and organization in our communities is unfavorable and that submission to elected authorities is the only way to enact permanent change. But any legitimate critique of the black bloc that he manages to brush up against is quickly obfuscated by basing his conclusions on problematic assumptions and faulty definitions. It should be no surprise that Hedges, a proponent of statist solutions, should slander anarchism as a philosophy. But, for some reason, it was a surprise to many on the Left who follow his work. Here’s why:
Hedges’ Truthdig column titled, simply, “The Greeks Get It” (24 May 2010) showed a man then unafraid to take on rampant fascism, the insidious nature of capitalism, and the heavy hand of the police state.
"Here’s to the Greeks… They know what to do when they are told their pensions, benefits and jobs have to be cut to pay corporate banks, which screwed them in the first place. Call a general strike. Riot. Shut down the city centers. Toss the bastards out. Do not be afraid of the language of class warfare—the rich versus the poor, the oligarchs versus the citizens, the capitalists versus the proletariat."
His recent demonization of the black bloc, therefore, is apparently more of the same “not in my back yard” brand of knee-jerk liberalism. This attitude is all too common among self-described members of the Left who celebrate certain tactics in other parts of the world or other points in history, but seem to place their own context in a place of American exceptionalism.
In Oakland, it’s “criminal” and “a cancer."
Hedges continues his article to lavish praise on Greek resistance but warns his readers of continued hardship in America and every other nation where economies are as rotten.
"…the corporate overlords will demand that we too impose draconian controls and cuts … the corporate state, despite this suffering, will continue to plunge us deeper into debt to make war. It will use fear to keep us passive."
Nothing could be truer. The city of Oakland has long struggled with urban blight and high rates of crime and its residents, especially the roughly 35% of Black people that make up their population, are often the victims of not only violence by outsiders but by the Oakland Police Department itself.
African Americans living in the East Bay are twice as likely to live in poverty, twice as likely to become victims of violent crime and twice as likely to be unemployed compared to other metropolitan cities on the West Coast. Latest census figures show Black people make up the biggest single ethnic group in Oakland at 27.3%, with white people at 25.9% and Hispanics at 25.4%.
Yet despite having almost the same size populations in the city, white people account for only 16% of OPD vehicle stops, and 6.7% of motorists searched. Black people in Oakland, by contrast, account for a whopping 48% of vehicle stops, and 65.8% of motorists searched. Oakland’s minority and poor populations didn’t begin this war.
Hedges firmly states in his column on Greece that "there has to be a point when even the American public—which still believes the fairy tale that personal will power and positive thinking will lead to success—will realize it has been had."
Chris Hedges’ straw-dog argument that some “Black Bloc Movement” is responsible for tainting the message of Occupy is either plain ignorance—which is unlikely, given his otherwise informed reporting on American fascism—or intellectual dishonesty. Given the inaccurate assumptions and implications propagated by Hedges, it is necessary to clarify a few terms.
The black bloc is a tactic, not a group nor a movement. Its origins can be found in the Autonomism movement of 1970s Germany, where activists wore heavy black clothing, masks, and helmets to provide protection from the watchful eye of the authoritarian police state. Given the continued illegal actions of the Oakland Police Department—dealings deemed by the government as heinous enough to place the department under the oversight of a federal judge—it is no surprise that the residents of Oakland would want to protect themselves in this manner.
Hedges says that activists using black bloc techniques actively seek to destroy all forms of collective organization and engage in petty vandalism as a means of bringing on “the revolution.” This is a blatant falsehood. He quotes an anarchist writer using the pseudonym “Venomous Butterfly” as an example of how anarchists supposedly seek to obstruct progress, painting her dislike of Zapatista organization as characteristic of the whole of anarchist theory. But if Hedges had done any investigation worthy of being called “journalism,” he would find the following from Venomous Butterfly’s “Open Letter to the Black Bloc.”
"The purpose for wearing black has been anonymity and a visual statement of solidarity, not the formation of an anarchist army. […] As I see it, the questions those involved with the black bloc need to be asking is: how do we carry out this specific method of struggle in such a way that it reflects our aims? […] I reject the sad and desperate slogan, ‘By any means necessary’, in favor of the principle, ‘Only by those means that can create the world I desire, those means that carry it in their very practice as I carry it in my heart.’"
Indeed, activists using black bloc—who are not all anarchists, mind you—realize the strength that lies within mutual aid and collective organization. Without a structure to transfer ideas into action, one is paralyzed and cut off from potential.
Hedges makes a surprising choice in his recent article by interviewing Derrick Jensen, an author who claims to wake up each morning with the heartbreaking decision between continuing to write or blowing up a dam. In his book “Endgame,” Jensen asks: "Do you believe that this culture will undergo a voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living?" His next question is: "How would this understanding—that this culture will not voluntarily stop destroying the natural world, eliminating indigenous cultures, exploiting the poor, and killing those who resist—shift our strategy and tactics? The answer? Nobody knows, because we never talk about it: we’re too busy pretending the culture will undergo a magical transformation." Endgame, he says, is "about that shift in strategy, and in tactics."
Making a central part of your column opposing violence a discussion with a man who says that “violence can be like sex: a sacramental, beautiful, and sometimes bittersweet interaction” is an interesting selection.
Hedges continues that the “Black Bloc movement is infected with hypermasculinity.” In using such gendered terms, he furthers the notion that people—in particular, males—are inherently violent and damaged beings. He ascribes the notion of masculinity as one that drives the black bloc to fulfill the “lust that lurks within us to destroy, not only things but human beings.” He ignores the participation of feminists and queers who are often participants in the bloc, rather choosing to view individuals as members of a homogenous mass. Nonwhite, nonmale participants are categorized as victims of “white, masculine aggression,” not recognizing the contributions of marginalized groups against rampant corporatism. There is also no acknowledgement of the fact that the bloc has been used primarily as a defensive technique against the violence of the State and not as an offensive measure against people. Hedges insipid sexism is not lost on the diverse crowds utilizing this tactic in recent marches, who were found chanting “Racist, sexist, anti-gay / NYPD go away.”
While individual members of the bloc have indeed done damage to multinational banks and other predatory business, Hedges, like many members of the mainstream media establishment, ignores the fact that strategic property damage is part and parcel of a long history of nonviolent struggle. From the Suffragettes attempting to gain the right to vote, to environmental activists protecting the rights of nature, property damages inflicts financial costs upon entities that only care about their bottom dollar. Martin Luther King Jr. had this to say about the struggle for human rights against the corrupt system of his time:
"I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a ‘thing-oriented’ society to a ‘person-oriented’ society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
Anarchists don’t oppose nonviolent methods of organizing. Hedges is engaging in binary thinking that has him convinced that participants in the black bloc don’t do anything else. He ignores years of alternative structures like Food Not Bombs, hundreds of Infoshops that provide literature, bike collectives, food cooperatives, and groups that provide services for marginalized groups. Anarchists, like many others, believe in a diversity of tactics. It is this diversity that is our strength. We cannot allow slander and fear to separate us; sectarianism is the real cancer of Occupy. The enemies that we face—fascism, authoritarianism, militarism, and the like—are legion in their attacks; our response should be equally multifaceted.
At one point, Hedges blames the black bloc in Oakland for overreaction by law enforcement and frames the police violence as something caused by militant action. He ignores weeks of self-sufficient organizing in Oscar Grant Plaza, complete nonviolence resistance by Scott Olsen—a veteran marine who was critically injured by police projectiles, and months of attacks on other Occupations nationwide.
He says that this police violence will "frighten the wider population away from Occupy" and follows, in his next paragraph, by saying that the explosive rise of the movement was the result of pepperspraying of two young women in New York.
So, his position is that violence by police will both scare people away and win them over to you? This thinking is indicative of the slippery argument put out by ideological pacifists who have no grasp of history. It is typical flaccid liberal double-think; the fault lies not with the ruling class for establishing and directing a police state, nor with the police themselves for acting like thugs and fascists—no, the fault lies solely with protesters who defied authority and therefore brought down the violence of the state. “Look what you made them do.” This is the thinking of the beaten wife, the mindset of the victim. We are not victims of brutality on behalf of the State, but survivors of it.
The article ends with a quote by Derrick Jensen, a man who has written so eloquently of the dangers of industrial civilization and the need for immediate action:
“…we have to go through the process of trying to work with the system and getting screwed. It is only then that we get to move beyond it.”
The abuses of fascist government, capitalist feudalism, and paramilitary police forces have shown us that the system is not broken, but built to serve someone other than us. Hedges was correct when he said they would use fear to keep us passive. We are not afraid anymore.
(This article is reprinted with permission of Zakk Flash and was originally published here.)
Dr. Zakk Flash is an anarchist political writer, radical community activist, and editor of the Central Oklahoma Black/Red Alliance (COBRA). He lives in Norman, Oklahoma.
Find more about the Central Oklahoma Black/Red Alliance at: http://www.facebook.com/COBRACollective
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Talk to Your Neighbors (& #OccupyLaughter)
In this digital age, we’ve all experienced situations in which a text message or e-mail was misconstrued because the person on the receiving end could not discern tone. Without the facial expressions, physical gestures, and vocal inflections gathered during face-to-face conversation, communication can often be challenging.
With that in mind, I am unilaterally announcing: “Face-to-Face February.” One month to explore the value of human contact and the role it can play in saving our eco-system.
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One of my recent photos:
You gotta stand fer something
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Sunday, February 05, 2012
#Occupy for the Multi-Legged
Too often, we humans like to see ourselves as above or perhaps not even connected to the “animal” kingdom. But the more we learn about the species we underestimate, the more we can adjust our perceptions and behavior towards a more earth-friendly way of life.
Simple suggestion: Don’t demonize insects when it’s us humans who are treating the planet like it’s an orbiting outhouse.
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One of my recent photos:
#Cranium
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Thursday, February 02, 2012
Nuclear Waste Disposal: America's Ultimate Shovel-Ready Job Scheme
By Press Action
I’ve always wondered how low the dominant culture will stoop to perpetuate its absurd and destructive economic system. I think I found the answer.
During a Feb. 1 congressional hearing, the co-chairmen of a commission to investigate nuclear waste disposal, officially known as the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, were answering lawmakers’ questions about a report the panel had recently released about options for a national nuclear waste repository. With the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada left for dead, the blue ribbon panel was tasked with finding other ways to deal with the spent fuel from the nation’s nuclear power plants.
Let’s stop right there. The fact that a group of humans would engage in industrial activity that produces waste that’s so dangerous that it would need to be stored securely for thousands of years is astonishing in itself. But the fact that this group of humans would continue engaging in this industrial practice despite knowing the dangers attached to all phases of the nuclear fuel cycle is unfathomable.
But I digress. To find out how low the dominant culture will stoop to preserve its economic system, no matter the terrible costs, check out the blue ribbon’s panel’s final report. When you open the report, focus on the sections in the report that discuss “a new, consent-based approach to siting future nuclear waste management facilities.” In particular, turn to page 58 where you’ll find a section titled “Benefits to Host States, Tribes, and Communities.”
In this section, the report’s authors emphasize that it will be important for policy-makers to demonstrate the decision to host a facility “can deliver real benefits (economic and otherwise) to the tribe, state, and local community.”
“Besides financial incentives, benefits could include local preferences in hiring and in the purchase of goods and services by the waste management facility, infrastructure investments (such as new roads or rail lines), as well as the opportunity to host co-located research and demonstration facilities or other activities that would generate new employment opportunities and make a positive contribution to the local and regional economy,” the blue ribbon panel writes in the report.
Under the dominant culture’s warped economic system, “jobs” and “employment” are used as a carrot to get people to agree to things that they would never do if they enjoyed any real power or autonomy in their lives. In this case, the wise members of the blue ribbon panel are recommending that policy-makers spin a good yarn about jobs, treasures and happiness to entice depressed communities to agree to host a nuclear waste dump in their backyards. How much lower can the dominant culture go with its scheming ways?
Well, the dominant culture could opt to promote concentration camps and gas chambers as jobs creators. We already live in an extremely militarized state with noticeable fascist tendencies. So it’s not a stretch to assume that concentration camps will eventually be established if the rabble continue their rebellion. Imagine the number of shovel-ready jobs that would be created to build the concentration camps and ancillary infrastructure. And imagine the huge demand for guards at these massive concentration camps. And you have to figure there will be demand for doctors and poison experts to operate the gas chambers that would be used on the real trouble-makers. Hey, a job’s a job.
Sounds far-fetched, you say. And yet, we already have communities vying to host prisons, each of which would house political prisoners. Don’t tell me someone who commits a nonviolent drug crime, for example, isn’t a political prisoner. We have a growing revolutionary movement in this country and the ruling elite are getting mighty impatient with the uppity people’s claims to self-governance. As the movement becomes increasingly militant, the ruling elite will put in orders for facilities capable of caging masses of people for extended periods. In other words, concentration camps.
But we’re jumping ahead of ourselves with these visions of outrageous options for creating new jobs. Today, the blue ribbon panel has already imagined the unthinkable. In its despicable final report, the panel recommended that policy-makers use “jobs” to get a community to agree to host the mother of all nuclear waste dumps.
During the Feb. 1 congressional hearing, former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., who co-chaired the Blue Ribbon Commission with former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, explained there are methods that can be used to convince communities to serve as the final resting place for nuclear waste. One of those techniques, Hamilton said, is the economic incentive of creating jobs.
Scowcroft, in his testimony, said the United States should look to other countries, such as Sweden, which have made it valuable for local communities to agree to serve as the home to nuclear waste.
If you flip back to page 50 of the blue ribbon panel’s report, you’ll learn more about the Swedish experience. It explains how the Swedish nuclear waste company, SKB, sent letters to all of the nation’s municipalities, inviting them to voluntarily apply to become the nation’s home to spent nuclear fuel.
“A unique feature in the Swedish approach is that, before the final site decision was made, there was an agreement that the community not selected would receive a larger amount of compensation than the community that was selected,” the blue ribbon panel said in the report. “The rationale was that the community selected to host the repository would realize additional economic benefits, in the form of construction activity, infrastructure investments, permanent jobs to operate the repository, and ancillary development (e.g., research and fabrication facilities, etc.).”
Get ready, America, for the ultimate reality show competition as the Swedish approach comes to this side of the Atlantic. Watch each week as municipalities compete for the direct and indirect economic benefits that will come with being named the proud host community of the nation’s official nuclear waste dump.
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Wednesday, February 01, 2012
FERC Ignores Environmental Impact of LNG Exports
By Press Action
The export of liquefied natural gas will lead to additional shale gas extraction, induce additional coal consumption for electricity generation, and increase greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, the Sierra Club warns in a Jan. 27 filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The Sierra Club is urging FERC to consider these effects when it decides whether to grant the owners of the Sabine Pass LNG terminal permission to build facilities that would allow natural gas to be liquefied and then exported from the Louisiana terminal. The project is being developed by Cheniere Energy subsidiaries Sabine Pass Liquefaction and Sabine Pass LNG.
But so far, FERC is refusing to analyze the impact of increased LNG exports as part of its review of Sabine Pass’ application to build the liquefaction and export facilities. Instead, FERC is focusing only on the environmental impact of the facilities themselves, not on how the facilities will create greater demand for natural gas production in the United States, with large amounts of that increased production heading overseas in the form of LNG.
According to the Sierra Club, an environmental assessment prepared by FERC’s staff and released in late December “wholly ignores” the indirect effects resulting from the export of LNG. The decision by FERC violates the National Environmental Policy Act and is incompatible with the Department of Energy’s decision to rely on FERC to assess the environmental impacts of export authorization, the Sierra Club said in its filing.
Under the framework proposed by FERC and DOE, the environmental assessment prepared by FERC staff provides the sole opportunity to examine environmental effects of exports themselves. But FERC has declined to look at the environmental effects of LNG exports and is focusing only on the proposed Sabine Pass facilities.
In its application, Sabine Pass stated that the proposed liquefaction facilities and “subsequent exportation” of domestic natural gas to the global market “would provide a market solution to allow the further development of unconventional (particularly shale gas-bearing formation) sources in the United States.” FERC staff highlighted this acknowledgement by Sabine Pass in its environmental assessment of the project.
And yet, as noted by the Sierra Club, “despite this explicit recognition that the project will encourage additional shale gas extraction, the [environmental assessment] contains no analysis of the impacts of such extraction.” Refusing to address the impact of the shale gas extraction “violates NEPA’s command to consider both direct and indirect impacts of the proposed action,” the Sierra Club said.
The Sierra Club pointed out that the U.S. Energy Information Administration recently concluded that exports will increase domestic natural gas prices. “Due to higher prices, the electric power sector primarily shifts to coal-fired generation, and secondarily to renewable sources,” EIA said.
“The increase in domestic coal consumption for purposes to electricity generation is therefore an indirect effect caused by LNG export,” the Sierra Club told FERC. “Because coal burning power plants emit more hazardous pollutants than natural gas fired plants, this shift will negatively affect human health and the environment. The EA should have analyzed this impact.”
But as with every natural gas infrastructure project that it analyzes, FERC’s staff gave the Sabine Pass liquefaction and export project application its notorious rubber stamp. “The FERC staff concludes that approval of the proposed project, with appropriate mitigating measures, would not constitute a major federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human environment,” the staff wrote in the environmental assessment, using the boilerplate language—always favorable to the applicant—that appears in every environmental assessment and environmental impact statement that it prepares for a natural gas project.
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#Occupy for Rivers
The United States is home to more than 250,000 rivers. Of those 3.5 million miles of river:
*235,000 miles have been channelized
*More than 600,000 miles are impounded behind dams
*More than 25,000 miles have been dredged for navigation
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One of my recent photos:
Ain’t it grand?
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Tuesday, January 31, 2012
A Bridge Fuel Built on a Weak Foundation
By Press Action
Center for American Progress Chairman John Podesta, who served as White House Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton, co-authored a report with former U.S. Sen. Timothy Wirth titled “Natural Gas: A Bridge for the 21st Century.” In the August 2009 report, Podesta and Wirth argued that “enhancing the role of natural gas is valuable for many reasons.”
“Natural gas can serve as a bridge fuel to a low-carbon, sustainable energy future,” Podesta and Wirth wrote. “Using clean domestic natural gas will also enhance our economy. Since it is produced in the United States, higher gas demand will create more jobs, and using domestic gas in lieu of imported oil would reduce our trade imbalance, keeping energy dollars at home instead of exporting oil dollars overseas.”
Podesta and Wirth called for the increased use of natural gas by requiring that the carbon price and other costs be included “when determining the dispatch order for moving electricity onto the grid to prioritize natural gas and other clean electricity.”
(Last fall, Podesta stepped down as president of the Center for American Progress but stayed on board as its chairman.)
Joe Romm, who holds a Ph.D. in physics from MIT and served as an acting assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Energy in 1997, argued in a Jan. 24 post on the ClimateProgress.org blog that “building lots of new gas plants doesn’t make much sense since we need to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the next few decades if we’re to have any chance to avoid catastrophic global warming.” The title of the blog post was “Natural Gas Is a Bridge to Nowhere—Absent a Serious Price for Global Warming Pollution.”
(The invaluable ClimateProgress.org blog, edited by Romm, is part of Think Progress, which is a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, an affiliate of the Center for American Progress. The Center for American Progress is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit group, while the Center for American Progress Action Fund is a 501(c)(4) group.)
In his blog post, Romm, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said the “fact that natural gas is a bridge fuel to nowhere” was first demonstrated by the International Energy Agency in a June 2011 report on gas titled “Are We Entering a Golden Age of Gas?” The IEA study, which had both coal and oil consumption peaking in 2020, “made abundantly clear that if we want to avoid catastrophic warming, we need to start getting off of all fossil fuels,” he said.
“Natural gas isn’t a bridge fuel from a climate perspective,” he explained. “Carbon-free power is the bridge fuel until we can figure out how to go carbon negative on a large scale in the second half of the century.”
Natural gas might have been a bridge to a low-carbon future 30 years ago when the term was first introduced, Romm wrote. But natural gas’ primary value today would be to reduce the cost of meeting a near-term CO2 target in the U.S. in the context of a rising CO2 price, he said.
Given the seemingly contradictory titles to the August 2009 report and the January 2012 blog post, Press Action emailed Romm, asking him if the Center for American Progress has changed its view on the role of natural gas in fighting global warming.
Romm responded: “I do not actually speak for CAP. My blog is 100% independent.”
Romm also noted that both Podesta and Wirth strongly supported the Waxman-Markey climate bill in 2009. The bill, officially known as the American Clean Energy and Security Act, called for a reduction in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions of 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 and a reduction of about 80% by 2050.
“It is CAP policy that we should have a high and rising price for CO2 necessary to achieve a 17% reduction by 2020 and 80% by 2050,” Romm said. “Even I supported gas—in existing underutilized plants to replace coal power to achieve the 2020 target.”
As for whether CAP has changed its official stance on the role of natural gas in averting catastrophic global warming since it released the 2009 report, Romm responded, “I’m not sure anything has changed other than the fact that we don’t have a climate bill.”
“If you talk to Podesta, I am quite certain he will tell you that he continues to strongly support a carbon price—but I don’t speak for him or CAP,” Romm said.
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Monday, January 30, 2012
Switching from Coal to Natural Gas Accomplishes Little or Nothing
By Press Action
When natural gas’ supporters tell you that the fossil fuel is cleaner burning than coal, don’t let them confuse you. The fact that natural gas-fired power plants emit lower levels of carbon dioxide than plants that run on coal does not mean natural gas is a “clean"-burning fossil fuel.
Case in point: The newest power plant in South Florida, Florida Power & Light’s West County Energy Center in Palm Beach County, is now the region’s largest source of greenhouse gases. The natural gas-fired power plant discharged 5.1 million tons of carbon dioxide, the most important of the greenhouse gases responsible for global warming. The figure comes from a new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency database of the nation’s largest sources of greenhouse gases.
The data, collected under EPA’s greenhouse gas reporting program, shows 2010 U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from large industrial facilities and from suppliers of certain fossil fuels and industrial gases.
The plant’s owners and others argue that the figure is misleading because the West County Energy Center is one of the largest power plants in the nation. Indeed, the combined-cycle, natural gas-fired plant has a generating capacity of about 3,785 MW.
The West County plant is located in the Everglades bioregion and the Everglades Agricultural Area, just north of the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. The plant receives its natural gas through a lateral built off the Gulfstream Natural Gas System, an interstate pipeline system that originates in Mobile, Ala., and crosses the Gulf of Mexico, making landfall near Tampa and then sending gas southeast to Palm Beach County.
The first phase of the West County plant opened in 2009 and the second phase in 2011. The plant produces 36% less carbon dioxide per unit of electricity than the average plant in the United States, FPL says, allowing the company to shift production to the plant from older, less efficient plants.
But, according to Joe Romm, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a former acting assistant secretary of energy for energy efficiency and renewable energy, a switch from coal-fired generation to natural gas “accomplishes little or nothing” with regard to global warming.
“Building lots of new gas plants doesn’t make much sense since we need to sharply reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in the next few decades if we’re to have any chance to avoid catastrophic global warming,” Romm said.
Last summer, the International Energy Agency issued a report titled “Are We Entering a Golden Age of Gas?” At a press conference announcing the report, IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka said that “while natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel, it is still a fossil fuel. … An expansion of gas use alone is no panacea for climate change.”
The dash to gas, according to the IEA report, would put emissions “on a long-term trajectory consistent with stabilising the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at around 650 ppm, suggesting a long-term temperature rise of over 3.5°C.”
The temperature rise might not sound like much, but global temperatures have varied by only a few tenths of a degree in the relatively stable climate of the last 10,000 years.
“The effects of gas are actually worse than stated above, because the IEA didn’t account for ‘fugitive emissions,’ all the methane that leaks out along the journey from the ground to the gas plant,” James Wright wrote on his Planet James blog. “The oft-heard talking point ‘gas is 50% cleaner than coal’ ignores fugitive emissions. These emissions are difficult to measure, but one recent study concluded when they are taken into account, gas turns out to be more or less comparable to coal on a 100-year timescale, and far worse on a 20-year timescale.”
In a study released in September 2011, the National Center for Atmospheric Research found that “the substitution of gas for coal as an energy source results in increased rather than decreased global warming for many decades.”
“Relying more on natural gas would reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, but it would do little to help solve the climate problem,” said NCAR Senior Researcher Tom Wigley, who is also an adjunct professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia. “It would be many decades before it would slow down global warming at all, and even then it would just be making a difference around the edges.”
According to Romm, “If you want to have a serious chance at averting catastrophic global warming, then we need to start phasing out all fossil fuels as soon as possible. Natural gas isn’t a bridge fuel from a climate perspective. Carbon-free power is the bridge fuel until we can figure out how to go carbon negative on a large scale in the second half of the century.”
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#Occupy for Mountains
Born in the glorious violence of two tectonic plates pressing against each other until the land lifts and folds over itself, mountains link the sky to the ocean floor and have fired human (and animal?) imaginations since, well...forever.
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One of my recent photos:
Serving & protecting
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Thursday, January 26, 2012
Stratfor Intelligence Leaked by Anonymous Reveals Spying on Occupy Movement, DGR
Statement from Deep Green Resistance
Internet group Anonymous has leaked information from October and November 2011 suggesting that private intelligence firm STRATFOR has been working with Texas law enforcement to infiltrate the Occupy movement and spy on the Deep Green Resistance movement.
In December 2011, Anonymous attacked the STRATFOR website, allegedly stealing 200 gigabytes of data and shutting the site down for weeks. This isn’t the first time Anonymous has gone after such corporations. In early 2011, Anonymous went after internet security firm HBGary, releasing private documents that included secret plans by HBGary and others to attack and discredit Wikileaks on behalf of big banks.
The information released by Anonymous is a partial “teaser” of the information taken from STRATFOR. It consists of emails in which STRATFOR employees discuss Occupy Austin and Deep Green Resistance. STRATFOR “Watch Officer” Marc Lanthemann writes about receiving information on Occupy Austin and DGR from a “Texas DPS agent.” The Texas Department of Public Safety is a statewide law enforcement agency that includes the Texas Rangers, Highway Patrol, and an Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division.
“Law enforcement sharing information about local activism with private intelligence firms should be a huge scandal,” writes Rachel Meeropol, staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. “Privately funded surveillance and infiltration of activist groups is especially chilling, as time and again we see such corporations operate as if they are above the law and accountable to no one.”
In the emails, the staff discuss how a STRATFOR agent went undercover and tried to gather information from an Occupy Austin General assembly. They discuss DGR Austin holding a public meeting on what radicalism means for Austin (wrongly describing the purpose as “indoctrination"), they write about the book Deep Green Resistance, and they speculate about the relationship between DGR Austin and other groups.
If there is a silver lining here, it is that the emails we have do not paint a picture of a very competent organization. Between hasty generalizations, the STRATFOR staff get a number of important facts completely wrong. First of all, they confuse members of the DGR action group in Austin (which does exist) with another group they call the “Phoenix commune” (which may or may not exist).
They also allege a conflict between members of the DGR Austin group with Occupy Austin that doesn’t seem to have happened. It’s not clear if this is part of the strategy counterintelligence groups have used in the past to try to provoke conflict between different social movements—the FBI used this very effectively against groups like the Black Panther Party—or whether STRATFOR is simply relying on unreliable or incompetent sources.
Elsewhere, STRATFOR displays a perception of radical environmentalism that falls somewhere between muddled and simply wrong. One agent suggests DGR is inspired by Nazism and philosopher Martin Heidegger, while another declares that DGR “is focused on creating a situation where violent confrontation will be the ultimate outcome.” Both of these assertions are just plain false.
There is a long history of clandestine groups releasing secret information about the surveillance of social movements. In 1971, and underground group called the Citizen’s Commission to Investigate the FBI broke into an FBI field office and released thousands of pages of secret information, revealing that the FBI had attacked 1960s social movements with methods ranging from surveillance and infiltration to targeted assassinations. Though we have no contact with Anonymous, their leak of information about government and corporate tactics of repression is part of an important tradition.
For more information about Deep Green Resistance, visit deepgreenresistance.org.
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Natural Gas Industry Shows Love for President Obama
By Press Action
The natural gas industry loves President Obama. They really do. The intensity of the love affair became public knowledge this week.
First, in Tuesday’s State of the Union address, Obama blew a big kiss to the natural gas industry. George W. Bush never came close to Obama’s effusiveness for the natural gas industry in any of his State of the Union addresses.
During his speech, Obama sang natural gas’ praises, saying the United States has “a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly one hundred years.” He stressed that “experts believe this will support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade.”
Obama also proudly said his administration, over the last three years, has opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration. “And tonight, I’m directing my administration to open more than 75% of our potential offshore oil and gas resources,” he said.
Administration officials wasted little time in following their boss’ orders. Today, Obama’s Department of the Interior announced that it plans to hold a central Gulf of Mexico lease sale in New Orleans in June. The sale will include all available unleased areas in what is known as the central planning area offshore Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
“Expanding offshore oil and gas production is a key component of our comprehensive energy strategy to grow America’s energy economy, and will help us continue to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and create jobs here at home,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement. “The President has made it clear that developing our domestic oil and gas resources is a significant part of this administration’s efforts to grow our economy and create jobs.”
James Watt or Gale Norton couldn’t have said it any better—or in a way that would have made the natural gas industry any happier.
The Obama administration is following the trail blazed by George W. Bush. The activities of the Energy Task Force, created by George W. Bush in 2001 and chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney, may have been devoid of transparency. But the task force’s final report not only touted the need for domestic oil and gas production. It also highlighted the merits of “increasing energy supplies while protecting the environment.” It emphasized that domestic energy sources such as wind, geothermal, solar and biofuel are necessary to stabilize and protect U.S. interests.
In his State of the Union address, Obama paid lip service to protecting the environment. “America will develop this resource without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk,” he said. And like his predecessor, Obama also threw a bone to the renewable energy industry. “Because of federal investments, renewable energy use has nearly doubled,” Obama said. “And thousands of Americans have jobs because of it.”
Because Obama has maintained the status quo on energy, particularly as it relates to continuing Bush’s policies on oil and gas, the natural gas industry has come around to admitting how much they appreciate his efforts, especially after his virtuoso State of the Union performance.
Here’s a roundup of the natural gas industry’s kind words for Obama after his State of the Union speech:
- American Gas Association President and CEO Dave McCurdy states:
- America’s Natural Gas Alliance President and CEO Regina Hooper states:
- Marcellus Shale Coalition President Kathryn Klaber states:
- Natural Gas Supply Association President and CEO R. Skip Horvath states:
- Interstate Natural Gas Association of America President and CEO Don Santa states:
- Independent Petroleum Association of America Chairman Virginia “Gigi” Lazenby states:
“We’re glad to see the President acknowledge the many benefits natural gas provides for our energy future, not just in the State of the Union Address but also in his latest jobs report.”
“We are pleased by President Obama’s strong support for America’s foundation fuel, and hope that he will incite action following his State of the Union remarks by putting in place policies that expand the use of natural gas, so that every American and our nation as a whole can benefit from this clean, abundant, domestic resource.”
“We welcome President Obama’s remarks in support of the safe and responsible development of natural gas and the opportunities it presents to create American jobs and advance our nation’s environment, economy and energy security.”
“Tonight’s speech builds on the White House report earlier this month documenting the broad impact that natural gas production can have on investment and job creation across leading sectors of our economy.
“The President said—our nation does not have to choose between economic growth and environmental stewardship. That indeed is the promise of abundant, American natural gas.”
“We are encouraged that President Obama recognizes the tremendous energy security, environmental, and economic benefits associated with job-creating American shale gas development fueled overwhelmingly through private investment on privately-owned lands.”
“The companies that supply the nation’s natural gas stand ready to meet the challenge laid down by the President to help natural gas realize its potential as a key part of U.S. energy policy.”
“We appreciate the President’s explicit recognition that the nation doesn’t have to choose between our environment and our economy. The natural gas industry employs more than half a million people in the United States and is poised to create added jobs as more power plants, homes, businesses and factories turn to clean natural gas.”
Don Santa, president and CEO of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, today released the following statement, commending President Barack Obama for recognizing in his State of the Union address the importance domestic natural gas will play in our nation’s energy future:
“We appreciate President Obama for recognizing the role of domestic natural gas as a pillar of U.S. energy policy.”
“Our industry, made up of mostly very small- and medium-sized businesses, applauds the president for his stated commitment to expanding the responsible development of job-creating American oil and natural gas. As the president made clear this evening, job creation and the restoration of the American dream is a shared goal that exceeds political boundaries.”
“As the president underscored, our nation continues to increase its domestic oil and gas production, creating thousands of well-paying, private sector jobs, providing much-needed relief and savings for struggling consumers and stimulating an otherwise anemic economy."
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#Occupy Militant Movies
Since I’ve already told you how today’s occupantscan learn from the labor movement and how important it is to #occupy filmmaking, how about a union-themed movie classic as a path toward activist inspiration? Read on…
Name the best-known early 1950s film with a union theme? Easy. That would be On the Waterfront. But Waterfront was not the early 1950s film with a union theme that Noam Chomsky called, “one of the greatest films ever made...couldn’t get it out of my mind for weeks.” That would be the sadly neglected 1953 film, Salt of the Earth.
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One of my recent photos:
Mixed messages
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Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Study: U.S. LNG Exports to Give Coal New Lease on Life
By Press Action
By letting U.S. companies export domestically produced natural gas, the U.S. government will cause domestic natural gas prices to rise, which in turn will lead to the burning of more coal for the generation of electricity, according to a new report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration on the impacts of exporting liquefied natural gas.
Coal use, primarily for the generation of electricity, accounts for roughly 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. When burned for electricity use, coal emits twice as much carbon dioxide per unit of energy delivered as natural gas. “Coal plants are the dirtiest, most regressive source of energy—poisoning our communities and environment,” the Sierra Club says.
Gas producers have been making significant discoveries in various geological formations across the United States over the last six years. With visions of great riches, industry officials have been racing to tap these shale gas resources. The result: gas supply is exceeding demand in the United States.
Given their significant investments in shale gas production, gas companies are hoping to reap a greater return on their investment by looking abroad for new markets. Producers, along with the owners of LNG import facilities, have been pushing to export natural gas produced in the United States to other countries. So far, the U.S. Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission have rubber-stamped all of the LNG export applications that have come before them.
The push to export domestically produced natural gas is occurring at the same time that politicians have adopted the mantra of “energy independence” as a way to give big energy companies access to tax breaks and permission to explore for energy on lands that would otherwise be off limits to industrial activity.
EIA’s latest report, which clearly states that “increased natural gas exports lead to increased natural gas prices,” could throw a monkey wrench into the gas industry’s plans to fatten their bottom lines by exporting natural gas.
In fact, critics of the gas industry’s LNG export plans appear to be making progress. Analysts at Barclays Capital noted in a Jan. 24 report that “U.S. regulators have been pressed by large, gas-using industrial groups to ensure that the impact on U.S. prices from exported LNG is minimal.”
The Barclays analysts argued that this could restrict the number of LNG export permits granted by U.S. regulators. “That is, regulators seem prepared to allow perhaps a couple terminals to go forward, but may then wait to judge the impact on the U.S. gas market,” the analysts said. “This would effectively delay subsequent permits until after the start of the next decade.”
With EIA’s new study, critics of the gas industry’s LNG export plans have new ammunition, beyond the likelihood of higher prices: the specter of dirty coal plants getting a new lease on life. “Due to higher prices, the electric power sector primarily shifts to coal-fired generation,” EIA said in its study.
EIA, a division of the Department of Energy, noted that additional exports of LNG will result in decreased natural gas consumption in the United States. But this “decrease in natural gas consumption is replaced with increased coal consumption,” EIA said.
For its study, EIA used the reference case from its Annual Energy Outlook 2011, issued in April 2011, as the starting point for its analysis and made several changes to the model to accommodate increased LNG exports. On average from 2015 to 2035, under EIA’s reference case conditions, decreased natural gas consumption as a result of added exports are countered proportionately by increased coal consumption and increased liquid fuel consumption.
“In the earlier years, the amount of fuel-switching from natural gas to coal is greater, and coal plays a more dominant role in replacing the lower levels of gas consumption, which also tend to be greater in the earlier years,” EIA said. “Switching from natural gas to coal is less significant in later years, partially as a result of a greater proportion of switching to renewable generation sources.”
Based on EIA’s analysis, not only will natural gas prices increase due to U.S. companies exporting domestically produced natural gas, but the use of coal, the dirtiest of the fossil fuels, as a power generation feedstock will increase due to domestic gas supplies getting diverted to LNG exports.
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Sunday, January 22, 2012
Agenda: Hydrate Your Mind, Smash Corporate Power, #Occupy4AllSpecies
Only 3% of the Earth’s total water is freshwater. Of that, only 1% is available for human consumption. Do the math and you’ve got a grand total of 0.01% of the Earth’s total water being usable. Still, if utilized more judiciously, this amount is enough to support the world’s population three times over.
But when you consider that only about 8% of the planet’s freshwater goes for domestic use, it’s easy to recognize that global industry is the primary criminal and thus, the primary target for change.
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One of my recent OWS photos:
Expect us...
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One of my recent OWS videos:
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Rick the Cartoonist in The Occupied Times of London:
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Saturday, January 21, 2012
The Illusion of Environmental Protection
By Press Action
All branches of government, at the federal, state and municipal levels, insist on letting big corporations get their way at the expense of the environment. Nowhere will you find majority support among the ruling class for slowing down the destruction of the Earth, let alone entertaining the notion of downsizing industrial culture.
Occasionally, though, a rogue voice of sanity will be heard in the corridors of power. Last week, for example, a Pennsylvania appeals court judge filed a powerful dissenting opinion in a case about the devastation of forests and streams.
The case involved an electric utility company, PPL Electric Utilities Corp., which wanted permission to build a high-voltage electric transmission line that would cut a 100-foot-wide corridor through a pristine woodland preserve and a stream that is home to a number of cold water fish species.
The company, a subsidiary of PPL Corp. (formerly known as Pennsylvania Power and Light), argued that the environmental intrusion was necessary to meet the future electric service needs in the southern part of Lehigh Valley. PPL argued that it had reached this conclusion by using a planning process that was supposed to assure the public that it will “supply electricity to all customer loads in a reliable, economic and environmentally acceptable manner.”
Springfield Township, a Pennsylvania community affected by PPL’s electric transmission project, challenged the company’s conclusion, arguing that there is nothing environmentally acceptable about the proposal. The township went to court to fight the line after the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission approved the project. But on Jan. 13, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania upheld the PUC’s approval of the transmission line project.
The court’s decision was not unanimous. Among the seven-judge panel, Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt was the lone voice of reason. In her dissenting opinion, Leavitt said the Pennsylvania PUC has allowed its regulation of high-voltage electric transmission lines “to devolve into the worst kind of regulation.” (Click here for a pdf copy of the court’s majority opinion and Leavitt’s dissenting opinion.)
The PUC’s regulation, Leavitt argued, “creates busywork for corporate and government bureaucrats; billable hours for consultants and lawyers; and the illusion of environmental protection. In the end, however, the regulation does not advance the substantive goal of preserving” what Pennsylvania law describes as “public natural resources [that] are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come.”
Leavitt charged that the PUC “erred and abused its discretion in finding that PPL’s proposed [high-voltage] electric transmission line will have a minimum adverse environmental impact because it failed to follow the mandate of its regulation that it consider the available alternative.”
Springfield Township’s engineering expert, Peter Lanzalotta, explained that PPL could quadruple its transformer capacity at existing substations, creating “considerably more expansion capacity … than PPL would need by 2014 or for many years thereafter.” An alternative proposal, known as the Springfield Functional Configuration, could address the regional electric reliability issues without the need to construct a new high-voltage electric transmission line or a new electric substation. With minor modifications, the Springfield Functional Configuration also would be less costly than PPL’s proposal.
In her dissenting opinion, Leavitt noted that PPL was well past the planning stages when it submitted its application for the transmission project to the PUC. The company knew that the PUC would rubber-stamp the proposal, so it went ahead and purchased property, removing the home that sat on the property; purchased 85 acres for its proposed substation; negotiated rights of way with property owners along its preferred route; and worked with a municipal golf course to run the new high-voltage electric transmission line across its property.
PPL invested all of this money in the project long before it received regulatory approval from the Pennsylvania PUC. That says a lot because investor-owned public utilities are generally conservative spenders when they believe their shareholders could be on the hook for millions in expenses. In this case, of course, the residents served by PPL will be forced to pay for the unnecessary transmission project through higher monthly electric bills. PPL could invest in the property acquisitions and rights-of-way negotiations, with full knowledge that the PUC would approve the project and the company’s right to recover the project’s costs in its rates.
Leavitt explained that PPL rejected the Springfield Functional Configuration on the grounds of cost and the greater flexibility of its preferred route. “By its own admission, PPL did not factor environmental impact into that evaluation,” the judge said. “In the absence of that consideration, PPL cannot show that its proposed solution was a reasonable one.”
Leavitt rebuked the PUC, saying it “failed in its duty to avoid, where feasible, an adverse environmental impact.”
“In the absence of any environmental evaluation of the Springfield Functional Configuration [the less environmentally intrusive alternative], PPL did not prove that the construction of a 100-foot corridor through the Springfield Resource Protection District and deforestation of 44 acres of land was an unavoidable insult to the environment,” she said.
Relatively speaking, the PPL energy infrastructure project is small. It will include the construction of a 7-mile transmission line that will be operated at 69 kilovolts, with the capability of running at 138 kV in the future. Across the United States, electric companies are planning to build mammoth transmission line projects at much higher voltage that will travel hundreds of miles through environmentally sensitive regions.
In fact, President Barack Obama launched a program last October to speed up the permitting process—which, of course, will lead to environmental protection getting short shrift—for several of these huge, high-voltage, cross-state electric transmission lines.
“The President wants to get America working again. He is committed to cutting red tape and making immediate investments to put people to work,” Nancy Sutley, chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, said in an Oct. 5, 2011, statement about the fast-tracking of seven proposed high-voltage electric transmission lines.
When a government official, who works for a department or agency with “environmental” in its title, begins talking about “cutting red tape,” it is time to get worried and angry. And then, once you’ve calmed down, it is time to prepare yourself to fight yet another pending assault on the environment.
In a Jan. 17 speech, Obama reiterated his CEQ chair’s talking points, stating the nation “can’t be bogged down by red tape and bureaucracy if we’re actually going to get every bang for the buck. Building on administration efforts to streamline permitting, I issued an executive order to expedite review of job-creating infrastructure projects.”
The huge infrastructure projects getting pushed by the Obama administration will have devastating impacts on the environment. But even small projects, such as the electric transmission project rubber-stamped by the Pennsylvania PUC, will result in dramatic impacts on ecosystems. As noted by Judge Leavitt, the PPL project will cause the deforestation of 44 acres of land.
If only there were more people like Judge Leavitt, a Republican (yes, a Republican, who was re-elected last November to another 10-year term on the court), in positions of power, then there might be some hope for stemming the global environmental crisis. But the people need not wait patiently for more Mary Hannah Leavitts to assume positions of power. In fact, the U.S. political and economic system would never let people with views on the environment similar to Leavitt’s gain majority control.
Instead, the people must digest the wise words of Leavitt—and the words of others with sane minds—and then use those words as a guide as they go out and take the necessary action to put a stop to the never-ending environmental destruction.
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Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Little Scraps of Humanity
By Press Action
"I have a question for you. How do you do it? How do you come into offices like this and squabble with people like me over a few extra inches? How is that you can sit there in your politeness and your grace and basically ask people for nothing? How do you do it? How do you beg for little scraps of humanity?” – Fast-food executive Richard Cranehill, grilling an animal welfare group representative in the film Bold Native.
The Sierra Club is running a “high-saturation" television advertising campaign in major media markets in Ohio, thanking President Barack Obama for protecting Americans from toxic pollution.
Some political observers wondered whether Obama would lose the support of Big Green groups, given his penchant for appeasing business interests at the expense of the environment. But most astute analysts understood that the mainstream enviros would always come back to Obama, no matter how bad his policies were for the environment.
Indeed, the Sierra Club’s advertising campaign indicates Obama’s reelection bid is on a fast track toward receiving the group’s endorsement. Given how Ohio is expected to be a proverbial swing state in this fall’s presidential election, one could argue that the Sierra Club is already campaigning for Obama through this advertising blitz. And once Mitt Romney or another candidate essentially clinches the Republican nomination, the other Big Green groups will follow suit with their own endorsements of Obama, followed by the launch of a campaign of scare tactics against the Republican nominee.
Here we go again, getting distracted by the presidential election racket. That’s exactly what the nation’s ruling elite and Big Green groups want. The ruling elite don’t want us embracing real political power. Instead, they want us to believe that elections make a democracy. The Big Green groups don’t want us joining together to force systemic change that could actually save the planet. They want us to work inside the system, focusing only on slowing down the rate of the planet’s destruction. The mainstream enviros are more interested in sustaining their donor base by portraying minor shifts in the nation’s environmental policies as major victories.
Cross-State Air Pollution Rule. Mercury and Air Toxics Standards. Natural gas-fired generation. Utility-scale solar. #NoXL. You name it. These aren’t real solutions to the environmental crisis. They won’t reverse the destruction of the planet. They are what Richard Cranehill, a character in the indie film Bold Native, calls the “little scraps of humanity,” or negligible measures that reformists are too willing to accept as major victories.
Bold Native is a low-budget drama about an animal liberator. Cranehill is a fast-food executive and father of the animal liberator. After getting an education about real change from his son and other radical animal rights activists throughout the movie, Cranehill finally begins to ask all of the right questions.
In the closing scene, Cranehill meets with an earnest activist named Jane Harold who works for an unnamed animal rights/welfare group—an organization similar to PETA or the Humane Society of the United States.
“Our first request is that you consider matching the humane standards as practiced by the other fast food companies that we’ve been dealing with,” Harold tells Cranehill. “Our first requirement is that your suppliers provide 72 square inches per laying hen.”
Cranehill, played by Randolph Mantooth, best known for his starring role as a paramedic in the mid-1970s medical drama Emergency!, catches Harold off guard by telling her he’ll do whatever she wants. He then cuts to the chase. He asks Harold how she can rationalize working in a position in which she is urging companies that torture and brutally murder hundreds of millions of animals a year to do basically nothing. “How do you beg for little scraps of humanity?” he asks.
Officials with the Sierra Club and the other Big Green groups are playing the same game as Jane Harold. They are begging for little scraps, minor concessions from governments and large corporations. They can’t see beyond what they view as pragmatic or realistic. They refuse to acknowledge that the ruling elite’s economic and political systems are the primary roadblocks to restoring the planet’s health.
Back in Ohio, the Sierra Club’s advertising campaign and its praise for Obama reveal how little it takes to appease mainstream, corporate-minded environmentalists. “President Obama stood up to polluters,” the Sierra Club ad says. But how boldly is Obama standing up to polluters? Let’s take a look at his record on both the “little scraps” and the real difference-makers.
Devil in the Details
This is the same president who in September 2011 withdrew tougher new ground-level ozone standards that had been drafted by the Environmental Protection Agency. Obama’s decision to overrule the EPA on the smog standards was praised by Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, certainly no friend of the environment. “Stopping this job-killing ozone standard has been one of my top priorities, and I am pleased that today’s announcement offers some good news for Oklahoma and the nation,” Inhofe said in a statement. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also hailed Obama’s decision to back down on toughening ground-level ozone standards. “The U.S. Chamber is glad the White House heeded our warning and withdrew these potentially disastrous—and completely voluntary—actions from the EPA,” U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas Donohue said in a statement. “This an enormous victory for America’s job creators, the right decision by the president, and one that will help reduce the uncertainty facing businesses.”
This is the same president who in May 2011 decided to delay a rule that would cut emissions from power plants at major industrial facilities. This month, a federal court scolded the Obama administration, ruling that the EPA had needlessly suspended implementation of what is known as the boiler MACT rule. The court called the delay “arbitrary and capricious.”
This is the same president who in March 2011 opened a large part of Wyoming to coal mining. “The decision was the carbon equivalent of opening 300 coal-fired power plants,” author and environmentalist Bill McKibben said.
This is the same president who, after a government-mandated moratorium on drilling that ended in the fall of 2010, has allowed the oil and gas industry to get back to business as usual in the Gulf of Mexico following the BP oil disaster that started in April 2010. The U.S. Department of the Interior’s recent western Gulf oil and gas lease sale attracted more than $337 million in high bids, and now the Obama administration is preparing to hold 10 more Gulf of Mexico lease sales.
This is the same president who this month released a report praising the boom in U.S. natural gas production, despite the extensive environmental damage caused by the shale gas revolution in communities across the country. In the report, the Obama administration writes: “The potential benefits to the U.S. economy are substantial.” The report ignores the environmental devastation caused by shale gas drilling. The shale gas revolution has resulted in the rapid industrialization of the land that sits atop the Marcellus Shale and other shale plays. For the hydraulic fracturing process, huge amounts of water are used. Waste pits are rampant near drilling sites. New roads are being built to provide access to the drilling sites. New pipelines and compressor stations are being built, destroying forests and animal habitats. Each phase of the natural gas production and gathering process requires the use of products, such as concrete, steel and asphalt, that use tremendous amounts of oil-based products and coal during a very energy-intensive manufacturing process.
This is the same president who touts endless economic growth, despite the fact we live in a world with finite “natural resources.” In the same report released earlier this month, the White House writes:” We are seeing some encouraging economic signs, including 22 straight months of private sector job creation, a measurable improvement in the competitive position of U.S. manufacturing, and an expansion of our domestic natural resources that further supports business investment.” The report lacks a basic understanding of sustainability. Obama and the rest of the ruling elite believe in protecting an economic system that is making ecosystems extinct. “Industrialization is the tacit premise, that’s assumed to be what needs to be saved, rather than the world that it’s threatening,” explains Roxanne Amico, a Buffalo-based artist, independent radio producer and activist.
This is the same president who decided during the summer of 2011 to delay finalizing new regulations for the disposal of coal ash and other coal combustion waste. More than three years after the coal ash spill at TVA’s Kingston plant in Tennessee, the EPA still has yet to establish new federal protections for coal ash.
This is the same president who in his rejection of the presidential permit for TransCanada’s Keystone XL crude oil pipeline on January 18 emphasized that the rejection was not based on the merits of the project, but the “arbitrary nature” of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information “necessary to approve the project and protect the American people.” In its recommendation to the president, the State Department emphasized that the denial of the permit application “does not preclude any subsequent permit application or applications for similar projects.” In other words, TransCanada is welcome to file an application for a similar pipeline project that the president will be more than happy to approve after the November election.
And this is the same president who continues to let the world’s worst polluter of all, the U.S. military, destroy communities and ecosystems around the world. Mickey Z. writes: “Keep this in mind the next time you hear the phrase ‘war on terror’: Our tax dollars are subsidizing a global eco-terror campaign and all the recycled toilet paper in the world ain’t gonna change that. In other words, if we don’t want our legacy to be one of inaction, we must create drastic, permanent change very, very soon.”
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Occupy Disorder: #ForTheFuture
Here in New York City, when Mayor Bloomberg’s private army goes on an arrest binge, the reasons range from trespassing to carrying books or food into Liberty Square (Zuccotti Park) to making signs to wearing masks to that old standby: disorderly conduct.
In other words, it’s illegal to conduct yourself in a disorderly manner.
But who’s discerning disorder from order? At Liberty Square, it’s those heavily armed folks wearing blue uniforms. The unarmed humans sharing free food, playing guitars, and setting up think tanks? They allegedly have no say in deciding what distinguishes order from disorder.
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One of my recent OWS photos:
MLK Day Union Rally
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Monday, January 16, 2012
Occupy Movement Reignites 'Battle for Brooklyn'
By Press Action
The producers of Battle for Brooklyn attribute the documentary’s growing success to the Occupy Wall Street movement’s focus on how government institutions operate on behalf of the wealthy few in the United States.
When it was released in April 2011, Battle for Brooklyn, a documentary about a community in Brooklyn fighting real-estate developers who want to build a basketball arena and numerous other buildings, received positive feedback from reviewers and the public.
But as the Occupy movement caught fire in September 2011, Battle for Brooklyn started getting noticed by an even larger audience, said Michael Galinsky, speaking Jan. 15 at a screening of the film at the Artisphere complex in Arlington, Va. Galinsky co-directed and co-produced the film with his wife Suki Hawley.
Battle for Brooklyn addresses the same issues targeted by the Occupiers: corporate greed, crony capitalism, undemocratic institutions and community destruction.
In one of the film’s most memorable scenes, a board member of the Empire State Development Corporation, a public authority of the state of New York, reveals his unfamiliarity with the project by querying ESDC staffers about the boundaries of the project. At this same meeting in December 2006, despite this member’s obvious unfamiliarity with the project, the ESDC voted unanimously to approve the Atlantic Yards project.
This was not a run-of-the-mill project. It was designed as one of the largest construction projects in New York City in recent memory. The $4.9 billion project would include the construction of an arena for the relocated New Jersey Nets basketball team plus 16 residential and office towers.
Galinsky said times have changed over the past four months and that similar efforts by large corporations and their partners in municipal and state governments would be met with much greater resistance today. For example, “there would have been a mic check” if the ESDC had tried to rubber-stamp another major construction project without community involvement and support, he said, referring to the human microphone technique perfected by OWS activists.
“The Occupy movement has made Battle for Brooklyn impossible to ignore,” Bruce Levine wrote in a November 2011 article in the Huffington Post. “Battle for Brooklyn documents a group of the ‘99 percent’ who, between 2004 and 2011, staged a courageous battle against the ‘1 percent’ at a time when most of us had lost our fight.”
The film follows Daniel Goldstein, a graphic designer who owns an apartment in a building inside the footprint of the proposed project. Goldstein was the only resident of his apartment building who refused to take a buyout from the developers to leave. As he learned more about Atlantic Yards, Goldstein realized he could not give in to the demands of the developers. He was appalled at the handouts offered to the developers by government officials. Goldstein emerged as a leading opponent of the project.
The taxpayer support for the project consisted of direct public subsidies, tax breaks, government-backed financing, free and below-market value land as well as other special benefits amounting to a total pegged somewhere between $1 billion and $2 billion.
Goldstein attended the infamous ESDC meeting where its members approved the Atlantic Yards project despite their unfamiliarity. Outside the meeting, he was interviewed by the filmmakers. Goldstein expressed astonishment that no one stood up to denounce the anti-democratic process used by the ESDC to approve the project.
“That’s civilization—the fact that no one screamed their head off in there,” Goldstein said. “Even Patti was civilized in there,” he said, referring to Patti Hagan, a community activist in Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights community who helped to galvanize community opinion against the project and introduced the filmmakers to Goldstein when they were getting started on the documentary in 2004.
At the screening, Galinsky said similar sorts of boondoggles are happening across the United States. City officials in Santa Clara, Calif., for example, are “keeping people out of the loop” about a deal to bring a new stadium for the San Francisco 49ers to their town, he said. Santa Clara officials have decided to take out an $850 million construction loan to build the stadium for the 49ers.
As for Atlantic Yards, the project has been downsized. The only design now is for the arena, not any of the promised affordable housing, or any other part of the project. A large portion of the 24-acre site is now designed to be parking lots. There is no indication that the people who had their homes and businesses confiscated by eminent domain or through the threat of eminent domain will get to return.
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Sunday, January 15, 2012
Occupy MLK: #RealityNotWhitewashing
While we can’t know exactly how Dr. King would feel about the endless parade of US military interventions, his thoughts on another brutal intercession are also on the record. The Vietnamese, he said, “must see Americans as strange liberators ... For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy.”
King then sagely and prophetically added: “We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved ... What do they think as we test our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe?”
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One of my recent OWS photos:
imagine a heart
an atomic heart so warm
it melts barricades
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Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Occupy Your Heart: #FeelMoreThinkLess
My mother passed away four years ago on January 12, 2008. This experience is still teaching me previously unimaginable lessons about grief, sorrow, and loss because even in her death, my mother gave me one last, loving gift: My heart became broken open.
I fight it. Deny it. Defy it. Try to think it away but so many events in my life since January 12, 2008 keep bringing me back to the accepting that my heart is broken open—perhaps for a reason.
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One of my recent photos:
Choose sides
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Monday, January 09, 2012
Hey, Barnes & Noble: How Many Assassins Does It Take to Scare Off Your Customers?
An Open Letter to Barnes & Noble
The U.S. military credits Chris Kyle with killing over 160 human beings. Sometimes more. “The number is not important to me. I only wish I had killed more...” Good students always want extra credit.
This coming Thursday (01/12/2012), the Barnes & Noble bookstore located in the Mira Mesa community of San Diego has scheduled a book signing with Chris Kyle. As author, and state-sanctioned hitman, Kyle plans to visit a supposed “friendly town” to promote his heartfelt tale of bloodletting called American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History.
The event page describes this man as the “most accomplished SEAL sniper in US History.” Accomplished, evidently, in the framework of legal murder. Instead of being tried for crimes against humanity, he will be sitting amongst local families bragging about how many Arabs he has picked off while dreaming about his next Coors Light.
Does it really take a brave man to kill from a distance? Does his rifle have a censor that detects “terrorist DNA” through the scope? One can only hope that this brave warrior doesn’t go on a shooting spree if no one shows up for his scheduled ego-fest.
Who in their right mind would want to attend this event? Perhaps there are those looking forward to this man boast (and perhaps exaggerate) about the size of his gun. The power of his shot. And all the blood that he has spilt. Who doesn’t love an orgy? We must teach the youth how a “real man” behaves, correct? It’s not rape if you’re doing it out of love. Is that the message of these penetrating bullets for peace?
In a recent interview with Bill O’Reilly, Chris Kyle was brutally honest. How was he able to kill with no conscious?
“...you have to not think of them as a human being.”
Honest and chilling. The history of the world in eleven words.
Blame should not be completely thrust upon Kyle. The mind control is so strong in the military that Kyle actually thinks he didn’t drop his heat enough. The entire system of war-for-profit and their public relations cavalry cowers in guilt as well.
We are asking that you cancel the event. But, please, keep the book in print. It serves as a valuable artifact for the psychosis of this militarized culture we live in. As a person from the future, I can appreciate Chris Kyle’s candor as we study this disease of cannibalism. Whether we’re talking about science, medicine, religion, or sports: we live in a culture of force.
“Fight cancer!”
“Kill the terrorists!”
“Fight hunger!”
“Go, fight, win!”
“...and neuter your kids. Er, dogs.”
The new world will be about community, creativity, and co-existing with the universe. Please join us. The lie of fear-based competition has been told for so long now that you believe there must be conflict for you to achieve happiness. The instant gratification of an explosion, a cum shot, Starbucks, gambling (poker, fantasy baseball, lotto, and stock trading), or drugs exist as a one-way path away from your purpose.
The moral of this story: if you kill in the name of the machine—then you’re a hero. But if you shoot back at the giant tanks and metal planes dropping death from above, then you’re a terrorist. Americans love to cheer for the underdog. If that’s the case, shouldn’t we be waving pom-poms for the people that have minimal technology, no budget, no Air Force, and no tanks? If America is, in fact, the overwhelming favorite (the New York Yankees, Dallas Cowboys, and Los Angeles Lakers combined) then who is the other side? And why are they winning? We are one people. Earth people. In fact, we don’t seek victory or control. We seek only unity.
¡Ya basta!
Sign this petition now!
Barnes & Noble
William Lynch, CEO
telephone: 212-633-3300
e-mail:
Andy Milevoj, Director of Investor Relations
telephone: (212) 633-3489
e-mail:
Mary Ellen Keating, Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications & Pubic Affairs
telephone: (212) 633-3323
e-mail:
Carolyn Brown, Director of Corporate Communications
telephone: (212) 633-4062
e-mail:
PS – Barnes & Noble is attempting to market the NOOK e-book device. CEO William Lynch should be careful not to spell NOOK backwards. You wouldn’t want to give away your marketing strategy. Remember, killing Arabs is politically correct nowadays.
Barnes & Noble
10775 Westview Parkway
San Diego, CA 92126
858-684-3166
CC – San Diego Union Tribune, San Diego Reader, San Diego CityBeat, Earth people worldwide, media worldwide
Dedicated to Grace Walden Stephens
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Sunday, January 08, 2012
Occupy No Demands: #ChooseUtopiaOverReform
For nearly four months, we’ve heard some version of this simplistic gripe about Occupy Wall Street (OWS): But what are their demands?
To ask such a question is to willingly succumb to the craven compliance that conscientiously cloaks a commodity culture. If only OWS would just put itself in a damn box—with a familiar, easily identifiable label, of course—it would make life so much easier for those who’ve long surrendered the capacity for critical thought.
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One of my recent OWS photos:
#MicCheck
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Courtesy of Rick the Cartoonist:
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Earthquakes Shake Public's Faith in Natural Gas Industry
By Press Action
Imagine if saboteurs, with an expertise in geology, intentionally drilled wells thousands of feet underground and then filled these wells with water. Imagine if the depth of the wells and the pressure created by the injected water began causing hundreds of earthquakes in assorted regions of the United States.
Such activity certainly would terrify the public. And, given the gravity of the crimes, it certainly would prompt seismologists and geologists to urge public safety officials to take whatever measures necessary to find the perpetrators and stop them from drilling any new wells. If this were to happen, the notion that someone could intentionally cause an earthquake would be unfathomable to most people. You must be reading too much science fiction or listening to Alex Jones, they’d say. But once they got over the initial shock that it indeed is happening, such unconscionable activity would create a massive public uproar.
Unfortunately, you do not have to imagine people intentionally engaging in activity that they know causes earthquakes. It is actually happening today. But if you thought public officials would be using every means possible to stop such activity, you would be wrong. And if you thought major news media outlets would be beating the drum for public safety officials to stop the perpetrators, you would be wrong again.
In fact, one of the most prominent newspapers in the country, the Washington Post, believes the people who are engaging in activity that is indeed causing the earthquakes should be allowed to continue as long as they are more closely monitored.
Insane, you say. No possible way—that can’t be happening, you’re thinking. Sorry, but it’s all true.
How can a public official or major news media outlet defend the actions of people who are engaging in activity that causes earthquakes? Any rational person would say it’s indefensible. Earthquakes are one of the most dangerous “natural” disasters faced by modern society. Even earthquakes of lower magnitudes can damage industrial infrastructure and buildings, including the foundations and walls of homes inhabited by people who the public safety officials are theoretically paid to protect.
But when it comes to the business of big business, anything goes. And if the activities of big business happen to cause earthquakes, so be it. Sustaining profits and greed apparently trumps preventing “natural” disasters.
In an editorial published in its Jan. 8 issue, the Post explains that seismologists in Ohio have implicated the disposal of “waste water” created by the use of hydraulic fracturing—a process used to extract natural gas from underground shale rock formations—in a series of earthquakes that recently struck Ohio, including a magnitude-4.0 quake that shook Youngstown, Ohio, on New Year’s Eve.
But, according to the Post, we mustn’t let a few hundred earthquakes ruin the party. In the editorial, the newspaper reminds its readers that the use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in shale gas plays across the United States, particularly the Marcellus Shale in the Appalachian region, is extremely important to the U.S. economy.
Allowing fracking to continue, despite the earthquakes caused by the waste water disposal wells, provides jobs, the Post says. For example, Ohio steel mills are creating jobs by producing heavy-duty pipe for fracking operations, the newspaper says.
“Inevitably, extracting unconventional natural gas will have unexpected and possibly unattractive consequences,” the Post‘s editorial writers explain. “The business is scaling up so quickly that state and federal regulators are only now catching up. More study and probably more regulation will be needed.”
Can you feel the great sense of urgency in the Post editorial for stopping these natural gas companies from causing earthquakes? Me neither.
Fracking is going to produce waste water, the Post blithely says. What’s the newspaper’s solution? “Energy companies can dispose of it more carefully.”
The Post endorses seismic monitoring at active well sites, so that operators can shut down operations “at the first sign of trouble,” and storing waste water farther from population centers.
But let’s not get too hysterical about natural gas companies intentionally causing earthquakes. Let’s not forget that these poor, little gas companies might not be able to afford to stop the earthquakes. “Reuters reports that one idea—requiring a full seismic study of disposal sites before pumping waste water into them—is extremely expensive. But regulators might not need to go that far,” the Post tells us.
The natural gas industry is engaging in activities that it knows are causing earthquakes. Yes, earthquakes, and earthquakes that are actually felt by average people in their homes, not just the experts who track seismic activity using expensive equipment. And yet the Washington Post is more alarmed about the potential cost incurred by natural gas companies to stop or limit the earthquake activity than it is about the earthquakes themselves.
The Post‘s main concern is ensuring the natural gas industry is not burdened with costly regulations in response to the earthquakes. Pure insanity. Another ugly example of why the Post and the other major news media outlets are shills for Corporate America.
Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On
Now that we’ve stopped laughing (or crying) after reading the ravings of the lunatics on the Washington Post‘s editorial page, let’s examine what’s really going on.
In Ohio, the state’s Department of Natural Resources confirmed that two recent earthquakes in Youngstown were centered within hundreds of feet of each other and near a waste water injection well. The New Year’s Eve earthquake was centered within 330 feet of an earthquake Christmas Eve, and both were at a similar depth of about 12,000 feet. The agency said the magnitude-4.0 earthquake, as the Dec. 31, 2011, event was confirmed to be, could cause surface damage.
The DNR said Jan. 3 that it shut down operations at an injection well owned by Northstar Disposal Services LLC, an affiliate of D&L Energy Group. The agency said the area surrounding the Youngstown injection well had experienced a series of seismic events over the past eight months.
Dramatically higher seismic activity also has been occurring over the past couple of years in regions of Oklahoma where fracking is being used to extract natural gas. The same is true in the Barnett Shale and Eagle Ford Shale regions of Texas.
More than 700 earthquakes have shaken an area of north-central Arkansas where companies have been using fracking for several years. The Arkansas Geological Survey does not see a correlation between production wells and the quakes. Its the injection wells, the ones used for long-term storage of the wastewater generated by the fracking process, that are causing the earthquakes.
In response to the earthquakes, natural gas operators in parts of the Fayetteville Shale in Arkansas, where the seismic activity is occurring, are no longer permitted to use injection wells to dispose of fracking’s waste water. The Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission in 2011 banned the practice in the region after geological studies linked seismic activity on a previously unidentified fault line to the injection wells.
Many of these earthquakes are “small” earthquakes. But as the seismic activity in Ohio and Oklahoma is showing, it is possible that even very small earthquakes can eventually “unlatch” a seismic fault and cause larger quakes.
Faulty Operations
The natural gas industry has been facing growing public resistance since the shale gas revolution began about six years ago. The outrage over the environmental impact of the industry’s activities has reached a level so strong that gas companies are using psyops techniques and even former military personnel to break the “insurgency” of community activism opposing domestic drilling. State governments, worried about the intensifying opposition to gas drilling, are labeling anti-industry activists “terrorists.” Pennsylvania government officials worked with an entity called the Institute of Terrorism Research and Resources to help “Marcellus Shale gas companies learn about the actions of environmental activists who oppose deep underground drilling for gas.”
The Washington Post writes that “fracking in America’s massive Marcellus Shale formation could provide a large, domestic source of energy with fewer harmful emissions and half of coal’s carbon output.” What the Post doesn’t mention is the terrible environmental impact caused by the natural gas industry’s activities before natural gas is piped to power plants and burned to produce electricity.
The shale gas revolution has resulted in the rapid industrialization of the land that sits atop the Marcellus Shale and other shale plays. For the hydraulic fracturing process, huge amounts of water are used. Waste pits are rampant near drilling sites. New roads are being built to provide access to the drilling sites. New pipelines and compressor stations are being built, destroying forests and animal habitats. Each phase of the natural gas production and gathering process requires the use of products, such as concrete, steel and asphalt, that use tremendous amounts of oil-based products and coal during a very energy-intensive manufacturing process.
All of this is bad news for the health of the environment. And that’s why opposition to gas drilling is intense now. And the magnitude of the public’s outrage will grow exponentially if gas companies are permitted to continue with their operations even when their activities are causing earthquakes.
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Thursday, January 05, 2012
You Won't Fool the Children of the Revolution
By Press Action
A well-known, fifty-something antiwar activist recently scolded the “young people” of Occupy Wall Street for turning a deaf ear to their elders. She was offended by how they were charting their own course, daring to ignore the sage advice of seasoned activists.
Let’s assume this activist’s assessment of the younger generation’s involvement in OWS is accurate … which, of course, it is not. My response would be, why the hell should these younger people, who are attempting to put real democracy into action, show any deference to the older generations?
The corporate noose around American society has grown considerably tighter over the past 30 years. Wars are now endless. Ecocide is happening before our eyes. And yet, not-so-young liberal and progressive activists, especially the self-described pacifists, continue to tell us to support the troops. The foot soldiers of the empire, they claim, are as much victims as the millions of people the U.S. military machine is killing in foreign lands. They tell us to work within the system and avoid violence in all circumstances because, if we don’t, that makes us as guilty as the homicidal maniacs that run the system.
The state and its corporate partners aren’t the only ones who’ve perfected propaganda. Liberals and progressives also are master manipulators. They distract the gullible with electoral politics, instead of working to dismantle a system whose tentacles reach into all parts of our lives, seeking to drain us of our passion to save what’s left of the real world.
The younger people of OWS no longer are going to be kept passive by the liberal peace cops. No longer are they going to serve the interests of the ruling elite and their progressive partners.
What’s most impressive about the actions of the younger people of OWS is how they’ve freed themselves from what author Chris Hedges describes as the totalitarian structures grafted onto the state by corporations and their servants in government.
“We were mesmerized by political charades, cheap consumerism and virtual hallucinations as we were ruthlessly stripped of power,” Hedges writes of the older generations.
People are now waking up, including large numbers of younger people. Many of the millennials are choosing to rip off their headphones, throw down their iPods and turn off Jon Stewart. They prefer face-to-face discussion rather than communication by email, Gchat or texting.
They are not distracted by presidential politics. The ruling elite may still be able to pull a fast one on other Americans, especially the annoying progressives who never stop telling us to give “our president” another chance. But these younger people are no longer sleep-walking. They understand the current occupant of the White House will never renounce his history as a mass murdering, authoritarian thug and magically reemerge as an enlightened anti-empire, anti-corporate crusader.
They have no interest in political brands or personality politics. They’ve set their sights much higher. They are kicking over the entire rotten system as we now know it and replacing it with sustainable communities defined by mutual aid and the utmost respect for the natural world. Now that’s a future all generations can believe in.
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Occupy to the Sky: #PickOutTheHayseeds
In 1853, the future founders of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden set free several pairs of the previously unknown European House Sparrow inside Brooklyn’s Green-wood Cemetery. By picking hayseeds out of horse droppings from the carts used for funerals, these tiny birds flourished and are today one of the continent’s most ubiquitous creatures.
The moral of this story: When all they can supply is horseshit, it’s up to the us to pick out the hayseeds that enable us to not only survive…but to thrive.
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One of my recent photos:
New year, same economy
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Monday, January 02, 2012
De-Occupy the Two-Party Fraud: #Vote4Me?
What happened in 2008 is an excellent illustration of how system handles dissent: A black face, a soothing voice, and a vague message of change—all designed to keep rabble pacified without changing anything at all.
Best news for 2012: The rabble is no longer pacified.
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One of my recent OWS photos:
This is so not over...
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One of my recent OWS videos:
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Sunday, January 01, 2012
A Call to Live the Revolution Now
Review of Anarchism and Its Aspirations by Cindy Milstein (AK Press, 145 pages).
Anarchism has had some impressive moments. Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magón in early 20th century Mexico, the Kronstadt Rebellion, Gustav Landauer and the German revolution of 1918-1919, Bhagat Singh’s anti-British campaigns in India in the 1920s, and the Spanish anarchists in the 1930s, to name a few. The moments, as infrequent as they may be, can be electrifying. But they tend to be short-lived, with the participants often imprisoned or murdered by the state and its confederates.
As proponents of a political philosophy that disdains power, anarchists often find themselves at a disadvantage against the authoritarian governments and groups that use coercion to keep their opponents at bay. The antipathy for anarchists extends as far as the written word. State officials and their corporate partners control the mass media, including the outlets that publish the official history books in which their leaders are portrayed as heroes, while anarchists and anti-authoritarians are often labeled terrorists and criminals.
Despite the contempt for anarchism by statists on both the left and the right, anarchists have been able to get their word out through the underground press. Independent publishing houses and, in more recent decades, university presses also have published numerous books on anarchism.
Whether written by historians such as Paul Avrich, the acclaimed American scholar on anarchism, or activists such as Errico Malatesta, the great anarchist revolutionary from Italy, the words and ideas inside these books can prove rousing. Often, though, when reading them, the stories feel remote.
The language, especially in the books written by the icons of the revolutionary anarchist era, also can seem archaic. This is not to suggest that contemporary anarchist writers and theorists are necessarily any easier to read. The poorly written essays and books by some modern-day anarchists have prevented readers from understanding anarchism and can harm the cause by making anarchism appear exclusive to the select few who can understand the jargon and stilted language.
Malatesta was a writer and publisher who sought to spread the ideals of anarcho-communism by appealing to common sense. And, for the most part, his essays, as translated, are highly readable. He produced newspapers and pamphlets in collaboration with various distinguished anarchist figures of the day. Malatesta (1853-1932) may not be as celebrated as Pierre-Joseph Proudhon or Mikhail Bakunin or Peter Kropotkin or Emma Goldman. But, as Anglo-Italian anarchist activist and author Vernon Richards reminds us, “For nearly sixty years, Malatesta was active in the anarchist movement as an agitator and as a propagandist.” (Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, compiled and edited by Vernon Richards, Freedom Press, 1984).
Malatesta is not placed in the same category as these other anarchists because he did not conform to the pattern set by 19th century revolutionary thinkers and activists, argues Richards, who died in 2001. “He was, first of all, too good a revolutionary to even think of keeping a diary; and he was too active to be allowed to live the kind of settled life that would have allowed him carefully to file away his correspondence for posterity and the convenience of historians,” Richards explains.
The Cure for Authority
While Malatesta may not have dwelled on himself, he did write extensively about anarchism, capitalism, the state and other top issues of his day. In an essay on the importance of organization, Malatesta explains that “organization, far from creating authority, is the only cure for it and the only means whereby each one of us will get used to taking an active and conscious part in collective work and cease being passive instruments in the hands of leaders.” (Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas)
Through his focus on organization, Malatesta smashes the stereotype perpetuated by statists and uninformed observers who seek to equate anarchism with chaos. British anarchist writer Colin Ward explains that anarchism recognizes there are two kinds of organization. The kind that “is forced on you” and “run from above.” And there is the kind that “is run from below, which can’t force you to do anything, and which you are free to join or free to leave alone,” writes Ward, who died in early 2010. “We could say that the anarchists are people who want to transform all kinds of human organization into the kind of purely voluntary association where people can pull out and start one of their own if they don’t like it.”
Contemporary anarchist author and anthropologist David Graeber writes in his book Direct Action: An Ethnography that anarchists do not seek to seize power for themselves. “Rather, they wish to destroy that power, using means that are—so far as possible—consistent with their ends, that embody them.”
Anarchists seeks to embrace what is known as “prefigurative politics,” or building a new world in the shell of the old. If a group wants to abolish hierarchy in the larger society, prefigurative politics requires the group to adhere as closely to that goal as possible.
In a recent essay, Graeber explains how the Occupy Wall Street movement has embraced the concept of prefigurative politics. “Zuccotti Park, and all subsequent encampments, became spaces of experiment with creating the institutions of a new society—not only democratic general assemblies but kitchens, libraries, clinics, media centers and a host of other institutions, all operating on anarchist principles of mutual aid and self-organization—a genuine attempt to create the institutions of a new society in the shell of the old,” Graeber explains.
A hundred years earlier, Malatesta was promoting the same philosophy. “We anarchists do not want to emancipate the people; we want the people to emancipate themselves,” Malatesta writes. “We want the new way of life to emerge from the body of the people and correspond to the state of their development and advance as they advance. It matters to us therefore that all interests and opinions should find their expression in a conscious organization and should influence communal life in proportion to their importance.”
The clarity of Malatesta’s analysis and the relevance of his message resonate today in the writings of anarchist author and activist Cindy Milstein. In her latest book, Anarchism and Its Aspirations, Milstein shows how anarchism is relevant to 21st century America.
Milstein and her publisher, AK Press, perfectly timed the book’s release. Anarchism and Its Aspirations arrived in 2010 as turbulence rocked the American state and its dead-end economic system was under duress. In 2011, more people began to lose confidence in the legitimacy of the state, culminating in the rapid rise of the Occupy movement. It was a year that gave people hope.
Dave Zirin, a sportswriter for The Nation magazine, was one of many who wished 2011 a sad goodbye. “When my first kid was born in 2004, a lot of people asked me (rather rudely, I might add) ‘How can you bring a child into this awful world?’” he writes. What was Zirin’s response? “This is the first year of her (and my) life where I feel like I can look those folks in the eye and say, ‘Because people across the world are waking up and fighting to make it a better place.’”
In the prologue to her book, Milstein writes of feeling “sorrow” about an era that began with so much exuberance—with the Zapatistas creating autonomous zones in Chiapas, Mexico in the mid-1990s and the Battle of Seattle in late 1999—but then evolved into a decade of the American state running amok in the 2000s. “I worry that in the face of this morass, anarchists are becoming increasingly nihilistic and far less concerned about ending social suffering,” she writes. “I get the eerie sensation that I might have to shelve my own aspirations for what anarchists can accomplish, just when we are needed more than ever.”
Milstein wrote the prologue to Anarchism and Its Aspirations before the Occupy movement caught fire. If AK Press were to issue a new edition of the book in 2012, she would probably update portions of the prologue. But the prologue would probably be the only section of the book that would require any major edits.
Despite the pessimism in the prologue, the rest of the book brims with confidence, as if Milstein knew the day of reckoning would soon arrive for the American state. As you read the book, particularly the sections on what anarchists can do to create sustainable communities, you will not find any signs of hopelessness. Milstein instills great confidence in her readers, inspiring them to act with a sense of urgency. At the same time, Milstein emphasizes the importance of anarchists using “means that point in the direction of their ends.”
“Prefigurative politics thus aligns one’s values to one’s practice and practices the new society before it is fully in place,” she writes.
Milstein, like most anarchists, believes a primary concern must be to dismantle all forms of authority and oppression. In other words, the existing system needs to be dismantled. And, like Graeber, Milstein believes anarchists do not seek to pressure governments to institute reforms. Rather, their goal is to destroy that power, using means that are consistent with their ends and embody them.
The Anarchist Spirit
Malatesta’s spirit can be felt throughout Anarchism and Its Aspirations. In 1922, Malatesta wrote that “by anarchist spirit I mean that deeply human sentiment, which aims at the good of all, freedom and justice for all, solidarity and love among the people; which is not an exclusive characteristic only of self-declared anarchists, but inspires people who have a generous heart and an open mind.”
Milstein writes that anarchism is indeed a spirit, one that “cries out against all that’s wrong with present-day society, and boldly proclaims all that could be right under alternate forms of social organization.” She focuses on “alternate forms of social organization” and explains how anarchists “participate in the present in the ways that they would like to participate, much more fully and with much more self-determination, in the future.”
Anarchists, according to Milstein, seek to infuse the “oppositional character” of the direct action movement with “a reconstructive vision.”
Milstein’s analysis and visions of an anti-authoritarian future correspond with the opinions of Malatesta and the major classical anarchist participants, whose views she dissects in the chapter titled “Looking Backward.” But the greatest influence on her political thinking is Murray Bookchin, the anarchist theorist who rose to prominence in the 1960s with the publication of many groundbreaking essays that were anthologized in the seminal Post-Scarcity Anarchism, a must-read for any serious anarchist.
Milstein credits Bookchin, who served as one of her mentors at the Institute for Social Ecology, with getting anarchists to reach a better understanding of themselves and their goals. More than ever, “anarchism is interrogating itself and all else for ways in which hierarchy and domination manifest themselves, or develop new forms under new historical conditions,” she writes. This shift within anarchism has resulted in a better understanding of the ways that freedom and domination interrelate.
Bookchin also helped to transform anarchism into a modern political philosophy, Milstein explains. “Bridging the Old and New Left, Bookchin did more than anyone to widen anarchism’s anticapitalism/antistatism to a critique of hierarchy per se,” she writes. “He also brought ecology as a concern to anarchism by connecting it to domination.”
Bookchin’s “unearthing” of the affinity group model in his research on Spanish anarchists, as described in Post-Scarcity Anarchism, was influential to the U.S. anti-nuclear movement of the 1970s and 1980s, Milstein contends. “The antinuke movement used civil disobedience, but infused it with an anarchist and feminist sensibility: a rejection of all hierarchy, a preference for directly democratic process, a stress on spontaneity and creativity,” she writes.
Common Sense
When that spontaneity and creativity are lost in the same, ineffective behavior, it is time for anarchists to question their strategies and tactics. Milstein explains that anarchists, unlike most other radicals, ask questions of each other publicly so as “to grapple in the light of day” with the dilemmas of their behavior and actions. She points to an article written by Ryan Harvey following the G-20 protests in Pittsburgh in September 2009. In the article, “Are We Addicted to Rioting?,” Harvey questions the wisdom of fellow anarchists who participate in street demonstrations simply for the adrenaline rush of going to battle against the police. “There’s too much at stake to waste our time and energy preparing for and executing these theater-like confrontations,” he writes.
Harvey argues it’s time to take anarchism out of the streets for a while and put it back into the communities. He writes:
“I want you to take my words seriously, because we have a lot of work to do, and most of it is not going to get done in the streets. It’s going to get done on the doorsteps, the libraries, the churches, the labor halls, the schools, the military bases, the parks, the prisons, the abortion clinics, the neighborhood associations, the PTAs. And whatever it is, it’s not going to be called Anarchism and it’s not going to look like what you think it’s going to look like. It’s going to be new, fresh, original, organic, unique, and real. And it’s going to be a combination of all of our society’s best politics, ideas, experiences, and sincerity. And we are going to help make it happen.”
Milstein emphasizes a similar message throughout Anarchism and Its Aspirations. It’s time to push beyond the oppositional character of the direct action movement, she asserts, by infusing it with a “reconstructive vision.”
As a proponent of prefigurative politics, Milstein calls for anarchists to move from shutting down streets to opening up public space, from demanding scraps from those few in power to holding power firmly in their hands.
Milstein superbly demonstrates how anarchism reflects “commonsense notions” of how everyone could live their lives together in nonhierarchical societies. Indeed, anarchistic values are commonsensical, she explains, or how most people would prefer to live their lives if not coerced, compelled or oppressed by forces outside their personal and social control.
Anarchism and Its Aspirations is available from AK Press. Click here to order the book.
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Friday, December 30, 2011
Occupy Counter-Recruitment: #NoWarButClassWar
If a more equitable economic climate were created, young Americans would no longer be compelled to enlist solely for financial reasons (and in the process, provide manpower for wars of Empire). In such a scenario, those who do volunteer could then rightfully be exposed as willing accomplices to US war crimes and maybe we can finally retire all those counterproductive “support the troops” stickers.
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One of my recent photos:
#OccupyHugeElectricBills
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Thursday, December 29, 2011
Leah Henderson: 'This Attempt to Deter Me Has Failed'
By Press Action
On Tuesday, Dec. 20, anarchist Leah Henderson began a 10-month prison sentence in the Vanier Centre for Women, a prison in Milton, Ontario, for her alleged role in the anti-G20 protests in Toronto in June 2010. Leah did not participate in protests where some people smashed windows and set fire to police cruisers but pleaded guilty in November to counseling others to “commit mischief.” In a statement at her sentencing hearing, Leah said, “I stand here guilty of breaking your laws, not the laws of justice.” At the end of her statement to provincial court Justice Lloyd Budzinsky, Leah said: “I submit to your jails because today you hold many of the weapons, and many people under your spell. A day is coming when that will not be so. A day is coming where the distorted mirror that hides the lies of capitalism and colonialism will shatter.”
Below is a letter that Leah wrote titled “A Letter to My Community”:
As most of you probably know by now, I have decided to plead guilty to the charge of counseling to commit mischief. Originally, I along with 20 others was charged with four counts of conspiracy in what was called the G20 main conspiracy group.
I am writing because the past year and a half of facing these charges and living under bail conditions has meant that I have not been able to talk as openly as I would have liked. My voice has been muzzled by the state, which has served as a powerful reminder of the many voices that are muzzled by the daily colonialism, patriarchy, racism and violence of the world. While the silencing of my voice has an end date, the work to hear the chorus of our grandmothers and the Indigenous Peoples whose land we stand on is ongoing.
I never considered that the people in power would see me, my community and our values as anything other than a threat—because we are a threat. We are working to tear this system down and to make space for life-centered systems that make the 1% irrelevant. Those who benefit from the status quo have always tried to crush that.
I want to tell you that I was arrested because I am seen as a threat. I want to tell you that you might be too. I want to tell you that this is something we need to prepare for. I want to tell you that the risk of incarceration alone should not determine our organizing.
My skills and experience—as a facilitator, as a trainer, as a legal professional and as someone linking different communities and movements—were all targeted in this case, with the state trying to depict me as a “brainwasher” and as a mastermind of mayhem, violence and destruction. During the week of the G8 & G20 summits, the police targeted legal observers, street medics and independent media. It is clear that the skills that make us strong, the alternatives that reduce our reliance on their systems and prefigure a new world, are the very things that they are most afraid of.
I organize openly as an anti-colonial, anti-capitalist anarchist. My organizing is focused on movement building, and this commitment to build skill sets and support other activists is another part of why the state has targeted me. However, this attempt to deter me has failed, just as it has failed to deter thousands of others similarly facing police brutality and jail. I am strengthened in my resolve to build communities of resistance. We are building the structures of a new kind of society in the midst of the old, and we cannot do that without a commitment to skill-sharing, mutual aid and collective liberation.
Since the G8 & G20 protests, Toronto (and beyond) has witnessed a wave of repression that has seen the justice system trap people and their communities in its jaws, using all of their time and energy to survive the resource-intensive and soul-sucking legal process. The state hoped that there would be no energy left to fight against them as they cut funding to essential services, ignored self-determination, and further criminalized poor people, migrants and people of colour.
They were wrong.
The awe-inspiring and humbling surprise in all of this is that we have refused to be crushed and, in fact, we have grown in strategy, strength and numbers: in Toronto, I’ve seen the anti-austerity movements grow with campaigns like “Stop the Cuts”; in Grassy Narrows, one day of powerful mobilization forced the government to listen to the community’s demands; globally, there has been a continued, intensified uprising that is showing collective dissatisfaction with the capitalist system and austerity agenda that the G8 & G20 perpetuate.
I took this plea willingly. I consented today to confine myself to a cage, away from the people, work and struggles that I am connected to. I did this for a reason.
As a group of accused, we come to organizing with different access to power. When the 17 of us found ourselves around a table facing a trial, continued disruption of our lives and livelihoods, possible convictions, jail sentences and deportations, it became essential that some of us plead guilty to ensure that the rest walk free.
It was a decision that could not be and was not taken lightly. I was inspired, along with the rest of the 17, by a proud history of political trials, where people have chosen to plead guilty to end the legal process if it resulted in the best possible deal for all involved.
This plea is not a defeat. I am energized. I am hopeful knowing that we have each other’s back and will take care of each other, even if it means that some of us go to jail. I am proud. I hope you are too.
I am incredibly grateful for the people in my life who have been supporting me and who will continue to do so.
To the women who have carried me through this—you are my faeries with magick wands and combat boots; you’ve granted me wishes and kicked the crap out of anything I couldn’t handle. Your care and support is revolutionary. May it become less invisible to the world.
To my family—every day I am grateful for your unconditional love and support; that I chose you when I came into this world is perhaps the greatest gift I have given to myself.
To my community—you have grown and expanded with me since my arrest; this growth is a testament to our strength.
To my sureties—you took me out into the world when no one else could; you housed me, sat on absurdly uncomfortable court benches while pregnant and while waiting to see if your own child would be released from custody.
To the assistants, receptionists, lawyers, and legal workers that represented us—thank you for your dedication and commitment.
To my friends that stayed in to keep me company, moved me, brought me comfort and, most importantly, helped me to laugh and cry and rage-craft through this—I hope that I can give half as much to you as I have received.
To my co-evils (otherwise known as co-accused):
“While I can’t have you, I long for you… I spin worlds where we could be together. I dream you.” – Jeannette Winterson
I’ve missed you, friends. After all this time, my heart still beats as one with yours. But things have changed, we have grown, my heartbeat sounds different—I’m sure yours does too. Since we became wrapped up in this together, I have carried you with me everywhere I go. I’m excited to begin new relationships with you that don’t have the state stuck in between us. Thank you for all that you have been through this process: fierce,vulnerable, honest, inspiring, loving, strong, and deeply committed to working collectively, challenging oppression and building communities of resistance.
There is a complex combination of rage and inspiration that this experience has given me that cannot be summed up in one statement, let alone a lifetime of statements, but moving forward, I am energized and filled with hope that we will continue to struggle together in creative, supportive and inspiring ways. I would say see you in the streets, but if you know me, you know that I’m more excited to see you in a meeting.
With love, rage and solidarity,
Leah
Please write to me! If you don’t know what to write, send my a copy of your favourite poem(s), recipes, you really like or short stories.
Leah Henderson
c/o Vanier Centre for Women
655 Martin Street, Box 1040
Milton ON L9T 5E6
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Tuesday, December 27, 2011
DeOccupy the Death Penalty: #Occupy4Mumia
44% of the US death row population is African-American, an ethnic group that constitutes a mere 12.6% of the nation’s people as a whole. From this factoid, we can draw only one of two conclusions:
1. Blacks are genetically predisposed towards homicide
2. The US justice system is inherently racist
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One of my recent OWS photos:
#OccupyXmas: Dec. 25, 2011
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Friday, December 23, 2011
Anarchist Nation
Thanks to the involvement of anarchists in the Occupy movement, anarchism is generating increased attention from the mainstream news media. Most of the press reports, however, have been negative — with some exceptions. The stories on anarchist David Graeber, for example, have been relatively even-handed.
Generally, the mainstream media has thrown around the words “anarchy” and “anarchists” without the slightest hint of insight into the theory and practice of anarchism. Members of the mainstream media aren’t the only ones guilty of peddling unfounded stories about anarchism. Occupiers themselves, many of whom are unfamiliar with the tradition of anarchism, have attacked anarchists, blaming them for sabotaging or hijacking the Occupy movement. How ironic is this, given that the global Occupy movement adopted the anarchist critique of hierarchy and domination.
And even more troubling are the radicals among us—the ones who are surely familiar with the important role played by anarchists in all of the liberation and freedom struggles of the past 125 years, including the radical feminist and environmental movements—who choose to misrepresent anarchism because of some bad experiences they’ve had with people who call themselves anarchists.
Given the passions and distortions that surround most discussions of anarchism, it was refreshing to read an article in a non-anarchist publication that actually praised anarchists. The article appeared in, of all places, the house organ of stodgy liberalism: The Nation magazine.
In his Dec. 19 piece in The Nation titled “Thank You, Anarchists,” Nathan Schneider does a decent job describing the role played by anarchists in the Occupy movement. He explains how anarchists and other autonomists “try to build a culture in which people can take care of themselves and each other through healthy, sustainable communities.”
While Schneider deserves praise for not writing the all-too-familiar liberal hit piece on anarchists, his article does contain misleading elements. For example, he writes, “With the [general] assemblies, they’ve bestowed a refreshing form of grassroots organizing that, if it lasts, might help keep the rest of the system a bit more honest.” A reader could come away thinking anarchists are interested in reformist politics.
Anarchists, however, do not want to make the system more “honest.” To anarchists, “the system” is the problem, and it’s a problem that anarchists believe should be addressed as soon as possible.
Anarchists recognize the incredible damage caused by a grow-or-die economic system and its associated top-down political system. And eco-minded anarchists realize time is growing short to stop the system from killing the entire planet.
In response to The Nation article, author and activist Cindy Milstein explains that she is reminded almost daily how much the Occupy movement “is changing hearts and minds, including longtime apologists for statist politics such as The Nation.” Milstein also asserts that “anarchists deserve an apology—or maybe even a mea culpa—from [The Nation] and numerous others (not to mention many progressives, orthodox Marxists, and nonlibertarian leftists) for all the ways we’ve been stereotyped, belittled, and derided. It’s easy to say ‘thank you’ when, suddenly, anarchist values and practices are being popularly embraced.”
Over the past 15 years, anti-war, economic justice and environmental campaigners have increasingly embraced anarchism’s principle of equal distribution of power. Out of this organizing approach has emerged a view of the modern nation-state and its corporate partners as authoritarian and abusive. The growing awareness of the anarchist critique of the state is impressive. It’s what Schneider calls the “negative political philosophy” of anarchism, given that anarchists excel at explaining what they’re against. But what’s even more fascinating is the growing number of activists who now view the state as obsolete.
People have learned about and experienced alternative ways of organizing society. They welcome how these different social arrangements reject monopolies on power, thereby reducing feelings of alienation and powerlessness. Not only are people embracing the anarchist critique of the state and capitalism, they are being drawn toward what Milstein, in her book Anarchism and Its Aspirations, calls a “reconstructive vision.”
Schneider referenced this phenomenon in his Nation article when he wrote that anarchists have “reminded us that we don’t have to rely on Republicans or Democrats, or Clintons, Bushes or Sarah Palin, to do our politics for us.”
Indeed, large numbers of people are waking up. Poet and essayist Phil Rockstroh recently explained that “we are no longer isolated, enclosed in our alienation, imprisoned by a concretized sense of powerlessness; daylight is beginning to pierce the darkness of our desolate cells.”
The Occupy movement has succeeded in demonstrating how the ruling elite will react when people brandish real freedom, not the phony brands marketed by the state. Instead of welcoming a flourishing of democracy, the ruling elite has opted to display its true authoritarian colors through its brutal crackdowns on the movement.
And yet the movement lives on and will continue to grow as more people realize there is indeed a viable alternative. The conditions were ripe for stoking the fires of revolution in 2011. The OWS participants in Manhattan lit the match.
A colleague recently told me, “I feel like I woke up one day (not too long ago) and people just stopped believing in the system—like at every level. This thing is moving so fast. ... It’s very exciting.”
(Top image: Cover of Murray Bookchin’s book Remaking Society: Pathways to a Green Future)
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Thursday, December 22, 2011
There's more than one way to Occupy: #KeepYerToolboxFull
Successful activism is never either/or. When allies bicker over tactics, you can be certain vanity is ruling the day. Whether you want to sign petitions or engage underground direct action, go right ahead—but please understand that diversity of tactics advances the cause.
Please also understand that deriding others for not recognizing your brand of purity (violent, non-violent, or whatever) is more about your sense of self than bringing about the changes we all seek.
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One of my recent photos:
Don’t they know it’s illegal to #occupy in Bloomberg’s New York?
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Tuesday, December 20, 2011
#EcosystemBeforeEconomics
The opening lines of a recent New York Times article by Justin Gillis may appear to many readers as if they were part of a big budget film treatment:
“A bubble rose through a hole in the surface of a frozen lake. It popped, followed by another, and another, as if a pot were somehow boiling in the icy depths. Every bursting bubble sent up a puff of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas generated beneath the lake from the decay of plant debris. These plants last saw the light of day 30,000 years ago and have been locked in a deep freeze — until now.”
But here’s the catch: The melting of the permafrost is not science fiction and it’s not gonna go away us we occupy major changes…right now.
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One of my recent photos:
Sartre sez: “Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat."
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Sunday, December 18, 2011
The Establishment Left, Electoral Politics and the Revolution of 2012
When they were in their prime, the team of Leftist all-stars had years ahead of them to push hard for an alternative mode of social organization. And yet, they clung to the existing system and kept warning others that the lesser of the two evils was worthy of our support. Imagine the progress we’d have made by now if these great thinkers had rallied behind a movement to dismantle “the system.” Instead, they told us to respect federal electoral politics because, as they told the story, the tiny differences between the establishment’s two political parties could have huge consequences.
They stood behind their lecterns, offering cogent analysis of the corporate state. But as they were educating us, opening our eyes to the ugly reality of American Empire, they remained anchored in the belief that the system wasn’t worth kicking over.
We celebrated the Leftist all-stars and their significant contributions to awakening people worldwide to the real America. As we discovered, though, they had been snookered into the mythology of electoral politics serving as a vehicle for positive change. Their hypocrisy left us bewildered.
That was then. Times have changed, and we have moved on. We knew it was time to divorce ourselves from the belief that these people, the ones who we had viewed as heroes for so long, would join us in creating a new society. They had been our teachers. But they, for some reason or another, could not pry themselves from the dominant culture’s grip.
“I have no interest in participating in the traditional political process. It’s bureaucratic. It’s vertical. It’s exclusive. It’s ruled by money." - Jon Friesen
Many Leftist all-stars have died or moved into irrelevancy, stuck in their tired and static way of thinking. Others mock the people who are doing real work to transform our society away from its top-down, hierarchical structure.
Despite the ho-hum attitude from so many in the establishment Left, the Occupy movement has thrived, succeeding in opening the eyes of millions of people to the power of direct democracy. The movement also has succeeded in highlighting the irrelevance of established governmental institutions in creating a fair, decent and sustainable world. In fact, the movement has visibly demonstrated how the ruling elite, within the modern liberal democratic state, will push back hard and viciously when they believe their positions of power are threatened.
From its start, the Occupy movement has recognized a basic fact that the Leftist stalwarts still can’t seem to grasp: that federal electoral politics is a complete sham that distracts people from doing what’s necessary to dismantle the system. When unimaginative minds criticize the movement for its lack of demands, Occupiers gently inform these stodgy types that it’s counterproductive to make demands of a system that has no legitimacy.
In a recent interview, activist and cartoonist Stephanie McMillan cut to the chase. “I don’t have demands because I don’t recognize the legitimacy of those in power (so why would I demand anything from them?), and I don’t believe that this system can be reformed,” McMillan said. “But I absolutely have goals: a sustainable way of life free of class divisions and all other forms of domination.”
We will be pursuing these goals between now and next November and then for as long as it takes. What will the establishment Left be doing?
You can count on them expressing the same sentiment that beloved historian and activist Howard Zinn shared with us back in 2004 when he took a step backward. During the Bush v. Kerry presidential distraction, Zinn indeed warned us about Kerry’s pledge to increase the number of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, if elected president. Zinn described Kerry’s pledge as “the definition of fanaticism.” Zinn added: “It’s going to be hard for the American people to distinguish the two on the war.”
But—and this is a big but—in the next breadth, Zinn urged us to vote for the Democratic warmonger because “if Kerry is elected, we’ll have a little ledge to stand on,” referring to the potential influence progressives would be able to impart on a Kerry administration. “Presidents can be moved by their constituencies.”
(This is the same man who inspired us to live “now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us.” The same man who so beautifully reminded us that “revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment (beware of such moments!) but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zigzag toward a more decent society. We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.")
In the same year that Zinn was talking about standing on ledges, legendary dissident Noam Chomsky called on the enlightened among us to throw our values and goals out the door. Calling him “Bush-lite,” Chomsky argued that Kerry was a “fraction” better than his rival. Chomsky explained that there were “small differences” between Kerry and George W. Bush, but those small differences “can translate into large outcomes.”
If you have the patience to listen again in 2012 to these inanities during the folly called the “presidential race,” you’ll be hearing the exact same arguments coming out of the mouths of people who you generally respect but who, as we now know, have no desire to see real positive change happen in their lifetimes or the lifetimes of their children or their grandchildren.
Instead, it’s time to look forward, as the legions of Occupiers and their sympathizers are doing. In her wonderful book Anarchism and its Aspirations,” Cindy Milstein dissects the ruling elite’s version of “democracy,” also known as representative democracy:
“What gets dubbed democracy, then, is mere representation, and the best that progressives and the leftists can advocate for within the confines of this prepackaged definition are improved versions of a fundamentally flawed system.”
By participating in federal electoral politics, one is essentially giving his or her blessing to a repressive institution that sets up sham elections as a distraction to prevent real change. What the Occupy movement has done and will do in 2012—which is setting up to be the most revolutionary year in decades—is, as Milstein explains, “participate in the present in the ways that they would like to participate, much more fully and with much more self-determination, in the future.”
The Occupy movement has pushed beyond what Milstein calls the “oppositional character of the direct action movement by infusing it with a reconstructive vision.” That’s what we’re seeing across the United States and around the world in the actions of the Occupy movements and the revolutions for freedom. In the minds of the Occupy movement and other people engaged in radical change, sham electoral politics are history. Instead, as Milstein explains, a growing number of people are now determined to translate movement structures into “institutions that embody the good society; in short, cultivating direct democracy in the places we call home.”
These actions will not be taken lightly by the ruling elite. That’s why 2012 will be such a revolutionary year. Because it will be the year that people, emboldened by the Occupy movement’s success in 2011, will go to even greater lengths to take power into their own hands, causing the ruling elite to ponder new ways to curb the movement’s momentum. As Milstein explains: “It is time to move from protest to politics, from shutting down streets to opening up public space, from demanding scraps from those few in power to holding power firmly in our hands.”
(Occupy Poster by Rich Black)
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Saturday, December 17, 2011
Jalapeños: Joe Arpaio's Latino Assistance Program Eliminating Ñice Ordinary Stranger
By Kap Fulton
There seems to be this shared feeling amongst Euro-Americans regarding Mexico. Thanks to the mainstream media and the depiction of Mexicans in film and television, I have compiled a list of these feelings. Let this also serve as a travel guide for those wanting to travel through Mexico:
1) There is a guy standing at the Mexican border dressed like Pancho Villa. Under his sombrero there is a list of all the white people that have been bad this year. When one of these people tries to cross into Mexico, this authority figure kills said person. The body is then shared amongst recently deported migrants. The leftover bones are then used to make “Menudo” –- a delicious soup. Menudo is actually a Nahuatl word which literally translates to “yummy pink flesh for brunch.”
2) If one is lucky enough to get past the border, the next obstacle is the drug war. On every corner, in every Mexican city, stands a man with an M-16 assault rifle. This man will check your American passport to make sure you are not in one of the rival gangs such as the CIA (there is a dispute as to what the acronym CIA stands for: some say: “Criminals in Action”—others claim “Caucasians in Aztlán.”
3) Once it is verified that you are not a member of one of the American drug-running gangs, you are free to move around Mexico as needed. But take heed to the warning: especially single men: there are beautiful women everywhere trying to trick you into giving them a baby. One of the most common schemes for these women to use is an ancient form of magic called “Tequila Sorcery.” Under this spell, American men are at the whim of the Mexican woman. The only way to release oneself from this hold is a combination of sleep, Menudo, and running really fast.
4) So you’re past the border, the drugs, and the seductive feminine energy—but you’re not out of the woods yet. Beware of the parties! Mexicans are known to kill horses, fill the carcass with candy, and hang them from trees! Then the savage children come along with little baseball bats and beat the horse as to release the candy. The children love this game—and little do they realize that it serves as training for a career as a border agent.
5) Finally, after your long arduous journey through border cowboys, bricks of pills, gorgeous women, and Federales in training ... you come to a pyramid. As a student of history (mostly Mel Gibson movies), you know what is about to happen. You’ve heard the stories of human sacrifice, sword-wielding natives, and blood-letting. But you’re calm. You’ve seen enough Bruce Willis movies to make you numb to blood. You’ve watched your government kill people as official policy through wars and capital punishment—so you understand what’s coming. You’re content. And just as you think this, you see an eagle and a condor flying together. They land on top of the pyramid. The scene is so serene. So peaceful. Your one thought: “...damn, I didn’t get to see the bullfighting!”
This message was sponsored by JACK (Joe Arpaio Chicano Knowledge). And please click here to learn more about Joe Arpaio’s concentration camp.
Kap Fulton writes about sports, bullies, and revolution. He welcomes feedback at kapfulton@gmail.com.
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#DeOccupyHope
Barack Obama promised hope but what we got was more illegal military interventions (Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, etc.), the targeted assassinations of US citizens, and laws that allow the US to indefinitely detain suspects anywhere in the world without charge or trial.
“We can’t give up hope,” I often hear. “Keep hope alive,” the saying goes. “If we lose hope, nothing will ever change"…or so they believe.
Well, I’m here to say: #DeOccupyHope.
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One of my recent OWS photos:
We’re back...
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Thursday, December 15, 2011
#Occupy4USChildren
*Children make up 26% of the US population, but are 39% of the people who live in poverty (the poverty rate is higher for children than any other age group)
*Every day, 2,660 children are born into poverty
*Children and families are the fastest growing group among the homeless, making up 40% of the homeless population
*One in 50 US children currently homeless
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One of my recent OWS photos:
Yet another unwashed, lazy, and selfish hippie who refuses to do an honest day’s work
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Courtesy of Rick the Cartoonist:
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Cutting Crime: A New Solution for Environmental Protection?
By Press Action
If only a proper enforcement mechanism had been in place. Perhaps then the owners of a pair of oil products pipelines in Nebraska would have taken the necessary steps to prevent 119,000 gallons of gasoline and diesel from contaminating the surrounding land and a nearby creek.
Instead, under current regulatory and criminal law, executives with the pipeline system’s owners, Magellan Midstream Partners of Tulsa, Okla., will get off scot-free. Furthermore, lawmakers and regulators will refuse to implement proper measures in the aftermath of the Dec. 10 fuel spill, which occurred near Nemaha, Neb., in the southeast part of the state, to prevent similar atrocities from happening in other industrialized regions of the country.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Under an innovative legal and technological solution, as proposed by environmental author and activist Derrick Jensen at last month’s Earth At Risk conference in Berkeley, Calif., executives with companies seeking a permit for a major infrastructure or otherwise risky project would be required to guarantee the safety of their proposed facilities. The solution is known as the Remote-Controlled Cigar Cutter™.
Here’s how it would have worked in the case of Magellan Midstream Partners and the operation of its pipeline system in Nebraska. Prior to building the pair of underground pipelines or acquiring the pipelines that spilled the thousands of gallons of oil products, Magellan executives would have needed to get a permit.
As part of the permitting process, the top executives at Magellan Midstream Partners would have been required to sign documents attesting to the safety of the pipeline system, i.e., guaranteeing the pipeline would not blow up or break open or do anything harmful to the local communities through which the pipeline system runs.
But here’s the clincher. The executives also would have been required to have remote-controlled cigar cutters placed on their genitals. If the oil leaks or something else bad happens, the cigar cutters would be activated using a remote control. “If would solve all the problems,” Jensen asserted during the unveiling of the concept.
The Remote-Controlled Cigar Cutter™ solution isn’t foolproof. But it’s certainly a better regulatory and enforcement tool than the measures currently in place to deal with top business executives (who, let’s face it, are more than 95% male) responsible for terrible crimes such as the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico or the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal, India.
And if the top executives at Magellan Midstream Partners had understood that their genitals would have been ... um ... well ... let’s go with ... sliced if the activities of their partnership had caused harm to the environment, they likely would have been deterred from building or owning the inherently hazardous infrastructure in Nebraska in the first place. But in the slim chance that they had agreed to be held personally accountable if something went wrong in order to get the permit, it’s probably safe to assume they wouldn’t have cut any corners in maintaining the safety of their assets.
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Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Municipal Civil Disobedience: Helping Communities Fight for Ecosystem Rights
By Press Action
Individuals and community groups who are being assaulted by invasive corporations often make the mistake of contacting their state environmental agency or one of the nation’s major environmental groups for help, according to Thomas Linzey, executive director and co-founder of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund.
A state Department of Environmental Protection would seem like a logical place to call if the ecosystems in your community are under attack. According to Linzey, though, that’s not true and never has been.
Speaking at the Earth At Risk: Building a Resistance Movement to Save the Planet conference in Berkeley, Calif., in November, Linzey said people often “think that because a state agency is titled ‘the state Department of Environmental Protection’ that it actually does something to protect the environment.”
Despite containing the word “environment” in their names, the primary purpose of federal and state environmental agencies is to ensure economic growth and corporate profits remain unharmed by regulations. These agencies will give perfunctory attention to issues related to clean water and clean air as long as their actions do not disrupt business as usual.
Along with contacting their state environmental regulators, people confronted by an out-of-control corporation will often try to get in touch with one of the big environmental groups. But Linzey said that lawyers with groups such as the Environmental Defense Fund or the Natural Resources Defense Council will set the bar extremely low and often surrender to the will of corporations even before they get to work on a legal challenge. The attorneys may suggest taking certain legal action to delay harm to the environment. Or the attorneys may tell concerned residents that they could try to make the regulatory system “work a little better so it causes a little less harm,” Linzey said. But victory is not in their vocabulary.
The state DEPs and the lawyers for the big environmental groups “send folks right down the regulatory chute and they all end up in the same place ... shot through the head,” he said, metaphorically speaking. “Our activism is not effective because we’re channeled like cattle down into that place. How stupid are we to think that we can make the regulatory system work when it’s written by the very corporations that ostensibly it’s supposed to be regulating.”
Linzey was one of several speakers at the Earth At Risk conference, held Nov. 13 on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley. The event was hosted by environmental author and activist Derrick Jensen.
Linzey’s Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit law firm, has provided free legal services to more than 500 local governments and nonprofit organizations since 1995. He is also a co-founder of the Daniel Pennock Democracy School, which assists groups to create new community campaigns which seek to elevate the rights of those communities over rights claimed by corporations.
During his talk, Linzey emphasized that the people who are engaging in “real environmental activism” are the ones “having imminent harm happening to them.” And more and more imminent harm is happening in places where it hasn’t happened before. “That’s starting to radicalize populations that we wouldn’t have thought would become radicalized prior to this,” he said.
“The groups that we thought would be allies, that they would be interested in helping—they have not,” Linzey said in a previous speech. “It’s not long-time activists [who are moving this work]. It’s not progressives. It’s not liberals. It’s first-time activists who are coming into this stuff. We found them [long-time activists] to be a problem, to be an obstacle. And in some places they’re more of an obstacle than the actual corporations that the community’s attempting to fight.”
Municipalities in Pennsylvania and New York, for example, are providing a model and inspiration for the environmental movement by fighting back against the corporations that are seeking to drill for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale.
The most prominent municipal action occurred in Pittsburgh, Pa., when its city council in November 2010 unanimously voted to pass an ordinance, drafted by Linzey’s Legal Defense Fund, “banning the commercial extraction of natural gas within the city.” The ordinance, proposed by Councilman Doug Shields, also established a bill of rights for city residents, and removed the legal powers of gas companies within the city as a means to protect the health, safety and welfare of the people of Pittsburgh.
The ordinance also states: “The City Council recognizes that environmental and economic sustainability cannot be achieved if the rights of municipal majorities are routinely overridden by corporate minorities claiming certain legal powers.”
In 2006, the Legal Defense Fund also helped to draft a law passed by the Tamaqua Borough Council in Schuylkill County, Pa.—an extremely conservative region of Pennsylvania—declaring that sludge and dredge corporations possess no constitutional “rights” within the borough.
The Tamaqua law also banned corporations from engaging in the land application of sludge within the borough; recognized that ecosystems in Tamaqua possess enforceable rights against corporations; and established that Tamaqua residents can bring lawsuits to vindicate not only their own civil rights, but also the newly mandated rights of nature.
Though these victories have been impressive, Linzey recognizes corporations still generally hold a firm grip on all levels of government across the country. “Nature is property under our system of law. Your deed to that 10-acre piece of property carries with it the legal right to destroy the ecosystems on that piece of property,” he said.
Perhaps the Legal Defense Fund’s crowning achievement so far is its work with Ecuador, helping the country develop and draft provisions for a new legal provisions that put ecosystem rights directly into the its constitution. By an overwhelming margin, the people of Ecuador in September 2008 voted for a new constitution that was the first in the world to recognize legally enforceable rights of nature, or ecosystem rights.
“Ecuador was the first country to transform from a property-based system of environmental law to a rights-based system of environmental law,” Linzey said.
Back in the U.S., Linzey hopes more communities unite against the hegemony of the corporate state. When small numbers of individuals engage in civil disobedience, the corporate powers can easily ignore them. But when greater numbers of people come together at the local level—in what Linzey calls “collective civil disobedience through municipal lawmaking”—it can have more dramatic effects.
“Eventually, maybe, there’s a critical mass” at the municipal level across the country that will push upward, changing the entire system, he said.
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Monday, December 12, 2011
#Occupy4Children
NOTE: A new comments section method has been installed. Hope you’ll give it a whirl.
Madeleine Albright sez: “The United States is good. We try to do our best everywhere.”
Ward Churchill sez: “Stop killing our kids, if you want your own to be safe.”
What’s that? You’re not killing anybody’s kids? Au contraire, mon ami…
With 54% of US tax dollars going to the military, the vast majority of Americans have contributed to enough murders to make Kissinger blush.
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One of my recent photos:
With my Dad for his 79th birthday
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Wednesday, December 07, 2011
De-Occupy Shopping Daze: #SayNo2Fir (and other holiday traditions)
When those giant chain stores try to make it “easy” for you to purchase “earth-friendly” products, please remind yourself that the goal is not to replace consumerism with green consumerism. The goal is, well…to change our culture from the ground up. Therefore, the choices with the greatest impact are, by definition, not easy. Creating sustainable cultural change, of course, goes well beyond de-occupying the holiday frenzy.
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One of my recent OWS photos:
It’s now or never...
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Saturday, December 03, 2011
De-Occupy Lazy: #Thinking4Yourself/Action4All
Of all the excuses used by mainstream Americans to dismiss/reject Occupy Wall Street (OWS), trusting the corporate media may be the most indefensible. To you, I plead: #OccupyReality.
Lazy: Allowing the professional propagandists of the corporate media to do your thinking for you
Not Lazy: Volunteering your time and energy to cook organic, locally grown food to feed the homeless
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Courtesy of Rick the Cartoonist:
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One of my recent OWS photos:
#ClassWarExists
(More new OWS-related pics here)
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Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Occupy Sustainability: #MakeMoviesNotMissiles
Winnie sez: “Occupy might still be in its infancy but the thing is growing faster than Monsanto pesticides can kill off bee species, and that is good news. Culture is being jammed and paradigms are shifting—whether people like it or not. In the future, we’ll look back on this and be glad we could put our differences aside to work together and create a better world. One that is fair, sustainable and fun to live in.”
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One of my recent OWS photos:
March of the 99%: Dec. 1
(More “March of the 99%” pics here)
(Other new OWS-related pics here)
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Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Occupy Radical Fitness: #MaintainMilitantMuscle
Being radical needn’t require one to eschew sleep, smoke a pack a minute, and sport a rail-thin heroin addict physique. Then again, neither should Michael Moore serve as anyone’s role model for healthy rebellion. Fitness—both mental and physical—is a crucial component for any serious subversive. If you think smashing capitalism is hard, try doing it with clogged arteries or carpal tunnel syndrome.
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One of my recent OWS photos:
Damn, how I wish these lazy protestors would just get a job (and take a bath)
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Saturday, November 26, 2011
DeOccupy Cruelty: #SayNo2Fur&Leather
So there you are at your local Occupation
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One of my recent photos:
Activism is way more fun than shopping on Black Friday
(More Fur-Free Friday pics here)
(More OWS-related protest pics here)
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Video from OWS Thanksgiving:
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Wednesday, November 23, 2011
#DeOccupyExtinctions
Thanks to the ever-growing Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, capitalism itself is in the crosshairs. While some protesters talk of reforms and tweaks, many are beginning to recognize the stark reality that any system that requires relentless, uncompromising consumption of resources is not only unsustainable…it’s anti-life. One need only consider the current extinction rate to comprehend the impact of “growth” upon our shared ecosystem.
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One of my recent OWS photos:
Some of the OWS People’s Library that was “saved” by the city
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My latest OWS slideshow:
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Saturday, November 19, 2011
#OccupyThanksgiving
“Pass the gravy.”
“How ‘bout them Packers?”
“I wonder how much of this food is genetically modified.”
Hmm...which line doesn’t belong? The dinner dialogue at many holiday gatherings often fluctuates between strained and superficial at best—as most folks try to keep the family peace. This reality can leave the radicals in quite a quandary: maintain proper etiquette or exploit a golden opportunity to spark a crucial conversation?
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One of my recent OWS photos:
"Bloomberg beware, Zuccotti Park is everywhere"
(Bloomberg Drum Circle pics here)
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Thursday, November 17, 2011
Occupy Endurance: #Thanks4TheWakeUpCall
Make no mistake about it: Occupy Wall Street (OWS) will regroup. It will be stronger than ever, less centralized, and harder for the authorities to track. OWS will endure because we will endure.
We must endure because we live in a society where people who volunteer to provide locally grown, organic food to feed the homeless are openly tear-gassed by the army of the affluent.
We must endure because one of the richest men on the planet can freely order his mercenaries to toss 5000 books in a trash compactor.
We must endure because when NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg explains how “health and safety conditions became intolerable,” he’s not talking about Manhattan having the third highest cancer risk (per million) caused by airborne chemicals of all counties in the United States.
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One of my recent OWS photos:
I read the news today, oh boy...
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Monday, November 14, 2011
Occupy Class War: #Unity&TransparencyLead2Action
If I were attempting to discern why Occupy Wall Street (OWS) has caught on while so many other protests and fledgling movements have not, I’d have to guess it was this fundamental idea: 99%. A steadfast commitment to recognizing classism is a big part of what’s helping OWS endure and grow.
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One of my recent OWS photos:
No generators? No problem.
(Yes, even more new OWS pics here)
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Friday, November 11, 2011
DeOccupy the Oceans: #EcosystemBeforeEconomics
The 1% don’t want the big connections to be made…but it’s too late. OWS is not a single-issue campaign with a finite goal. OWS is slowly but surely putting it all together and thus exposing a global system that must be dismantled before there’s no one left to dismantle it.
Exhibit A: The oceans.
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One of my recent OWS photos:
#DeOccupyCorporatePower
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Monday, November 07, 2011
#OccupyActivism
Ask yourself if you’re content with your relatively high quality of life being possible thanks to the poor quality of life of others elsewhere. Ask yourself if you’re content with your relative freedom being possible thanks to the oppression of others elsewhere.
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One of my recent OWS photos:
Not yer ordinary town
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OWS slideshow @ 6 weeks:
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Z for Zezima:
(Thanks to JD)
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Wednesday, November 02, 2011
#OccupyPhotojournalism
Tens of millions now know about the pepper spray, the orange kettling nets, and the flash grenades because activists on the ground have not delegated the duty of documentation. Cameras of all sizes and styles are essential tools—weapons even—providing on-site evidence of, for example, global support in the form of massive solidarity marches in other countries. We don’t anecdotes about members of the 1% drinking champagne and laughing at the OWS crowd. We have it on video.
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One of my recent OWS photos:
Life in a police state
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Saturday, October 29, 2011
#OccupyParticipation (part 2)
Shhh… Silence your cell phones, your TVs, silence the noise in your head...and just listen. Listen carefully. Can you hear it? It’s a cry from the future, a mournful plea begging us to capture this moment. Can you hear it? Will you hear it? Or have you gotten so accustomed to losing that you choose instead to cover your ears, bury your head—finding endless excuses and myriad methods to discredit the effort? Listen again. Listen closer. It’s our last, best chance...it’s the call to revolution. How will you answer?
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Bonus link re-posting:
I was sort of interviewed about OWS here
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One of my recent photos:
On the contrary...
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Unrelated bonus link:
Read my latest Pulse fitness column here
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Wednesday, October 26, 2011
#DeOccupyHalloween
Every year, as October 31 nears, loyal consumers eagerly squander a small fortune to adorn their soon-to-be-foreclosed-upon abodes with Made-in-China images of tombstones, skulls, ghouls, goblins, monsters, zombies, and even the occasional bloody severed limb or two.
But, let’s face it, none of these cardboard depictions compare to the real-life horrors that have helped spawn the #Occupy movement.
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Another of my recent photos:
The Pope of Hope’s favorite toy
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My short OWS slideshow:
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Courtesy of RMJ:
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Saturday, October 22, 2011
OccupyParticipation: #CommonalityNotComplaint
What’s happening at OWS is the cultivation of an alternate model of human culture. In roughly one month, several man-made hierarchies, constructs, and barriers have already been (at least) temporarily smashed. Is it perfect? Of course not…but perfection should never be the standard
What OWS is modeling is a far more cooperative, creative, and participatory way of living. If that doesn’t sound like an “agenda” to you, well…welcome to the 1%
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Another of my recent photos:
The I’s have it
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Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Occupy4GeneralStrike
The 1% can mock the OWS crowd for playing bongos, but they won’t be laughing if more and more people pull their money from big banks.
The 1% can mock the OWS crowd for (allegedly) not having an agenda, but they won’t be laughing if school buses don’t run, bank tellers stay home, food deliveries halt, airline flights are grounded, and the nanny calls in sick…for a month.
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Another of my recent photos:
#OccupyCompanionship
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Courtesy of Rick the Cartoonist:
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Courtesy of RMJ:
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Saturday, October 15, 2011
Occupy4Life: #revolution in the name of all species
It’s not nearly enough to rise above the latest man-made conflicts and/or differences and proudly declare oneself a “humanist.” In the name of holistic justice and planetary rebellion we must go deeper to identify as earthlings and stand—fists raised—in solidarity with all of our fellow earthlings.
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Another of my recent photos:
Core agenda
(OWS @ Times Square pics HERE)
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Thursday, October 13, 2011
Arab Spring, Capitalism's Fall: Standing Up to Join a Global Movement
By Stephanie McMillan
The people are in motion! We’re standing up to join a global movement, what may become a global revolution.
This is beautiful! I’ve been waiting and working all my life to see this. We’re all here because in general we want the same things: a new society based on fairness, sustainability, healthy communities, a living planet. An end to domination and oppression of all forms.
What stands in our way? Is it greedy corporations that have grown to big and gone too far? It’s those, but it goes deeper than that. Profit. Profit is the problem. And a whole social/cultural/economic/political system based on accumulating profit, through the extraction of natural resources and the exploitation of labor.
We have an enemy. I’ll go ahead and name it: global capitalism.
Capitalism is not a thing, but a process: the conversion of life into commodities into toxic waste.
It’s also a social relation, where a small minority owns and controls our means of subsistence and uses this to dominate and exploit the majority of people and the world. Those in power start out by seizing land and destroying traditional land-based and indigenous communities. They push people into labor camps (commonly known as cities), and make them work for food and shelter. Would anyone consent to work in a factory or mine if they had any other way to survive? Would you? I wouldn’t.
Capitalism is based on constant expansion, on ever-increasing rates of private accumulation. This means it’s structurally unreformable. The nicest capitalist in the world might want to change that, but wouldn’t be able to. They must make profit or go out of business.
Global capitalism is in deep crisis. It’s played out. Many expect it to collapse. But the truth is, it won’t. It’s dynamic and adaptable. It could morph into fascism or neo-feudalism. But it will use up everything and keep going until all life on the planet is extinguished.
I don’t know about you, but for me that’s too late.
We must eliminate it. It’s our responsibility. We may be the last generation with the opportunity to do so.
With this action, with this movement, I’m starting to believe it’s possible!
I hope to see this grow into a radical mass movement that can unite all who can be united to fight the system, our common enemy. A diverse, non-sectarian movement, mutually supportive, and above all visionary and fearless.
We don’t know what’s going to happen or what this will become. But we have to keep it going, keep moving hand-in-hand to wherever the demands of our situation may lead us.
Sure, we’re chaotic, flawed, unpredictable. This may not be exactly what each of us wants or thinks we need. But the important thing is that we’re MOVING. We’ve woken up. We’re challenging the system.
Capitalists, we’re coming for you!
Imperialists and war-mongers, we’re coming for you!
Exploiters and oppressors, we’re coming for you!
Ecocidal maniacs and corporate bloodsuckers, we’re coming for you!
We’ll fight you, and we’ll fight you, and we’ll make mistakes along the way, and we’ll falter. But we’ll keep getting up and we’ll fight again, and fight again, and one day we are going to win.
(This is the text of Stephanie McMillan’s speech at the October2011 action in Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C.)
Stephanie McMillan is a cartoonist and activist. She creates the daily comic strip “Minimum Security” and the weekly editorial cartoon “Code Green.” Among her books is a graphic novel with Derrick Jensen, “As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial.” (Seven Stories Press). Her website is at stephaniemcmillan.org.
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Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Occupy Reality: #context, re: peaceful protests (and more)
As I’ve walked through Zuccotti Park, I’ve often heard folks (especially those giving interviews) talking (boasting, even) about how peaceful OWS is. Without getting into the pros and cons of dissidents being so proud of obeying laws, I will say that the scene at OWS is definitely not peaceful. There’s nothing “peaceful” about an environment surrounded by armed enemies—no matter how many folk songs you sing or organic banana peels you compost. In fact, I’ll go as far as saying: In today’s society, there’s no such thing as a peaceful protest.
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From RMJ:
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Another of my recent photos:
#OccupyStrawberryFields
More photos from John Lennon’s birthday here
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Sunday, October 09, 2011
Occupy Imperfection: Choosing process over purity
Occupation is imperfection. Call it anarchist, socialist, democratic, or utopia—it will never be perfect. More importantly, even if the initial results don’t satisfy most people, consider this: It will still be far better than anything we have now.
Occupation also does not end. Let’s stop conjuring up potential endgames when we all know that occupation must be a never-ending process.
Say no to purists. Say no to opportunists. Say yes to occupation.
There has never been a better time to be an activist.
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Another of my recent photos:
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With thanks to RMJ:
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Tuesday, October 04, 2011
Occupy Montana: Howling in the name of wolves
The first “dogs,” of course, were domesticated wolves but the chasm between man’s best friend and its much-maligned ancestor remains perilously wide. This reality not only goes a long way in illustrating the irrationality that permeates modern human culture, it also provides us with a golden opportunity to step up and protect our shared heritage…right now.
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Another of my recent photos:
A bunch more of my pics from Wall Street
Slideshow:
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Saturday, October 01, 2011
Can "Occupy Wall Street" Revive Left Activism?
“You say you got a real solution? Well, you know, we’d all love to see the plan.”
- John Lennon, “Revolution”
“I’d join the movement if there was one I could believe in”
- Bono, “Acrobat”
I was reminded of the above rock star quotes as I read criticisms of the “Occupy Wall Street” (OWS) protest. No, not the predictably smug mainstream dismissal of almost all activism as the domain of bored rich kids.
Rather, I’m thinking about the smug left wing dismissal of any activism that isn’t inspired by theoretical purity, e.g. Lauren Ellis in Mother Jones, who mockingly summed up the effort as “First make noise, then decide what the noise is all about?”
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Another of my recent photos:
A bunch more “Occupy Wall Street” photos here
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Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Planet of the Dammed
As Jacques Leslie, author of Deep Water: The Epic Struggle over Dams, Displaced People, and the Environment, explains: “The world’s dams have shifted so much weight that geophysicists believe they have slightly altered the speed of the earth’s rotation, the tilt of its axis, and the shape of its gravitational field.”
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Sending good wishes to our friend Helga:
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Another of my recent photos:
Here comes trouble...
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Monday, September 26, 2011
Wall Street: The Occupied Territories
I spent some time making friends at the Wall Street occupation on Sunday...and even managed to get myself interviewed (see video below).
Also, I took a bunch of photos. One above and one below and the rest can be found right here
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Friday, September 23, 2011
Will you speak for the trees?
We’re linked. Like it or not, everything is linked. The future of life on Earth depends infinitely more on things like forest conservation than, say, profit margins. The sooner we realize this and act accordingly and decisively, the better chance we have of creating a softer place to land. Quite simply, the choice is ours…but time, my fellow earthlings, is not on our side.
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Some Expendable-related photos:
Signing my haiku at the vegan art show
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On the annual NYC Century Ride, the Astoria Park rest stop is named in honor of our fallen Expendable comrade
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Monday, September 19, 2011
The need for revolutionary art
The folks at the Fair Share of the Common Heritage website envision every sentient being—human and non-human—fairly and peacefully sharing the planet’s resources. Besides the physical environment, this also “includes the inventions, knowledge and cultural contributions created by previous generations.”
In other words, all forms of art fit securely within the realm of this vision…especially those forms of expression that open minds, shatter illusions, provoke independent thoughts, and challenge prevailing trends. I like to think of such art as revolutionary climate change and indeed, we need an atmosphere of resistance.
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Another of my recent photos:
September roses
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Tuesday, September 13, 2011
What zoos (and wars) say about us
Please allow me to introduce the following presuppositions:
1. Whether you call it a cage, a cell, a jail, a pen, a ward, a prison, a wildlife center, or an enclosure…incarceration is incarceration
2. A culture that captures, confines, and exploits animals for profit is highly likely to regularly promote and engage in other forms of violence and exploitation
I contemplated these truisms upon hearing that Libya’s Tripoli Zoo had been abandoned during fighting in late August.
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Another of my recent photos:
Related haiku below
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Friday, September 09, 2011
Some 9/11 Truth: We've created a society of suicide bombers
The topic of “suicide bombers” was often raised, of course, during the build-up to the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Regardless of what any of us believe about the events of that day, it seems we can all stand united in our superiority as we assure ourselves that civilized humans (read: like us) don’t partake in kamikaze missions or detonate explosive-laden vests.
I could write volumes on the conditioning behind such beliefs and even more on the myriad reasons to question any “official story” being sold, but instead, I’d like to suggest we take a much wider view of this “suicide as homicide” phenomenon.
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When Expendables meet (in the City of Angels):
Zen Prole and subgenius
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Another of my recent photos:
That’s me in the corner
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Tuesday, September 06, 2011
Environmentalism's Last Stand
Over the past few weeks, while most Americans were enjoying summer vacations or debating the upcoming NFL season or dealing with hurricanes and earthquakes, over 1200 humans have been arrested (as of this writing) near the White House for protesting against a proposed tar sands pipeline.
This may not qualify as major event or even a large protest (at a single 1971 anti-war demonstration in Washington, DC, 14,000 protestors were arrested) but since many have called Canada’s tar sands project the “most destructive” on Earth, we might be witnessing environmentalism’s last stand.
Read my new article about “Tar sands and the future of our eco-system” here
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Another of my recent photos:
Summer days, drifting away
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Friday, September 02, 2011
Keep the "Labor" in Labor Day
With the ongoing demonization of unions, it’s no surprise that labor history remains obscured and misrepresented. With that in mind, we can choose to see the approaching Labor Day as nothing more than the symbolic end of summer and an excuse for more shopping…or we can use it as inspiration to reflect upon some of the brave souls who forged a path of justice and solidarity.
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Another of my recent photos:
All you can bee
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Monday, August 29, 2011
An earthquake in NYC? What the frack?
Truth be told, I didn’t even feel the earthquake that hit New York City on August 23…but I sure felt the (corporate and social) media aftershocks.
Missing from almost all post-quake reportage was any mention of hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus Shale watershed—a black shale formation extending deep underground from Ohio and West Virginia northeast into Pennsylvania and southern New York.
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MZ event note:
Some of my photographs and paintings will be featured (and sold) at a vegan art show in NYC. The work will be up from Sept. 4 to Oct. 28 at the Jackson Hall Art Gallery, 446 West 36th St., between 9th & 10th Aves.
There will be a reception (with vegan food from Caravan of Dreams) on Wednesday, Sept. 21: 5-8pm.
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Another of my recent photos:
The aftermath of Hurricane Irene in Astoria
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Friday, August 26, 2011
Summer Re-Run: "Meet Keith McHenry"
A blast from my somewhat recent past:
My interview with the founder of Food Not Bombs
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MZ event note:
Some of my photographs and paintings will be featured (and sold) at a vegan art show in NYC. The work will be up from Sept. 4 to Oct. 28 at the Jackson Hall Art Gallery, 446 West 36th St., between 9th & 10th Aves.
There will be a reception (with vegan food from Caravan of Dreams) on Wednesday, Sept. 21: 5-8pm.
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Another of my recent photos:
Coming out of their shell
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Monday, August 22, 2011
The media is as liberal as the corporations that own it
Perhaps my favorite illustration of life in a corporate propaganda state is the daily New York Times corrections box. Each morning, the newspaper of record comes clean about what it got wrong the day before.
Of course, the tacit message behind the daily New York Times corrections box is this: Besides a few minor typographical errors, everything else in yesterday’s paper was correct. It was accurate. It was, to use their phrase, fit to print…and has now passed on to become part of our official history. This is typical of life within a society dominated by a corporate-run press.
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Another of my recent photos:
Billie Holiday sez: “Don’t threaten me with love, baby. Let’s just go walking in the rain."
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Friday, August 19, 2011
How much more collective pain will we bear?
A widely reported episode has shone a brief light on humanity’s seemingly endless capacity for brutality. According to witnesses, a mother Moon bear managed to break out of its cage when she “heard her cub in distress.”
“When a worker wanted to open up her cub’s stomach, the mother bear broke open the cage and went after the cub,” explained one witness. “After failing to release the chained cub, she hugged the cub. Then, the mother bear killed the cub (by strangulation) to save it from a life of hell.”
Witnesses say the mother bear promptly killed herself by running head first into a wall.
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Another of my recent photos:
Yabba Dabba Do
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Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Summer Re-Run: "How to Be an Activist"
A blast from my somewhat recent past:
5 Ways to “Pay Our Rent” For Living on This Planet
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Mickey Z. Event Alert:
I will be doing a short spoken word set at Astoria Park as part of the 4th Annual Music and Arts Festival - presented by Astoria Music and Arts. Come on down to the banks of the mighty East River on Sunday, August 21 for a full day (11am to 9pm) of local musicians and artists.
I’ll be on the Hellgate Stage and here’s the line-up:
12:00-12:30 Lancaster County Prison
12:45-1:15 Neon Dynamite
1:30-2:00 The Stately Ghosts
2:15-2:45 Static Rising
3:00-3:45 Tyrone Noonan Band
3:45-4:00 Mickey Z. (spoken word)
4:00-4:45 Illimanjaro
5:00-5:45 Thunderbang!
6:00-6:45 Ponywhip
7:00-7:45 Spanglish Fly
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Another of my recent photos:
Cable-ready
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Saturday, August 13, 2011
Our way of life is the problem
When Barack Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, he clearly and firmly announced to the planet:
"We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense."
Let’s just say the Pope of Hope is working mighty hard to keep his promise.
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In memory of James (the Expendable):
August 14 is two years since we lost our friend...
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Another of my recent photos:
Somebody put a band-aid on the sun
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Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Summer Re-Run: "Cracking the Corporate Code"
A blast from my somewhat recent past:
Shunryu Suzuki sez: “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”
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Another of my recent photos:
Three little birds
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Sunday, August 07, 2011
Global Self-Defense
Being nice has gotten us undrinkable water, polluted air, and often inedible food. Being nice has us believing that coal is clean, nukes are green, and climate change can be reversed by switching to recycled toilet paper. It’s time to not be nice…and that means keeping your toolbox full.
Huh?
Let’s say you’re a handy man/woman/human and you get hired for a job. I’m guessing you’d bring your full toolbox to the worksite. After all, you can never be sure what might pop up and what tools you’ll need. In other words, if you have a job to do, it would be illogical to decide beforehand that certain tools are off limits. Keep all your tools at your disposal—even if some remain untouched—just in case.
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Another of my recent photos:
Buckminster Fuller sez: “There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly."
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Saturday, August 06, 2011
Beyond the Debt Limit Fiasco: 'We Would Rather Die in Our Dread'
By Phil Rockstroh
At present, most of us negotiate our days so distracted, disillusioned, dazed, buffeted, bought or marginalized by the corporate state/ mass media hologram—the multi-headed, awareness-addling Hydra that guards contemporary precincts of perception (apropos, the “debate” involving the so-called debt ceiling “crisis")—it is difficult to apprehend what we are up against i.e., the forces of consolidated and calcified power that degrade almost every aspect of life in the nation.
In contrast, throughout this past year, popular uprisings of varying scope and degree of success have been unfolding worldwide. And the genie is not going back in the neoliberal bottle. The global power elite might not like it, but (unlike the general population of the U.S., whose view of life has been conditioned by the inundating, thus internalized, narcissism proffered by media age hyper-commercialism, and who have come to exist as self-involved consumer state dystopias of one)—large numbers of the people of the world are declaring to their overlords: We’ve had enough of the world you’ve created...time to make it our own.
With this in mind, let us take a moment to pity our own poor, little, economic despots…from the start, so misunderstood…they only built the U.S. on the bones of African slaves and watered the soil with the blood of murdered Indians, and, from that time on, proceeded to pile corpses to the sky, only so they could climb atop and look out for us lesser folks.
And from the soil rose a culture of kitsch, unhealthy food, and creepy, over-priced banal distractions. Consequently, the U.S. seems an over-priced, downscale theme Park—Six Flags over Denial and Decay—a grotesque, kitsch-bewitched land of negative enchantment…unprepared for the gathering, denial-sundering storm that, from all indications, will leave the nation devastated.
What are the forces and factors that have wrought this circumstance?
One progenitor of the defiant idiocy of the general population of the U.S. can be traced to the tendency of the consumer state to induce impulsivity rather than reflection i.e., rendering individuals self-involved, infantilized monsters of the id…dazzled by and perpetually reaching for the next bright and shiny.
Antithetically, if a critical mass of the populace of the nation ever gained a semblance of self-awareness that included traits of foresight, critical thinking, empathy, self-restraint and a sense of conviction regarding, for example, the dire state of the planet on an ecological basis, as well as an apprehension as to their position as wage slaves/debt serfs to their corporate overlords—the corporate/consumer paradigm would be in danger of collapse.
While it is true, government is often behind assaults on common sense and common decency, the slickest, most self-serving ploy monopolistic capitalist pulled off against the tenets and foundation of a just, equitable society has been in their cunning framing of the situation e.g., the sales pitch of one of their most effective salesman, that “government is the problem, not the solution.”
Ronald Reagan was half right; only, he, conveniently, left out the following: In particular, when the politicians who operate the system are beholden, as he was (and, at present, Barack Obama is) by game-rigging operatives of the moneyed elite.
Ergo, the so-called “debt crisis” involved a similar dance of deceit and distraction. As was the case, early into the Obama presidency, with the healthcare “debate,” the deal was struck before the faux rancorous music began. The fix was in. The moneyed class works the system and those without power and influence get worked over.
Regarding the persistent, liberal fallacy: Obama needs to stand up for his convictions. Correction: Throughout his presidency, he has been standing upon his convictions i.e. standing on the throats of the powerless as we’re being mugged by his elitist benefactors.
Moreover, how does he or anyone “change the tone” of political polarization so evident in the nation, when the right is a walking landfill of noxious arrogance and inexplicable self-regard? If contemporary conservatives showed any indication of harboring even a molecule of humanity or self-awareness then a dialog might be possible.
But we’re dealing with grownups who believe God is some kind of cosmic CEO—folks who are certain…if one listens closely, one can hear him counting his money.
Therefore, we’re warned: not voting for Democratic Party (lesser-of-two-evils) candidates is a treacherous decision, and we’re advised we must goad President Obama to govern as the man he sold himself as during the 2008 presidential election campaign. Given the realities of political life within the age of corporate dominance, in which reality is defined and distorted by the media hologram, hasn’t the thought occurred to progressive types that the sales pitch is, in fact, inseparable from the product, and, consequently, to the most media-savvy mountebank will go the spoils?
O.K. then, you’ve been betrayed. Good. Such a turn of affairs serves as a good vehicle for clearing away toxic innocence.
"We would rather be ruined than changed;
We would rather die in our dreadThan climb across the moment
And let our illusions die."--W.H. Auden
(Excerpt from: The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue)
Next step: Let the Democratic Party die and allow a true progressive party to rise from the ashes.
Although, first, the hidden in plain sight, inverted totalitarian powers at large need to be drawn into the open e.g., as Dr. King did in regard to Jim Crowe in the U.S. Deep South in the 1950s and 60s.
There is so much more at stake than simply a “debate” regarding the alleged debt ceiling.
To cite one collective peril: The oceans of the earth are the matrix of life on our planet. As did all life on land, we human beings emerged from ancient seas. And we will not survive for long by dramatically altering its nature by the short sighted greed and hubris of the present time. We will be pulled to our death by its destruction, like Ahab lashed to Moby Dick.
Given the degraded quality of life in the nation, why do the people of the U.S. stand for this culture of exploitation and diminished prospects?
We resist the dread incurred by an attempt to climb our way past the proliferate distractions of the moment thus avoiding this extant state of affairs: Beneath the shimmering sea of the media hologram, a monstrous virulence glides. Belying our consumerist habit of mind (evinced in traits of feigned insouciance and blithe disregard) yawns a system sustained by the blood and treasure-depleting apparatus of militarism and economic exploitation—a system that is reaping vast destruction upon the ecological balance of the earth, the foundation of community, and upon individual psychological wellbeing.
Accordingly, a gnawing emptiness is the constant companion of the denizens of the corporate/militarist/consumer state. This emptiness is the progenitor of its destructive nature. In a vain attempt to sate the hollow ache and banish the gathering dread, the rapacious appetite of empire rises and is perpetually reinforced.
There is the banality of evil and then there is the evil of banality. Witness: The present banality of our ecocide-inflicting mode of being—one that reduces the world to only those things that can be commodified and thus reduces earth, sky and psyche to controllable (dreamless and dead) bits. We stare at our appliances as exquisite things are extinguished, forever...mistaking configurations of pixels for the breath and brilliance of the world.
On a personal basis, the present system levels this dismal legacy upon the nation: Minds made of internalized shopping malls; bodies built by junk food; libidos informed by celebrity porn; agendas driven by a crass, good versus evil, winners and losers, cartoon cosmology. Congratulations, America, we’ve done the architects of the republic proud.
Some people are fragile, and the system breaks them for life. In contrast, others are resilient, but will grow callous and conformist. Yes, life is a fistfight and a marriage and a dull evening of laundry and a trundle through trivia and a flight of the sublime. The point: Be alive within life…don’t submit to any ass-backwards, assembly line-modeled mode of being, gridded by comforting casuistry, maintained by hierarchies of bullies, and settled for due to fear or convenience.
"When truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie.” --Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Insulated in our landscape of silence, we demand the ground beneath us be salted with deceit, begetting the bone-dry wilderness of ignorance and duplicity we know as late, neoliberal empire. Otherwise, fiery incantations of outrage would bloom from within us—a combustive wildfire immolating to ash our tinderbox rationalizations…perhaps, leaving an ash-fall to nourish sleeping seeds of renewal.
"What is to endure light must endure burning.”—Victor Frankl
Yet, this writer is bereft of a plan to redeem humankind. Who can afford such hubris? In contrast, I negotiate the world with my heart and head, and I sing of its joys and sorrows. Apropos, within the kingdom of this breathing moment, I hear arias rising...auguring the decay of this nation. In short, I am a poet and an essayist not a civic planner.
Accordingly, here are a few heart-wrought observations from the personal ash heap of my poetically archaic sensibility and sent out to the fear-bandying cynics of the elitist political and economic classes—to those who reduce all of life to the economic sophistry of Disaster Capitalism (who have been disingenuously warning, “run for your lives; the debt-ceiling is falling")—who just can’t envisage a world that is not as degraded as their own mindset—to those in positions of insular, arrogant power who inflict great harm upon those bereft of privilege and then proclaim, “this is just the way things have to be.”
False, that is merely the way things exist in the confines of your miserable cosmology. To the contrary, the world is a vast, ever-changing tapestry...that you merely perceive as a dung rag for your exclusive use.
“The most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm that is not easily disturbed. It is just these intense conflicts and their conflagration which are needed to produce valuable and lasting results.” - Carl Jung
We have a daunting struggle ahead of us. Therefore, I proffer the following short message to those purer-than-thou souls who counsel that art (including the arts of political resistance) should only be uplifting, moderate, and beautiful:
Art (reflecting our world) is often sublimely ugly, monstrously so. The image of a monster opens the soul to awe. Note: The word “awe” is the prefix for both awesome and awful). Often, creating ugliness carries as much purpose as creating beauty.
Everything has been figured out, except how to live.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Sartre’s words notwithstanding, I am often asked by readers “practical” questions such as: “You view the empire to be in a state of profound decay, beyond repair and reclamation—then how should we proceed from here?”
I answer, appropriating a phrase from James Hillman: simply proceed into “the thought of the heart and the soul of the world.” The problem contains the solution. The poison serves as its anecdote. The vastness and complexity of life that (seemingly) endeavors to destroy me (in contrast) renders me more like myself, and therefore I become more fit for the struggle ahead.
Accordingly, Rainer Maria Rilke, from the opening stanza of the Duino Elegies:
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the Angelic
Orders? And even if one were to suddenly
take me to its heart, I would vanish into its
greater existence. For beauty is nothing but
the beginning of terror, that we are still able to bear,
and we revere it so, because it serenely disdains
to destroy us.
Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at: phil@philrockstroh.com. Visit Phil’s website http://philrockstroh.com and Facebook.
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Friday, August 05, 2011
Changing the climate…of denial
Let’s pretend either of these statements is true:
*Global warming is a hoax
*Humans are not responsible for climate change
Well, guess what? It wouldn’t at all change the primary mission of dark green activists across the globe: stopping ecocide. Climate change, of course, connects to many of the other pressing environmental problems but our shared eco-system would be in serious peril even if the climate deniers miraculously turned out to be correct.
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Another of my recent photos:
Your typical human being is 66% water
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Poem: “joe from maine’s haiku"
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Tuesday, August 02, 2011
Sink or swim?
Read my latest Long Island Pulse fitness column here
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Another of my recent photos:
No room for the tongue
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Thursday, July 28, 2011
Summer Re-Run: "Warning to the Moon: Humans Approaching"
A blast from my somewhat recent past:
Warning to the Moon: Humans Approaching
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Another of my recent photos:
Fuzz
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Sunday, July 24, 2011
If a pig squeals in a slaughterhouse but no one's there to film it…
The Iowa House of Representatives recently approved a bill that specifically targets those who shoot undercover videos of animal mistreatment at factory farms (and other venues of abuse and torture). As described by the ASPCA , if passed into law in 2012, these bills will “protect large factory farms as well as puppy mills by making undercover investigations into animal care illegal. Those who report and expose cruelty to animals would risk misdemeanor or felony charges, heavy fines, and jail time.”
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Another of my recent photos:
Life without TV
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Thursday, July 21, 2011
Summer Re-Run: Undoing the Latches
A blast from my not-so-recent past:
Upcoming MZ events:
I’ve been asked to give two vegan-related talks at two different Queens libraries - with a focus on reaching young adults. However, any and all of you are welcome to attend these FREE, one-hour events.
Hope to see you there and please spread the word. Thanks…
Thursday, July 28 @ 3:30pm
Broadway Library
40-20 Broadway (just off Steinway Street)
Astoria, NY 11103
(718) 721-2462
Tuesday, August 2 @ 3:30pm
Sunnyside Library
43-06 Greenpoint Avenue
Sunnyside, NY 11104
(718) 784-3033
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Another of my recent photos:
Astoria Pool
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Monday, July 18, 2011
"Our" Troops vs. Our Eco-System
The US Department of Defense (DoD)—the interventionist institution formerly known as the War Department—is the biggest polluter on Planet Earth, for example, releasing more hazardous waste than the five largest US chemical companies combined.
To add insult to injury, the world’s worst polluter—the entity wrecking havoc upon the landbase that makes all life possible—also gobbles up 54% of US taxpayer dollars. But it takes more than obscene amounts of money to keep this criminal enterprise afloat. It also takes more than the volunteers willing to be paid to wage illegal, immoral, and eco-system destroying wars. The DoD will be able to maintain its crime spree as long as most of us continue to unconditionally support (sic) those troops.
As long as the yellow ribbons fly, our shared heritage/future is doomed.
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Upcoming MZ events:
I’ve been asked to give two vegan-related talks at two different Queens libraries - with a focus on reaching young adults. However, any and all of you are welcome to attend these FREE, one-hour events.
Hope to see you there and please spread the word. Thanks…
Thursday, July 28 @ 3:30pm
Broadway Library
40-20 Broadway (just off Steinway Street)
Astoria, NY 11103
(718) 721-2462
Tuesday, August 2 @ 3:30pm
Sunnyside Library
43-06 Greenpoint Avenue
Sunnyside, NY 11104
(718) 784-3033
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Another of my recent photos:
Crush hour
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Saturday, July 16, 2011
FERC Rubber-Stamps Approvals for Natural Gas Industry
By Press Action
It’s a foregone conclusion the U.S. federal government will side with the natural gas industry when gas companies face any sort of opposition. In the case of a proposed natural gas pipeline in the Marcellus Shale region of Pennsylvania, it’s inevitable the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will let the developer proceed with building the pipeline, even if it means cutting down acres of trees, disturbing large numbers of animal species, and generally waging war on the local ecosystem.
FERC oversees the permitting process, including environmental permits, for the construction of interstate natural gas pipelines and other gas infrastructure across the United States. It takes a whole lot for the agency to conclude that the environmental risks outweigh a natural gas project’s benefits. In fact, it never happens.
FERC is not in the business of protecting the environment, even though federal law requires the agency to assess a natural gas project’s environmental impact. The agency is not even in the business of serving as an honest broker in its regulation of the natural gas industry. FERC’s mission, with regard to the natural gas industry, simply is to ensure gas pipelines, storage facilities and LNG terminals get built as quickly and seamlessly as possible.
The agency doesn’t care if local residents deliver rock-solid evidence showing a natural gas project will cause irreparable harm to the environment. FERC exists to streamline the construction of gas infrastructure and to officiate disputes among the various sectors of the gas industry. The agency never lets the public, environmentalists or a rogue politician stand in the way of gas companies making a profit. The only time FERC ever listens to politicians is when they order the agency to speed up the approval process. That’s why natural gas companies often plead for FERC to declare jurisdiction over their projects rather than face state regulatory authorities. They understand FERC will give them a green light as long as their high-priced attorneys file the proper paperwork. They know FERC is a rubber stamp.
If you’re a developer who wants to build an LNG import terminal that will damage a local ecosystem, don’t worry. FERC will approve the project. And if you decide five years after getting FERC approval for your LNG import terminal project that you want to convert the facility into an LNG export terminal, don’t worry. FERC will give you permission to make the change, even though you argued five years earlier that the U.S. was in desperate need for your LNG import terminal in order to meet demand.
If you’re a developer who wants to build a 1,679-mile natural gas pipeline that will cause massive damage to the environment along the construction right of way, from Colorado to Ohio, don’t worry. FERC will approve the project. And if you recognize two years after finishing the final leg of your 1,679-mile pipeline that there is insufficient demand for natural gas on the eastern end of your pipeline and ask FERC for permission to reverse the flow on the pipeline, don’t worry. FERC will let you reverse the flow from east to west even though it was always apparent during the original permitting process that construction of the 1,679-mile pipeline was not in the public interest.
There are countless examples of FERC serving as a rubber stamp for the natural gas industry. The ongoing case of the MARC I Hub Line Project is one of those examples, clearly illustrating how FERC operates.
A company called Central New York Oil and Gas Co. wants to build a 43-mile natural gas pipeline in northeastern Pennsylvania. The pipeline, known as the MARC I Hub Line, would transport natural gas produced in Pennsylvania’s portion of the Marcellus Shale to even larger pipelines owned by major interstate pipeline companies.
The company’s proposal has sparked a firestorm of protest among local residents who oppose the pipeline project itself. Some residents also are hoping to throw a monkey wrench into the operations of Marcellus Shale gas producers who will use the MARC I Hub Line to move their product to market.
‘Single Largest Threat’ to Forest Habitat
State and national environmental groups are getting into the act, voicing concern about the project. Natural gas industry activity in the Marcellus Shale “presents the single largest threat to important interior forest habitat in Pennsylvania, both in the aggregate and in terms of threats to specific high value habitat acreage,” Audubon Pennsylvania, a state office of the National Audubon Society, said in a July 8 letter to FERC.
The proposed route for the MARC I pipeline “transects one of the most important forest communities in Pennsylvania in terms of richness of biodiversity of forest-obligate bird species,” Audubon explained in its letter.
“We believe that the construction of the new transmission pipeline proposed in the MARC I project will create significant new direct and indirect impacts and increased cumulative impacts which must be accounted for under the requirements of [the National Environmental Policy Act],” Audubon Pennsylvania said. “In this case, the proposed project will result in impacts to key habitat for migratory forest-dwelling birds; over time the cumulative impacts of this and related industry growth will cause degradation as well as loss of valuable habitat area.”
With a 30-inch-diameter pipeline, the MARC I project will likely require a permanent 110-foot-wide right of way. This will not include roughly 65 feet of temporary workspace next to the permanent right of way during the construction phase. The pipeline is designed to travel through forestland, which means construction contractors will need to cut down large numbers of trees in order to lay the pipeline. The company will not be allowed to plant new trees on top of the permanent right of way after the work is completed. Based on federal regulations, deep-rooted plants and trees are not permitted within pipeline rights of way.
In late May, FERC staff released an “environmental assessment” of the MARC I project. In the assessment, the federal agency’s staff concluded that the project “would not constitute a major federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human environment.” In other words, FERC staff gave the project its seal of approval, as long as the company followed a few minor conditions.
Audubon Pennsylvania said FERC staff, in preparing the environmental assessment, failed to properly assess the pipeline project’s impact on migratory birds. The federal agency also underestimated the project’s direct impact on forests. And lastly, but perhaps most important, the environmental group argued that “pertinent cumulative impacts” were excluded from the federal agency’s analysis.
The environmental assessment “is not only insufficient for issuing a finding of no significant impact, but deficient in meeting the requirements of NEPA,” Audubon Pennsylvania said. The group called on FERC to “revisit these shortcomings” and undertake a full and much more stringent environmental impact statement of the MARC I project.
“There is, in fact, evidence that pipeline infrastructure does increase proximal Marcellus gas drilling activity and, as such, creates a basis on which to treat such activity as ‘reasonably’ foreseeable,” the group said. It cited a recent analysis of gas industry activity in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania that showed how proximity to existing pipelines was one of several statistically significant predictors of the location of permitted drilling sites.
“Since the MARC I project is routed through an area where there is very little drilling activity at present, it is reasonably foreseeable that gas industry activity will rise in the surrounding landscape as a result of the completion of the pipeline,” Audubon Pennsylvania said. “Based on present levels of industry activity in the area, this will consist of an accelerated impact in Lycoming County and an induced impact in Sullivan County in, we would note, high value forest habitat areas.”
In an earlier filing, environmental group Earthjustice argued that the MARC I project, together with gas drilling and gathering lines that will “inevitably” accompany it, will fragment intact forests, destroy and disturb wildlife habitat and increase noise, traffic, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
Forest lands in Bradford, Sullivan and Lycoming counties, where the MARC I Hub Line project will be located, have been identified by the Pennsylvania Game Commission as “Critical Interior Forest Bird Habitat” for their value to a dozen interior forest dwelling bird species, Audubon said.
All 12 species analyzed in the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s habitat analysis are migratory birds, Audubon said. Of these, one has been proposed for federal listing as a threatened species, and three are Audubon WatchList species, which are of concern as a result of overall rarity or declining population levels. An additional Watchlist species, the Wood Thrush, is also found in the vicinity of the proposed route. While not federally listed, these species have been identified as increasingly imperiled and in need of immediate conservation action. For many, habitat loss is a principal cause of weakening population trends.
Scarring Hundreds of Thousands of Acres
Several Pennsylvania state lawmakers, in a July 11 letter to FERC, urged the agency to prepare a full environmental impact statement for the pipeline project. “The recent Marcellus Shale drilling in this region is similar to what occurred with another natural resource—coal—in other parts of our state in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,” the senators said. “As you may know, the strip mining of coal during that time scarred hundreds of thousands of acres in our Commonwealth. To this day, the ecosystem in many of these areas is permanently damaged from this activity.”
Whether or not FERC opts to prepare a more comprehensive environmental impact statement will make no difference to the agency’s final decision. FERC may add a few additional conditions to its certificate order for the MARC I Hub Line Project, slightly changing the route of the pipeline or ordering Central New York Oil and Gas Co. to take more precautions when laying pipeline underneath some of the many waterways the pipeline will traverse. In the end, though, FERC will award Central New York Oil and Gas Co. a certificate to build the MARC I Hub Line Project. And the natural world will suffer.
Therefore, if your goal is to slow down or stop natural gas infrastructure development, stay away from FERC. The agency is basically a wholly owned subsidiary of Natural Gas Incorporated. A better bet would be to work with state officials to get them to erect roadblocks during the regulatory review process. The well-coordinated opposition to the proposed Weaver’s Cove LNG import terminal in Fall River, Mass., offers a nice template to follow. Or some anti-natural gas industry activists, frustrated with the federal government disenfranchising them from the process, may decide to embrace various forms of direct action to stop natural gas development. Whatever path you decide to follow, make sure you understand that FERC exists to arbitrate disputes among natural gas industry members and keep each of them operating as profitably as possible. It does not exist to serve the needs of the general public or the natural world.
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Thursday, July 14, 2011
Summer Re-Run: 5 Ways to Value a Pig
A blast from my somewhat recent past:
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Another of my recent photos:
Helianthus
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Poem: “haiku recipe for beauty"
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Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Arizona, the All-Star Game and Speaking Up for Human Rights
By Allan Wood
(This article first appeared at Joy of Sox and is reprinted with permission.)
On April 23, 2010, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed Senate Bill 1070 ("Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act"), “which proponents and critics alike said was the broadest and strictest immigration measure in generations, [and] would make the failure to carry immigration documents a crime and give the police broad power to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally.”
The 2011 All-Star Game was scheduled to be played in Phoenix. Nearly 30% of major league players - and roughly half of all minor leaguers - were born in Latin America. Shortly after Brewer signed the bill, the Major League Baseball Players Association issued a statement opposing the law and calling for its prompt repeal or modification, while also “consider[ing] additional steps necessary to protect the rights and interests of our members”.
At the same time, many well-known players voiced their disapproval.
I’m opposed to it. How are you going to tell me that, me being Hispanic, if you stop me and I don’t have my ID, you’re going to arrest me? That can’t be.
(Pujols’s manager, Tony LaRussa, supports the law.)
Heath Bell, the Padres’ union representative, called the law “mind-boggling”, and several of his San Diego teammates offered blunt assessments of the law.
Catcher Yorvit Torrealba:
This is racist stuff. It’s not fair for a young guy who comes here from South America, and just because he has a strong accent, he has to prove on the spot if he’s illegal or not. ... Why do I want to go play in a place where every time I go to a restaurant and they don’t understand what I’m trying to order, they’re going to ask me for ID first? That’s bull. I come from a crazy country [Venezuela]. Now Arizona seems a little bit more crazy.
It reminds me of seeing the old movies with the Nazis when they ask you to show your papers. It’s not right. I can’t imagine my mom - who’s been a US citizen longer than I’ve been alive, who was born and raised in Mexico - being asked to show her papers.
Adrian Gonzalez, a citizen of both the US and Mexico:
It’s immoral. They’re violating human rights. ... Are they going to pass out a picture saying “You should look like this and you’re fine, but if you don’t, do people have the right to question you?” ... If they leave it up to the players and the law is still there, I’ll probably not play in the All-Star Game. ... I know it can’t be done, but they should take spring training out of [Arizona] if it’s possible.
Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Yvonni Gallardo: “If the game is in Arizona, I will totally boycott.”
Kansas City reliever Joakim Soria: “They could stop me and ask to see my papers. I have to stand with my Latin community on this.” ... Detroit Tigers pitcher Jose Valverde agreed with that sentiment, as did Blue Jays slugger Jose Bautista: “Hopefully, there are some changes in the law ... We have to back up our Latin communities.”
White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said he would boycott the ASG and sounded off on the law:
Once they have this in one state, every state will come out with the same stuff and that’s going to be hard. And [immigrants] — I don’t care what law you do – they’re not going to leave. They came to make money, they came to work and they came to make this country better. ... Most are workaholics. This country can’t survive without [them].
Cardinals reliever Miguel Batista has been a players union board member. He lives in Arizona and won a World Series with the Diamondbacks.
We need to all get informed; what is the basic basis of this law? Because I have an accent, you have a right to ask me for my papers? Because I’m not blonde with blue eyes? What do you actually base the stereotype on to have to ask me for my papers?
Jorge Cantu, who has dual citizenship in the US and in Mexico, disagreed with the law, but did not think the game should be moved.
Enrique Morones, the former VP of Latino and Diversity Marketing for the San Diego Padres, worked hard to get the 2011 All-Star Game moved to another city. Morones is also the founder of Border Angels, an organization that leaves blankets, food, and water on the rough border terrain for people attempting to cross. Morones:
It’s unbelievable to me that we want to celebrate the annual All-Star Game in the state of the anti-immigrant Minutemen, and the state where Sheriff Joe Arpaio breaking every civil and human right possible. You also have Nazis literally on the border of Arizona, and then you also have the Senate Bill 1070 ... So what does Major League Baseball say? Let’s go celebrate an All-Star Game in that state. ... [I]f Bud Selig was the commissioner in the 1940s we never would have heard of Jackie Robinson.
Arpaio plans on having a chain gang of female prisoners picking up trash outside the ballpark tomorrow night. This is another disturbing trend in the US, having forced labourers (slaves, in a sense) doing the jobs once held by unionized workers. Wisconsin is doing the same thing.
In March, MSNBC’s Craig Calcaterra wrote that “Selig is the last man on the planet who would take a stand on anything. Especially a stand that would cost him or his fellow owners money ... Selig would play that game in Arizona if God Almighty came down from the heavens and commanded him to move it.”
While Selig “continues to sponge himself luxuriantly in the spirit and memory of Jackie Robinson”, he has been nearly mute on the Arizona issue for the past 14 months. His few comments have been incomprehensible:
Apparently all the people around and in minority communities think we’re doing OK. That’s the issue, and that’s the answer. I told the clubs today: “Be proud of what we’ve done.” They are. We should. And that’s our answer. We control our own fate, and we’ve done very well.
Vivek Malhotra, the advocacy and policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said SB 1070
is a watershed moment in modern America for its blatant disregard of America’s most fundamental values. ... This law does nothing short of making all of its Latino residents, and other presumed immigrants, potential criminal suspects in the eyes of the law. It authorizes police officers to stop and ask people for their immigration papers based only on some undefined “reasonable suspicion” ... [H]ow do you know people are unauthorized to be in the United States just by looking at them?
Malhorta noted the case of Julio Mora and his son, Julian Mora, who, before SB 1070 became law, were stopped and removed from their car by Maricopa County police on February 11, 2009, arrested, forcibly transported to a holding area, and detained for nearly three hours. Julio Mora is a lawful resident of Arizona and his son is a US citizen. Last week, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (headed by Joe Arpaio) was told to pay $200,000 to settle a discrimination claim brought by the Moras.
Hiroshi Motomura, a professor of law at UCLA:
No state may superimpose its own immigration enforcement regime if it decides that federal law isn’t harsh enough. ... This ["reasonable suspicion"] standard gives institutional cover for selective immigration enforcement through racial and ethnic profiling...
The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the state of Arizona in July 2010, claiming that the law interfered with immigration regulations “exclusively vested in the federal government”. The lawsuit did not address any of the racial aspects. An April 2011 ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the Department of Justice, holding that if an individual state (or states) adopted its own immigration laws, it would, in effect, mean that a state had established a foreign policy that might well be in opposition to the greater national policy. Circuit Judge John Noonan called that an “absurdity too gross to the entertained”.
A week after Brewer signed SB 1070, she signed HB 2162 (in the hopes of quieting the firestorm of criticism and possible lawsuits), which amended the previous bill to state that law enforcement officials or agencies “may not consider race, color or national origin in implementing the requirements of this subsection except to the extent permitted by the United States or Arizona Constitution.” (Well, that solves that, then, doesn’t it? The original bill, with the added amendments in a different font colour, can be read here.)
As to that phrase “to the extent permitted”, the US Supreme Court ruled in 1975 that race and color can be considered when trying to ascertain a person’s citizenship: “The likelihood that any given person of Mexican ancestry is an alien is high enough to make Mexican appearance a relevant factor.” And the Arizona Supreme Court agreed, in 1982, that “enforcement of immigration laws often involves a relevant consideration of ethnic factors”.
On July 28, 2010, one day before SB 1070 was scheduled to take effect, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction that blocked the law’s most controversial provisions, while various legal challenges could be resolved.That ruling has led many people to believe the discriminatory aspects of the law have been eradicated.
Shortly after he was traded to the Red Sox, Adrian Gonzalez told ESPN’s Gordon Edes that SB 1070 “has been tweaked a little, I hear, so it’s a lot better than it was in the beginning.” It was very disheartening to hear Gonzalez take back the strong words he spoke in April 2010 (my emphasis):
The first time I heard about that law, they told me the “Readers Digest” version, a really quick version, and I was, “Wow, I don’t agree with it.” The more I read I still didn’t agree with it, and then the next day somebody came up saying there have been players who have said because of the law they might not play. I said that if players that I look up to and admire aren’t going to play, then I’ll follow suit, but I’m not going to be the one to set that precedent. But obviously it wasn’t written that way. It came out and made it seem like I wouldn’t play. Then I talked to the players’ association about it. I’m a big part of the association. They were like, “Hey, we’re going to ask everybody to play. It’s still up to you if you want to play, but we’re not going to get into the political end of it.” ... If I’m invited to the All-Star Game, I’m playing.
Gonzalez (a) implies that his principled stand against racism and bigotry was a misquote or distortion and (b) wished the media had accurately reported his mealy-mouthed stance.
If Gonzalez believes the law is wrong, and the proper thing to do is boycott the All-Star Game - as he said last year - he should not change his beliefs based on what Albert Pujols, for example, decides to do. And, as both Howard Zinn and Geddy Lee* would attest, Gonzalez will be taking a stand no matter what he does.
* - Zinn: “You can’t stay neutral on a moving train.” Lee: “If you chose not to decide, you still have made a choice."
Michael Weiner, the head of the MLBPA, has repeated the union’s opposition to the Arizona law, but has not called for any display of that opposition. He says the All-Star Game is “an opportunity to celebrate contributions baseball has made to civil rights and the equal treatment of all”. Yes, as Selig would no doubt agree, it’s safe to be proud of those contributions, now that the controversy and struggle is in the distant past, and blacks and whites playing professional baseball together is thoroughly accepted.
Dave Zirin, the author of several books on politics and sports, and a columnist for The Nation, says that Gonzalez and the MLBPA are mistaken for thinking the worst is over. Brewer is banking that the conservative US Supreme Court will lift the injunctions and allow SB 1070 to be fully implemented. In addition, the law has inspired similar (or harsher) legislation in at least a half-dozen other states.
In January 2011, Mississippi passed SB 2179, which makes it a crime to be caught without immigration papers. Police can, “without warrant”, arrest anyone “reasonably believed” to be in the country without papers.
In May 2011, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed HR 87, which gives state and local police the same powers as federal immigration officials - to arrest and jail suspicious looking people for not having the correct documentation when ordered, “Papers, please.” While debating that bill, Senator Renee Unterman praised the cooperation between federal immigration officials and the Georgia police: “I see fewer foreigners driving around.” There is now a shortage of immigrant labour in Georgia and crops are rotting in the fields. Government officials have tried (with varying degrees of success) to get unemployed ex-convicts to do the back-breaking work.
Two days after Deal signed HR 87, MLB held its annual Civil Rights Game in Atlanta. Oops! Selig invited musician Carlos Santana to speak at the festivities, a decision Selig likely regretted once Santana admonished the crowd: “The people of Arizona, and the people of Atlanta, Georgia, you should be ashamed of yourselves”. Because he had the termitity to speak about civil rights at the Civil Rights Game, Santana was booed.
Federal courts have enjoined portions of similar laws in Utah and Indiana. Other anti-immigrant laws make it illegal to transport undocumented people, so, as the New York Times recently editorialized, “a son could land in jail for driving his mother to the supermarket, or a church volunteer for ferrying families to a soup kitchen”.
Earlier this year, Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce pushed for passage of SB 1611, which would blatantly violate the US Constitution by, among other things, revoking citizenship for US-born children of undocumented immigrants and denying children the right to public education if their parents could not produce a US birth certificate or naturalization papers. That bill was defeated, but Pearce, a hateful racist bastard, is not giving up.
It took me a while on 1070, too. I introduced it in ‘05, ‘06, ‘07, ‘08, ‘09 and 2010 before we had a governor that would sign it. And we’ve become the envy of this nation with 25 states writing legislation modeled after 1070.
It is a fair bet that most readers of this blog have not heard of all of these bills. (The Mississippi law was news to me, as were the bits from the Times editorial.) Which is why speaking out against these inhumane laws is vitally important. Sadly, two Red Sox players - Gonzalez and David Ortiz - do not agree.
In late June, Michael Silverman of the Herald asked Gonzalez if the All-Star Game was an opportunity to speak out about SB 1070. Gonzalez said: No.
That’s a government issue - we’re baseball players, not politicians. ... The union has said “do whatever you want, you’re on your own. If you want to speak your mind, you can, but it’s a political issue, not a baseball issue."
David Ortiz opposes SB 1070, but says players should not use the spotlight of the All-Star Game to speak out against the bill:
"Baseball is not related at all to politics,” said Ortiz.
Jackie Robinson was, he was reminded.
“I ain’t Jackie Robinson,” Ortiz said with a smile. “Sometimes, but remember that was something massive - not only one guy can go out there and act like he knows everything. That’s something where you work as a group. ... There’s nothing baseball can do about it right now ... It’s not baseball’s fault, or MLB’s fault, that that thing is going on in Arizona. I personally think it’s not fair. ... [H]opefully that thing goes away and everything goes back to normal."
Ortiz is completely and utterly wrong, and his words reveal a profound ignorance about Robinson’s struggle, baseball’s decades-long role in demanding social justice, and the many professional athletes who, on their own, are speaking out right now. His shoulder-shrugging and passive wishes that the right thing somehow magically happen, when repeated by millions of people, is how these virulently racist bills are being passed throughout the US.
The All-Star Game or the World Series - with its increased viewing audiences - is exactly the place to stand up. That should be self-evident. You don’t ask your oppressors for permission to speak out against them. When you speak out, you go where the most people can see and hear you. Plus, this is not a general political grievance; the game is being played in the very state which passed the law!
As noted at the top of this post, many baseball players spoke out against SB 1070 last year when it was first in the news - and they did so, not as a group, but individually. Other non-baseball athletes have weighed in, as well:
Etan Thomas of the Atlanta Hawks, who has spoken at several anti-war rallies in Washington, DC, criticized Georgia bill HR 87:
[It] means they can pull anyone over at anytime and their only crime could be minding their business. That goes against everything this country should stand for. ... I applaud the thousands of people who gathered at the Georgia Capitol Thursday to protest this legislation. ... What if after the Oklahoma City Bombing they passed legislation allowing police to detain and question every young white male? That would correctly be interpreted as a violation of their civil rights. And just as this example seems completely absurd, so does detaining every person who looks like they could be Hispanic to see if they are legal or illegal. ... This law has no place in a democracy.
Rashard Mendenhall of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Milwaukee Bucks guard Chris Douglas-Roberts were offended by the national orgasm over the announcement of Osama bin Laden’s death. On Twitter, Douglas-Roberts posted:
It took 919,967 deaths to kill that one guy. It took 10 years & 2 Wars to kill that...guy. It cost us (USA) roughly $1,188,263,000,000 ... But we winning though. Haaaa. (Sarcasm).
Steve Nash and Joakim Noah of the NBA and Scott Fujita and Adalius Thomas of the NFL protested the invasion of Iraq. In 2003, Nash wore a T-shirt stating “No War. Shoot for Peace.” to the NBA All-Star activities:
From the start, I spoke out just because I don’t want to see the loss of life. People are mistaking anti-war as being unpatriotic. ... [I]t’s really unfortunate in the year 2003 that we’re still using violence as a means of conflict resolution. That’s what I’m speaking out against.
Many athletes - Michael Strahan, Nic Harris, and Donte’ Stallworth of the NFL, New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch, and NHL player Sean Avery and Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke - have unequivocally offered their support for gay marriage. Another NFL player, Brendon Ayanbadejo, said:
This should not be a subjective issue. Gay and lesbian couples want to marry for similar reasons as we all do: love and commitment. It’s time to allow them the opportunity to build a family through marriage. ... Churches can always have their beliefs, but government is supposed to treat everyone the same ... America is supposed to be the land of the free, but in order for this to be true for all of us, then we must have the ability to marry whom we love, regardless of their gender ... Join me in the land of the brave, for standing on the side of love.
On Cinco de Mayo 2010, the Phoenix Suns took the court for a playoff game wearing jerseys that read simply “Los Suns”, in solidarity with those opposed to SB 1070.
Carlos Delgado has been outspoken about his political activism, protesting the use of the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, as a bombing target practice facility by the US Department of Defense (the bombing was stopped in 2003). Delgado, because of his opposition to the occupation of Iraq, stayed in the dugout whenever “God Bless America” was played during the seventh inning stretch.
Ted Williams, who grew up in San Diego and whose mother was born in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, devoted part of his Hall of Fame induction speech - in 1966! - to supporting Negro League players:
I hope some day Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson will be voted into the Hall of Fame as symbols of the great Negro players who are not here only because they weren’t given the chance.
There was no chance that Selig and MLB would take the 2011 ASG out of in Phoenix, but there are precedents for a professional league moving a huge sporting event.
The NFL moved Super Bowl XXVII from Arizona in 1993 after the state refused to acknowledge Martin Luther King Day and the NCAA has banned tournaments from being played in South Carolina because of the state’s embrace of the Confederate flag.
In 1965, Carlton Chester “Cookie” Gilchrist led a group of 22 African-American football players to boycott the AFL All-Star Game in New Orleans. When white players announced their solidarity, the game was moved to Houston. Gilchirst (who died this past January) was a star in both the CFL and AFL, and said the boycott was “better than anything I did playing football”. In 1964, he told Sports Illustrated:
People think I’m an oddball because I’m a Negro who speaks up. But I have a lot on my mind. It’s an internal disease, and it’ll eat me alive if I don’t get it out of my system what I think about things.
The desegregation of major league baseball was not decreed from the top, but came about, as all social change does, because of a massive and unrelenting push from the bottom. Lester “Red” Rodney, a sportswriter for the Communist Party newspaper, The Daily Worker, led activists to petition outside ball parks throughout the 1930s. In 2004, Rodney recalled,
for the most part [we] never encountered any hostility from fans. People would say, “Gee, I never thought of that.” And then they’d say, “Yeah, I think if they’re good enough then they should have a chance.” We wound up with at least a million and a half signatures that we delivered straight to the desk of [Commissioner] Judge Landis.
Those rallies and petitions and the courage of lone voices were all important and necessary steps on the road to Robinson’s debut in 1947, the integration of the last major league team (the Red Sox) in 1959, the hiring of Frank Robinson as the first black manager in 1975, to the welcoming of players from all corners of the globe in the last 25 years.
And there is a long history of professional athletes speaking out against injustice, racism, and bigotry, from Gilchrist, Branch Rickey, Muhammad Ali, Tommy Smith and John Carlos, and Roberto Clemente to the athletes who spoke out against the 1991 bombing of Iraq to the quotes posted here and the recent “It Gets Better” videos produced by the Giants, Cubs, and Red Sox.
In August 2010, a group of activists ran out onto the field during a Diamondbacks home game and unfurled a banner calling for Selig to move the 2011 ASG. One of the protestors, Rosa Lozano, said:
I did it because when history reflects this egregious time of civil and human rights violations I want to be able to have pride in saying that I didn’t stand idly by and allow human beings to be treated like animals because of their immigration status.
I was hoping some major league players - and especially players from the Red Sox - would make that same decision as the date of this year’s All-Star Game drew near. But faced with a near-perfect platform to denounce a clear case of racism that could affect hundreds and perhaps thousands of their fellow players, both in the minors and majors, David Ortiz and Adrian Gonzalez have decided to, as the Herald’s Michael Silverman put it, “stay quiet when everyone is listening”.
Allan Wood blogs at Joy of Sox. He attended his first game at Fenway Park on August 22, 1976.
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Monday, July 11, 2011
Repeat after me...
“The truth has to be repeated,” Pakistani scholar Eqbal Ahmed once wrote. “It doesn’t become stale just because it has been told once. So keep repeating it. Don’t bother about who has listened, who not listened… the media and the other institutions of power are so powerful that telling the truth once is not enough. You’ve got to keep repeating different facts, prove the same point.”
Read my latest Fair Share of the Common Heritage post here
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Another of my recent photos:
This is Robert with his feline friend, Jeremiah. (Yes, I made a donation and yes, I asked permission to take a photo.) I asked Robert how Jeremiah could be so calm on crowded 5th Avenue. Robert smiled and replied, “Because I’m calm. Most people don’t understand animals like I do."
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Sunday, July 10, 2011
10 Ideas That Could Transform the USA
By Rosemarie Jackowski
1. Immediately close all US military bases on foreign soil. Author Chalmers Johnson reports that there are 737 US bases in 130 foreign countries.
2. Immediately discontinue the manufacture, export, and use of drones. Cut the military budget by 99%. Cut the State Department budget by 90%. Eliminate the Black Budget which was authorized by the 1947 National Security Act of President Truman. Even if all uniformed members of the military were brought home, the killing would not end. It is clear that the State Department, CIA, and private contractors are more dangerous than the military.The uniformed military is only the tip of the iceberg. The real danger is with US forces that operate in secret.
3. Encourage the dissemination of information from whistleblowers such as Bradley Manning and Julian Assange. Any possibility of a democratic nation died with the adoption of the Black Budget which prevented citizens from having access to information; therefore, no informed vote has been cast in the USA since 1947. If you can’t follow the money, you don’t know what your government is doing. More whisleblowers are needed so that voters will have the information necessary to cast informed ballots.
4. Place a 100% tax on all income above $88,000—all income, earned and unearned.
5. Aim to close all nuclear power plants. Encourage green power - solar power - water power - wind power. A ridgeline with windmills is preferable to a ridgeline that has been contaminated.
6. Support small, local, organic family farms. End all subsidies to large industrial farms.
7. End all secret boards. This can be accomplished by withholding public funds from organizations that use secret boards for decision-making purposes.
Hospital “ethics” boards meet in secret and make life and death decisions. Any decision to “pull the plug” should be made in the open. Patient confidentiality would not be violated if the identity of the patient was not disclosed.
Library boards sometimes meet behind closed doors and censor political books that could be considered “unpatriotic”. (Yes, it is now happening in the USA.)
8. The problems with the legal system could fill volumes but there are some simple improvements that could be made.
Limit the use of expert witnesses. With enough money testimony can be designed to fit any goal desired—no matter how unjust. Juries should always be told when testimony is purchased. Now, is the perfect time to examine the way juries work. Secret deliberations foster unjust verdicts. The deliberations should be open— the identities of the jurors could be withheld until after the verdict is rendered. Group deliberations are a problem. Anytime more than one person is in a room, one person will be dominant. A pecking order contaminates the process and can prevent a fair verdict. Is unanimity really a sacred concept—or should there be room for dissenting views within a jury? Even the Supreme Court allows for dissenting opinion.
End the death penalty. The state should never have the power to kill its citizens or anyone else. In addition, the death penalty can be a deterrent to justice. The first juror to speak publicly after the Casey Anthony trial stated that it was the death penalty that affected her verdict vote.
9. Adopt a national policy which assures food, shelter, and medical/dental care for all—with no regard to race, creed, citizenship, economic status, place of birth, or any other dehumanizing judgment.
10. Send a formal apology with an offer of reparations to all individual victims of unjust US imprisonment and torture. Also to all countries that have been victims of USA foreign policy. Start with the former inhabitants of Diego Garcia. The Chagossians were forcibly removed so that the island could be transformed into a military base for the US. It can be debated that the forced expulsion of the native population is evidence of genocide by the USA.
Rosemarie Jackowski is an advocacy journalist and justice advocate. She is author of “Banned in Vermont”. She can be reached at
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Saturday, July 09, 2011
How the American Gas Association Learned to Stop Worrying …
… and Love Gas Exports
By Press Action
This is a tale of two natural gas industry lobbying groups. One group has opted to stay true to its principles and fight for the interests of its members. The other has veered off course and aligned itself with groups whose goals run counter to its members’ interests.
The American Public Gas Association (APGA), a Washington, D.C.-based trade group that represents publicly owned gas utility companies, is fighting the efforts of natural gas producers and terminal owners to export natural gas in the form of liquefied natural gas. Executives at APGA’s member companies—ranging in size from the mammoth Philadelphia Gas Works in Philadelphia, Pa., to the tiny Duck Hill Natural Gas System in Duck Hill, Miss.—want natural gas to stay reasonably priced for the people and businesses who consume the fossil fuel (and who also happen to be the owners of their companies.) But, according to APGA, exporting domestically produced natural gas would “play havoc” with U.S. natural gas prices.
The American Gas Association (AGA), on the other hand, has decided to throw its support behind shale gas producers and LNG terminal owners—a move that ultimately could backfire and alienate its investor-owned gas utility member companies. Investor-owned gas utilities generate the bulk of their income from the volume of gas that flows through their distribution lines.
But AGA is backing industry efforts to export domestically produced natural gas, which, as APGA points out, could create a tighter supply-and-demand balance, likely creating higher gas prices for U.S. consumers. And if gas prices move from their current range of $4 to $5 per million British thermal units to $7 or $8/MMBtu due to LNG export activity, then gas utilities will almost certainly face “demand destruction” due to people and businesses consuming less gas. The diminished throughput on gas utilities’ systems would mean smaller financial returns for the investor-owned companies.
Nonetheless, in March, an AGA official described efforts by LNG import terminal owners to turn their facilities into export terminals as “exciting.”
“It’s really quite exciting. And I believe the technology is there,” Jay Copan, AGA’s former senior vice president for corporate affairs, said in an interview with the Energy Delta Institute at the Gastech conference in Amsterdam. “Both Cheniere and Freeport have been doing an outstanding job talking to many people in the government about the great benefits of exporting LNG.” Since that interview, Copan has retired from his position as AGA senior vice president and is now serving as executive director of LNG 17. (See Editor’s Note below).
Copan was referring to Cheniere Energy Inc., which would like to export natural gas from its Sabine Pass Terminal in Louisiana, and Freeport LNG Development, which has similar plans for the Freeport LNG terminal in Texas. Cheniere, which is the furthest along in the regulatory process, received approval from the U.S. Department of Energy in May to export gas from Sabine Pass to any country not prohibited by U.S. law.
During the interview, Copan argued that “the supply is always [emphasis added] going to be there, whether it’s going to be LNG or shale. And now the focus, we think in the U.S., is how do we grow gas demand.”
Copan’s comments are a radical shift for an organization that has tended toward the conservative side when it comes to U.S. gas supplies and how they should be used. But AGA appears to have been taken in by the hype surrounding shale gas production. When Copan mentioned developing a strategy for “growing gas demand,” he was not alluding to ways that investor-owned gas utility companies could boost throughput on their systems. Instead, Copan was referring to increasing the use of natural gas for electric power generation as older coal-fired power plants get shut down. And he was referring to the gas industry searching for overseas markets for natural gas exports.
AGA’s position in favor of gas exports and the use of gas for power generation, as articulated by Copan, is odd because investor-owned gas utilities, the companies that keep AGA afloat through the payment of membership dues, do not stand to reap many benefits, if any at all, from either of these demand growth strategies.
Regarding gas exports, gas utility companies will not play any role in transporting natural gas from the wellhead to the LNG terminal. So, supporting gas exports will not help gas utility companies’ bottom lines and could actually hurt their finances by sending natural gas prices higher in the U.S. As for power generation, a large number of natural gas-fired power plants in the U.S. get their gas supply delivered directly through interstate natural gas pipeline systems. Gas-fired power plants often bypass the local gas distribution company, working out deals for their gas supplies to be delivered by tapping directly into an interstate pipeline. So, once again, gas utility companies would see only minimal benefits from the construction of new gas-fired plants in their service territories and would likely see U.S. gas prices rise considerably due to more gas-fired power plants getting built.
Short-Term Profits vs. Long-Term Health
Now, let’s take a closer look at the American Public Gas Association’s campaign against gas exports. In a June 16 letter to Senate and House energy leaders, APGA President and CEO Bert Kalisch said gas industry groups and companies that are pushing for LNG exports from the United States “are wagering our long-term national well-being on short-term profits.”
“Large-scale export of natural gas via LNG will not only play havoc with the current supply/demand situation (and hence the price of natural gas), but also, because the price of LNG abroad is tied to the international oil market, will inevitably link the domestic price of natural gas to international oil markets, which are substantially more volatile and less transparent than our domestic market,” he wrote.
According to Kalisch, APGA believes the “wise policy choice at this critical time in our history is to limit exports of natural gas so that we may realistically pursue the greater goal of energy independence.”
APGA is fighting a lonely battle. Lobbying groups for natural gas producers are obviously eager to see exports in the form of LNG in order to give their member companies new markets for their product. Natural gas pipeline companies also would welcome LNG exports because they would have new destinations—LNG export terminals—to pipe natural gas.
Along with APGA, the Industrial Energy Consumers of America, a small D.C.-based lobbying group, has been a vocal opponent of LNG export terminals. But IECA lacks the clout and size to be as effective in its lobbying.
AGA is the trade group that most industry observers view as APGA’s natural partner in protesting LNG exports.
Three years ago, AGA Chairman David McClanahan, in a speech before the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, described natural gas a “bridge fuel to the future.” The electric industry is expected “to turn to natural gas as a bridge until clean coal and nuclear generation are available,” McClanahan said. “However, we should not rely on natural gas-fired generation as the only solution.”
‘Bridge’ Is Not a Good Word
AGA is now singing a different tune. The association’s new president, Dave McCurdy, a former Democratic congressman, now claims natural gas is not a bridge fuel. The association sees natural gas as a “foundation fuel,” McCurdy said in May, pointing to the projected 100 years of supply in the United States.
In his interview at the Amsterdam conference, Copan also noted that AGA has decided to move away from using the term “bridge” and prefers the buzzword “foundation” to describe natural gas. Copan explained that AGA views natural gas as “the fuel of today and tomorrow.”
“In the States, for many years, we used the term ‘bridge’ and we’ve just really gotten away from doing that. We would rather you not say that word either,” Copan told the interviewer. “It’s not a good word.”
Three years ago, then AGA Chairman McClanahan argued that gas utility companies “must stress the importance of conserving energy and using it efficiently.” Now, AGA has a different agenda and is working hard to figure out ways to “grow gas demand.”
McCurdy took over as president and CEO of AGA in early 2011, succeeding Dave Parker, a former Nixon and Ford administration official. From 1981 to 1995, McCurdy served as a member of Congress from Oklahoma, the home state of the two largest shale gas producers in the U.S.: Devon Energy and Chesapeake Energy.
Since McCurdy took the helm at AGA, it’s been hard to tell whether the association represents natural gas producers or natural gas utility companies. In early June, AGA released what it described as “a set of principles that outline the benefits of developing abundant and clean natural gas as an energy source in America, and the importance of sustainable and responsible development of this foundation fuel.”
AGA also launched a new website that had to make McCurdy’s fellow Oklahomans at Devon Energy and Chesapeake Energy proud. The website, according to AGA, “houses resources for the public regarding how the natural gas resource is being developed, with a particular emphasis on the use of hydraulic fracturing of natural gas from shale formations.”
APGA also has been a cheerleader for the development of shale gas and has advocated for its use in electric generation as a substitute to coal. But, unlike AGA under its new leader Dave McCurdy, APGA is actively opposing the gas industry’s decision to pursue the export of domestically produced natural gas.
“Policy makers should proceed cautiously and not inflate the amount of natural gas that can be recovered in an economical and politically acceptable manner,” APGA said in a March 28 filing with the Department of Energy in which it protested Freeport LNG’s application to export domestically produced natural gas.
There is “uncertainty that still shadows projections of an exponential increase in recoverable domestic supplies,” APGA said. “Environmental and regulatory issues and local opposition hamper fracking operations and shale gas production. … Given these risks, it is still uncertain whether significantly increasing quantities of natural gas from shale and from offshore will happen.”
Four years ago, AGA was actively lobbying against the widespread use of natural gas for new electric power generation. Relying too much on natural gas to fuel power plants had pushed up gas prices, the association argued. Instead, at the time, AGA was pushing for fuel diversity, including the construction of new nuclear power plants.
Today, AGA is not worried about using natural gas to fuel new power plants. The association points to the emergence of shale gas as the “game-changer” that allowed it to embrace gas as a preferred generation fuel.
But APGA still wonders if shale gas has changed the game. APGA noted that “the history of the fossil fuels industry is replete with miscalculations regarding supplies.” It noted that a few years ago Freeport LNG predicted that the U.S. natural gas market would benefit significantly from the import of LNG.
“Not to pick on [Freeport LNG], but the last time it speculated on the future of the country’s natural gas supply, things did not pan out,” APGA said. “Conversely, the nation’s first LNG export facility in Kenai, Alaska is slated to terminate exports sooner than expected because drilling activity in Alaska’s Cook Inlet has not offset declines in production rates, making it unfeasible to continue LNG exports.”
“If the U.S. has vast reserves of recoverable natural gas, policymakers should seize the opportunity to foster energy independence,” APGA argued. “If the U.S. has less recoverable gas than projected, it certainly should not exacerbate the situation by approving export applications premised on a domestic over-supply.”
Editor’s Note: Jay Copan has retired from his position of senior vice president for corporate affairs at the American Gas Association. Copan was still employed by AGA as senior vice president for corporate affairs when he expressed support for LNG exports during the interview with the Energy Delta Institute in March. He currently serves as the executive director of LNG 17. AGA provided Press Action with this statement in response to the above article: “At this time, AGA is considering all the benefits and challenges of exporting natural gas and considering what is in the best interest of our members and natural gas customers across the country, but we have not commented on this issue and therefore your characterization of AGA’s position in your article is not accurate.”
While the association has not issued a press release or submitted an official regulatory document in support of LNG terminal owners who are seeking permission to export domestically produced natural gas, it is true that Copan offered praise for LNG exports while still serving as a senior official with AGA.
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Friday, July 08, 2011
Summer Re-Run: Why are you so negative?
A blast from my somewhat recent past:
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(Thanks, Michael)
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Another of my recent photos:
Urban farmer
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Poem: “An email from a certain Mr. Blaze"
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Tuesday, July 05, 2011
Jared Diamond and the Lure of Industrial Capitalism
By Press Action
Chip’s corporate bigwig father: “You can’t just stop the economy, sweetheart. Millions would die.”
Bananabelle: “If we don’t stop the economy, we’re ALL going to die.”
-From Stephanie McMillan’s comic strip “Minimum Security"
Mainstream environmentalists, unlike real environmentalists, accept the industrial capitalist system as a given. Mainstream environmental groups, for example, support cap-and-trade systems because they represent a “market-based solution” to the global environmental crisis. Real environmentalists view emissions trading as a scheme that lets the biggest polluters in the most polluted communities buy their way out of cleaning up their act.
Mainstream environmentalists believe ecological sustainability can be achieved in part through buying eco-friendly products. Real environmentalists don’t identify themselves as consumers. But if they did, they’d tell you that dismantling the industrial capitalist system, not being a compassionate consumer, is the greatest hope for a sustainable future.
Officials at the big mainstream environmental organizations are always in search of “solutions” that sound good for the environment but are really designed to ensure the industrial capitalist economy doesn’t miss a beat. Take, for instance, Ralph Cavanagh, senior attorney and co-director of the energy program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the biggest of the Big Green groups in Washington, D.C. Cavanagh is a true believer in the powers of shale gas. Cavanagh recently said he is convinced that the “abundant domestic supply” of shale gas is “good news” for the United States from “both economic and environmental perspectives.” In other words, shale gas is a win-win “solution” because it doesn’t have the dirty image of coal but still has enough energy to power the U.S. economy.
The world of academia is filled with people like Cavanagh who may self-identify as environmentalists but are unable to think outside the confines of the industrial capitalist system. Jared Diamond, a long-time university professor and author of several books, fits neatly into this category. During his career, he has served as a director of the U.S. affiliate of the World Wildlife Fund, another one of the Big Green groups. And he’s also had close relationships with big businesses, particularly major players in the extractive industries.
Diamond’s long career in academia has given him the freedom to spend time in “the field” doing research. As part of his world travels, Diamond has focused on the operations of multinational corporations. Diamond, for example, studied the activities of Chevron Corp. and its exploration and production activities in Papua New Guinea.
Based on his observations, Diamond concluded that Chevron is among a handful of international oil companies that has been “taking environmental issues seriously.” In his 2005 book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Diamond writes that Chevron’s reputation of embracing “environmentally clean practices” has given the company “a competitive advantage in obtaining contracts.”
“What it all adds up to is that clean environmental practices help them make money and gain long-term access to new oil and gas fields,” Diamond writes.
In his research and his writings, Diamond’s focus on environmental history and his admiration for well-run multinational corporations has made him a darling of Corporate America. He believes big business has an important role to play in saving the planet from environmental destruction.
“It is easy and cheap for the rest of us to blame a business for helping itself by hurting other people,” Diamond writes in Collapse. “It ignores the fact that businesses are not non-profit charities but profit-making companies, and that publicly owned companies with shareholders are under obligations to those shareholders to maximize profits, provided they do so be legal means.”
“Our laws,” Diamond writes, presumably referring to U.S. federal regulations, “make a company’s directors legally liable for something termed ‘breach of fiduciary responsibility’ if they knowingly manage a company in a way that reduces profits.”
Diamond isn’t blind to the harm caused by corporations. But he has a strange definition of accountability. Toward the end of Collapse, Diamond writes this incredible sentence:
“Our blaming of businesses also ignores the ultimate responsibility of the public for creating the conditions that let a business profit through hurting the public: e.g., for not requiring mining companies to clean up, or for continuing to buy wood products from non-sustainable logging operations.”
Instead of calling for corporations and their officials to be held accountable for their detrimental conduct, Diamond blames the victims of corporate violence for letting big business assault them and the world around them. But Diamond is being disingenuous when he says it’s the public’s responsibility to stop corporations from doing harm. Does he honestly believe this? Would Diamond support a public that holds Union Carbide accountable for the chemical disaster in Bhopal, India, by rounding up company executives and putting them on trial for capital murder? Would Diamond support a public that unites to shut down, by any means necessary, all of Union Carbide’s industrial operations around the world? Would Diamond support a public that holds Exxon executives accountable for the oil disaster in Valdez, Alaska, by rounding up company executives and putting them on trial for environmental terrorism? Or rounding up BP executives and putting them on trial for environmental terrorism for the Gulf of Mexico disaster?
No, this is not the type of responsibility that Diamond wants the public to assume. Diamond’s idea of taking responsibility for corporations’ behavior is for the public “to buy sustainably harvested products,” whatever that means; by making employees of companies with poor track records “feel ashamed of their company and complain to their own management”; and by “preferring their governments to award valuable contracts to businesses with a good environmental track record.”
Who is Diamond trying to kid? These measures will have absolutely zero impact on stopping or reversing the damage to the natural world caused by large corporations. In Diamond’s world, large corporations are unquestionably assumed to be sacred organizations. This is the same type of thinking embraced by the Big Green groups. They take for granted the supremacy of corporations and the industrial capitalist system. They create corporate partnerships to fund their huge bureaucracies and, secondarily, to get the businesses to adopt one or two public relations-friendly environmental initiatives. But these groups have no intention of addressing the environmental crisis at its root by targeting the industrial capitalist system itself.
Cartoonist, writer and environmental activist Stephanie McMillan writes that Diamond “subjects us to a poorly argued, mind-warping, illogical and denial-drenched apology for some of the most destructive corporations that curse our planet with their existence.” McMillan was referring to a New York Times op-ed by Diamond entitled “Will Big Business Save the Earth” from December 2009. But she could have easily been referring to Diamond’s arguments in Collapse.
In Collapse, Diamond writes that “if environmentalist aren’t willing to engage with big businesses, which are among the most powerful forces in the modern world, it won’t be possible to solve the world’s environmental problems. Thus, I am writing this book from a middle-of-the-road perspective, with experience of both environmental problems and of business realities.”
Here again, Diamond, as with the leaders of the Big Green environmental groups, demonstrates an inability to think outside the confines of the industrial capitalist system. His “middle-of-the-road” perspective is no such thing. He takes the industrial capitalist system as a given, which is certainly a one-sided view, not a “middle-of-the-road” stance.
Let’s give McMillan the last word: “Diamond tries to confuse us by conflating slightly restrained rates of massive destruction with a net positive effect. Even if companies make changes that cause them to destroy nature at a slower speed than they have been accustomed to, this is hardly the same thing as not destroying it at all (which is what sustainability means), and the exact opposite of helping the planet heal.”
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Be kind to your fine, feathered friends
I’ve just begun writing for a new site and here’s my first entry:
A recent study involving crows proved—yet again—that humans are the only species supercilious enough to be astonished when another species performs “advanced cognitive tasks.” (Humans, for that matter, are also the only ones arrogant enough to believe “advanced cognitive tasks” could and should remain constant from species to species.)
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Another of my recent photos:
Liberty, in a shadow and a blur
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Sunday, July 03, 2011
The Great Natural Gas Export Swindle
By Press Action
The natural gas industry is quietly moving closer to committing one of the greatest energy swindles in recent U.S. history—with the blessing of federal and state officials.
The industry recruited another government partner to its scam when the New York Department of Environmental Conservation on July 1 recommended that natural gas producers be allowed to use hydraulic fracturing to drill in 85% of the state’s portion of the Marcellus Shale.
It’s bad enough that a government agency with the words “environmental” and “conservation” in its name wants to give large corporations permission to ransack the environment. What makes this scenario even more unsavory is that large volumes of the gas produced in New York won’t be consumed by the people bearing the brunt of the environmental damage. In fact, if the gas companies get their way, much of the gas produced in New York will bypass not only New Yorkers, but all Americans, as it gets piped to coastal terminals for export to foreign countries.
And this scenario is not a pipe dream. It’s coming and it’s just around the corner. Most of the necessary gas transportation infrastructure is already in place. A few gathering pipelines and compressor stations will need to be built here and there in the middle of the shale play. Once these relatively small projects are completed, it will be clear sailing for the natural gas as it heads to the closest export terminal, possibly as early as 2013.
Do the existing terminals currently have the ability to export natural gas? No, but several companies are pursuing plans to convert their existing liquefied natural gas import terminals into export terminals. And these companies are receiving nothing but green lights from federal agencies as they seek the necessary approvals for the conversions.
Three applications for export have already been filed at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the latest coming from Southern Union Co. and BG LNG Services who want approval to export LNG for the next 25 years from the Lake Charles terminal in Louisiana. Elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, Cheniere Energy wants to export from its Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana, and Freeport LNG Development LP has similar plans for the Freeport LNG terminal in Texas. In May, Cheniere received approval from DOE to export gas from Sabine Pass to any country not prohibited by U.S. law.
So, which LNG terminal would serve shale gas volumes produced in New York? Speculation is growing that Dominion Resources Inc., owner of the Cove Point LNG terminal in Maryland, will be seeking permission from DOE and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to convert its import terminal into an export terminal. A network of underground pipelines exists in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic regions that could be used to easily ship the gas from New York to the Cove Point facility.
Dominion concedes its Cove Point import terminal is “currently experiencing a significant decline in usage,” largely driven by the development of the Marcellus and other shale gas plays. Because of the strong production rates from these shale plays, there’s no longer much, if any, demand for LNG imported from countries such as Trinidad and Tobago and Qatar. Out of desperation, Dominion was forced to ask FERC for permission to compel shippers to deliver LNG to the Cove Point import terminal in order to keep the terminal cool and operational. But the federal commission rejected Dominion’s request. With few other options, Dominion will probably respond to FERC’s rejection by following the lead of the Gulf Coast terminal owners. DOE and FERC should get their stamps of approval ready because they’ll soon be receiving applications from Dominion seeking permission to export LNG.
Dominion officials are on the record as saying the company is considering installing natural gas liquefaction facilities at Cove Point. Dominion already has a large-diameter natural gas pipeline that delivers gas away from the Cove Point terminal. This pipeline could easily be converted to transport gas in the opposite direction, from wells drilled in the Marcellus back to the Cove Point facility.
In January, during the company’s 2010 financial earnings conference call, Dominion Chairman, President and CEO Thomas Farrell said the company had “discussed the potential for liquefaction facilities at Cove Point with a number of major companies.” Farrell conceded that there is not enough demand for all of the natural gas that is expected to be produced in the Marcellus Shale. “If Marcellus is going to build out the way it is expected to reach its full potential, people are going to have to explore exportation of the gas,” he said.
What’s Going On?
Let’s stop for a moment and make sure we understand what’s going on. The industry is planning to extract natural gas from geological formations beneath our feet and then transport it to coastal industrial plants, liquefy it and then ship it overseas to the highest bidder. Instead of keeping the natural gas underground (where it belongs) or, let’s say, producing it in limited quantities for local or regional consumption, natural gas companies want to create industrial drilling zones in our backyards and then turn around and sell the gas to other countries.
There’s currently not enough demand for natural gas in the United States to satisfy the needs of the major players in the exploration and production sector and their shareholders. Natural gas producers have gotten rich off extracting gas from the various shale gas plays across the U.S., but now they want more. By extracting gas from these underground formations and then absconding with it, natural gas producers are hoping to find new markets for their “product” to boost shareholder value and to drive up the price of natural gas here in the United States.
Natural gas in the $4 to $5/MMBtu range is not good enough for these producers, even though such a price range has been high enough to generate healthy profits for these companies for the past half dozen years. The companies want gas prices to climb into the $7-$8/MMBtu range, and they believe exporting gas produced here in the U.S. will do the trick because it will create a tighter supply-and-demand balance. But the gas industry doesn’t want Americans getting word of its plans, which would almost certainly raise home heating bills and increase the cost of various products that use natural gas as a feedstock. To distract attention away from its ploy to raise gas prices here in the U.S., the gas industry is mounting a massive public relations campaign to tout the number of jobs created by shale gas drilling. But a recent study in Pennsylvania found that the gas industry is exaggerating the jobs potential of shale gas drilling in the state.
And then there is the madness of an economic system that favors endless industrial growth over the health of the natural world. Rural areas are taken over by gas companies and contractors, with their drilling sites dominating the landscape. Drilling accidents, including the release of hydraulic fracturing fluids into surface waters, are routine. If the industry gets its way, a large portion of the natural gas that producers extract from underground will get shipped overseas, leaving the land in tatters and domestic natural gas prices much higher.
Unlike the U.S. coal industry, virtually all of the gas produced in the United States has been consumed in the United States since the dawn of the natural gas age. The natural gas industry, with its well pads and gathering lines and compressor stations and interstate pipelines, has been causing serious damage to the environment over the last 60 years. But at least we could say that the natural gas produced here, stayed here. Whether for home heating or aluminum manufacturing or fertilizer production or electric generation, the natural gas produced from the various basins across the United States was used for domestic purposes. But now the natural gas industry wants to contaminate water supplies and do considerable harm to the environment, and then turn around, without even a thank you, and sell the natural gas for top dollar to energy marketers serving Europe and China and India.
Hoppin’ on the LNG Train
Throughout the previous decade, the gas industry argued the United States was in dire need of natural gas imports or else high prices and shortages would become the norm. FERC put the fast-track on all applications that companies submitted requesting permission to build LNG import terminals. Lo and behold the natural gas industry has changed its tune. The industry now contends the nation is awash in gas supplies and that it must be allowed to export to sustain its member companies’ healthy quarterly earnings.
And the natural gas industry is now getting bolder, enlisting the help of politicians in their quest to expand shale gas producing zones and convert their import terminals into export facilities. Politicians in Pennsylvania, including former Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell and current Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, are welcoming with open arms the natural gas rush in their state. Even the former head of the state Department of Environmental Protection, John Hanger, is an unabashed supporter of natural gas drilling. Hanger is also the former head of the environmental group Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future, a.k.a. PennFuture. Having a strong advocate of the natural gas industry head an environmental group is a clear indicator of where that group really stands on protecting the environment—and that stance certainly isn’t one that is committed to doing no harm to the environment.
In 2010, the Marcellus Shale Coalition, the leading industry trade group for natural gas producers in the region, hired former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge to serve as a “strategic advisor.” “There is much work to be done to maximize the benefits of these abundant and domestic resources, and I’m looking forward to help lead this important effort,” Ridge said in a statement at the time.
Founded in 2008, the Marcellus Shale Coalition spent the most among natural gas industry interests—$1.1 million—on lobbying lawmakers and state officials in 2010, the Scranton Times-Tribune reported July 3.
Down south in Louisiana, nine state senators recently submitted a joint letter to DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy in support of the proposed Lake Charles LNG export project.
Letting Southern Union and BG LNG Services, a subsidiary of BG Group (formerly British Gas), export LNG from the Lake Charles terminal would “provide a much needed boost to Louisiana’s local and regional economy through resource development, an enhanced tax base, direct and indirect job creation and increased overall economic activity,” the state senators wrote in their June 16 letter. “Allowing exports of LNG will provide additional markets for the abundant natural gas produced in Louisiana, as well as the rest of the country.”
In the letter, the Louisiana senators demonstrated the proper deference to their patrons in industry. “BG Group and [Southern Union] have been longstanding key members of the business community in Louisiana,” the senators said. “BG Group has also significantly invested in shale gas exploration and production in Louisiana providing additional jobs and economic investment within the state.”
During the past decade, one of the slogans of the natural gas industry was “energy independence” as it campaigned to drill for gas on public lands and in environmentally sensitive areas. But now we know the industry’s use of that slogan was just a ruse to get permission to drill in regions that may have remained off-limits if government officials had known the industry would end up running off with the gas supplies to sell to overseas markets.
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Saturday, July 02, 2011
An old story, perfect for July 4 weekend
A few decades ago, I was eating lunch in a Virginia Beach diner with bunch of friends when we heard a deafening roar.
“What was that?” I bellowed.
Our waitress smiled and proudly replied:
“That’s an F-14…the sound of freedom.”
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On that note:
Bruce Springsteen sings “Independence Day"
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Another of my recent photos:
Astoria Park fireworks show, June 30
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Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Summer Re-Run: "Earthlings Unite"
A blast from my somewhat recent past:
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Another of my recent photos:
From NYC’s Gay Pride Parade, June 26
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Monday, June 27, 2011
Boom and Bust: Nagging Doubts Threaten to Fracture Shale Gas Revolution
By Press Action
The past half dozen years have been exciting times for the natural gas industry, especially in the Barnett Shale play in Texas, where independent producers ignited a continental shale gas revolution. But the revolution appears to be losing steam as companies active in the Barnett and other shale plays across North America cope with lower-than-expected production rates. And then there’s relentless talk of jobs creation from the shale gas companies. But even that particular talking point lost some luster last week when a new report suggested the industry is exaggerating the number of jobs created by natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania’s portion of the Marcellus Shale.
Even as natural gas producers were rushing to lease acreage in the sweet spot of the Barnett Shale in Fort Worth and the surrounding counties, there was already concern about rapidly declining production rates. A large percentage of the production in the Barnett Shale has attractive initial production rates but then faces steep rates of decline after the first year of production.
Generally, almost all shale gas wells experience declining production rates after about a year. The decline rates, however, become shallower at which point the production enters a steadier flow. But in the Barnett Shale, many of the wells remain on deep declines and gas production is greatly minimized. In the Haynesville Shale play in northwest Louisiana and east Texas, gas producers also are witnessing extremely fast decline rates during their first year of production, with the steep declines continuing into year two and thereafter.
A June 25 New York Times article reports that “the amount of gas produced by many of the successful wells is falling much faster than initially predicted by energy companies, making it more difficult for them to turn a profit over the long run.”
The article also says data show that while there are some very active wells, they are often surrounded by large zones of less-productive wells that in some cases cost more to drill and operate than the gas they produce is worth.
The New York Times said it has reviewed hundreds of emails in which energy executives, industry lawyers, state geologists and market analysts voice skepticism about lofty forecasts and question whether companies are intentionally, and even illegally, overstating the productivity of their wells and the size of their reserves. “Many of these e-mails also suggest a view that is in stark contrast to more bullish public comments made by the industry, in much the same way that insiders have raised doubts about previous financial bubbles,” New York Times reporter Ian Urbina explains in the article.
Urbina said the e-mails were obtained through open-records requests or provided to the New York Times by industry consultants and analysts who say they believe that the public perception of shale gas does not match reality.
“The e-mails do not explicitly accuse any companies of breaking the law. But the number of e-mails, the seniority of the people writing them, the variety of positions they hold and the language they use—including comparisons to Ponzi schemes and attempts to ‘con’ Wall Street—suggest that questions about the shale gas industry exist in many corners,” Urbina writes.
One of the biggest promoters of shale gas is Chesapeake Energy, the second-largest U.S. natural gas producer. For the past several years, Chesapeake Energy’s CEO, Aubrey McClendon, has urged the natural gas industry to do a better job promoting itself and touting natural gas as an abundant domestic fuel source. Chesapeake Energy funded the startup of the American Clean Skies Foundation, a nonprofit group based in Washington, D.C., that promotes the use of natural gas. The American Clean Skies Foundation also provided the initial funding for energyNOW!, a half-hour weekly TV news magazine that covers energy matters. Chesapeake Energy also was a founding member of America’s Natural Gas Alliance, a group created in 2009 to push the agenda of independent gas producers among lawmakers and policymakers in Washington, D.C.
While Chesapeake Energy emerged during the last decade as one of the dominant shale gas producers, the Oklahoma City-based company and its CEO have their share of critics, even among gas industry supporters. In a June 23 article, energy journalist Robert Bryce, who has written many favorable articles about U.S. shale gas production, took aim at McClendon for his pay deal worth about $19.7 million, which placed him among the 30 highest-paid executives in the United States in 2010.
Earlier in June, during the company’s annual meeting, more than a third of Chesapeake Energy’s shareholders refused to endorse his compensation deal. McClendon promised shareholders that Chesapeake Energy would “be more transparent” in the future.
“Since 2008, McClendon’s compensation has totaled more than $152 million,” Bryce writes. “And now he’s promising transparency? That’s like an armed robber promising to set off the alarm the next time he hits his favorite bank. Over the last five years, Chesapeake shareholders have seen essentially no increase in the value of their shares, and yet McClendon has taken home tens of millions of dollars.”
Chesapeake Energy isn’t the only natural gas producer facing closer scrutiny. The entire sector is under pressure to boost shareholder value. And the industry has become a prime target of environmentalists concerned about the damage caused by natural gas drilling operations.
In his article, Urbina notes that hydraulic fracturing requires more than a million gallons of water per well, and some of that water must be disposed of because it becomes contaminated by the process. He also points out how some in the industry are comparing shale gas producers to Enron, the notorious energy and commodities trading company that went bankrupt in the fall of 2001.
In an email received by the New York Times, a retired geologist from a major oil and gas company wrote: “And now these corporate giants are having an Enron moment. They want to bend light to hide the truth.”
The natural gas industry and its supporters also might be bending the truth about the number of jobs created by their activities. Between late 2007 and 2010, the Marcellus Shale boom created fewer than 10,000 new jobs in Pennsylvania, much less than the 48,000 figure reported in recent news stories, statements and commentaries, according to a new report by the Keystone Research Center, a nonprofit research organization based in Harrisburg, Pa.
In the report, the center contends that the Marcellus Shale is making a small positive contribution to recent job growth in Pennsylvania. “The size of that contribution, however, has been substantially inflated based on a basic misunderstanding of the difference between ‘new hires’ and job creation,” the center said.
“The modest contribution of the Marcellus Shale to job growth must also be balanced against the impact of drilling on other industries, such as tourism and the Pennsylvania hardwoods industry,” the center said. “It is also important to balance the contribution of the Marcellus Shale to job growth against the so-far unfunded environmental liability of the industry.”
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Summer re-runs (yeah, here we go again)
The Set-Up:
A fighter pilot travels east in an F-16 at Mach 2.05
A corporate CEO travels west in a golf cart at 15 MPH
A politician travels south in a limo at 65 MPH
A holy man travels north by foot at 5 MPH
The Question:
Which one will get to Hell first?
(insert rimshot here)
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Another of my recent photos:
The many guises of the automobile culture
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Saturday, June 25, 2011
Robert Bryce Is Too Smart to Be an Energy Industry Cheerleader
By Press Action
Energy journalist and author Robert Bryce is a big fan of 21st century industrial society. And he’s savvy enough to understand that sustaining the modern way of life for as long as possible will require large amounts of fossil fuels. Renewable energy, bioenergy and other non-fossil fuel alternatives, according to Bryce, are incapable of keeping the capitalist engine running smoothly. Oil, coal and natural gas are still essential for ensuring the health of today’s global economy.
In an August 2010 article, Bryce astutely points out that electricity is the energy commodity that separates the heavily industrialized countries from the rest. “Countries that can provide cheap and reliable electric power to their citizens can grow their economies and create wealth,” he writes. “Those that can’t, can’t.”
Electric power generation and industrial activities require a continuous supply of fuel. Bryce is fond of all fossil fuels for powering modern industrial society. But recently he’s gone on a serious natural gas kick. A recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal serves as Bryce’s latest love letter to the natural gas industry. In the opinion piece, he touts the “shale gas revolution” that’s rocking the nation.
Bryce writes that “the shale revolution now underway is the best news for North American energy since the discovery of the East Texas Field in 1930. We can’t afford to let fear of a proven technology stop the much-needed resurgence of American industry.” He goes on to explain that “a vibrant industrial base requires cheap, abundant and reliable sources of energy” such as natural gas. “Cheap” and “reliable” often translate into great “wealth” for the owners and managers of the leading companies in the energy extraction sector.
Given his fondness for steel producers, chemical manufacturers and all things industrial, Bryce is not a fan of environmentalists and others who try to stand in the way of companies active in these sectors. In Bryce’s world, “progress” is measured by how many jobs are created at a new steel plant in Louisiana and by how much “wealth” is created by a natural gas drilling operation in Pennsylvania. In this world, there is little tolerance for Americans who threaten the flow of fossil fuels by organizing resistance against industrial energy production.
Bryce is viewed by many as an authority on energy matters. He’s the author of some well-received books, including Power Hungry: The Myths of ‘Green’ Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future and Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of ‘Energy Independence’. He’s willing to think outside the narrow geo-political confines established by Washington insiders. Aside from the Wall Street Journal, Bryce’s articles have been published by the likes of The Nation, The American Conservative and Counterpunch. He opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He’s a critic of Israel’s policies against the Palestinians. But when it comes to reporting on fossil fuels, Bryce and Big Oil/Gas appear to be BFFs.
In his evangelizing about the merits of natural gas, Bryce notes that hydraulic fracturing has been used “more than one million times” in the U.S. over the past 60 years. Environmental activists are hoping to ban the process or have it regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, he notes. “Opponents claim the process can harm groundwater even though drinking-water aquifers are separated by as much as two miles of impermeable rock from the shales that are being targeted by the fracturing process,” he writes.
But what Bryce and industry officials fail to mention when they talk about how hydraulic fracturing has been used for more than half a century is that this isn’t your father’s hydraulic fracturing.
The type of hydraulic fracturing that gas producers are using in the Marcellus Shale and other shale plays was developed in the late 1990s, not the 1940s. It is called “slick-water hydraulic fracturing” because it uses a different mix of chemicals than the older methods, reducing the amount of gelling agents and adding friction reducers, thus the term “slick”. The new hydraulic fracturing technique also uses much more fluid than old hydraulic fracturing.
The purpose of this article, however, isn’t to counter the claims of Bryce and industry officials about the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing. Its purpose is to question why Robert Bryce, an astute journalist and expert on energy economics, continues to sermonize about the virtues of endless industrialization and economic growth, given how there’s no chance for humans to enjoy a long-term livable future on this planet under such a scenario.
To his credit, Bryce recognizes the damaging environmental effects of utility-scale renewable energy projects. Here are two passages from a recent piece of his published in the New York Times:
"Consider the massive quantities of steel required for wind projects. The production and transportation of steel are both expensive and energy-intensive, and installing a single wind turbine requires about 200 tons of it. Many turbines have capacities of 3 or 4 megawatts, so you can assume that each megawatt of wind capacity requires roughly 50 tons of steel.” June 7, 2011, New York Times
“The math is simple: to have 8,500 megawatts of solar capacity, California would need at least 23 projects the size of Ivanpah, covering about 129 square miles, an area more than five times as large as Manhattan. While there’s plenty of land in the Mojave, projects as big as Ivanpah raise environmental concerns. In April, the federal Bureau of Land Management ordered a halt to construction on part of the facility out of concern for the desert tortoise, which is protected under the Endangered Species Act.” June 7, 2011, New York Times
In that same New York Times piece, Bryce notes that industrial solar and wind projects require huge areas of land for the projects themselves and for the power lines that will need to be built to deliver the electricity to market. He points out that the Nature Conservancy has coined the term “energy sprawl” to describe renewable energy’s land requirements.
But when it comes to the extraction of fossil fuels and the burning of fossil fuels, Bryce chooses not to be concerned about the environmental impact. Instead, he sides with the evangelists for unlimited industrial and economic growth. He says “there is no urgency for an accelerated shift to a nonfossil fuel world: the supply of fossil fuels is adequate for generations to come.”
Even if one believes fossil fuel reserves are adequate to sustain industrial society for generations to come, there’s no denying that the fossil fuels produced by the energy companies that Bryce holds in such high esteem are a finite resource. And even more important, the earth cannot support endless and unlimited economic growth and industrialization. In other words, the earth will cease to support almost all forms of life, not just the thousands of animal and plant species already killed off, if humans continue down this path.
In 2010, Bryce wrote a farewell column for the Energy Tribune, an online energy newsletter that he edited for about four years. In the piece, Bryce complains about the “Left-Right, Democrat-Republican, Liberal-Conservative divide” that results in a “win-at-all-costs attitude where facts—and in particular, mathematical and scientific realities—are the first casualties.” He identifies himself as a “political independent” and someone who wants to work only with “smart people.”
While he identifies himself as a “political independent,” Bryce is a strong believer in modern state capitalism. It’s an economic system that both Democrats and Republicans—with whom Bryce expresses so much disgust—insist is worth protecting by any means necessary. The “smart people” that Bryce wants to work with are the ones unable to envision a way of life that doesn’t depend on never-ending growth and endless resource extraction.
Given his goal of working only with smart people and as a smart person himself, it seems inevitable that Bryce will come around to seeing the fatal flaws in the economic system he currently supports.
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Friday, June 24, 2011
Seeking to create a softer place to land
From South Central to Northern Ireland...from East Timor to the West Bank...from the prisons to the cages...from the clear-cut forests to the trawl-scarred ocean floors...from the slaughterhouses to the bombed-out villages...from the domestic violence that hides behind the label of “love” to the global carnage waged under flags of “freedom”...
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Another of my recent photos:
The streets are for the people
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Wednesday, June 22, 2011
haiku equation
human behavior
is justified solely by
human denial
“World’s oceans in ‘shocking’ decline"
Meanwhile, back at Japan’s radiated ranch...
Fun with nukes, but closer to home
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Another of my recent photos:
Small business owner, circa 2011
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Monday, June 20, 2011
Old and New Hydraulic Fracturing: What's the Difference?
Many gas industry representatives are saying that hydraulic fracturing (also called hydrofracking or simply “fracking”) is old, and has been used for years. People concerned about drilling in the Marcellus shale are saying this is a new process. Who is correct? They both are.
Hydraulic Fracturing is Old
Hydrofracking—injecting fluid (a mixture of water, sand, and highly toxic chemicals) under high pressure into oil and gas wells—has been used for years. It was developed by Halliburton in the late 1940s (1).
This fact sheet will refer to traditional hydraulic fracturing as “old hydrofracking” and the wells as “traditional wells.” Hydrofracking, without the chemical additives, even has been used locally to stimulate flow from shallow water wells.
High-Volume (Slick-water) Hydraulic Fracturing is New and Different
The type of hydraulic fracturing gas companies will employ in the Marcellus shale (and other shale layers, such as the Utica) (2) was developed in the late 1990s, not the 1940s. It is called “slick-water hydraulic fracturing” because it uses a different mix of chemicals than the older methods—reducing the amount of gelling agents and adding friction reducers (thus the term “slick”). (3)
The hydraulic fracturing technique to be used in the Marcellus shale is also known as “high-volume” hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) because it uses much more fluid than old hydraulic fracturing (4). In old hydrofracking, typically 20,000 to 80,000 gallons of fluid were used each time a well was hydrofractured (5), but HVHF uses 2 to 7.8 million gallons of fluid (6) (on average 5.6 million (7)), the exact amount depending on the length of the well bore and the number of fractures created along it.
Thus: HVHF uses 70 to 300 times more fluid than old hydrofracking.
Greater Adverse Impacts of High-Volume Hydraulic Fracturing
- More Chemicals: Per fracturing, old hydrofracking used 700 to 2,800 lbs. of chemical additives (8), but HVHF will use 205,000 to 935,000 lbs. (9), many of which are toxic to humans and wildlife. A typical 7-well site could receive 4 million lbs. of chemicals (9).
- More Toxic Waste Requiring Disposal: Assuming HVHF wells use 150 times more fluid than traditional wells (within the 70 to 300x range noted above), the drilling of 7 HVHF wells (assuming one 7-well pad per 640 acres [square mile]) creates an amount of toxic waste fluid equivalent to that from 1,000 traditional wells per square mile (10).
- More Truck Traffic: To construct one traditional well requires fewer than 225 to 387 tanker truck trips, but one HVHF well requires 1,760 to 1,905 trips (11). Thus, a typical Marcellus well pad with 7 wells adds about 13,000 round-trip truck trips to local roads.
- More Fresh Water Used: With HVHF, more fresh water will be removed from local streams, lakes, and aquifers; because it will be contaminated, it probably will not be returned to the watershed, although how the volumes of waste will be disposed of has yet to be determined. HVHF of just one well would remove 5.6 million gallons (MG) of fresh water, 1.9 times the 2.98 MG the City of Ithaca uses each day to supply 30,000 people (12).
- More Drill Cuttings Requiring Disposal (13): A traditional vertical well 3,000’ deep (14) creates about 54 cu. yds. of drill cuttings, but a HVHF well to the same depth will create 94 cubic yards, 74% more (15). Cuttings may contain radioactive materials (NORM), heavy metals, and various toxic chemicals, depending on the types of drilling muds (fluids) used.
- Larger Disturbed Areas: HVHF well pads will be larger (4 to 5 cleared acres (16)) than those for traditional wells (2 to 3 acres (17)) because they must store more fluid, chemicals, drill cuttings, drilling fluids, and equipment, and they are expected to contain multiple wells. Thus any given HVHF well pad will create more run-off, siltation, and visual scars, and disturb more forest or agricultural land.
How Else is Drilling in the Marcellus Shale New and Different?
Intense, Industrial-Scale Development: Extraction of gas from shales is intensive, and done on an industrial scale: the gas industry prefers to drill many wells in a region, because of the high investment in gas-drilling infrastructure. The most dense gas drilling in New York is in Chautauqua County, where in 2008 the average density of vertical wells was 3 per square mile [SGEIS, p. 5-13]. HVHF well density in the Marcellus shale is expected to range from about 6 to 8 wells per square mile (if the spacing unit is 640 acres) to 16 or more wells per square mile. Infill wells and drilling in other shale layers in the same region can increase the well density beyond these levels. If we assume only 8 HVHF wells per square mile, the impact on Tompkins County (300,000 drillable acres, 469 square miles) is: 3,752 wells, 770 million to 3.5 billion lbs. of chemical additives, 6.6 to 7.1 million tanker truck trips, 21 billion gallons of fresh water removed, 353,000 cubic yards of drill cuttings, and more than 2,345 acres cleared (assuming 1 well pad of 5 acres with 8 wells, on each square mile).
The impact of High-Volume Hydraulic Fracturing is many magnitudes greater than anything New York has ever experienced; it has the potential to irrevocably damage our state.
ENDNOTES:
2. Shale contains gas distributed in microscopic pores and thus must be extensively hydrofracked to extract the most gas. Wells into shale layers may be drilled vertically or horizontally, but horizontal wells bore through the most rock and thus are thought to be able to extract more gas. When a horizontal well is hydrofracked, much more fluid is used because of the greater distance the well bore extends and the many fractures induced; extra lubrication (friction reducers) is used to allow the fluid to move more easily through the long bore and the many induced fractures.
3. Draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement on the Oil, Gas and Solution Mining Regulatory Program (SGEIS), September 2009, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Section 5–3, pp. 5–32 to 5–33.
4. SGEIS, Section 5–3, p. 5–33.
5. Generic Environmental Impact Statement on the Oil, Gas and Solution Mining Regulatory Program (GEIS), 1992, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Chapter 9, Part F, p. 9–26.
6. SGEIS, Section 5.62, p. 5–73.
7. Water Use in Marcellus Deep Shale Gas Exploration: Fact Sheet, March 2010. Chesapeake Energy Corporation. http://www.chk.com/Media/MarcellusMediaKits/Marcellus_Water_Use_Fact_Sheet.pdf
8. Chemical additives used in water gel hydraulic fracturing are gels (20 lbs. per 1,000 gallons), surfactants (1 gallon per 1,000 gallons), and small amounts of bactericides, iron controllers, and clay stabilizers (GEIS, Chapter 9, Section F, pp. 9–26 and 9–27). Assuming the surfactant density is around 10 lbs./gallon (just slightly more dense than water) and taking bactericide, iron control, and clay stabilizer concentrations as given in the SGEIS (Chapter 5, Section 5.4.3, p. 5–44), the weight of chemicals in a water gel hydraulic fracture is roughly 35 lbs./1,000 gallons. Water gel hydraulic fracturing uses 20,000 to 80,000 gallons of water (GEIS, Chapter 9, Section F, p. 9–26), so 700 to 2,800 lbs. of chemicals are used.
9. The typical percentage of chemicals in hydraulic fracturing solutions for the Fayetteville Shale is reported as 0.44% by weight (SGEIS, Section 5.4.3, p. 5–44). 0.44% by weight of 5.6 million gallons is 205,000 lbs. (water weighs 8.34 lb./gallon). The SGEIS also states that chemical additives typically comprise 2% or less of the fracturing fluid (Section 5.4, p. 5–33). 2% by weight of 5.6 million gallons is 935,000 lbs. Averaging these two weights yields 570,000 lbs. per well, or 4 million pounds for 7 wells.
10. Since each HVHF well uses about 150 times more fluid than a traditional well (the rough average of 70 and 300), there is also about 150 times more waste fluid for each HVHF well, assuming HVHF and traditional wells have similar fractions of returned fluid. 7 wells x 150 = 1,050 times the waste fluid.
11. HVHF one well one time requires about 1,540 tanker truckloads of water and waste, assuming 5.6 million gallons of water are used, truck capacity is 5,460 gallons, and half of the fracking fluid comes back out. This estimate of tanker truck size is based on road sizes and conditions in the Southern Tier of NY. Trucks could be somewhat larger or smaller, affecting the number of trips. 220 to 365 more trips are needed to bring in equipment, materials, and employees. [Moss, K. “Potential Development of the Natural Gas Resources in the Marcellus Shale.” National Park Service Geologic Resources Division. http://blogs.cce.cornell.edu/gasleasing/files/2008/12/grd-m-shale_12-11-2008_view.pdf ]. So, assume 1,760 to 1,905 trips to build, drill, and HVHF one well. Old hydrofracking requires 20,000 to 80,000 gallons of water. Making the same assumptions, this is 5 to 22 tanker truckloads of water and waste. Assuming the same number of trucks are needed to bring in equipment and materials as for HVHF (SGEIS, p. 6–138), 225 to 387 truck trips were required for each traditional well.
12. City of Ithaca, 2009 Drinking Water Quality Report, Table 1, p. 3. http://www.cityofithaca.org/vertical/Sites/%7B5DCEB23D-
5BF8-4AFF-806D-68E7C14DEB0D%7D/uploads/%7B03EB90C7-A888-4A48-8C66-B0B67A439D17%7D.PDF
13. Drill cuttings generated using water-based drilling muds (fluids) may be buried on-site, but cuttings from oil- or polymer-based muds must be landfilled.
14. SGEIS, p. 4–19. A 3,000-foot depth is roughly the average in New York.
15. SGEIS, p. 5–29. A vertical well drilled 7,000’ deep generates 125 cubic yards of cuttings, but the average Marcellus shale well in NY will be shallower (SGEIS p. 4–19, map). A vertical well 3,000’ deep would generate 54 cu. yds. of drill cuttings (scaled down from 7,000’ and 125 cu. yds.). A 3,000’ horizontal extension adds 40 cu. yds. of cuttings (SGEIS p. 5–30). Thus total cuttings are 94 cu. yds. 94 is 74% bigger than 54.
16. SGEIS, p. 5–26.
17. SGEIS, p. 5–20.
This fact sheet is reprinted from the website of Marcellus Accountability Project for Tompkins County, a group of local citizens in New York concerned about the effects of gas drilling on their health, safety, and quality of life.
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Sunday, June 19, 2011
draining haiku
recognize the clog
work needed to create flow
take plunge for freedom
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Bonus haiku:
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RIP Big Man:
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Thursday, June 16, 2011
haiku future
up from pavement cracks
arise inescapable
signs of the endgame
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Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Middle of the Road: Developers View Desert Tortoise as Speed Bump to Greener Pastures
By Press Action
Humans are killing off plant and animal species at an alarming rate. It’s no mystery how they’re doing it. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out a way to end the killing. In fact, as author Derrick Jensen says, it takes anybody but a rocket scientist to figure that out.
Take the case of the desert tortoise in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts in southern California, Nevada and Utah. They can live to be 50 to 80-years-old. They have well established home ranges where they know where their food, water and mineral resources are, and who their neighbors are. Such lifestyles are in stark contrast to most humans who have no idea where their food and water originates and who choose to exist inside their own self-created shells unaware of their neighbors.
Human activities have led to desert tortoise populations in some areas declining by as much as 90% since the 1950s, and the desert tortoise of the Mojave Desert in eastern California and southern Nevada is listed by the federal government as threatened.
“The desert tortoise is very sensitive to human disturbances, and this has led to the decimation of many of its populations throughout the desert southwest,” Defenders of Wildlife writes on its website. “Increased urban development in the deserts of California and other states have fragmented and reduced suitable habitat. Certain fatal diseases appear to be spreading among tortoise populations. Poaching, the use of off-highway vehicles within tortoise habitat and crushing by automobiles have also continued to threaten tortoise populations.”
The Ivanpah Valley of California, near the Nevada border, is one of the primary habitats of the desert tortoise. But urban development in the towns of Nipton, Calif., and Primm, Nev., and industrial and recreational activities in the area, much of it on federal lands, are imperiling the existence of the desert tortoise.
Let’s review some of the ways that humans are killing desert tortoises in the Ivanpah Valley. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management plays a role in the deaths by regularly issuing special use permits to “organized high-speed racing events” in this area of eastern San Bernardino, Calif. Each event often draws hundreds of racing and spectator vehicles, according to a report released June 10 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
“We expect that these events likely result in the death or injury of desert tortoises on occasion; we do not have definitive information on their effect of the regional density of desert tortoises but expect that they have led to an overall decrease in the number of individuals in this area,” the FWS said.
In August 2010, the BLM suspended all off-road racing events organized by Mojave Desert Racing Productions after eight spectators were killed during an off-road racing event in the Lucerne Valley, located in the western part of San Bernardino County, west of the Ivanpah Valley. Imagine the improvements in a desert tortoise’s quality of life—and ultimate survival—if the BLM suspended and eventually banned all off-road racing on federal lands in the Mojave Desert.
The FWS issued the report, in the form of a “biological opinion,” to address the impact of BrightSource Energy Inc.’s proposed Ivanpah solar thermal project in the Mojave Desert on the desert tortoise. In the report, the FWS gave a rundown of all of the ways that humans are decimating the desert tortoise in the Ivanpah Valley region of California and Nevada:
- Cattle grazing: Desert tortoises can be killed or injured during the construction, maintenance and use of cattle range improvements. Cattle have trampled desert tortoises. They also damage or destroy the burrows of desert tortoises. Predators, such as common ravens, can be attracted to livestock waters, carcasses of livestock, and some range improvements; predators attracted to these features feed on desert tortoises.
- Interstate 15: The highway crosses the northwestern portion of Ivanpah Valley and divides it into a larger southeastern portion and a much smaller northern portion. The construction of Interstate 15 resulted in the loss of hundreds of acres of habitat and the likely degradation of additional areas. Interstate 15 is mostly an impermeable barrier to movement of desert tortoises. The freeway is wide enough and traffic heavy enough that desert tortoises are highly unlikely to travel across its four lanes without being struck.
- Morning Star Mine Road: The road runs the length of the valley at the base of the Ivanpah Mountains. Although this road does not constitute an impermeable barrier to desert tortoises, it is heavily used by motorists traveling to Las Vegas at high speeds. Desert tortoises are routinely killed on this road. The Fish and Wildlife Service said it expects that desert tortoise densities in this portion of the valley are likely depressed adjacent to the road.
- Unpaved roads: The Ivanpah Valley contains numerous unpaved roads that are used by desert recreationists and by workers who maintain electric and gas transmission facilities in the area. The roads result in occasional injury to or mortality of desert tortoises.
- Natural gas pipelines: The construction of the Kern River Gas Transmission pipeline in the early 1990s resulted in the disturbance of hundreds of acres of desert tortoise habitat and the deaths of about 23 desert tortoises, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service report.
- Access roads: The use of access roads by both electric and natural gas workers and the public results in the ongoing injury and death of desert tortoises, which are struck by vehicles. In one case in the western Mojave Desert near Daggett, Calif., a desert tortoise with a radio transmitter was buried alive a utility company maintaining an access road. In spring 2011, at least two desert tortoises were crushed by vehicles using utility line access roads.
In a previous biological opinion, the FWS said it had “determined that the bureau’s proposed management was not likely to jeopardize the continued existence [emphasis added] of the desert tortoise or adversely modify its critical habitat because …” What follows the “because” doesn’t matter.
When government agencies are busy issuing reports discussing whether or not certain human activities will “jeopardize the continued existence” of an animal or plant species, one quickly recognizes that something is seriously wrong with how humans are conducting themselves. German officials could have performed studies and issued opinions toward the end of World War II that would have accurately concluded their extermination campaigns were not “jeopardizing the continued existence” of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, communists and other “undesirables.” Such a report could have concluded, accurately once again, that the campaigns were focusing on rounding up and killing only the “undesirable” groups of people in certain parts of Europe, not across the entire continent or in other parts of the world. The report could have editorialized, in a similar fashion to “biological opinions” issued by U.S. governmental agencies, that the Germans were displaying restraint, thereby allowing many of the “undesirables” to survive and live unencumbered lives.
The Nazi Holocaust ended. But the human campaign to annihilate the natural world is continuing full-throttle.
Despite the threatened status of the desert tortoise, the U.S. government is allowing energy companies to build infrastructure on federal lands in the Mojave Desert. On June 10, the BLM issued a notice allowing construction to resume at BrightSource Energy’s proposed Ivanpah solar project. On April 15, the BLM had ordered BrightSource to suspend construction activities after the agency determined it needed to reassess the desert tortoise population the region.
The FWS then conducted a study and based on the biological opinion issued by the FWS, the BLM determined that the desert tortoise would not be endangered by construction of the Ivanpah solar project. Construction was allowed to resume.
The BLM and FWS’s definition of “endangered” might be different than yours and mine. These tortoises are struggling to survive on a daily basis. And now BrightSource Energy is getting another shot at constructing its mammoth 392-MW (gross) solar project. The project will consist of three solar electric generating plants constructed over a four-year period. The Ivanpah 1 plant will sit on 914 acres, Ivanpah 2 on 1,097 acres and Ivanpah 3 on 1,227 acres.
Each project site will consist of one heliostat (mirror) array constructed around a 459-foot-tall (yes, 459 feet tall) centralized solar power tower. Ivanpah 1 will contain approximately 53,500 heliostats and Ivanpah 2 and 3 will contain approximately 60,000 heliostats each. Each heliostat consists of two 75.8-square-foot mirrors.
Prior to site development and construction activities for each phase, BrightSource will be required to install a desert tortoise exclusion fence or a combined exclusion fence and security fence around the entire perimeter of the phase.
As required by the federal government, BrightSource will place all desert tortoises or eggs cleared from the fenced project site into an onsite quarantine facility to await results of disease testing. All desert tortoises will receive health assessments, including blood collection and disease testing. BrightSource will x-ray all female desert tortoises of reproductive age to determine if they are carrying eggs. The period of time that tortoises spend in the quarantine facility will vary depending on a variety of factors (i.e., length of time it takes to get disease test results, timing of clearance surveys, environmental conditions within the recipient site, size of the individual, etc.). Some tortoises may remain in the quarantine facility for a season prior to final “translocation” to a nearby site away from the solar power project.
Instead of drastically cutting back on their energy usage and living within the means that nature provides, humans are pursuing new ways to kill the planet. Fossil fuel exploration and production causes tremendous destruction to the natural world through the extraction process itself as well as through the associated industrialization of the regions where the fossil fuels are located. The same is true when the “rocket scientists” go searching for ways to sustain the American way of life using so-called renewable energies.
In the case of the BrightSource Energy project in the Ivanpah Valley and all of the other solar power projects in the desert Southwest, animal habitats and plant species are being destroyed. The desert tortoise certainly has its share of natural predators that necessitate vigilance. But there’s nothing natural about the great struggle for survival that the desert tortoise is waging as humans continue to ride roughshod over its home.
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Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Shale Gas Extraction and the Tacit Premise of Endless Industrialization
By Press Action
The National Public Radio program, “On Point,” focused on natural gas drilling activities in the Marcellus Shale during its June 10 broadcast. The host of “On Point,” Tom Ashbrook, took his show on the road, broadcasting from the radio studios of NPR member station WBFO in Buffalo.
Ashbrook’s guests were Rob Jackson, professor of environmental sciences at Duke University and an author of a recent study that analyzed water quality near natural gas wells, and Abrahm Lustgarten, a reporter with ProPublica who has covered the issue of hydraulic fracturing in shale plays across the United States over the last three years. They were joined by Daniel Robison, a reporter with public radio station WNED who has chronicled the natural gas drilling debate in New York, where there remains a moratorium on drilling in the Marcellus Shale.
Ashbrook led a generally informed discussion on the issue of hydraulic fracturing and its potential impact on water supplies. Jackson summarized the findings of the Duke University study. According to Jackson, the water from wells of homeowners who live within 1 kilometer of a natural gas drilling operation in Pennsylvania, where gas production has been moving full steam ahead for the past four years, was found to contain 17 times the average level of methane—what he described as “dangerously” higher levels of methane.
But Jackson also noted that the Duke University researchers did not find any evidence of fracking fluids contaminating the well water of these Pennsylvania residents.
Jackson said the authors of the Duke University study are calling for a medical review of the health effects of chronic exposure to low levels of methane in water and the air. There has been no peer-reviewed research on exposure to these levels of methane and “we think that is something the government should look at,” he said.
Toward the end of the conversation, Ashbrook asked Jackson to predict how the controversy surrounding hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus Shale and other U.S. shale plays will shake out in the coming years, given that “we’ve got a country that is hungry for energy.” Jackson responded that, as a nation, “What we need to do is to proceed cautiously with shale gas extraction, but to proceed.”
Because natural gas is cleaner-burning than coal and is an abundant domestic fuel source, the industry should “improve the best management practices” its uses when drilling in unconventional gas plays, he argued.
Jackson did not address the issue of why the United States is so “hungry for energy” and whether attempting to satisfy this hunger is the correct path to follow. He declined to consider another scenario, one in which the United States begins to move toward a way of life that requires substantially smaller amounts of energy. Jackson did not dispute the premise of Ashbrook’s question. He argued that if not natural gas, then the United States will need to rely on other energy sources to meet its growing demand. Neither the word “conservation” nor the phrase “reduce our consumption” was part of his vocabulary during the OnPoint discussion.
“Part of the answer to that question really is, what do we use instead if we slam the door shut on natural gas? Might we put up wind mills or solar panels or might we rely instead on more extensive mountaintop mining, which has enormous problems for water, for streams, for the coal ash that is produced,” Jackson said. “The question of how to proceed depends on the safety of natural but is also depends on the other sources that we might use for our electricity and power.”
Roxanne Amico, a Buffalo-based artist, independent radio producer and activist, noted that academics and experts generally sympathetic to the issue of preserving environmental health and safety “never touch” the issue of rolling back economic growth and its attendant energy use.
“Industrialization is the tacit premise, that’s assumed to be what needs to be saved, rather than the world that it’s threatening,” Amico told Press Action.
During the OnPoint discussion, Lustgarten agreed with Jackson about natural gas playing a major role in the nation’s energy future. “I would guess that fracking is a part of our future, that gas drilling is a part of our future. We do need the energy,” Lustgarten said. “I think it’s really a question of how to do it safely. … There are a slew of different ways to manage aspects of the drilling process as well as the leaked emissions that can severely limit the amount of side effects, the environmental impacts, and make this process much, much safer. You may see regulation of hydraulic fracturing that would tighten that oversight and make it more akin to other types of underground injection in the near future and that also would aid in making the fracturing process, the drilling process a little bit more welcome in the communities that are coping with it.”
As noted by Jackson and Lustgarten, there indeed are ways that the natural gas industry can mitigate the environmental impact of its drilling operations. Horizontal drilling allows a larger area of a natural gas-bearing geological formation to be accessed from a single well pad. There can be tighter regulations on the chemicals used in the fracturing process and more attention paid to preventing leaks within well casings near the surface.
Even if these and other safety measures are adopted by the industry and enforced by their regulators, the demand for natural gas will still require the rapid industrialization of the land that sits atop the Marcellus Shale. Large numbers of wells will need to be drilled. For the hydraulic fracturing process, huge amounts of water will be needed. Waste pits will pop up near the drilling sites. Roads will need to be built to provide access to the drilling sites. New pipelines will need to be built. Compressor stations will need to be built. Each of these phases of the natural gas production and gathering process will require the use of products, such as concrete, steel and asphalt, that use tremendous amounts of oil-based products and coal during a very energy-intensive manufacturing process.
In an excellent new report released June 13, Food & Water Watch, an advocacy group led by long-time environmental activist Wenonah Hauter, said the rapid expansion of shale gas extraction has brought rampant environmental and economic problems to rural communities across the United States.
“Accidents and leaks have polluted rivers, streams and drinking water supplies. Regions peppered with drilling rigs have high levels of smog as well as other airborne pollutants, including potential carcinogens,” Food & Water Watch said in its report entitled “The Case for a Ban on Gas Fracking.” “Rural communities face an onslaught of heavy truck traffic—often laden with dangerous chemicals used in drilling—and declining property values.
Anti-fracking activists and local residents have worked hard over the past few years and have tremendous momentum behind them right now. They should not squander this opportunity by accepting the premise advanced by Jackson and Lustgarten—that wide-scale natural gas drilling in the Marcellus is inevitable. They should continue applying pressure to prevent the industrialization of the lands and waters that surround their homes.
The experts among us who should know better, including academics such as Jackson, often fail to consider the option—better yet, the necessity—of de-industrialization when given the opportunity. There’s already a vocal and dedicated opposition to hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus Shale, particularly in New York. And this planet cannot handle unbridled and limitless industrial growth for much longer. One of the commenters on the OnPoint website perhaps said it best when he explained that the isssue extends far beyond what was discussed during the radio program. He wrote:
"Whether it’s exploding mountain tops in Appalachia or cracking rocks to release natural gas all over the country, they are all desperate attempts to satisfy the appetite of the monster, and that monster is all of us with our monster trucks, monster SUVs, oversized monster houses. Desperate attempts to keep an obscene pattern of culture on life support."Share
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Happy Flag Day
Bill Hicks sez: “The flag! The flag! They said we can burn the flag! They didn’t say that, they said if a guy burns a flag, he probably doesn’t have to go to jail… for a fucking year. People going… “Hey buddy, let me tell you something… my daddy died for that flag.” Really? I bought mine, you know they sell them in K-mart, three bucks. “He died in the Korean war for that flag.” Well what a coincidence, mine was made in Korea. He didn’t die for a fucking flag, it’s just a piece of cloth, he died for what the flag represents and that the freedom to burn the fucking flag...”
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Another of my recent photos:
From the KR.ONE graffiti art show in Astoria
More pix from the graffiti show here
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Monday, June 13, 2011
On 'The Issue of Character' and Empire
By Phil Rockstroh
Late last month, poet, musician, and self-termed “bluesologist,” Gil Scott-Heron exited the hologram and returned to the source … to begin chanting, eternity will not be televised.
In an earlier era, Stephen Spender feted the following tribute to those who fell resisting Francisco Franco’s fascist forces during the Spanish Civil War. His lines of verse serve as an apt epitaph to all those souls who devoted their art and labor to the ceaseless struggle against the perennially risen, death-besotted forces of coercive power: “The names of those who in their lives fought for life,/Who wore at their hearts the fire’s center./Born of the sun, they traveled a short while towards the sun,/And left the vivid air signed with their honor.”
At present, in contrast, the dismal air is signed with the scandalous tweets of a congressman’s undergarments and the concomitant, predictable howling from the hectoring ghosts of U.S. Puritanism, conjured from their graves by the contrived spectacle and its promise of anonymous arousal intermingled with the blood sport of public shaming.
By finger wagging and sneering, carnal desires can be lived out vicariously in the Puritan/Calvinist imagination. In this way, petty moralists can ogle what they claim to condemn.
To Puritans, all the problems of life can be traced to the genitals ... true, but only their own problems.
How many times do the prigs, ninnies, and scolds of the U.S. have to repeat this sort of inanity before they grow up and realize that human beings have strong libidos? Libido propels both creativity and contretemps, and it is wise to aver that “the issue of character” should best be evoked and debated, as a general rule, when the situation involves hypocrisy.
Moreover, those claiming that their own sexual desires have never rendered them vulnerable to silly misjudgments evince a more noxious form of hypocrisy. Yet, if, in fact, their lives have been absent such propitious misfortune, then one should withhold the scorn reserved for hypocrites, and, instead, grant these poor souls pity, for they have been afflicted with the awful circumstance of having passed through their lives without ever being seduced by life.
A more profound “character issue” here would seem to involve that of the representatives of mass media news gathering organizations, in particular—their greed for ratings. And what is one to make of the character of the individuals who comprise the general public and their seemingly endless avidity for these stories—their insatiable craving to revel in the tawdry—but remain engaged in the delusional worship of their own toxic innocence?
Although, it is futile to struggle against the symptoms not the source. As banal as the dreams of witless bullies, the architecture and artifice of U.S. militarist/corporate imperium not only surrounds us but has colonized our thoughts and desires. Ergo, the elite of the corporate media and the U.S. public remain untroubled by Bradley Manning’s forced nudity, yet a couple a snaps of a congressmen’s crotch sends their imagination reeling.
Since U.S. Empire is maintained by militarism—a de facto strong-arm racket shaking down the people of the world to sustain the endless cupidity of its elite and proffer just enough bribes to keep its populace overweight, arrogant, and oblivious—what “character issues” come into play involving an individual’s complicity in the maintenance of blood-fueled imperium? Perhaps as a reminder, fleets of U.S. aircraft carriers should be christened with names such as, the USS Entitlement, the USS Displaced Resentment and the USS Willful Ignorance—all armed and ready to patrol the oceans of the world, poised to attack and subdue those who would deny us our birthright to consume the world like a bag of Cheetos.
Because facing folly is difficult, both powerful and pawn have embraced the most airless of aspirations … that greed run riot is a viable means to move in the world, even the sole means of establishing a social order.
As was the case with any imperium throughout history, the present order is maintained by state-sanctified homicide. To exist in empire, one is induced to deaden ones heart. The act of having internalized (albeit inadvertently) the propaganda of the militaristic/corporate state and thereby cling to its provisional comforts … is to clutch a handful of dust. And what is the mode of being to which so many cling:
Shuffling the floors of some suburban turdbox … within a gated “community” where one rarely sees, much less speaks to one’s neighbors; spending hours at a time, anxious and irritated (if not outright enraged) in soul-grinding commuter traffic, listening to the observations and pronouncements of inspired souls such as Morning Zoo Crews and deep thinkers like Rush Limbaugh and other right-wing talk-radio, hate merchants; then languishing all day in a cubicle ... just to turn around and do it all again.
Is it any wonder so many in the U.S. consider “our way of life” non-negotiable? What kind of a miserable, bitter malcontent would wish to challenge and change such a life-enhancing, soul-vivifying mode of being? There is just no pleasing some people.
A loss of empathetic imagination is endemic to the consumerist mindset of the mechanized era. This form of pathology began, years ago, when our ancestors offered up their life’s blood to the early corporatists of the Industrial Age.
"I attack all those persons/ who know nothing of the other half,/ the half who cannot be saved,/ who raise their cement mountains/ in which the hearts of the small/ animals no ones thinks of are beating.” - Federico García Lorca,
excerpt: New York (Office and Attack)
Henry Ford and the rest of the Industrial Age’s klavern of gray ghouls measured our flesh, muscle and bone with a productivity-measuring stopwatch. Cunning practitioners of the dark art of convincing human beings they were mere cogs in a soulless machine, it was only a short trudge from that blood-bartering viewpoint of existence through history’s slaughterhouse to Adolf Eichmann’s cold, corpse-rendering, mathematical constructs.
Insulated, as he was, within his fortified tower of mortared casuistry, Eichmann proved adept at emotionally shielding himself from the horrific implications of the system of mechanized extermination he helped devised. From individual alienation to planet-wide ecocide, Hannah Arendt’s insights, regarding Eichmann’s psyche in her seminal work, Eichmann in Jerusalem, applies to our present condition: “The longer one listened to him, the more obvious it became that his inability to speak was closely connected with an inability to think, namely, to think from the standpoint of somebody else.”
Accordingly, to lose the green fuse of transformation, implicit in interpersonal relationships, is to be driven by dehumanizing engines of annihilation.
In regard to the consumerist-colonized psyches of the populace of the U.S., an inner architecture is in place—an internalized shopping mall (complete with sub-cretinous security crews trained to shut down political speechifying and pamphleteering—but who seem unwilling or unable to subdue the impulse to buy, on credit, unnecessary items).
Conversely, for a culture to thrive, a vital agora and public square is required. Given the agora has been replaced by mall and social media’s weightless pixels of narrowed apprehension (an almost all-encompassing, amateur improvisational theatre for those with short attentions spans) can there be any chance of an awaking, even an uprising, against such life-negating forces?
Using any metric, the present system, based upon a zombie-like proliferation of exponential growth is unsustainable. By the destruction leveled on nature and public space, in combination with, the usurpation of time and identity (individual and collective)—the very structure of the present system creates alienation and anomie.
Moreover, the root of Puritan panic (including the constant upwelling of sexually related scandal) is caused by its compulsion to winnow down the human psyche and its attendant drives, actions, and enterprises to only what is deemed pure and practical; hence, panic ensues when the musk and fury of the larger world (even one’s own thoughts and desires) rudely breaches the life-denuded contours of its cordon sanitaire.
The anecdote: Don’t tiptoe through your life like a ninny nor become a finger-wagging scold, so mortified by your appetites and desires you would scour the messiness of the world into a sterile prison of self-deprivation. Like Emerson, we must insist: we have a life to live—not a perpetual apology.
Poetry and music can awaken imagination and induce empathy, therefore are potent provisions that sustain one while carrying the darkness. However, first one must engage the struggle, to face the everyday monster whose name is, “That is just the way it is and must remain”—even to risk having one’s concept of self devoured by the task. To paraphrase Lorca: to know oneself by drawing near to the beating heart of the monster of the world.
"But the Duende--where is the Duende? Through the empty arch enters a mental air blowing insistently over the heads of the dead, seeking new landscapes and unfamiliar accents; an air bearing the odor of child’s spittle, crushed grass, and the veil of Medusa announcing the unending baptism of all newly-created things.” - Federico García Lorca, excerpt: The Duende: Theory and Divertissement (1930)
One cannot kill nor banish personal demons but one can give them supervised work to do (that way one can keep an eye on them).
(Knowing one’s demons also provides insight when dealing with adversaries and can prevent one from being drawn into the self-serving ploys of mass media vampires of mind and spirit who retail sexually related scandals that bring glee to the bloodless.)
Personally, it could trouble me less if the sky shook, thick as seething locust, with a pixel-borne pestilence of suggestive photos of political sorts. Funny, the same crowd of fundamentalist, petty moralists who believe that global warming is the result of natural forces insist the heat of human libido is what will bring on man’s doom i.e., greenhouse gasses aren’t melting the polar regions; instead, Climate Change is caused by the hot breath of Satan himself tweeting pictures of his lust-scorched undergarments.
In times such as these, one is advised to embrace both mystery and logic—both élan vital and logos. Be both apprehensive and comforted by the unknowable, ineffable quality of existence; thereby, one comes to be moved by a poetic approach to mystery, and the realization arrives…that one is vividly alive even amid dismal, alienating circumstance, and, as a result, that the ennui engendered by the illusion of atomization is, to a degree, mitigated.
Although one’s suffering is uniquely one’s own, one remains part and parcel of the implicate order of a living planet. This is how Wallace Stevens delivers, in verse, the case for acquiring and maintaining a view of the world by means of empathetic imagination (that can serve as a panacea to the preening narcissism inherit in toxic innocence). I’ll give him the final word:
We feel the obscurity of an order, a whole,
A knowledge, that which arranged the rendezvous.Within its vital boundary, in the mind.
We say God and the imagination are one ...
How high that highest candle lights the dark.Out of this same light, out of the central mind,
We make a dwelling in the evening air,
In which being there together is enough.--Excerpt: Final Soliloquy Of The Interior Paramour
Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at: phil@philrockstroh.com. Visit Phil’s website http://philrockstroh.com and Facebook.
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Sunday, June 12, 2011
The Humbled Americans
By Rosemarie Jackowski
The death of anyone is a cause of mourning and grief. When the death is of a child the pain is intensified to infinity. The nation is now focused on the death of Caylee Anthony, a 2 year-old Florida girl. One could feel the anguish of the grandmother as she testified in court. The pain of the grandmother clearly had an affect on all who watched the trial that day.
Media psychologists/psychiatrists announce a new psychiatric diagnosis of the accused every day. The family is referred to as dysfunctional by the pundits ... a questionable judgment since they have no inside information and have never talked directly to family members. This is clearly a violation of professional ethics ... a cruel source of pain to a grieving family.
The intense interest in the case by the media is understandable. It is all about ratings. That means money. Of course there are more important reasons for the intense interest. Courtroom drama is seductive. Will justice prevail? What exactly would be justice in this case? A child is forever taken from us. A family will never completely recover. Can there be such a thing as ‘closure’ after such an enormous tragedy?
Now multiply the tragedy by 500,000. The 24/7 media coverage of the Casey Anthony trial is in sharp contrast to the almost total blackout of the 500,000 Iraqi deaths. On the May 12, 1996 episode of CBS’ 60 Minutes, Leslie Stahl asked about the 500,000 Iraqi children who died as the result of USA policies. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright answered: “...We think the deaths of 500,000 children was worth it...”. “Worth it” to whom? Certainly not worth it to many people I know. Since 1996 the world has been waiting for the press to focus in on the US policy that led to those deaths. We are still waiting. Why are these deaths trivialized? Is it because most of the Iraqi children had tan skin and black hair? Is it because these children were not, white, middle class “Americans.” Is USA foreign policy just too hard for political pundits in the media? Sex, scandal, and trivia are easier.
To the family of Caylee Anthony, I send prayers for strength and resilience. In spite of misinformation from pundits, there are many ordinary people who feel compassion and empathy for you.
To the families of the 500,000 Iraqi children, I send prayers. I also apologize and want you to know that some Americans are very sorry that we allowed our country to kill so many of your children.
We know that our drone attacks continue to kill your children and other civilians. We are sorry—we just are not smart enough to figure out a way to control our government. First, we need to “inform” the voters and our fellow citizens. How can we make that happen? We are just not smart enough.
As the 4th of July approaches, many “Proud Americans” will rally around the flag—celebrate with parades—explode fireworks that mimic “bombs bursting in air.”
There will be another group—the “Humbled Americans”—those who know what the USA has done—and continues to do. We will not celebrate. We will spend the day in quiet reflection. We will be mourning the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children.
Rosemarie Jackowski is an advocacy journalist living in Vermont. She is founder of Justice for Children, a peace activist, and author of “Banned in Vermont”. She can be reached at
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haiku liberation
freedom illusion
longer chains bigger cages
cheaper distractions
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Thursday, June 09, 2011
Va. County Shrugs as Mother, Daughters Get Caught in Chemical Spray Blowback
By Press Action
Imagine walking down a neighborhood sidewalk with your young children on a beautiful late spring morning. You come to the end of the block and prepare to turn the corner when you hear a noise that sounds like an electric lawnmower. You make the turn, perhaps expecting to see a team of landscapers or a neighbor mowing his lawn. Instead, you’re caught off-guard by two men wearing full coverage suits and breathing apparatuses spraying chemicals all over a neighbor’s yard. Without any warning, you and your children find yourselves walking in the blowback of a chemical-laden spray.
That’s what happened to Kate Pemberton on June 7 as she was walking with her daughters through a residential neighborhood of Arlington County, Va., after dropping off her older child at school.
“How is it acceptable that my girls and I, who are innocently walking in our neighborhood, with no warning find ourselves walking in the blowback of chemical laden spray?” she wrote in an email message to her neighborhood association’s listserv. Pemberton gave Press Action permission to publish passages from her email about the incident.
As large numbers of mosquitoes return to Arlington and the entire Washington, D.C., region with the warmer temperatures, residents are trying to find ways to enjoy the outdoors without getting bitten. Some homeowners and businesses resort to calling companies to come spray chemical pesticides in their yards. On this particular day, one of Pemberton’s neighbors had arranged for a company called Mosquito Squad to exterminate mosquitoes through a process that “fogs” the homeowner’s yard.
Mosquito Squad is spraying permethrin, a synthetic version of pyrethrin, according to Pemberton. “This is an indiscriminate neurotoxin that affects everything it comes in contact with in air, water, soil,” she wrote. “Neurotoxins mess with the way that nerves in the brain function and are meant to KILL the creatures they come in contact with. They aren’t going to affect a human as drastically as a mosquito, purely based on weight, but they aren’t by any stretch safe. There are no acceptable limits for human or ecosystem health (dangers to nerves, development, chromosomes, hormone system, cancer-causing, and more acutely toxic to children). The permethrin used by Mosquito Squad is specifically made to resist breakdown in sunlight so it lasts for weeks after spraying.”
People are affected by neurotoxins, as are pets, wildlife, beneficial insects, Pemberton explained. This is one of the chemicals at fault for the decline of the honeybee population. It settles in soil and rushes away with run-off water into larger aquatic ecosystems. The aquatic life that isn’t killed outright by very low dose concentrations experience mutations that affect the larger population, she said, adding that it causes lung and liver tumors in mammals in lab studies.
“Knowing all this, I don’t think I should have to worry about chemicals like this being sprayed on my kids while I walk through the neighborhood, nevermind the residue that washes around the area and wafts in the air after spraying,” Pemberton said. “Can people really believe that this stuff is safe for your family and your neighbors when the guys who apply it are required to wear full body covering and breathing apparatus?”
Pemberton said she believes people have the right to make choices that affect their own families, even to their detriment. But “no one has a right to poison me, my family, a neighborhood, or the larger ecosystem. Your rights end at your property line and this stuff does not,” she said.
Arlington County: Sorry, We Can’t Help You
Equally disturbing as a mother and her daughters getting hit by the blowback of a chemical-laden spray is the reaction of Arlington County employees when Pemberton phoned to report the incident. A person in the county’s environmental health services office told her there was nothing he could do and suggested she contact code enforcement. And how did Arlington County’s code enforcement office respond? “Code enforcement has told me that there is nothing in the county code to protect us from this so they cannot act,” she said.
Pemberton wants Arlington to take responsibility for the health of its residents and the environment through regulations, bans and laws “so that my neighbors can no longer make certain ill informed choices about chemicals that WILL affect their neighbors, human and other.” Most of the harm caused by Mosquito Squad and similar companies “isn’t going to be known until our children find out about their own unexplained illnesses years from now and the biodiversity that used to exist around us no longer exists,” she said.
Other jurisdictions in North America, such as Quebec, have banned many of the chemicals that are still legal across most of the United States. Quebec’s Pesticides Management Code, which took effect in April 2003, sets strict standards to control the use and sale of pesticides. The regulation aims at limiting the harmful effects of pesticides on human health and on the environment.
For example, Quebec has prohibited the use of certain pesticides on the lawns of public, semi-public and municipal properties and, since April 2006, on the lawns of private and commercial properties, except for golf courses, according to the province’s website. The province also has prohibited the use of certain pesticides on the lawns of private and commercial green spaces. Quebec also prohibits the use of almost all pesticides inside and outside child care centers and elementary and secondary schools, and specific rules must be observed when using authorized pesticides.
The golf course loophole in the Quebec regulations is a major one. One need only look at what happened in Arlington almost 10 years ago for proof.
In August 2001, pest-killing chemicals washed off the Washington Golf & Country Club into the Donaldson Run and Gulf Branch streams near the campus of Marymount University in north Arlington, killing scores of fish and other aquatic life. The two streams feed into the Potomac River. Other than paying $2,406 to Arlington County for the cost of sending a hazardous materials team to the scene, the country club did not face other fines or penalties from the county, Steve Dryden, a spokesman for the Audubon Naturalist Society in Chevy Chase, Md., told the Washington Post in an article published Aug. 22, 2002, a year after the incident.
Heavy rains flushed a brand of soil fumigant the golf course used to kill insects, weeds and fungi into the two streams around Aug. 23, 2001. The spill, detected by stream monitors trained by the Audubon Naturalist Society, killed fish, eels, crayfish and other aquatic life.
The country club did face an investigation by the federal government. The two streams flow through property owned by the National Park Service. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service got involved when it learned that migratory fish—in this case eels—were affected by the chemical runoff.
In 2005, the U.S. Department of Justice entered a consent decree with the country club, on behalf of the U.S. Department of the Interior. In the consent decree, the federal government alleged the release of the soil fumigant Dazomet, and hazardous substances resulting from Dazomet’s breakdown, including methyl isothiocyanate, “resulted in significant injury to the aquatic ecosystems of Donaldson Run and Gulf Branch, including substantial mortality of fish and American eels and virtual elimination of smaller aquatic organisms immediately downstream of the release.”
The consent decree required the country club to conduct restoration and pay compensation “for alleged injuries and losses to natural resources and to park system resources, and to visitors in the use of the park system.” Period, end of story. No criminal charges were brought against Washington Golf & Country Club or its officers by any governmental entity.
In the Aug. 22, 2002, Washington Post article, Thomas Junker, the country club’s president at the time, was quoted as saying: “In our view, it was an act of God.” The country club argued it had no way of knowing that a rainstorm would flush the chemicals downstream, killing scores of fish and aquatic life.
For the country club to use the “act of God” defense in this case was the ultimate example of hubris. And now 10 years later, little, if anything, has changed in how chemical pesticides are regulated. The Arlington County government’s claim of powerlessness when Kate Pemberton contacted it to complain about the chemical spraying in her neighborhood was a perfect illustration of this lack of progress.
“It is a huge issue for me and I wish more people cared about it,” Pemberton said.
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A reminder (or three) of what we're up against
Lessons from Guatemala (with a side trip to Israel)
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Another of my recent photos:
Fun for the young capitalists in your life
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Wednesday, June 08, 2011
Inside the Green Company: CIA Buys into Renewable Energy Trading Scheme
By Press Action
The Central Intelligence Agency is best known for assassination plots and LSD testing, torture programs and false-flag operations, recruiting Nazi war criminals and hiring reporters as spies.
As a vast federal bureaucracy, though, the day-to-day operations at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., and its facilities around the world are characterized by more mundane activities. Take, for example, the agency’s attempt to meet the federal government’s sustainable energy goals.
One of the ways that the CIA is trying to gain environmental credibility is through the purchase of renewable energy certificates, or RECs. A certificate purports to represent a fixed quantity of electricity that has been or will be produced using renewable resources such as wind, solar or biomass.
Last week, the Western Area Power Administration, a power marketing administration within the U.S. Department of Energy, issued a request for proposals to purchase RECs on behalf of the CIA. The agency is seeking between 10,000 megawatt-hours and 30,000 MWh of RECs per fiscal year for the next two years. Per agency instructions, the renewable energy producer’s generating facility must be located within the United States.
RECs are seen as the “currency” of renewable electricity and green power markets. They can be bought and sold among multiple parties, and they allow their owners to claim that renewable electricity was produced to meet the electricity demand they create. RECs emerged out of the movement of mainstream environmental groups and businesses to create a “market-based” approach to address pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from power plants fueled by fossil fuels.
Given its mission to engage in covert actions to prop up the (unsustainable) American way of life, it seems only proper for the CIA to be a player in the environmental scam known as RECs trading.
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Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Planes, Claims and Nuclear Meltdowns
By Press Action
The international nuclear power industry and its supporters are still trying to put a positive spin on their activities, even as more information emerges about the scope of the catastrophe at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan.
Japanese officials admitted June 7 that damage to the reactors at the Fukushima nuclear plant was worse than previously thought. In a report being submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Japanese government said the nuclear fuel in three reactors likely melted through the inner containment vessels, not just the core. Japan also has doubled its estimate for the amount of radiation leaked at the nuclear plant in the days after the tsunami on March 11.
As Japanese authorities were preparing to submit their report, an executive with the North American unit of a French nuclear power company said people should avoid reacting impulsively to the nuclear disaster in Japan and urged them not to use it as a rallying point against nuclear power. “When we see a plane crash, we don’t say, ‘Why don’t we stop flying?’” Areva Inc. CEO Jacques Besnainou said June 6 in Washington, D.C., at a press briefing sponsored by The Energy Daily newsletter.
If Areva and other major players in the nuclear power industry ever hope to enjoy their much-ballyhooed “nuclear renaissance” in the wake of Fukushima, they’ll need to come up with a better sales pitch than the one offered by Besnainou. First of all, to compare a meltdown at a large nuclear power complex to a plane crash is absurd.
When a plane crashes, it’s generally only the passengers and the crew who are injured or killed. Occasionally, airplanes will crash into houses and buildings, killing a few people on the ground. (The flying of the airplanes into the World Trade Center buildings was an intentional act, not an “accidental” crash.) The environmental impact of a plane crash is generally limited to the immediate area of the crash site where a cluster of trees might be knocked down or crops in an open field might be disturbed. Planes contain highly toxic chemicals, which should be avoided by people and nonhuman animals who live near a crash site. There’s also the issue of jet fuel contaminating surface water and groundwater sources when a plane crashes on land. When airplanes crash into rivers, lakes and oceans, there is a significant risk of the jet fuel contaminating a large area of the water.
Except for the rare instance, a plane crash does not require the evacuation of a large area surrounding the crash site. Cancer and other health risks generally will not increase around airplane crash sites. People who respond to a plane crash to offer assistance generally do not contract acute radiation sickness. Plane crashes don’t produce radioactive clouds that travel thousands of miles. Radioactive contamination does not spread for miles and miles beyond the site of an airplane crash. Incidents of thyroid cancer generally don’t increase among people around a plane crash site. Large numbers of trees typically are not killed by acute radiation in areas surrounding a plane crash. The plant and animal populations near a plane crash site aren’t known to suffer physical deformities. Governments typically don’t have to relocate thousands of people who live within a specified radius of a plane crash.
Of course, pointing out the absurdity of comparing a plane crash to a meltdown at a nuclear power plant is not meant to absolve the aviation industry. Airplanes and airports cause horrible damage to the environment, and the natural world would breathe a sigh of relief if air transportation ended tomorrow. But the direct, immediate consequences of a nuclear reactor meltdown on the people and nonhuman animals and plants who live within a specified radius of such a disaster are far worse than the effects of a plane crash on the people and nonhuman animals and plants who live within a specified radius of a crash. This is a plain and simple distinction, but since we’re living in an age of deception, it’s always important to be as clear as possible when nuclear industry officials are attempting to obfuscate issues surrounding the dangers of nuclear power.
So, who is Areva and why is one of its executives comparing reactor meltdowns at a nuclear power plant to a plane crash? Areva is an energy company based in Paris that develops and builds nuclear reactors around the world. It’s also a major supplier of nuclear energy products and services. To state the obvious once again, it’s in Areva’s financial interest to downplay the severity of a nuclear reactor meltdown.
Spencer Abraham, the former U.S. Secretary of Energy during George W. Bush’s first term as president, also has come out with some odd comments in response to Fukushima. Speaking at an energy industry conference in Washington in May, Abraham, who serves as non-executive chairman of Areva Inc., the North American arm of the French company, said the Japan nuclear disaster was a wake-up call for policymakers and investors who now will be able to see that, in order to avoid disasters similar to Fukushima, a new generation of modern nuclear plants must be built to replace older ones that could be prone to malfunction and accidents.
“We have even stronger arguments for building new nuclear plants,” Abraham said. “If there are problems with multi-decade-old nuclear power plants” then “why does it not make sense to build the new safer designs?”
Well, let’s review these so-called “safer designs.”
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, certainly not an organization known for its anti-nuclear views, has identified certain technical issues with Westinghouse Electric’s AP1000 reactor design that will need to be resolved before the agency will consider finalizing certification for the design.
NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko said in a May 20 statement that the agency’s technical analysis of the AP1000 design has led to more questions regarding its “shield building, as well as the peak accident pressures expected within containment.” The NRC has questioned the durability of the AP1000 reactor’s original shield building in the face of severe external events such as earthquakes, hurricanes and airplane collisions. Since the 9/11 attacks, speculation has surrounded the ability of nuclear power plants, particularly Entergy’s Indian Point nuclear plant in Westchester County north of New York City, to withstand a direct hit by an airplane.
“The agency has made it clear to Westinghouse that it must prove to our satisfaction that the company has appropriately and completely documented the adequacy of the design. NRC staff will examine Westinghouse’s quality assurance and corrective actions programs as part of an inspection next week, and we expect the company will submit additional information early next month,” Jaczko said.
Granted, this is a mild rebuke of Westinghouse. But it’s still unusual for the NRC to display even the slightest bit of skepticism.
The NRC has essentially been a rubber stamp for the nuclear power industry, especially as plant owners seek 20-year license renewals for their reactors. When the Yankee Rowe nuclear plant in Massachusetts closed in 1992, the NRC rewrote its license renewal standards. Since then, the NRC has approved more than 60 license renewals for existing reactor units and has rejected none.
Ultimately, Westinghouse will win design certification approval of its AP1000 in the United States. Whether the AP1000 will play a major role in a “nuclear renaissance” in the U.S. depends in part on how much pressure anti-nuclear activists apply to prevent the construction of new nuclear power plants. But, as usual when it comes to nuclear power plant development, the most important factor will be whether developers can round up sufficient financing from the private sector—as well as federal and state governments—to build the new facilities.
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Monday, June 06, 2011
June 6, D-Day...blah, blah, blah
Wrote this article 7 years ago and strangely, 7 years ago is starting to feel like the good old days…
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Another of my recent photos:
From the first-ever Animal Rights Day event in Union Square
More photos from the event here
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Saturday, June 04, 2011
U.S. Military Favors Biofuels for Waging Future Wars
By Press Action
The U.S. military isn’t keen on War Party member Devin Nunes’ proposal to ramp up the development of a coal-to-fuel technology, which has origins in Nazi Germany, to produce fuel for the empire’s thousands of ships, aircraft, tanks and military equipment.
In testimony before the House Subcommittee on Energy and Power June 3, Tom Hicks, the Navy’s deputy assistant secretary for energy, questioned the wisdom of using coal-derived Fischer-Tropsch fuels to meet the needs of the Department of Defense.
Fischer-Tropsch is a thermo-chemical conversion process invented and developed in Nazi Germany prior to World War II to convert resources such as coal, natural gas and biomass to fuel oil.
“Given the enormous quantities of biomass required and its relative limited availability at the scales required to operate Fischer-Tropsch plants, biomass as a long-term feedstock is typically not considered practical,” Hicks said in his testimony. “More often than not, coal is viewed as the primary, if not exclusive, feedstock. As a result, in addition to requiring large, new sources of coal, it requires enormous quantities of water, $5 to $10 billion in capital per plant to provide a fuel result that has more than twice the carbon emissions of petroleum.”
Nunes, a Republican House member from California, introduced H.R. 909 on March 3. The bill, also known as A Roadmap for America’s Energy Future, calls for expanding the production of almost every type of energy source in the United States. Ramping up the deployment of coal-to-fuel technology is a particularly important component of the bill because it would help sustain the rampaging ways of the U.S. military.
In a summary of the bill, Nunes wrote: “Germany had 25 liquefaction plants that, at their peak in 1944, produced more than 124,000 barrels daily and met 90 percent of the nation’s needs.”
But Hicks and his comrades in the military aren’t buying it. “From the Navy’s perspective, there is a better way,” Hicks said in his testimony.
That better way, according to Hicks, is biofuels.
“The feedstocks and the refineries needed to produce advanced biofuels to power the Fleet or our aircraft can literally be made in all fifty states,” he said. “The camelina grown in Florida and Montana, the algae grown in New Mexico, Hawaii or Pennsylvania, for example, can be turned into fuels blended in existing infrastructure in the Gulf or on the East or West coast to power the Fleet.”
The U.S.-based companies in the biofuels industry are using algae, biomass, yellow grease, jatropha, switchgrass, corn stover, and rotational crops like camelina, according to Hicks.
“We’ve seen such rapid technological developments in our recent history across a broad range of technologies leading cutting-edge industry leaders to assert that the data suggests biofuels can scale to the quantity needed without impact food availability,” Hicks said. “Not satisfied with simply having carbon emissions on par with petroleum, many of the [biofuels] companies are producing fuels having 50 percent lower carbon emissions. And, more often than not, they are producing fuels that do not compete for food, that do not overly burden water supplies, that do not generate enormous amounts of waste, and that minimize direct and indirect land use changes.”
Of course, not everyone shares Hicks’ belief in the environmental friendliness of biofuels.
“Ironically, the eagerness to slow climate change through biofuels and planting millions of trees for carbon credits has resulted in new major causes of deforestation, according to activists and some scientists,” Heather Rogers, author of the book Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy Is Undermining the Environmental Revolution, writes. “That’s because deforestation puts far more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the world’s entire fleet of cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships combined.”
Leaders in the environmental movement have formed a strong consensus against crop-based biofuels in recent years, according to Rogers. Whether derived from corn or any other row crop, these environmentalists believe biofuels “are doubly diabolical for seeming to be ‘green’ while in reality being polluting,” she writes. “Far from reducing greenhouse gases, goes the charge, biofuel production adds to global warming while also eroding topsoil and exacerbating all the other environmental harms caused by industrialized agriculture.”
The U.S. military is the largest energy consumer in the United States. Military officials see the writing on the wall when it comes to peak oil and competing with rapidly industrializing countries such as China and India for fuel. In order to sustain its ability to wage war and maintain bases around the world, the military recognizes it will need to switch to alternative fuels. That’s why military officials, such as Hicks, are hyping the environmental attributes of biofuels, despite the growing body of evidence that their production is extremely harmful to the environment.
Hicks also told the House subcommittee members that the Navy is seeking ways to make its ships and aircraft more efficient. “For ships this means that we can increase the days between refueling—underway replenishments—improving both its security and combat capability,” Hicks said. “Better fuel economy for our aircraft means we can extend the range of our strike missions enabling us to base them farther away from combat areas. Being more efficient and more independent, more diverse in our sources of fuel improves our combat capability both strategically and tactically.”
Given the degree to which biofuels harm the soil and forests, environmentalists already have enough reasons to oppose their production. And now activists have another reason to reject biofuels: such opposition could limit the U.S. military’s access to fuel sources, thereby frustrating its ability to wage global war.
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Those crafty capitalists have a solution for everything
Exhibit A: “The melting of sea ice, for example, will result in more shipping, fishing and tourism, and the possibility to develop newly accessible oil and gas reserves,” says Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “We seek to pursue these opportunities in a smart, sustainable way that preserves the Arctic environment and ecosystem.”
Exhibit B: India is building a 4,000-kilometer fence along its border with Bangladesh to, in part, hold back the inevitable mass of refugees who will flee when Bangladesh ends up submerged...due to climate change.
So you can get back to your texting; no need to worry. The wall is being built. Tourism is thriving. Problems solved..
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Another of my recent photos:
Best. Pantsuit. Ever.
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Friday, June 03, 2011
LNG Export Debate Heats Up
By Press Action
The battle over whether U.S. liquefied natural gas terminal owners should be allowed to export domestically produced natural gas is heating up.
Several LNG terminal owners have filed applications with the U.S. Department of Energy for authorization to export natural gas produced in the United States from their facilities, many of which were built last decade with the intent of importing — not exporting — LNG to meet what was perceived at the time as a growing demand for natural gas in the U.S.
But times have changed, mainly as a result of the tremendous growth of production from shale gas plays across North America. “We now have estimations that total gas resources can meet current demand levels for at least 100 years,” Dave McCurdy, the American Gas Association’s president and CEO, said in a recent statement announcing the release of a new study on U.S. gas supply.
A separate report, released April 27 by the Potential Gas Committee, says the United States possesses an undiscovered natural gas resource potential of 1,898 Tcf, the highest resource evaluation in the PGC’s 46 year history. “New and advanced exploration, well drilling, completion and stimulation technologies are allowing us increasingly better access to domestic gas resources—especially ‘unconventional’ gas—which, not all that long ago, were considered impractical or uneconomical to pursue,” said John Curtis, professor of geology and geological engineering at the Colorado School of Mines and director of the Potential Gas Agency.
These reports—and many others released in the past couple years—suggest a consensus has developed around the belief that North America is awash in natural gas supplies. The dramatic loosening of the supply-and-demand balance is the prime reason natural gas price volatility vanished from U.S. gas markets three years ago. During the spring and summer of 2008, natural gas futures prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange spiked in tandem with crude oil, ultimately peaking above $13/MMBtu in July of that year. But now, many industry officials believe natural gas markets are in store for a long period of price tranquility.
Instead of taking this large domestic resource base and marshaling it in a way to greatly reduce the nation’s dependence on oil, LNG import terminal owners, with the blessing of regulators and the support of natural gas producers, are pushing forward with their plans to export natural gas.
The Department of Energy, for example, is unlikely to reject an application to export natural gas because, as analysts at FBR Capital Markets explained, the department “tends to put a high value on promoting free trade and competition in the marketplace” when reviewing energy import and export applications.
In fact, two weeks ago, DOE granted Cheniere Energy Partners subsidiary Sabine Pass Liquefaction LLC permission to export natural gas from its Sabine Pass LNG terminal in Cameron Parish, La., to any country not prohibited by U.S. law, the first such authorization granted in more than 40 years.
Energy independence or free trade?
Many countries around the world rely almost exclusively on LNG to meet their natural gas needs because they do not produce much, if any, natural gas of their own. Because of its limited natural gas resources, Japan, the world’s largest buyer of LNG, must rely on imports. The country began importing LNG from the Kenai LNG facility in Alaska in 1969, making it a pioneer in the global LNG trade. Whether Japan boosts its LNG imports in the wake of the disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex will depend on how quickly the nation’s economy recovers from the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami.
U.S. LNG import terminal owners and marketers view non-resource-rich nations, including many emerging economies, as ripe markets for their terminal services. This new way of thinking emerged as the U.S. exploration and production sector began striking gold in the shale gas plays. LNG import terminals reversed course and began applying for permission to build facilities at their terminals that could liquefy natural gas, instead of only vaporizing it.
Along with LNG exports from Alaska, U.S. companies engage in cross-border trade with Canada through pipeline imports and exports. The U.S. also moves smaller amounts of natural gas to Mexico by pipeline. There is no vocal opposition to the longstanding cross-border natural gas trade relationships with either Canada or Mexico.
But not everyone in the natural gas industry favors exporting natural gas produced in the Lower 48 states in the form of LNG. While the odds are stacked against them, the opponents of LNG exports are not going down without a fight. The American Public Gas Association and the Industrial Energy Consumers of America, for example, are protesting Cheniere Energy Inc., owner of the Sabine Pass LNG import terminal on the coast of Louisiana, in its attempt to obtain regulatory approval that would allow the company to export domestically produced natural gas.
In a March 4 protest with DOE, APGA emphasized that if the U.S. “makes wise policy choices now, this domestically available and low carbon emission fuel will be available to satisfy U.S. energy needs and to end our nation’s dangerous reliance on imported petroleum products—today we import approximately 50% of our petroleum needs. Exportation of substantial quantities of natural gas may have significant adverse implications for domestic consumers of natural gas, for U.S. energy supply, and national security. Therefore, Sabine Pass’s request for authority to export domestically produced LNG is inconsistent with the public interest and should be denied.”
Marvin Odum, president of U.S. operations for Shell, believes the United States is not ready yet for a debate on exporting shale gas. Speaking at a recent U.S. Energy Information Administration conference, Odum said the U.S. is “still waking up to the fact that we have this enormous energy resource in our backyard.”
“If you look at it from a pure commercial global gas business perspective, it could make some good sense,” he said. “I just recognize we haven’t had that debate.”
Federal lawmakers silent in export debate
Federal lawmakers have not made any public statements against Sabine’s export applications, or the applications of the other companies seeking export licenses. However, three years ago, when the owners of the Kenai LNG facility in Alaska were seeking a two-year license extension from DOE to export domestically produced natural gas, one lawmaker made a stink about the application.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., urged then-U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to revoke an order allowing natural gas produced in Alaska to be exported to Japan and other countries in the Pacific Rim. DOE’s order failed the public interest test required by the Natural Gas Act, Wyden said. DOE also failed to consider the various options of delivery of Alaska natural gas to the Lower 48 states, he said.
“The administration is trying to have it both ways—arguing that we need to drill everywhere because we don’t have adequate energy supplies, while finding that we have so much energy that big oil companies can export it overseas and keep prices here at home higher than they would otherwise be,” Wyden wrote.
At the time, Wyden said he was concerned about Cheniere Marketing and Freeport LNG Development LP applying for LNG export authority. “If America is really so short of energy that we need to drill in national wildlife refuges and other sensitive areas, why should energy supplies, sitting in U.S. terminals—roughly equivalent to what an additional 1.1 million families would use in a year—be sent back out of the country simply because these energy companies can get a higher price from a foreign buyer?” Wyden said in his letter to Bodman.
Rather than touting the concept of energy independence, certain segments of the natural gas industry are now employing another catchword—jobs—in their quest to export domestically produced gas on LNG tankers.
For example, in response to a motion filed by the Industrial Energy Consumers of America in opposition to its export applications, Cheniere Energy argued that the Sabine Pass export project “will significantly benefit the U.S. economy, including through the maintenance and creation of tens of thousands of jobs.”
While it has not filed any protests against Cheniere’s proposal or any other export plan, AGA appears to be keeping a close eye on the shifting winds in the domestic gas market and how regulators rule in these LNG export cases. In a recent market analysis, AGA noted that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has stated that there will be no review of how Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass export project may impact domestic natural gas markets outside of the traditional examination of environmental impacts, the project feasibility, and normal jurisdictional issues.
“This treatment of LNG facilities is a legacy approach dating back to 2002 when FERC was encouraging the development of import capacity in the face of expectations of declining gas supply in the United States,” AGA said.
In fact, if you had visited the page on FERC’s website dedicated to LNG, up until about a month ago you would have noticed that the federal agency still had not updated it to reflect the shale gas revolution—which has now been going on for more than five years. Before updating the page in recent weeks, FERC was still explaining that “the demand for natural gas in the US has been exceeding supply for most of the decade. In fact, natural gas usage is increasing while US production is falling. LNG is considered a key supply source to offset near term demand for natural gas.”
In the recent update to its website, FERC inserted this qualifier: “However, with the increases in US production due to the shale gas and the continued Canadian and LNG imports, supplies of natural gas should be able to meet the demand.”
FERC is the federal agency responsible for ensuring LNG terminal projects meet certain environmental and safety standards. In the 2000s, the agency was under congressional pressure to approve as many LNG import terminals as possible in order to address this supposed supply-and-demand imbalance. The primary obstacles to LNG import terminal development were not found at the federal level, but could be seen at the state and local levels, primarily in the Northeast and Pacific Northwest, where officials have been extremely active in opposing projects.
As for the Sabine Pass facility, the company’s application represented the first opportunity for DOE to exercise its policymaking discretion regarding the export of a significant quantity of domestically produced natural gas from the lower 48 states in the form of LNG.
Natural gas as a transportation fuel?
The export of natural gas in the form of LNG is inconsistent with a policy of energy independence, APGA said in its protest of the Sabine Pass export application at DOE. “Instead of exporting domestic natural gas, the United States should maximize its use domestically in order to displace the current reliance on imported petroleum products and carbon-intensive coal,” APGA said. “For instance, domestic natural gas should play a larger role as a transportation fuel. Currently, the U.S. imports billions of dollars’ worth of oil (over half its total consumption) from around the globe, much of which is used for gasoline to fuel vehicles. The replacement of current gasoline-powered fleets and passenger vehicles with natural gas vehicles (and support infrastructure) would significantly reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil, and thereby enhance U.S. security and strategic interests.”
APGA noted in its protest that Sabine Pass’ major complaint with the domestic natural gas market is that demand is too low, resulting in low commodity prices. Sabine Pass’ proposed solution, according to APGA, is to inflate demand and prices through exports of LNG to nations willing to pay more for natural gas. “This would incontrovertibly increase the price for natural gas in the domestic market but not in a manner calculated to foster energy independence,” APGA said.
APGA also said Sabine Pass has failed to account for the uncertainty that still shadows projections of an exponential increase in recoverable domestic supplies. “Environmental and regulatory issues and local opposition hamper fracking operations and shale gas production,” APGA said. “Safety and environmental concerns and moratoria hinder offshore production. Given these risks, it is still uncertain whether shale and offshore supplies can continue to be recovered economically in significantly increasing quantities.”
Sabine Pass also must get permission from FERC to build liquefaction facilities at its Louisiana terminal to convert natural gas into LNG, thereby allowing the fuel to be transported to overseas markets on super-tankers.
Lawmakers call for greater access to federal lands
Companies are requesting permission to export domestically produced natural gas at the same time that certain members of Congress are ratcheting up calls for expanded domestic oil and gas drilling. But, once again, none of these lawmakers is urging DOE or FERC to reject the LNG import terminals owners’ applications to export domestically produced natural gas as a way to keep energy prices low for U.S. families and businesses.
“Despite rising gasoline prices, the Obama administration continues to slow-walk drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico. The de facto moratorium has cost thousands of American jobs and 300,000 barrels of oil a day—oil that we are forced to replace with unstable foreign sources,” House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings, R-Wash., said in a March 7 statement.
Despite the calls for opening more federal lands and waters to oil and gas development, the prolific shale gas regions are located on non-federal lands that are generally open to drilling. New York is the lone jurisdiction where drillers have been thwarted in their attempts to tap the Marcellus Shale. But signs are pointing to natural gas development possibly occurring in the state’s portion of the Marcellus Shale in the next couple years under its new governor, Andrew Cuomo. The New York Department of Conservation is nearing completion of a study of the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing. Once the study is completed—likely later this year—then the door could be opened to natural gas drilling in the state.
For the past few years, Pennsylvania has been the scene of a mad dash to tap into the huge volumes of natural gas that reside in the state’s portion of the Marcellus Shale formation. With this surge in drilling activity, residents are trying to cope with the industrialization of traditionally rural areas, including drilling accidents on a regular basis.
On April 19, a natural gas drilling mishap disrupted the lives of residents of Pennsylvania when Chesapeake Energy lost control of one of its wells, sending thousands of gallons of hydraulic fracturing fluid into surrounding farmland and nearby streams. Several families in the area were evacuated as Chesapeake, a leading U.S. natural gas producer, attempted to bring the well under control.
America’s Natural Gas Alliance, an industry trade group that represents most of the nation’s top shale gas producers, touts the tremendous level of natural gas reserves located in the United States. On its website, ANGA argues that the drilling of natural gas within U.S. borders will advance “national security and energy independence.” But ANGA’s members also endorse the construction of liquefaction facilities in order to widen the market for their natural gas production beyond North America’s borders.
‘Strong mandate from our CEO to export’
ANGA member Chesapeake Energy, whose drilling activities in Pennsylvania are coming under close scrutiny, is strongly pushing for gas exports in order to boost the company’s bottom line and also push up natural gas prices in the United States.
In November 2010, Chesapeake Energy Chairman and CEO Aubrey McClendon said his company is working with Cheniere Energy Inc., the largest owner of LNG import terminals in the U.S., to begin exporting natural gas in the form of LNG by 2015 or 2016.
During a May 25 industry conference in San Antonio, Texas, Bill Wince, vice president of transportation and business development for Chesapeake Energy, said his company is confident unconventional gas plays, such as shale gas, will support U.S. LNG export projects, according to a Platts report.
“We have a very strong mandate from our CEO to export [LNG from the U.S.],” Wince said, referring to McClendon. “If my colleagues and I don’t get LNG exports done, it will be bad for me.”
Wince said strong shale gas production in the U.S. is sustainable for the foreseeable future. “We have 59 years of drilling years left in Marcellus. It’s similar in all shales,” he said, according to the Platts report.
Natural gas prices have hovered in a range of $4 to $5/MMBtu over the past three years, a price level that has allowed gas production to flourish across the nation but one that has also kept gas supply relatively affordable for end-users. But U.S. gas producers would prefer to see prices climb into a range of $7 to $8/MMBtu, high enough for companies in the sector to dramatically boost their net income but perhaps not so dramatic to force end-users to switch to alternative fuels, practice greater conservation or even move their industrial operations overseas.
Tapping potential markets in the Atlantic basin through the export of natural gas in the form of LNG could easily lead to a tighter supply-and-demand balance in the U.S., thereby sending natural gas prices into the range desired by natural gas producers.
Given the vast resources in the Marcellus Shale, large volumes from the region could be piped to LNG terminals, such as Dominion Resources Inc.’s Cove Point LNG terminal in Maryland, for export to other countries. However, if this scenario plays out, residents who are concerned about the impact of natural gas drilling on their communities may grow even more frustrated.
Natural gas production in the Marcellus region is already controversial, and the industry could become an even bigger lightening rod for criticism if residents learn that drillers are extracting natural gas from their communities and then shipping it overseas to countries such as Spain, Japan or China.
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Thursday, June 02, 2011
Deep Green Resistance: Fighting for a Livable Future
By Aric McBay, Lierre Keith, and Derrick Jensen
Deep Green Resistance starts where the environmental movement leaves off: industrial civilization is incompatible with life. Technology can’t fix it, and shopping—no matter how green—won’t stop it. Deep Green Resistance is a plan of action for anyone determined to fight for this planet—and win. In this excerpt from the preface to the new book by Aric McBay, Lierre Keith and Derrick Jensen, we’re reminded of what needs to be done to leave an attractive inheritance to the next generations.
“Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just do not dare express themselves as we did.” -Sophie Scholl, The White Rose Society
This is a book about fighting back. The dominant culture—civilization—is killing the planet, and it is long past time that those of us who care about life on earth began to take the actions necessary to stop this culture from destroying every living being.
By now we all know the statistics and trends: 90 percent of the large fish in the oceans are gone, there is ten times as much plastic as phytoplankton in the oceans, 97 percent of native forests are destroyed, 98 percent of native grasslands are destroyed, amphibian populations are collapsing, migratory songbird populations are collapsing, mollusk populations are collapsing, fish populations are collapsing, and so on. Two hundred species are driven extinct each and every day. If we don’t know those statistics and trends, we should.
This culture destroys landbases. That’s what it does. When you think of Iraq, is the first thing that comes to mind cedar forests so thick that sunlight never touched the ground? One of the first written myths of this culture is about Gilgamesh deforesting the hills and valleys of Iraq to build a great city. The Arabian Peninsula used to be oak savannah. The Near East was heavily forested (we’ve all heard of the cedars of Lebanon). Greece was heavily forested. North Africa was heavily forested.
We’ll say it again: this culture destroys landbases.
And it won’t stop doing so because we ask nicely.
We don’t live in a democracy. And before you gasp at this blasphemy, ask yourself: do governments better serve corporations or living beings? Does the judicial system hold CEOs accountable for their destructive, often murderous acts?
Here are a couple of riddles that aren’t very funny—Q: What do you get when you cross a long drug habit, a quick temper, and a gun? A: Two life terms for murder, earliest release date 2026. Q: What do you get when you cross two nation-states, a large corporation, forty tons of poison, and at least 8,000 dead human beings? A: Retirement, with full pay and benefits (Warren Anderson, CEO of Union Carbide, which caused the mass murder at Bhopal).
Do the rich face the same judicial system as you or I? Does life on earth have as much standing in a court as does a corporation?
We all know the answers to these questions.
And we know in our bones, if not our heads, that this culture will not undergo any sort of voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living. We—Aric, Lierre, and Derrick—have asked thousands upon thousands of people of all walks of life, from activists to students to people we meet on buses and planes, whether they believe this culture will undergo that voluntary transformation. Almost no one ever says yes.
If you care about life on this planet, and if you believe this culture won’t voluntarily cease to destroy it, how does that belief affect your methods of resistance?
Most people don’t know, because most people don’t talk about it.
This book talks about it: this book is about that shift in strategy, and tactics.
This book is about fighting back.
We must put our bodies and our lives between the industrial system and life on this planet. We must start to fight back. Those who come after, who inherit whatever’s left of the world once this culture has been stopped—whether through peak oil, economic collapse, ecological collapse, or the efforts of brave women and men resisting in alliance with the natural world—are going to judge us by the health of the landbase, by what we leave behind. They’re not going to care how you or I lived our lives. They’re not going to care how hard we tried. They’re not going to care whether we were nice people. They’re not going to care whether we were nonviolent or violent. They’re not going to care whether we grieved the murder of the planet. They’re not going to care whether we were enlightened or not enlightened. They’re not going to care what sort of excuses we had to not act (e.g., “I’m too stressed to think about it,” or “It’s too big and scary,” or “I’m too busy,” or “But those in power will kill us if we effectively act against them,” or “If we fight back, we run the risk of becoming like they are,” or “But I recycled,” or any of a thousand other excuses we’ve all heard too many times). They’re not going to care how simply we lived. They’re not going to care how pure we were in thought or action. They’re not going to care if we became the change we wished to see. They’re not going to care whether we voted Democrat, Republican, Green, Libertarian, or not at all. They’re not going to care if we wrote really big books about it. They’re not going to care whether we had “compassion” for the CEOs and politicians running this deathly economy.
They’re going to care whether they can breathe the air and drink the water. We can fantasize all we want about some great turning, but if the people (including the nonhuman people) can’t breathe, it doesn’t matter.
This article is excerpted from the new book, Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet, by Aric McBay, Lierre Keith and Derrick Jensen, Seven Stories Press, 560 pages, 2011. It is reprinted with the permission of the book’s authors. For more information about the book and to purchase a copy, click here.
Aric McBay is a writer, activist, and small-scale organic farmer living in Ontario, Canada. His first book was Peak Oil Survival: Preparation for Life After Gridcrash. His most recent book is What We Leave Behind, co-written with Derrick Jensen.
Lierre Keith is a writer, small-scale farmer, and radical feminist activist. She is the author of two novels, as well as The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability. She’s been arrested six times. She lives in Humboldt County, California.
Derrick Jensen is the acclaimed author of more than a dozen books, including A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, Endgame and Resistance Against Empire.
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Wednesday, June 01, 2011
Power Plant Fish Kills Could Take Down Tinseltown
By Press Action
California really does want to stop the killing of billions of fish larvae and fully grown fish and scores of sea mammals each year. It really, truly does. But the powers that be aren’t convinced Californians could handle the lifestyle change that would result from ending the killing spree. And, you know what, they’re probably right.
No one wants the responsibility for mass murder nagging them, inflicting eternal havoc on their conscience. But when preventing the deaths of scads of fish, seals, sea lions and turtles means depriving oneself of a 52-inch LCD HDTV, Californians, like all good Americans, will choose murder over deprivation.
At the center of the killing spree is a process called once-through cooling. As it relates to power plants in California, once-through cooling pulls in cold sea or bay water to cool power plant turbines and then releases the heated water back into the environment.
Every day, 16 billion gallons of marine water is sucked into California’s power plants, killing nearly everything that passes through the plants’ machinery. Larvae and small fish get pulled into power plants and die in the turbines, while larger fish and marine mammals get trapped on the intake screens by the force of the rushing water and die a wretched death. Roughly 79 billion fish and other marine animals are killed every year in California waters by once-through cooling.
In 2010, the California State Water Resources Control Board issued an updated draft policy for 19 power plants along or near the state’s Pacific Coast that use once-through cooling water intake systems. The draft policy calls for the gradual transition away from once-through cooling. In the intervening years, until California gets the policy nailed down, these power plants will continue to have a license to kill billions of fish and scores of sea mammals on a yearly basis.
The draft policy envisions power plant owners moving away from once-through cooling sometime this decade. But hold on. The state water board has scheduled a hearing for July in Sacramento to consider amendments that would give power plants in the Los Angeles region even more time to comply with the policy initiative. The Los Angeles region apparently is unique or special or different from the rest of California, according to the board.
“Because the Los Angeles region presents a more complex and challenging set of issues, it is anticipated that more time would be needed to study and implement replacement infrastructure solutions,” the state water board said in its proposed amendment to the state’s policy on once-through cooling.
What are the “more complex and challenging set of issues” to which the board refers?
The state water board doesn’t spell out the special challenges facing Los Angeles. But one can assume the board is referring to the horrendous urban sprawl and meager freshwater resources and terrible pollution for which Los Angeles is known and loved. These attributes make siting new power plants or upgrading existing plants or building new transmission lines in the region extremely difficult.
Because, if the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is going to be forced to eliminate once-through cooling from its power plants, it will need to develop some energy alternatives to sustain the Southern California lifestyle. But getting permission to build a new power plant in the Los Angeles basin is extremely onerous. And importing fresh water hundreds of miles away from the Colorado River or the Sacramento Delta to cool power plants isn’t politically feasible.
Of course, there’s an easy remedy. But, once again, it involves lifestyle changes. The answer is … energy conservation. It’s such an obvious solution to preventing the mass carnage of fish and sea mammals. And yet nowhere in the water control board’s “Proposed Amendment to the Statewide Water Quality Control Policy on the Use of Coastal and Estuarine Waters for Power Plant Cooling” will you find a reference to “conservation.” Not a single mention.
Instead, what you get is a restatement of the water control board’s mission as it relates to power plants. Here it is:
”The intent of this Policy is to ensure that the beneficial uses of the State’s coastal and estuarine waters are protected while also ensuring that the electrical power needs essential for the welfare of the citizens of the State are met. The State Water Board recognizes it is necessary to develop replacement infrastructure to maintain electric reliability in order to implement this Policy and in developing this policy considered costs, including costs of compliance, consistent with state and federal law.”
Apparently, California officials don’t believe the “electrical power needs essential for the welfare of the citizens of the state” can be guaranteed in the Los Angeles area if its power plants are required to move away from once-through cooling on the same schedule as plants located elsewhere in the state.
Instead of 2019, as originally proposed, the state water board wants to give the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power until 2035 to phase out the use of sea water at the last of its coastal power plants. Do the math. That’s 24 more years of massive fish and sea mammal kills if the state water board’s proposed amendment gets approved.
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A Coney Island of my body and mind
Had a rare full day to myself last Friday (May 27) so I made the long subway ride from Astoria to Coney Island...and took my camera, of course. The photo above is mine and here are two more:
View from the pier
ON THE ROAD/OUT OF LUCK
Lots more of my Coney Island photos here
Or...enjoy the sideshow slideshow:
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Poem: “How to bring down the dominant culture"
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Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Pennsylvania's Gas Lust: Species Decline and Forest Fragmentation
By Press Action
Now that they’ve succeeded in drawing attention to hydraulic fracturing’s potential harmful effects on water supplies, activists would be wise to adopt a more broad-based approach in their campaign against natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale. Diversification would force the industry to defend itself on multiple fronts.
By focusing solely on fracking’s impact on water, the activists have allowed the industry to mobilize its public relations resources behind debunking this single claim. What has been the industry’s retort? Its primary talking point is that hydraulic fracturing has been used for more than 50 years without a single confirmed case of water well or aquifer contamination.
But activists counter that the use of fracking in various gas plays across the United States has indeed caused methane to migrate to water wells. And in the Marcellus Shale, the use of fracking has exponentially increased the risk of groundwater contamination, given the incredible number of gas wells that are projected to be drilled in the shale play over the next couple of decades.
The rush to extract natural gas from Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale is creating industrial zones in rural areas across the state. The industrialization of wide swaths of forestland, meadows and mountains is threatening the health of humans who live near the drilling zones and disturbing animal and plant species who inhabit these regions.
Even John Hanger, the former secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and a vocal proponent of natural gas, believes the industry needs to focus on cleaning up its act. Hanger, who has spent the past several months countering claims that natural gas production in the state is harming water supplies, is concerned about air pollution caused by Marcellus drilling.
In a recent interview with Greenwire, Hanger noted that spikes in emissions have followed natural gas development in other parts of the country. Thousands of natural gas wells are expected to be drilled in Pennsylvania over the next few years, requiring an influx of construction equipment, diesel engines and compressor stations. Together, these wells could be a large new source of smog-forming emissions along the Northeast corridor, much of which still struggles with old air quality standards at a time when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to make the rules stricter, Greenwire reported.
“If the [natural gas] industry ubiquitously uses the dirtiest choices, it won’t fit into the Northeast,” Hanger told Greenwire. “It won’t happen. There will be suits from New York, New Jersey, everywhere. From environmental groups. Maybe even from Pennsylvania state officials, trying to stop that.”
“That’s a real issue,” he said. “The chemicals coming back up from fracking is not.”
Despite Hanger’s claims that hydraulic fracturing is not a threat to the state’s water supplies, many activists and residents remain skeptical about the safety of the gas extraction process—and rightfully so, given the vulnerability and potentially growing shortage of drinking water supplies. But Hanger also raises a good point about people letting concerns about water quality distract them from the other harmful effects of the rush to drill for gas.
Wealth and prosperity
Natural gas producers and “landowners” in Pennsylvania view the ground beneath their feet as a source of wealth and prosperity for themselves, not as soil or earth. The Marcellus Shale runs across Pennsylvania, and a race started a few years ago to see who could squeeze the most money out of every natural gas molecule found in this shale rock.
Pennsylvania cannot lay claim to all of the Marcellus Shale. The geological formation also lies beneath the ground within the borders of Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Maryland and New York. But the largest portion of the Marcellus’ sweet spot, where trillions and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas are located, is found underground within the borders of the Keystone State. Some commentators refer to Pennsylvania as “the Saudi Arabia of natural gas.” The state’s politicians are giddy over the revenue possibilities associated with the Marcellus Shale. Don’t be surprised if a lawmaker introduces a bill to change the state’s license plate slogan to “Natural gas producers have a friend in Pennsylvania.”
For most human societies, running roughshod over the natural world has taken priority over all other considerations when financial riches are within reach. The activities in Pennsylvania over the last half-dozen years serve as a perfect example of how humans view the natural world as theirs to exploit and destroy for personal gain. There’s no respect for the autonomy of a tree or a nonhuman animal unless there’s some economic or emotional benefit for them.
To paraphrase Derrick Jensen in The Culture of Make Believe, when most natural gas producers and landowners look at Pennsylvania these days, they see dollar bills. They don’t see rivers, forests, mountains, valleys, streams, trees, animals, air or water.
Everyone agrees that the natural gas extraction process harms the environment. But they disagree on the extent of the harm. There’s debate on whether the benefits of natural gas production outweigh the harm it causes. And then there’s the issue of sustainability and the paradox of modern society demanding access to an endless supply of a finite fuel source in order to avoid collapse.
Western Pennsylvania is known as the birthplace of the modern oil industry. But by the early 20th century, the Appalachian region had become an afterthought as oil speculators moved southwest into Texas and Oklahoma where the geology was more favorable to higher-return oil production. The speculators and wildcatters were quickly followed by a wave of related service, supply and manufacturing firms, such as refineries, pipelines and oil-field equipment manufacturers and dealers.
A similar scenario is playing out in Pennsylvania as the state transforms itself into a major natural gas producer. Pennsylvania lacked the infrastructure to move the huge volumes of natural gas that were getting pulled from underground starting in the latter half of the 2000s. Gathering pipelines, processing facilities, compressor stations and other types of infrastructure were necessary to ensure this valuable commodity could be delivered to market. And construction of each of these industrial facilities results in serious disturbances to the natural world.
Large-scale changes to the landscape
Philip Wallis, executive director of Audubon Pennsylvania and a vice president of the National Audubon Society, wrote a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in April in an attempt to draw the agency’s attention to the potential harm caused by the construction of new natural gas pipelines on birds.
“The rapid growth of shale gas drilling in Pennsylvania is creating large‐scale changes to the landscape, converting relatively undisturbed rural areas to hotbeds of gas industry activity, Walllis wrote. “The forests of the state, and the forest‐dependent species therein, are starting to show declines [emphasis added] in areas of denser gas industry activity. Experts now believe that the greatest gas industry impacts to terrestrial ecosystems will come from pipelines, not the well pads themselves.”
Pennsylvania’s natural gas rush is only five-years-old, and the industry’s activities are already causing declines in species that previously inhabited the forests that are being cleared to build pipelines and other Marcellus-related infrastructure.
Gas pipeline projects are being designed to move gas through forests that support large bird populations, Wallis noted. Certain species are “likely to be negatively impacted by the forest fragmentation produced by new pipelines and drilling,” he said.
Natural gas production in Pennsylvania is moving at such a rapid pace that some of the major companies in the Marcellus are outgrowing their infrastructure. In an April 19 press release, Range Resources Corp. said that “due to the outstanding performance of its existing wells combined with the initial performance of the newly connected wells, Range’s Marcellus production has temporarily outgrown the existing infrastructure.”
The Marcellus Shale is considered a “super giant” gas field. It is conservatively estimated that the Marcellus contains 168 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in place, with that number possibly as high as 516 trillion cubic feet. According to a 2010 Penn State University study, by the end of 2009, 625 natural gas wells were producing more than 500 million cubic feet equivalent per day of natural gas in Pennsylvania’s portion of the Marcellus. By 2015, Pennsylvania’s portion of the Marcellus could be producing about 7 billion cubic feet per day, exceeding output from offshore federal waters. Production could nearly double again by 2020 to more than 13.5 billion cubic feet per day. If it hit the projection in 2020, the state would be second only to Texas in natural gas production.
What we’re seeing in Pennsylvania’s portion of the Marcellus Shale is the very early stages of a mega-drilling boom—and already it’s having negative consequences on the natural world. But billions of dollars speak louder than dead birds or contaminated streams or forest clearcuts. These days, it’s all about greed and preserving the American way of life for as long as possible before it collapses. Unfortunately, it’s not about protecting the natural world or ensuring a livable future for humans, let alone the rest of the planet.
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Monday, May 30, 2011
We can be heroes...
As another Memorial Day grinds on, let’s remember those brave men and women who faced incredible hardship, imprisonment, and even death while fighting in the name of freedom, e.g, Rachel Corrie, Fred Hampton, Harvey Milk, Geronimo, Aung San Suu Kyi, Che Guevara, Malcolm X, MLK, Emma Goldman, Leonard Peltier, Sister Dianna Ortiz, Mordechai Vanunu, Eugene V. Debs, Mother Jones, Tre Arrow, Lori Berenson, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Patrice Lumumba, Assata Shakur, Cesar Chavez, Antonio Gramsci, Archbishop Oscar Romero, ALF, ELF, Judi Bari, Biko, Mandela...feel free to add to the list in the comments section.
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Another of my recent photographs:
Astoria Park as seen from the Triboro (now RFK) Bridge
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My latest Pulse fitness column:
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Saturday, May 28, 2011
René, Can We Begin A Dream Collaboration Project?
Descartes Pilots a Predator Drone
By Phil Rockstroh
“Human language is like a cracked kettle drum on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, when what we long to do is make music that will move the stars to pity.” –Gustave Flaubert
Descartes, I’ve heard tale: On the night before you published your treatise, Rules For The Direction Of The Mind, you dreamed: Walking a city street, you found yourself leaning so far to the right, that, as you proceeded along the sidewalk, your head and body were positioned almost parallel to the ground … er … excuse me, but can we talk about this, René?
Shortly thereafter, you insisted that: Dreams were as dead as dust—and proclaimed animals are machines, neither worthy of names nor worth consideration, other than for commodification.
Instead, can we collaborate on a dream in which we create a legacy in lasting air so that we might chronicle the world before us…its ceaseless proliferation and its ceaseless culling—its ever-present laugh of triumph and elegy without end?
Amid this: René, we are, like you, so baffled by who we are in relationship to the world, it is difficult to meet life head on … verities buffeted, we are blown, this way, then that … upended, directionless in a landscape of veritable regret and fleeting revelry … regardless, we trudge on.
Did wielding the cutlery of glinting certitude banish trepidation, as you cut down opaque existence and evanescent identity to manageable bits?
Yet ensnared in the algorithms of the machine mind, days are denuded … night is banished.
The bee-loud grasses have been rendered mute as the buzz of Predator Drones rises.
Dualist mind, enchanted by your mastery of things you deem dead, you have bred seething clouds of black flies infesting Cartesian slaughterhouse holding pens and bequeathed to us dying oceans and endless wars waged from vast distances by bloodless technocrats within cubicles.
Because you averred that the only way to know ourselves is to mince the living and the dead into tiny bits, I was trained to rip myself asunder and serve my lifeless heart to my betters.
You—frenzied maenads turned wine-to-blood, reductionist clinicians—that is my head in your hands—worse, that is the dream body of the world you have torn to tatters.
Yet the ashes of your charnel house aspirations hang in air like musical notes … and, like all night music, will dissolve into earth at dawn.
Thus you and I must keep reminding ourselves to weep for the things of this world that suffer; otherwise, we mistake the earth’s impersonal dreaming for our own.
Adjust your body back to the left, René, face forward, meet the world’s gaze at eye level, and more might be revealed.
Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at: phil@philrockstroh.com. Visit Phil’s website http://philrockstroh.com and Facebook.
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Friday, May 27, 2011
Yet another Memorial Weekend is upon us...
How in the world can I pick which indomitable defenders of liberty to honor this weekend?
Perhaps I can spend my time in quiet contemplation of those valiant heroes who unselfishly risk the agony of carpal tunnel syndrome as they push the buttons and/or computer keys to launch those cruise missiles into crowded Third World cities.
The same goes for America’s many courageous snipers and fearless bomber pilots…all of them using their fingers and eyes to preserve our way of life.
I owe my liberty to them…
Of course, I could instead dedicate myself to worshipping the gallant warriors who put their feet and toes on the line each time they repeatedly kick a prone, chained, and blindfolded prisoner at Gitmo. (Oops, did I say “prisoner”? I mean “enemy combatant,” of course.)
These resolute patriots also expose their vocal cords to excruciating injury when they engage in the selfless daily practice of screaming at such evildoers. One can only imagine the mental strain of coming up with new epithets each and every day—day and day, year after year.
Thanks to them, I am free…
Then again, the epic exploits of America’s latest generation are nothing new. This country was built on centuries of similar deeds and efforts.
Remember: America would never be able to spread its values all over the planet without those men and women who volunteer to make it happen. Could you imagine what life on Earth would be without the pervasiveness of American values?
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Another of my recent photographs:
Across the fire escape
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Poem: “Stillborn (a poem for Memorial weekend)"
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Cleaning up City Squares in Democratic Spain
By Pablo Ouziel
On Friday the 27th of May, five days after an overwhelming victory by centre-right political parties in the local and regional elections across Spain, the country woke up to the bitter reality of how nonviolent movements calling for economic democracy, political justice and peace are going to be dealt with by the country’s police forces in this new era of right-wing political dominance.
Just twenty-four hours after Spain’s largest telecom company, Telefonica, announced a new round of layoffs affecting 8500 people, 25% of the work force, and as the G8 is meeting in Deauville, France, to discuss amongst other things the discontent sweeping across Europe, the Catalan police force—the Mossos d’Esquadra—following orders from the Town Hall’s new Catalan Nationalist Party (CiU) government, surrounded the nonviolent citizens camped at the Plaza Cataluña in Barcelona’s city centre. Armed with full riot gear, batons and machine-guns with rubber bullets, the police kettled in the protestors, making it impossible for them to leave or others to enter.
With the excuse of cleaning up the square for safety reasons, in preparation for tomorrow’s Champions League soccer final between Barcelona and Manchester United, the city government called for the dispersal of the crowds in order to allow for clean-up teams to enter. Although this was the official stance, it soon became apparent that cleaning garbage from the square was not the true intent, and that the real aim of the operation was to seize computers, printers and documents from the movement’s steering committees, and to put an end to this popular uprising which is posing a threat to the country’s political and economic elites.
As soon as the police surrounded the crowds and the news aired on local television stations and radios, citizens from across the city began to leave their work places and made their way to the square in order to show their solidarity with those being harassed by the police. The scene they encountered resembled one of Gandhi’s legendary acts of civil disobedience—the demonstrators sitting on the floor, in silence, with their legs crossed and hands up in the air; symbolizing their defiance to the oppressive and brutal nature of this unannounced police action.
Unlike during pre-election campaigning time, eleven days ago, when the 15M Movement began to congregate in city squares across the country with shouts of indignation, this time the police did not hesitate, the orders where clear. The police began to point their guns at those outside the square that were shouting “This is our democracy,” and one by one they began to pull those sitting down inside the square – beating them with their batons. I have just heard that economics professor Arcadi Oliveras (Spain’s Noam Chomsky), was amongst those on the receiving end of the police’s indiscriminate use of batons.
At the time of writing, thousands of citizens are making their way to the square in Barcelona, and following two arrests and 99 injured, around 5000 protestors have already reclaimed the city square. In Madrid Esperanza Aguirre, who presides over the autonomous region and who also heads Madrid’s Partido Popular, has asked the ministry of the Interior to evict the protestors at the Puerta del Sol. On their part, the protestors at Madrid’s plaza have sent messages of solidarity to those being attacked in Barcelona. The police force in the city of Lerida has also evicted the crowds camped in the city square using water canons, and two protesters have been arrested. While in the city of Granada, the town hall is in negotiations with the central government about how to empty the city’s square.
The ambiance in Barcelona’s plaza is now jovial, once the city showed its support to the protestors, the police were forced to leave, and despite the fact that they have confiscated many laptops and pamphlets, and have destroyed tents and equipment, which the protestors have been using for their popular assemblies, people intend to stay. A large banner in the middle of the square reads in Spanish: “You have cleaned up our exhaustion and now we are back”
Despite the fact that the political elites in Spain, in this new era of right-wing dominance, are showing their mass use of force, they have encountered a well-organized nonviolent movement. If the movement holds to its principles, and other European countries join in the struggle, it will be the European Union which will be forced to restrain this police brutality, and which will eventually have to make concessions to this democratic citizens fighting non-violently for change. If the movement spreads, as many signs already seem to indicate, European political and economic elites will have to decide between reform and revolution.
Pablo Ouziel’s articles and essays are available at pabloouziel.com.
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Thursday, May 26, 2011
The Ghost of Iris Chang: Writing With the Wind
Review of The Woman Who Could Not Forget: Iris Chang Before and Beyond the Rape of Nanking - A Memoir By Ying-Ying Chang (Pegasus Books, 2011)
By Kyle Sleeth
“The doctor listens in with a stethoscope and hears sounds of a warpath Indian drum.” -John McPhee
"The white man hated to hear anything about spirits because spirits were already dead and could not be tortured and butchered or shot ... immune to the white man’s threats and to his bribes of money and food.” – Leslie Marmon Silko, “Almanac of the Dead”
“Grief is a violation of God.” – Dick Gregory, civil rights activist
Were there forces out to silence Iris Chang?
I hadn’t heard of Iris Chang until after the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death surfaced in the media. As I learned, Iris was directly responsible for uncovering and documenting atrocities in Nanking, China in 1937 where the Japanese military had systematically tortured and murdered hundreds of thousands of people. Thousands of women were raped. The terror, as I learned after reading Iris’s 1997 book The Rape of Nanking, was almost unfathomable.
November 9, 2004: Iris’s body was found in her car a few miles from her home with a revolver shot through her mouth. Her hands rested on her lap. The gun lay on her leg. A teddy bear strapped into her son’s car seat.
A note on Iris’s computer contained the following:
“I can never shake my belief that I was being recruited, and later persecuted, by forces more powerful than I could have imagined. Whether it was the CIA or some other organization I will never know ... Days before I left for Louisville I had a deep foreboding about my safety. I sensed suddenly threats to my own life: an eerie feeling that I was being followed in the streets, the white van parked outside my house, damaged mail arriving at my P.O. Box. I believe my detention at Norton Hospital was the government’s attempt to discredit me.”
There are questions that have always lurked in the back of my mind: If the United States had no moral or ethical concerns about dropping nuclear weapons on Japan, and the U.S. has been suppressing the activities in Japan’s Unit 731 human experimentation program, and the U.S. knew about the approaching Pearl Harbor attack, and the U.S. has been ignoring the vivisection performed on U.S. soldiers during the Bataan Death March, and the U.S. recruited Nazi scientists as documented in Project Paperclip…
Were there American and multinational overseers for all of these atrocities? Will the history of WWII be less about the Allied Forces against the Nazis and more about global corporate involvement in genetic research?
All these roads lead to the ghost of Iris Chang—her passion, her research, and, ironically enough, what she didn’t write much about. Six and a half years after Iris’s passing, her mother, Ying-Ying Chang, has published a book detailing Iris’s life and questions surrounding her death. The Woman Who Could Not Forget details Iris’s life from an early age. Iris was different. She was obsessed about documenting her own life. She wrote and wrote and read and wrote more. She sent letters to her parents, friends, and colleagues at a dynamic pace. She forged her own path through the world of journalism, publishing, and became a legend in the field of research.
At an early age, Iris showed her skepticism toward the powers-that-be. In the summer of 1984, Ying-Ying tells this story highlighting the intelligence of 16-year-old Iris:
After Yellowstone, we drove straight south to Salt Lake City. We took a tour at the Big Mormon Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and listened to their version of history and the religion of Mormonism. When the church video said that American Indian art and culture could be attributed to the Jews who left Israel to discover the New World, I could see that Iris was frowning with disbelief.” (p. 69)
Reading The Woman Who Could Not Forget, I had this eerie feeling that I could not shake: Iris had no one to confide in. Her family believed drugs were the best remedy. Her colleagues didn’t seem to offer much in terms of support. I couldn’t help but feel so sad for the loneliness Iris must have felt during her research. Here she was: exposing these horrific crimes to the world, with a feeling (real or not) of being watched, and she had to keep it inside because no one believed her. It wasn’t until more than 400 pages in that Ying-Ying finally pens these sentiments into words:
"It was the family members who were ignorant about the toxicity and the serious side effects of antipsychotic and antidepressant drugs—our trust in her doctors and our hope that she become better by taking those medications turned out to have been counterproductive.” (p. 406)
Iris’s final project before her passing was researching the Bataan Death March. She was interviewing pockets of POWs in the Midwestern U.S. who had survived horrific torture at the hands of the Japanese soldiers while being marched through the Philippines. Her research and subsequent book were supposed to be continued. Authors such as Joseph L. Galloway (We Were Soldiers Once… And Young, Harper Perennial, 1993) and James Campbell (The Ghost Mountain Boys, Crown, 1997) were connected to the project. But as of this writing, Iris’s final project seems to have lost momentum, if not, completely forgotten.
In the fall of 2007, Paula Kamen, a journalism classmate of Iris at the University of Illinois, released her biography Finding Iris Chang. The book seemed to create more questions than it answered. Kamen’s analysis was that Iris was mentally ill. I was embarrassed for Kamen while reading this book because her jealousy seemed so petty. The basic undertone of the book came through loud and clear. I can hear Kamen now: “I told you, she’s crazy! She worked herself to death.” That Iris was a modern warrior, a woman who dedicated her life to documenting the torment of others, was not enough for Kamen. Instead of seeing Iris as “super-human,” Kamen portrays Iris’s passion as a character flaw. At one point while reading Kamen’s book I tossed it against the wall.
Other than some personal details about Iris, Kamen’s book offered basically nothing in the realm of global politics and did not answer my original question: were there forces out to silence Iris?
While Kamen and Ying-Ying’s biographies have given the reader an insight into the personality of Iris, I can’t help but feel that Iris would be happier to see her research continued.
Iris did not trust the U.S. government (or really any government) and so why would she trust large pharmaceutical companies to “cure” her? Driven only by profit, it seems fairly obvious that Pfizer and Eli Lilly do not deserve to be in the same sentence as “healing” and “wellness.” Unless, of course, one asked their marketing departments. It’s no secret that the diagnostic label of “manic depressive” was changed to “bipolar” in 1987. Not coincidentally, this is the year Prozac was introduced to the world.
It is well documented that Eli Lilly made LSD and donated it to the CIA. This “medicine” was being tested, unknowingly, on U.S. troops, CIA agents, and mental patients. If the United States, Japan, Germany, and others have such a storied history of experimenting on people—why would anyone trust these billion-dollar corporations to provide “medicine?”
Perhaps the most interesting fact mentioned in Ying-Ying’s book is that of Brett Douglas, Iris’s widower. In February, 1991, Iris wrote that Brett:
...might have a chance to be in a submarine—his research on sonar imaging will be used by the Navy (p. 127)
To put it bluntly, the Navy is obsessed with how dolphins communicate and have been attempting to use their natural sonar in military applications. Where I’m sitting, this is nothing short of animal torture. Obviously, in 1991 Iris may not have known the extent to which “sonar imaging” (the visual recording of sound) is used by the United States military. Perhaps, also at this point in her life, Iris viewed the United States military as a force for good in the world. Sonar research is not only used today as a military weapon, it is also used to control peacefully assembled crowds.
On the morning when Ying-Ying and husband Shau-Jin were informed that Iris was dead, she describes the scene as follows:
“We opened the door. Brett and a plainclothes officer came in. Both looked solemn.
“I’m sorry to inform you that Iris is dead,” the officer said. “She shot herself early this morning and her body found in her car, near Los Gatos.” (p. 7)
Interesting that this out-of-uniform officer would immediately describe the death as a suicide. This is before the autopsy or any investigation was conducted.
Douglas currently operates his own investment company, Douglas Capital Management, LLC out of Bloomington, Illinois. Douglas’s web bio describes his ”fourteen years of research and development experience in the defense and communications industry.” As for working the stock market, Douglas’s 2007 stock picks included Tesoro Oil, Humana Insurance, and Frontier Oil Corp. I can’t imagine Iris being very supportive of investing in oil companies.
Douglas’s bio goes on to explain he “spent six years working for government contractors” and along the way he “...developed sonar imaging systems, sonar navigation systems, remote sensing systems, communication systems, and signal interception systems.” Read that last one again. “Signal interception systems” are what the NSA operate to spy on American and international activists. Douglas’s bio concludes: “He has applied the detection and estimation theory he learned in his signal processing research to the problem of selecting stocks with the highest expected returns.”
In his book, Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing, Tim Shorrock describes one of Douglas’s former employers, Applied Signal Technology (AST), as “one of the NSA’s leading providers of digital signal processing products.” Shorrock also quotes CEO Gary L. Yancey describe AST as providing the service of “high-tech eavesdropping.” Could this have contributed to Iris’s paranoia?
In what sounds more like an Angelina Jolie movie, one of the world’s great human rights authors was married to a man who designed spy equipment. And since Iris’s passing, Bretton Lee Douglas remarried another woman who apparently looks a lot like Iris and is named “Iris Cheng.” Who could make that up?
In her epilogue, Ying-Ying Chang quotes her daughter Iris:
“...it is important for me to write about issues that have universal significance ... I seem to be bothered whenever I see acts of injustice and assaults on other people’s civil liberties.” (pg. 410)
Perhaps it’s not our job to protect legacy when the information being withheld could help so many people. Iris’s physical existence may no longer be with us on Earth, but they can never silence her. The final communication she left—a teddy bear strapped into a car seat—may be the most important thing she ever wrote. Unless, of course, she didn’t write it ...
The universe conspires too, backing righteousness, truth and justice. Religion may have started the wars, but it’s science that carries them out. And we will end them.
Thank you, Iris.
[Update: This review was amended on May 27, 2011, to reflect that Brett Douglas’ new wife is named Iris Cheng.]
Kyle Sleeth welcomes feedback at sleeth.kyle@gmail.com.
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50 Ways to Prepare for Revolution
By Stephanie McMillan
The people of the United States are currently unprepared to seize a revolutionary moment. We must fix that. How can we raise our levels of revolutionary consciousness, organization and struggle?
Raise consciousness
1) Raise consciousness with the purpose of building organization and raising the level of struggle.
2) Investigate before forming opinions. Research how the world and the system function.
3) Read foundational and historical works about revolution, by those who have participated in and led them.
4) Analyze the system’s current condition and trajectory.
5) Learn about the resistance, uprisings and revolutions going on in the world today.
6) Read the material that currently active groups are issuing and discussing.
7) Continuously develop, elaborate upon and refine principles, theories and strategies for our movement.
8) Raise our voices. Articulate revolutionary ideas, and give them a public presence.
9) Listen and speak in the spirit of mutual clarification.
10) Participate in discussion, to develop our ideas and hone our skills in expressing them, and to help others do so.
11) Figure out how to use all our various talents, positions, energy and resources as effectively as possible, to expose the system’s evil, unredeemable and unreformable nature.
12) Analyze and explain the many ways the system dominates and exploits.
13) Stand with the dominated, exploited, invaded, colonized, threatened and oppressed.
14) Display a revolutionary spirit and celebrate it in others.
15) Exercise patience in winning over reluctant potential allies and supporters.
16) Ridicule and discredit the enemy.
17) Create revolutionary culture. Make videos and art, speak, sing, and write blogs, books, comments, leaflets, rhymes, stories, and articles about the enemy’s crimes and the people’s resistance.
18) Exchange ideas locally, nationally and (within the law or safe channels) globally.
19) Encourage others to participate in the revolutionary process.
Organize
20) Organize as a way to raise consciousness more broadly and to build struggle.
21) Start with people we know.
22) If our friends discourage us, make new friends.
23) Network sensibly with people online. Find local people online who express similar ideas, and meet with them.
24) Find a group that we basically agree with. Work with it.
25) If there’s no local group we want to work with, start one.
26) Write a leaflet with contact info. Pass it out in public to find potential comrades.
27) When we meet people, assess our points of agreement. If we agree on basic essentials, decide how to work together. If not, say goodbye for now.
28) Build strong ties locally and nationally, and build solidarity globally.
29) Define allies according to overall outlook and goals.
30) Don’t let secondary differences prevent cooperation. Handle differences between allies non-antagonistically.
31) Do not tolerate oppressive (sexist, racist, homophobic etc.) dynamics within the movement. Confront their expression and put a stop to it.
32) Refrain from saying anything aloud, on the phone or electronically that we wouldn’t want to hear played back in court.
33) Keep illegal drugs away from our political life.
34) Research and practice good security culture.
35) Prioritize the well-being of our organizations over personal benefit.
36) Ready our ranks to seize on any breaks in the legitimacy of the system.
Struggle
37) Use struggle to spread revolutionary consciousness and build organization.
38) Collectively determine what we want, and declare our demands.
39) Act as far as possible within our capacity, not either beyond or below our capacity.
40) Continuously strive to expand and consolidate our capacity and strength.
41) Assert our rights and our responsibilities.
42) Bring our revolutionary perspective into struggles already occurring.
43) Defend, support, and encourage our allies.
44) As opportunities arise, weaken the enemy and its ability to rule.
45) Obey the small laws. Don’t get taken out of the game for something unworthy.
46) For illegal acts, make sure you can trust your comrades with your life and the lives of everyone connected to you.
47) Avoid being distracted and diverted into symbolic action-for-action’s sake.
48) Don’t expect the enemy to act against its nature. It has no mercy and cannot be reasoned with.
49) Turn every attack by the enemy into an opportunity to speak out, organize, and grow more powerful.
50) Be willing to work hard. Be smart. Be brave. Remember we’re all in this together.
Stephanie McMillan is the creator of the comic strip “Minimum Security” for United Media,the self-syndicated editorial cartoon “Code Green,” and the co-creator (with Derrick Jensen) of the graphic novel “As the World Burns.” She is the winner of this year’s Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi Award. Please visit stephaniemcmillan.org.
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Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Everybody knows Memorial Weekend is coming...
Leonard Cohen sez:
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes…
Everybody knows
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Another of my recent photographs:
Bubbles burst
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Sunday, May 22, 2011
Liberation theology
"How shall I get liberation?
“Find out who has bound you,”
said the Master.
The disciple returned after
a week and said, “No one has
bound me.”
“Then why ask to be liberated?”
That was the moment of Enlightenment
for the disciple, who suddenly
became free.
From One Minute Wisdom by Anthony de Mello
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From guest photographer, Zen Prole:
Cloudless in Seattle?
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Thursday, May 19, 2011
Spain's Tahrir Square
By Pablo Ouziel
Spain’s people’s movement has finally awoken, la Puerta del Sol in Madrid is now the country’s Tahrir Square, and the ‘Arab Spring’ has been joined by what is now bracing to become a long ‘European Summer’. As people across the Arab world continue their popular struggle for justice, peace and democracy, Spain’s disillusioned citizens have finally caught on with full force. Slow at first, hopeful that Spain’s dire economic conditions would magically correct themselves, the Spanish street has finally understood that democratic and economic justice and peace will not come from the pulpits of the country’s corrupt political elite.
Amidst local and regional election campaigns, with the banners of the different political parties plastered across the country’s streets, people are saying ‘enough!’ Disillusioned youth, unemployed, pensioners, students, immigrants and other disenfranchised groups have emulated their brothers in the Arab world and are now demanding a voice—demanding an opportunity to live with dignity.
As the country continues to explode economically, with unemployment growing incessantly—one in two young people unemployed across many of the country’s regions. With many in the crumbling middle class on the verge of losing their homes while bankers profit from their loss and the government uses citizen taxes to expand the military industrial complex by going off to war; the people have grasped that they only have each other if they are to rise from the debris of the militarized political and economic nightmare in which they have found themselves.
Spain is finally re-embracing its radical past, its popular movements, its anarcho-syndicalist traditions and its republican dreams. Crushed by Generalissimo Francisco Franco seventy years ago, it seemed that Spanish popular culture would never recover from the void left by a rightwing dictatorship, which exterminated anyone with a dissenting voice; but the 15th of May 2011, is the reminder to those in power that Spanish direct democracy is still alive and has finally awaken.
In the 1970s a transition through pact, transformed Spain’s totalitarian structures into a representative democracy in which all the economic structures remained intact. For the highly illiterate generations of the time, marred in the reality of a poverty-stricken country, the concessions made by the country’s elite seemed something worth celebrating. Nevertheless, as the decades passed, the state-owned corporations were privatized robbing the nation of its collective wealth, and the political scene crystallized into a pseudo-democracy in which two large parties PP and PSOE marginalized truly democratic alternatives. As this neoliberal political project materialized, the discontent begun to resurface, but the fear mongers, Spain’s baby-boomers who had once fought for democracy, were quick to remind the youth of the dangers of rebellion. For many decades in Spain, the mantra was, “it is better to live as we are than to go back to the totalitarianism of the past, and if you shake the system too much, it will take away our hard-earned rights.” So the youth remained silent, fearful of what could happen if they spoke, and the baby-boomers in their content blamed the youth for their indifference. According to them, it was the youth unwilling to work, which were bringing the country to its knees. But the youth have stopped this blame game, and aware of the true risks to their future are finally enticing the whole country to mobilize.
A failed European project, with its borders quickly being reinstated, a collapsing Euro currency, and the examples of Greece, Portugal and Ireland are the reminders to those on the streets of what it is they are fighting to disassociate themselves from, and of the freedoms they are working towards. The economic and political project of the country’s elite has destroyed the economic dreams of whole generations of naïve and apathetic Spaniards; it has left the country in the hands of bond speculators and central bankers, and Spaniards will have to pay that price. Nevertheless, the debt accumulated by the Spanish family, has also earned it the education with which it can understand what is going on, and through it Spanish people will liberate themselves from the tyranny of their government.
What has begun in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol and has been echoed in fifty-two cities across the country is the crystallization of a popular movement for freedom, which has no intention of fading away. The people have no choice, either they take city squares as symbols of their struggle, or their message is never heard. The government knows this and that is why it has quickly responded by trying to disperse the crowds with its repressive police force, but following some arrests, the people are back with more strength.
A silent revolution has begun in Spain, a nonviolent revolution which seeks democracy through democratic means, justice through just means, and peace through peaceful means has finally captivated the imagination of the Spanish people, and now there is no turning back. The challenge ahead will be in keeping the collective spirit nonviolent as the police force does everything in its power to disintegrate the movement into a violent chaos that can justify its repression. The popular movement will also have to be alert as the bond speculators threaten the country with economic sanctions in order to scare the population into submission, and a constructive program will have to be articulated so that the movement can continue to function whilst providing sustainable alternatives for a different Spain.
Hopefully an articulate steering committee will flourish soon from amongst the crowds, which is capable of making clear and viable demands that grab the imagination of the country and force the political elite to comply. These are delicate times in Spain, if this spontaneous nonviolent movement succeeds, Spain may welcome a brighter future, if it fails, I fear violence will become the only option for those in pain. What those outside of the country can do for Spain is to echo the shouts of indignation coming from the country’s streets. So far both mainstream and progressive international media channels have opted for silence. Let us hope this silence breaks.
Pablo Ouziel’s articles and essays are available at pabloouziel.com.
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Leaving The Church of Free Market Miracles
Where does one find succor and seeds of renewal in times such as these?
By Phil Rockstroh
"Everything that everyone is afraid of has already happened: The fragility of capitalism, which we don’t want to admit; the loss of the empire of the United States; and American exceptionalism. In fact, American exceptionalism is that we are exceptionally backward in about fifteen different categories, from education to infrastructure. But we’re in a stage of denial: we want to re-establish things as they used to be, to put the country back where it was.” - James Hillman
Most of the men I grew up with in Alabama and Georgia deny the veracity of climate change. They are unwilling to make the connection between their ownership (actually the bank’s) of SUVs and oversized pickup trucks and the super storms and massive floods that, now with alarming regularity, ravish the region.
Because their besieged sense of self is intermeshed with their motor vehicles, they hold fast to these symbols of the fading world they know. In their imaginings, these gruesome, noxious (and obnoxious) machines represent power and mobility—exactly the aspects of their lives that have been diminished by the demands and degradations of oligarchic capitalism.
By their self-imprisonment in these sorts of compensatory fantasies, they choose to risk their children’s future, rather than, as one victim of his own curdling testosterone expressed to me recently on FaceBook, “[give up his over-sized pick-up] and drive a 4-wheel vagina, algore-mobile.”
A deep-rooted, malignant anger regarding their diminished sense of manhood seethes at the core of pronouncements such as that, and the following, shared on my FaceBook scroll, this past Earth Day: “Happy Earhart day!!! How did you celebrate? I clubbed an adorable baby harp seal, dumped a barrel of waste oil down the storm drain, and started a giant tire fire!!! Good times….”
The sentiment expressed above is an imprecatory prayer, borne of uneasy submission i.e., the callow voice of deep denial, a manifestation of a culturally re-enforced, self-protective cynicism—a reflexive negation of novel ideas that masks a besieged psyche; it is the nihilistic rage appropriated by the powerless serving as a bulwark against the anxiety created by shifting circumstances and buffeted verities.
In the U.S., life keeps changing for the working class—and not for the better. Hence, an inner voice of doubt and despair falsely informs these men that the agents and effects of change will be of no help to them personally…that no one (especially smug, know-it-all liberals) can be of service to you, and, worse, what little you have amassed will be lost.
It is a common (unspoken) fear of the men I grew up around down south that if they were to let go of what little they clutch, nothing would arrive to replace what would be lost. There will be no place reserved for them and their families in the new situations and novel arrangements that (by their addled take on the situation) elitist environmentalist snobs contrive to force upon them.
Moreover, in the corporate state, the loss of community, in combination with the commercially-rendered sameness of the environment and the all-encompassing, manic insistency of mass media—both of which are so devoid of depth, context and meaning—it has become increasingly difficult for an individual to gain then retain the sense of self necessary to know where one exists in relationship to time, place, and changing social and political circumstance.
How is it possible to move in the direction of propitious change when the demands and distractions of the corporate/consumer state have negated one’s ability to remain still and focus long enough to even grasp the nature of the problem?
The relentless exploitation of both earthscape and timescape has had a catastrophic effect upon the inner realms of thoughts, dreams, and imaginings of the citizen/consumers of the neo-liberal economic superstate.
Loss of place and an attendant crisis of identity are inextricably bound to the angst and anomie so evident in the present neo-liberal epoch: Being bereft of connection to land, sky, sea, and polis creates a profound sense of unease.
In contrast, a powerful sense of presence rises from within when standing before oceans, rivers, mountains, and even amid streams of human currents traversing the streets and boulevards of great cities. Conversely, where are we, in relationship to the truths of our being, when we are waiting for an order of processed, fast food in a line of automobiles idling at a drive-thru window or we are engaged in hollow communion with the sundry, glowing screens of information age appliances?
One’s sense of self and one’s beliefs, as well as, the mythos and traditions of a people are inextricably bound with place, landscape, and social situation. When I was a child, growing up in Alabama and Georgia, on occasions such as backcountry fishing expeditions, I would, at times, come in contact with rural African American farmers who still lived by the agrarian rhythms of the nineteenth century.
Occasionally, taking refuge from the afternoon heat of high summer, we would lounge on wooden porches and snap green beans, and I would listen as they quoted scripture.
The Jesus of their belief system was born of humble beginnings (a mere seed) and grew beneath the hot sun, but, at the height of maturity, was cut down, sacrificed so they may live, then, like their life-sustaining crops, was resurrected as next year’s seed crop. Suffused with a metaphoric analog of the criteria they lived day to day, these tales held resonance for these rural, farming people; the metaphors resounded with the verities of place and circumstance. The figure of Christ was as real to them as the snap beans beneath their fingertips.
Now, in an era in which the destination of most all of our objects and accoutrement is the landfill, Deep South mega-churches espouse a cosmology that resonates from a junk food paradigm: a Gospel of The Drive Thru Jesus…when The Rapture comes our corporeal bodies will be cast aside like fast food wrappers.
All in all, for both Christians and for secular-minded, market economy true believers, a belief in economic providence has proven our undoing—an insistence on its miraculous influence left us mistaking ad-hoc, bubble-borne affluence for a soul-vivifying portion of divine grace. The corporate/consumer state’s trickster gods of fast buck commerce offer drive-thru-window epiphanies. Members of the congregation of the Church of Free Market miracles believe their prayers will always be answered: Instantly, the consumer state’s homilies of perpetual gratification arrive—their voices crackling like a burning bush from drive-thru order-boxes.
Yet the redeemer gods of product placement cannot provide our dying culture with a longer shelf life. Belief in the deities of empyreal marketplace might provisionally banish doubt and diffidence—yet this mythos cannot shelter us from the anonymous fury of the exponential mathematics of global systems shifted into entropic runaway.
Although every generation inherits a howling wasteland and dwells in structures constructed of the bleached bone legacy of past generations—you’d have to go back to Late Cretaceous to find a generation that stands at the threshold of a mass die-off as we human beings do at present.
The Greek tragedians would have grasped the manic and destructive nature of late capitalism…how an obsessively heroic quest for victory carries the seeds of one’s undoing; ergo, by an over-reliance on his strengths and virtues the classical hero brought on his own demise—because the habit of heroic action rendered him closed off to novel awareness.
Victory is a closed system; in contrast, defeat opens one to the possibility of new adaptations.
You win a while, and then it’s done –
Your little winning streak.
And summoned now to deal
With your invincible defeat,
- Leonard Cohen
In the case of Greek tragedy, the hero (even the collective mindset of a people) cannot, in the long run, thrive evincing victory-engendered hubris. He will wend towards tragedy; he, with each successive triumph, will become so self-encapsulated with self-regard that only trauma will reopen his heart to the intimacies availed by earth and eternity
Jason will ignore all council and bring his trophy of war, Medea, back to Corinth, setting events in motion that will cause him to lose everything he loves. He will die alone, in demented revelry, crushed beneath the rotting stern of the Argo, the ship that bore him to glory.
You lose your grip, and then you slip
Into the Masterpiece.
- Leonard Cohen
Apropos, facing tragedy, to paraphrase Camus, is the opposite of naivety. Yet we go on, even though we think we cannot, when we bear the knowledge of the ultimate futility of our aspirations. Although struggling against overwhelming power and collective delusion seems futile, such endeavors thwart one’s drive for perfection: When we seek paradise, we find paradox. Over the long term, the manner we receive, respond, and are changed by these exchanges with the world is called (our) character.
In the sorrow of defeat, one gains the possibility of identification with the oppressed people of the earth. Loss brings an intermingling with the inherent beauty of the neglected things of the world.
It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster. - Elizabeth Bishop
In my better (too rare) moments, I take Walt Whitman’s approach: I believe an individual should endeavor to connect, mingle, even merge one’s broken heart with the various and varied things of the world…polis, people, and landscape.
There are many things, although vile and ugly, I remain on speaking terms with, extant and within me. Although, our cities are decayed, people troubled and landscapes degraded, I don’t avoid those places and situations—because this is the criteria with which I was given to work, by time and circumstance.
Even, at present, towards empire’s end, when we find ourselves bearing much grief, we are stranded amid ferocious beauty.
Where does one find succor and seeds of renewal in times such as these?
It might prove helpful to glance back at what has been dubbed the “do-it-yourself-art” practiced by the pioneers of Punk Rock.
Bored blind by tedious, onanistic guitar solos of the arena rock era, they approached their instruments with a minimalistic aesthetic. In other words, many burned with such fervor to seize back rock and roll from the stultifying, velvet rope elitism of the period that they had neither the time nor inclination to master more than three cords on their instruments—which they played very fast—and did for scant financial compensation, and even less acclaim, in shot-out clubs in decayed downtown locations such as Manhattan’s Bowery district, thus reintroducing the dirty, lowdown exuberance and subversive intimacy of early rock and roll, plus establishing the enduring principle that being an imbecilic, rock and roll egoist should be a democratic process—not exclusively limited to guitar technocrats or even those individuals possessed of the tyranny of talent.
Accordingly, we can cultivate gardens (individual and communal) appropriating the ash of yesterday’s excesses and the mulch of victories long past; we can plant heirloom seeds, both terrestrial and mnemonic. Thus beginning to allow our lives to become imbrued with the purpose and meaning that arrives when one’s labors are directed at making the world anew. While one cannot know the future, one can begin to move away from a reliance upon a dysfunctional present.
Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at: phil@philrockstroh.com. Visit Phil’s website http://philrockstroh.com and Facebook.
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FYI
“Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience imposed by the individual state.”
(from Nuremberg Tribunal, 1946)
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Another of my recent photos:
Hope fades...
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Monday, May 16, 2011
Rick the Cartoonist sez: "Politics is simple"
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Another of my recent photos:
2011 Veggie Pride Parade
Lots more Veg Pride photos here
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Bonus link:
4 Ways to a More Earth-Friendly Cup of Coffee
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Friday, May 13, 2011
Still timely after all these years
(This is the ninth time I’ve run some variation of this post..the first time in nearly two years.)
“In the middle of the road/You see the darnedest things.
Like fat cats driving around in jeeps through the city,
Wearing big diamond rings and silk suits.
Past corrugated tin shacks holed up with kids and
Man, I don’t mean a Hampstead nursery.
But when you own a big chunk of the bloody Third World,
babies just come with the scenery.”
("Middle of the Road,” The Pretenders)
Neil Young sez: “There’s one more kid/That will never go to school/Never get to fall in love/Never get to be cool.”
Voltaire sez: “No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.”
Nigerian Proverb: “Not to know is bad. Not to wish to know is worse.”
The Pope of Hope sez: “We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense.”
Howard Zinn sez: “I wonder how the foreign policies of the United States would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own.”
Ward Churchill sez: "Stop killing our kids, if you want your own to be safe."
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Another of my recent photos:
Film crew
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Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Earthlings Unite
I identify myself not by gender, by skin color, by class, language, or sexual orientation. I am not the sports team I root for, the city I was born in, the religion of my parents, not even the species in which I am classified. And I certainly do not identify as a consumer, an employee, a taxpayer, or an American.
In the name of holistic justice and planetary rebellion, I am an earthling.
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Another of my recent photos:
Green > red
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Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Earthlings Unite?
By Mickey Z.
"In a world where everything is living, nothing can be thrown away. Where would you throw it to?”
- Clark Strand, Seeds from a Birch Tree
It is the duty of the oppressor to divide, to differentiate, to cultivate and promote false distinctions and then profit from the inevitable false conflicts these distinctions provoke.
It is the duty of the oppressed to resist.
In that spirit, I identify myself not by gender, by skin color, by class, language, or sexual orientation. I am not the sports team I root for, the city I was born in, the religion of my parents, not even the species in which I am classified. And I certainly do not identify as a consumer, an employee, a taxpayer, or an American.
In the name of holistic justice and planetary rebellion, I am an earthling.
Before there were Yankee fans or Red Sox fans, there were earthlings. Before there were terrorists or pacifists, there were earthlings. Before there were Christian or Jews, gays or straights, humans or non-humans, there were earthlings.
Long after all these distinctions—or even the life forms that inspired them—there will be earthlings.
Earthlings include the trees being clear-cut, the marine life being fished out of our oceans, the honeybees disappearing, and the animals howling for mercy in the vivisection labs. The humans shackled at Guantanamo, dying in cancer wards, cowering in fear as predator drones scream overhead? All earthlings, too.
It’s not nearly enough to rise above the latest man-made conflicts and/or differences and proudly declare oneself a “humanist.” In the name of holistic justice and planetary rebellion, we must go deeper to identify as earthlings and stand—fists raised—in solidarity with all of our fellow earthlings.
The Tom Joad character in The Grapes of Wrath said: “Maybe we’re not all individual souls, but maybe we’re all part of one big soul.” Incredibly basic, sure, but within that simplicity lies the secret: If we were to look upon all earthlings as part—along with ourselves—of one collective soul, it would become impossible to live in denial.
To do otherwise is to deny homicide, genocide, and ecocide. Some might call that suicide. They would be the earthlings.
Mickey Z. is the author of 11 books, most recently the novel “Darker Shade of Green.” Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on an obscure website called Facebook.
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Monday, May 09, 2011
Cutting Through the Fog of Fear: The Green Scare and Beyond
Review of Green Is The New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement Under Siege by Will Potter (City Lights Books, 302 pages, 2011)
The American Civil Liberties Union did not oppose the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. Let me repeat that: the American Civil Liberties Union did not oppose the heinous Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act when the legislation was getting rammed through Congress in late 2006.
When I was reminded of that fact while reading Will Potter’s new book, Green Is The New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement Under Siege, I had to take a deep breath and tell myself that the ACLU is a mainstream organization that worries too much about sustaining its ability to raise funds and often backs away from staunchly defending civil liberties, the principle on which it supposedly was founded.
Let me explain why the ACLU and all freedom-loving people should have publicly and actively opposed AETA. Well, I’ll let Potter, an expert on AETA, explain why the ACLU should have opposed the bill. Testifying before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security in May 2006, Potter stated:
“Public fears of terrorism since the tragedy of September 11th should not be exploited to push a political agenda. I urge you to reject this bill and ensure that limited antiterrorism resources are used to protect national security and human life, not profits.”
AETA was a new version of the Animal Enterprise Protection Act of 1992, legislation that gave birth to the so-called crime of “animal enterprise terrorism.” AETA amplified AEPA by extending the range of legal prosecution of activists, updating the law to cover Internet protest campaigns, and enforcing stiffer penalties for “terrorist” actions. It made it a criminal offense to interfere not only with so-called “animal enterprises” directly, but with affiliated parties such as insurance companies, law firms, and investment houses that do business with them.
AETA, introduced partly in response to the successful campaign of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, also expanded the law to include interfering with “any property of a person or entity having a connection to, relationship with, or transactions with an animal enterprise.”
In Green Is The New Red, Potter writes that when the ACLU proclaims, “The ACLU does not oppose this bill,” as it did with AETA, “it’s like a bank security guard turning his back with the vault’s doors swung wide.” In the case of AETA, many lawmakers took the ACLU’s proclamation and ran with it. Both Republicans and Democrats rushed en masse to vote in favor of the anti-civil liberties legislation.
“The silence of the ACLU gave the green light to the Green Scare,” Potter contends.
The ACLU’s stance on AETA, Potter writes, could be viewed as an example of history repeating itself. In 1940, the ACLU leadership passed a resolution barring communists from top positions and voted to remove Elizabeth Gurley Flynn from the board because she was a member of the Communist Party. Not only was the ACLU barring communists, some ACLU leaders even supplied documents on the group’s activities to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
The National Lawyers Guild, on the other hand, did not accommodate the government’s demands during the Red Scare. Most of the attorneys in key Red Scare court cases were NLG members, Potter writes. “It continues to do so today. National Lawyers Guild members have been representing ‘eco-terrorists’ in court, and the guild’s executive director, Heidi Boghosian, has firmly positioned the organization on-record against the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, the FBI’s ‘Operation Backfire,’ and the broader campaign to persecute animal rights and environmental activists,” Potter states.
When Congress passed both AEPA and AETA, lawmakers were following the orders of industries that were growing tired of environmental and animal rights activists getting away with using legal means to cut into the profits of their member companies. So, the corporations instructed lawmakers to pass designer legislation that would curtail the freedoms of their opponents, branding them with the “terrorist” label.
It has been demonstrated throughout U.S. history that Congress and state legislatures are wholly owned subsidiaries of Corporate America. Green Is The New Red, published by City Lights Books, looks at a relatively recent period of U.S. history and demonstrates how the biomedical, corporate farming and energy industries are succeeding in getting laws passed that allow their opponents to be deemed “terrorists” and then handed lengthy prison sentences, while the companies engaging in the real “eco-terrorism” get to continue destroying the earth and torturing animals.
Green Is The New Red explores much of the same ground as Muzzling A Movement, attorney Dara Lovitz‘s in-depth examination of the government’s legal case (or lack of a case) against SHAC and the passage of AETA. Both books are written in a clear and straightforward writing style. Where the two books differ is in Potter’s rich detail about the actions of environmental and animal rights activists. Unlike Lovitz’s legal analysis and references to previous court opinions, Potter writes in a more intimate, first person point of view. He provides details of his contacts and friendships with some of the people who were getting rounded up in the government’s Green Scare campaign.
Anybody who has followed Potter’s “Green Is The New Red” website through the years will recognize many of the Green Scare cases and names that he mentions in the book. But the book is not a collection of essays or articles that you’ve already read on websites or in academic journals. It’s a tightly woven, 250-page narrative (not including its comprehensive bibliography, index and acknowledgements) that, along with analyzing the legislation and court cases, offers an inside look at some of the more daring actions carried out by environmental and animal rights activists.
Potter also describes his own experience with the Green Scare, when in 2002 FBI agents sought to intimidate him for distributing leaflets in a Chicago suburb, near the home of an executive with March Inc., an insurance company for Huntington Life Sciences, the animal testing lab. FBI agents visited his home in Chicago and told him they’d put him on a “domestic terrorist list” if he didn’t provide information about the people who were leafleting with him. Potter refused to provide the FBI agents with any information, but the encounter spooked him. And yet, it also opened his eyes to the close relationship between the state apparatus and corporations.
“I do not know it right now, but this experience will mark the beginning of both a personal and a political journey,” Potter writes. “After the initial fear subsides, I will become obsessed with finding out why I would be targeted as a terrorist for doing nothing more than leafleting.”
And that experience in Chicago sent Potter on his journey as an investigative journalist into the shadowy world of the Green Scare.
Potter spends many pages on the life and actions of Daniel McGowan, one of the activists caught up in the Green Scare dragnet who is now imprisoned in a communication management unit at the U.S. penitentiary in Marion, Ind. The federal judge in McGowan’s case, Clinton appointee Ann Aiken, applied a “terrorism enhancement” to his sentence. “Terrorism enhancement” is a measure that allows judges to dramatically increase a person’s sentence if his or her offense “involved, or was intended to promote, a federal crime of terrorism,” as defined by Congress. Unrelated to AEPA or AETA, the “terrorism enhancement” provision emerged from the Effective Death Penalty and Anti-Terrorism Act, signed into law by President Clinton in 1996.
Potter is clearly the anti-Daniel McGowan. As a professional journalist—and one who specializes in legal and legislative issues—Potter tries to remain as detached as possible when he writes. He steers clear of emotion in his reporting on the Green Scare. He is neither a cheerleader nor a firebrand. McGowan, on the other hand, “is articulate and well read, but on some issues he becomes fervid,” Potter writes. “He does not shy away from words like fascism, patriarchy, ecocide.”
Somehow, Potter is able to manage his emotions when he writes about case after case in which activists are being labeled a “terrorist” or being sentenced to years in prison for petty crimes or actions in which no one was injured. This level of detachment allows him to perform a valuable service to the activists, many of whom he admires. His writings, including Green Is the New Red, are an honest assessment, warts and all, of the tactics, strategies and goals of the environmental and animal rights movements.
In Green Is the New Red, Potter worries that he might be doing more harm than good by writing and speaking about the government’s campaign against activists. “The most dangerous consequence of this terrorism rhetoric is fear, so does raising public awareness just make more people afraid?” he asks. “As someone who cares deeply about these issues, I’ve wondered if I’m just doing the job of the government and corporations for them by spreading fear.”
But activists, both aboveground and underground, need truth-seekers like Will Potter. Ignoring the crackdown on environmental and animal rights activists will not make the problem go away, Potter writes. “The best way to cut through the fog of fear is to shine a light directly on the source,” he says.
By immersing himself in the issue since the day the FBI visited him in Chicago and through his skills as a newshound, Potter is now a leading expert on the government’s crackdown on environmental and animal rights activists. But in Green Is the New Red, he does more than report on the last 15 years of the movement. Potter offers words of wisdom. Perhaps his most salient words are the ones he saves for near the end of the book when he writes:
“Through it all, one thing must be remembered about the activists labeled terrorists: they are in good company. Many of the radicals we revere today were feared and vilified in their time.”
Review by Mark Hand
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Major League Baseball's Bloody Monday
How Osama’s Death Is a Potential Marketing Coup
By Kap Fulton
Osama is dead. A new religion emerges: Human Sacrifice.
Two days after the announcement that the United States had successfully hunted down Osama bin Laden, I received an email from Allan Wood, a Boston Red Sox fan and writer who lived in New York City for 18 years, and worked for three years in the World Trade Center. Allan was appalled and disgusted at the Red Sox’s celebration of the death of bin Laden before Monday’s game. He called them and voiced his opinion. This inspired me to call three Major League teams who had had similiar death shindigs: the Red Sox, the Washington Nationals, and the San Diego Padres (they wore their camo jerseys and offered free tickets to military).
The response from the Red Sox and Padres was cordial. The public relations women took notes and promised they would relay my concerns to the higher-ups. I expressed that war should not be marketed through baseball. That celebrating the death of any human being is sick and they should be ashamed. The Padres woman assured me they do other community service. The Red Sox woman listened and then snickered as I ended my rant.
I think that little smug noise triggered something in me.
I then called the Washington Nationals. Not sure what came over me ... but I took a different approach. Perhaps it was the confusing telephone prompt. I don’t know. I pressed “4” for “Group Sales” for some reason.
A younger woman answered and our conversation began something like this:
Me: Are the Nationals planning anymore assassination celebrations?
Her: Umm, not that I know of. Actually, last night’s Military Appreciation Day had been planned much earlier.
Me: Oh?
Her: Yeah, it just worked out really well for the team.
Me: It’s always good when human sacrifice coincides with a marketing promotion.
Her: Haha! Yeah, sometimes you get lucky!
This went on for awhile. I asked her if they might consider having a day to celebrate Adolph Hitler’s assassination. She laughed and made sure I knew that Hitler had been killed 66 years to the day before Osama. “That might be an interesting dual promotion,” she quipped. I then suggested a day commemorating the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. But she thought that idea was “sorta gruesome.” This was an interesting response as she seemed to only associate the concept of “gruesome” with killing somebody righteous.
I went on to explain that I was excited to see the Nationals promoting human sacrifice, blood-letting, and killing that I wanted to buy a block of eighty seats for an upcoming game. She didn’t find this gruesome (maybe a bit odd) but still took my request seriously. Our group was going to dress up in full fatigues, with blood covering our battle gear (I assured her ketchup would be used in lieu of real blood) and each of us would be carrying a Osama bin Laden head. There would only be forty of us, but we would need eighty seats to accommodate all the heads.
She wanted to know if they would be paper mache heads.
I went on to explain that the heads would be clay-based, very life-like, and dripping with ketchup. We would carry them by the hair attached to the head. I wanted to make sure we’d be allowed to bring the heads into the stadium.
She suggested that we call ahead.
But, first things first ... what day were we thinking of attending? Umm ... July 4th of course! I asked her where we’d be able to get the most media attention and she assured me that with a big group of quasi-soldiers carrying heads ... “the media will find you.” Excellent point.
Being the 4th, the ideal seats right behind homeplate were sold out. I told her that I’d look at a diagram of the stadium and give her a call back. She thanked me, took my info, and then gave me her direct line. All things considered, nice gal.
Now if I had said I wanted to dress like anything other than an American soldier, would I have gotten that deep into the conversation? I don’t know. I would really just like to know the Washington Nationals official policy for bringing bloody heads into the park.
I know, I know: the ketchup would make a mess. Otherwise, why wouldn’t the kids be allowed to bring heads? Just another day at the ole ballpark..
Osama is dead, but the marketing department keeps it’s name: Human Resources.
Kap Fulton writes about bullies, sports, & revolution and is the author of the upcoming book, “Bud Selig’s Mariachi Nightmare,” Blockade Press, 2011. Kap can be reached at kapfulton@gmail.com.
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Sunday, May 08, 2011
An interview with yours truly
I was recently interviewed by Greg Elich about my two new books. Here’s an excerpt:
Greg: Which takes me to your other new book, Darker Shade of Green. It seems to me that one of the main themes of that book is to lead readers to regard the humanity of the homeless. That’s not something that people are generally encouraged to consider
MZ: I created the lead character, a homeless genius named Allie Romano, back in 1989 for a screenplay so he’s grown with me and become close to my heart. Allie has made a cameo in each of my first two novels, CPR for Dummies and Dear Vito, and now he shares top billing in Darker Shade of Green with J.T., the 12-year-old boy to whom he serves as mentor. As you surmise, I wanted to re-humanize the homeless (by the way, my next novel is called Revenge of the Homeless) but I also wanted to show how Allie’s holistic worldview was not unlike the pre-jaded perspective of a child. In the beginner’s mind, things can be much clearer. The trick is to maintain a beginner’s mind in the face of a cultural propaganda onslaught.
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Another of my recent photos:
Makes a good first impression
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Poem: “How to give a rousing speech"
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Friday, May 06, 2011
Stephen Hawking sez:
“I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.”
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Another of my recent photos:
May colors
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Poem: “Read this poem or the terrorists win"
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Wednesday, May 04, 2011
The Terror of Empire's Death Spiral
By Frank Joseph Smecker
It is true what Chris Hedges recently wrote for Truthdig regarding the reported death of Osama bin Laden; that al-Qaida is a terrifying force. This group is terrifying for many reasons … the main reason being that their shock and awe tactics that are employed to create a message does just that: it sends a message of terrifying proportions. It works.
But the terror this group evinces can be described as so terrifying namely because it was created by the most terrifying culture ever to exist, a culture that wholeheartedly, without question, believes in the fantasy that it can continue to live on a finite planet while practicing a way of life predicated on the assumption of infinite growth; a culture that will do anything within its means to reinforce this fantasy—such as, for one, destroy an entire planet through extractive industry and its waste … or, better yet, sending messages to underdeveloped communities around the globe that the resources beneath the ground of their respective communities are needed to keep this fantasy believable for those currently living it: those resources are coveted and they will be taken if they are not voluntarily handed over, so the message goes.
And so, what this has done … what it does is it creates a two-fold situation: (1) this way of living has constructed this belief-in-fantasy so rigidly, so regimented, that the fantasy has inserted itself inviolably into the collective psyche so to predetermine the behavior of the very culture. The fantasy is so ensconced in the daily activity of the dominant culture that it cannot even be recognized as a fantasy, but as, what Jean Baudrillard implied with his theory of the precession of simulacra, a consensus reality. (And stand outside this fantasy, point to its insanity, point to the realities [read, atrocities] that exist so to maintain the fantasy of infinite growth, and notice how the culture will respond to you, alienate you.) And (2) to continue living the fantasy of infinite growth as an assumed reality requires the routine importation of resources, and this, as is apparent as it ever has been, requires a military… the most efficient and effective instrument of terror to have ever exist. What the culture is essentially doing here, and has been doing, is deploying terror around the globe to send a message, but that message is also an education, and this creates what Hedges calls a “death spiral.”
The events of 9/11, as is widely understood now, came about because of a certain anti-American (thus anti-Western) sentiment engendered by particular extremist groups. It is without question that these particular extremist groups were, at least in their formative stages, assembled with the guidance, finances, and weaponry of US forces so to keep the Soviets out of Afghanistan. When US victory was achieved in Afghanistan in the late Eighties, it set in motion a series of events that would allow for the West, primarily America, to set up military base after military base throughout the oil-rich regions of the Middle East and its surrounding oil exporting regions over the ensuing decades. It’s important to note that ongoing resource wars have been needed to maintain the fantasy that the dominant culture can continue living the hyper-consumptive lifestyle it has been conditioned to perceive as normal; that we can continue consuming the resources needed to maintain this hyper-consumptive lifestyle forever, despite the fact that the requisite resources needed to do so are finite, are running out, and, will run out; that we can continue living as if we can grow forever on a finite planet, by any means necessary. And for decades we have reinforced this belief through, what Stanley Diamond described as, “brutal conquest abroad and repression at home.” The latter statement immediately unravels the reality of the atrocities committed around the globe, albeit under the guise of a multitude of varying motives. But at the crux of it all is this essential predicament: Empire needs energy and resources not only to grow, but to maintain itself as well. As an empire grows, its demand for energy and resources needed to maintain its complexity exceeds what the immediate landbase has to offer. So begins the colonization of other lands in order to funnel resources back to centers of growth. But as empires expand, resources shrink, and landbases become infecund. And eventually, an entire way of life that has been predicated on the expansion of empire cannot sustain itself. It becomes severely vulnerable, weak. And then it implodes.
And so when an empire attempts to send a message to other communities… a message that says—We need what you have and we will take it if you do not hand it over—well, the message better be pretty convincing. The message better ensure success; after all, the existence of an entire empire is at stake. And that is why terror works. It is traumatic. It gets the message across. But what it also does is it leaves an impression on those it hurts. And some people who are deeply hurt indeed reach a point of rage; and to foment rage, and, to show those who are left with nothing but these feelings of enmity and vengeance, how to terrify others, creates a “death spiral.” It is nationalism against nationalism… Fanaticism versus fanaticism … A way of life versus another’s way of life… all dancing the same dance: a pas de deux of terror. And this reciprocal terror dance doesn’t necessarily make our culture become, as Nietzsche understood it, “the monster that we are attempting to fight,” but merely reveals that this culture has always been that monster we are attempting to fight.
However, what terrifies me more than anything … more than al-Qaida … more than this seemingly self-perpetual terror dance, is the day resources become too unaffordable to continue allowing militaries to convey this culture’s messages around the globe. And if all this culture can identify with is consumption, if all it can turn to in an era of ecological devastation, resource scarcity and global conflict, rising food costs and unemployment … if all it can turn to in the wake of all this is commerce and entertainment that only reflects to the consumer culture the very fantasy it is living … if all this culture can turn to in the wake of damaging earthquakes and unprecedented damaging weather patterns is the Royal Wedding and disputes over the president’s birth certificate—if this culture views the reported killing of Osama bin Laden as confirmation of its delusive fantasy’s promise of infinite growth and consumption and not as merely another act of violence in an endless salvo of terror, if this culture cannot for the life of itself see the physical reality of the planet’s limits and the human lives inextricably dictated by these very limits beyond the fantasy of construction and synthetic ephemeral value, I fear not only the strange appetite, nor the perceptual misguidance of such a strange appetite this fantasy has brought into being, but I truly fear the message it will try to convey when that appetite has no where to go but inward.
Frank Joseph Smecker’s work has appeared in/at: The Ecologist, Z Magazine, Rain Taxi, CounterPunch, Truth Out, Order of the Earth and other places. He is also a blogger for the Vermont Commons Journal and occasional contributor to its print edition. He can be reached at: frank.smecker@gmail.com
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Tuesday, May 03, 2011
Gullible Travels
Does the alleged extrajudicial execution of a former CIA employee never officially linked to 9/11 (check his FBI poster) mean we no longer have to worry about stuff like 80% of Earth’s rivers being unable to sustain life or the population of 4 species of bumblebees declining by 96%?
You can chant “U-S-A,” but it won’t drown out the unmistakable sound of collapse…
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Another of my recent photos:
Not a crime...
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Sunday, May 01, 2011
"Darker Shade of Green" event: April 30
Revolution can be funny...
Order the book here: only $10.95
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A poem I wrote specifically to read at the event:
Poem: “Choose sides in the war against imagination"
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Thursday, April 28, 2011
When Words Fail, Paint It Black
Review of Darker Shade of Green by Mickey Z. (Raw Dog Screaming Press, 108 pages, 2011).
“Perhaps I’d be wiser to simply conform, but my mind will not let me.” - Alphonse “Allie” Romano
A guerrilla movement is making serious noise in the United States, and its inspiration is a frail, homeless New Yorker who steals books from his affluent neighbors and plays chess like a grand master against unsuspecting passersby. The Pawns, as the band of insurgents call themselves, are knocking down cell phone towers, making life miserable for iPhone addicts and causing alarm in Homeland Security offices across the nation.
That’s the backdrop to Mickey Z.’s latest novel, Darker Shade of Green, a fast-paced story about an eerily familiar dominant social system that often tries to co-opt revolutionary art and actions by turning them into less dangerous commodities that can be safely consumed by all.
Alphonse “Allie” Romano, a genius and a homeless man, hyper-intuitive to the realities of life, grew tired of the insanity ... and it was time to pass the torch. A teenager, James Tanger, or J.T., was a persistent and earnest kid. Allie pretended not to notice J.T. when he first arrived at his table in a Manhattan park. The table held an old chess set and stacks of best-selling books that Allie had appropriated for his cause.
Allie eventually realized J.T. was the real deal. The teenager had the chops to hold his own against the best chess players—including the first time he played Allie when the homeless sage didn’t respect J.T.’s chess skills—and was committed to radical social change, a cause Allie had embraced his entire adult life. It was this unlikely mentorship between an increasingly frustrated homeless genius and a curious teenager that would lead to the creation of the guerrilla movement, a group of individuals unwavering in their audacious goal to dismantle the nation’s institutions. J.T. was on a journey to becoming a latter-day George Hayduke, but with less machismo and better awareness of the dominant society’s pressure points.
Allie understood it was time to pass the torch when he noticed Manhattanites viewing his other passion—graffiti—as bourgeois art rather than radical wake-up calls. Allie was the East Side Prophet, a.k.a. the Spray Can Prophet, a.k.a. the Internet Insurgent. His nickname depended on who was telling the story or idolizing the poetry and maxims he spray painted in dark green on the city’s walls. The Internet Insurgent name came from the longer poems and political messages—the ones that couldn’t fit on the sides of buildings—that he would post anonymously on the Web using a computer at the public library.
Allie’s work as the Spray Can Prophet had grown into a cult of personality. Instead of inspiring action, Allie’s words on the sides of buildings had been deemed something to admire from a distance. J.T. explains: “The growing notoriety of the Spray Can Prophet had blossomed into full-blown hero worship and the press had deemed his scrawled words to be ‘art.’”
It was at this point that he realized the graffiti business was a loss leader gone awry. Allie had attracted the attention, but the locals weren’t buying into his call for radical social change. Another strategy was needed, and that’s where the young, savvy J.T. entered the equation.
Darker Shade of Green is Allie’s story. He’s keenly aware of changing trends in public sympathies but doesn’t have the personality type to offer prescriptions for action. He analyzes society’s problems through his poetry and online political messages.
In his nonfiction book A Gigantic Mistake, Mickey Z. included a passage that would appeal to Allie. He wrote:
“Many people imply that unless a critic expounds a specific strategy for change, the critique is worthless or too negative. The problem with this understandable retort is that it misses the crucial role critical analysis plays in a society where problems are so cleverly disguised. When discussing the future, the first step is often an identification and demystification of the past and present.”
In Darker Shade of Green’s acknowledgements, Mickey Z. salutes the “enduring character of Allie Romano, who first came to me back in 1989 and has stayed by my side (in one form or another) ever since.” While reading Darker Shade of Green it’s hard not to see Allie and Mickey Z. as the same person in some respects. Earlier in his life, Mickey Z. was known as the “underground poet” for hanging his words in New York City subways. Mickey Z. is a chess enthusiast.
Darker Shade of Green is itself a powerful and fulfilling story with a central character who takes the fall for a noble cause. And yet the novel lends itself to a follow-up where the reader can discover whether the Pawns are successful in their campaign to save the nation from itself.
It’s hard to say whether Allie would approve of a sequel to Darker Shade of Green. He might argue Darker Shade provides the reader with enough information about the Pawns, and the rest should be left to the imagination. Instead of reading a book dedicated entirely to a band of guerrillas, Allie might want readers to go out and be their own Pawns, with a fierce determination to create a society where greed and violence aren’t its guiding principles. - Review by Mark Hand
Darker Shade of Green is now available on Amazon.com. Click here to order the book.
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"Darker Shade of Green": My new novel, my birthday event
My third novel (and 11th book overall), Darker Shade of Green, has been published by Raw Dog Screaming Press and can be ordered now
“Mickey Z has crafted a novel that is distinctive in both structure and message. Darker Shade of Green makes us question our assumptions on every level, and inspires us to action.”
— Stephanie McMillan, cartoonist
“If this book doesn’t make you want to rage for justice, you might want to check your pulse. The people killing this planet for profit and greed will hate this book, all the more reason you need to read it.”
— David Agranoff, author
Related Event: I’ll be speaking at Bluestockings Bookstore on Saturday, April 30 (which just so happens to be my birthday) at 7:00pm
Hope you’ll join me and/or spread the word. Thanks…
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Another of my recent photos:
Looking out my window...
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Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Zoo York
Do Zoos and Captive Breeding Really Help Endangered Species or Address Habitat Loss?
Photos taken at Central Park Zoo on Easter Sunday
A peek into the animal prison
Inmates
Yep, that’s a polar bear...in the NYC sun
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Poem: “how to find like-minded comrades"
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Saturday, April 23, 2011
Easter...blah, blah, blah
Bill Hicks sez: “I’ve been traveling a lot lately. I was over in Australia during Easter. It was interesting to note they celebrate Easter the same way we do; commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus by telling our children a giant bunny rabbit left chocolate eggs in the night. Now, I wonder why we’re fucked up as a race. You know, I’ve read the Bible. I can’t find the words ‘bunny’ or ‘chocolate’ anywhere in the fucking book. Where do you come up with this shit? Why those two things? Why not ‘Goldfish left Lincoln Logs in your sock drawer’? As long as we’re making shit up, go hog wild. At least a goldfish with a Lincoln Log on its back crawling across your floor to your sock drawer has a miraculous connotation to it.”
Child: (in faux Australian accent) “Mummy, today I found a Lincoln Log in me sock drawer.”
Mother: “That’s the story of Jesus.”
The Easter Bunny will kick your ass...
...if Dick Cheney doesn’t get him first.
Patti Smith sez: “Jesus died for somebody’s sins...but not mine.”
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Another of my recent photos:
Finally, spring
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Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Some good news
Just got awarded a grant from the Puffin Foundation (my third from them in the past decade or so) for my writing and activism work in defense of our eco-system and all the species that need it.
Nice...
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What I’m reading:
Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention
How about you?
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Another of my recent photos:
Big Brother
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Sunday, April 17, 2011
Expendable James would've turned 40 on April 18
Keir, MZ, James, JOS, and Charles
Happy Birthday, friend...you are missed.
(vegan cake, of course)
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Another of my recent photos:
City sport
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Poem: “How to be a good organizer"
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Thursday, April 14, 2011
There's Left...and then there's LEFT
In January of this year, I interviewed both Noam Chomsky and Derrick Jensen...and the results offered a stark juxtaposition. Here are those interviews again:
Read my interview with Noam Chomsky here
Read my interview with Derrick Jensen here
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Another of my recent photos:
Both sides of the fence
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Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Ain't Gonna Play The Masters
By Press Action
South Africa and The Masters golf tournament are a perfect match. South Africa’s official racial segregation policy, known as apartheid, ended in 1993 as a result of decades of resistance. Augusta National Golf Club, home of The Masters, ended its exclusion of black members a couple years earlier, in 1991, after years of pressure from U.S. civil rights and anti-racist groups.
Clifford Roberts, chairman of the Augusta National Golf Club from 1931 through 1976, once said “as long as I’m alive, golfers will be white, and caddies will be black.”
Gary Player, South Africa’s most decorated golfer, wrote in his 1966 book titled Grand Slam Golf:
“I must say now, and clearly, that I am of the South Africa of Verwoerd and apartheid … a nation which is the result of an African graft on European stock and which is the product of its instinct and ability to maintain civilised values and standards amongst the alien barbarians. The African may well believe in witchcraft and primitive magic, practise ritual murder and polygamy; his wealth is in cattle. More money and he will have no sense of parental or individual responsibility, no understanding of reverence for life or the human soul which is the basis of Christian and other civilised societies. … A good deal of nonsense is talked of, and indeed thought about ‘segregation’. Segregation of one kind or another is practised everywhere in the world.”
No black golfer played in The Masters until Lee Elder in 1975. And until 1982, when the competitors were allowed for the first time to bring their regular tour caddies, all the caddies in the tournament were black. Augusta National still doesn’t allow women as members, and on Sunday one of its security guards blocked a female newspaper columnist from following her male colleagues into the Augusta National locker room to interview Northern Ireland golfer Rory McIlroy.
When South African Charl Schwartzel won The Masters on Sunday, he did not offer an apology for his country’s decades of brutal discrimination against non-whites. If he had made such a pronouncement, it probably would have embarrassed his hosts at Augusta National to the extent that they would not have invited him back in 2012 to defend his title.
Player was lucky he excelled at a sport steeped in racism. The Man in Black came of age and reached his peak in the sport—in the 1960s and 70s—when the South African government was brutally imposing its apartheid policy and crushing dissent. The golf world’s governing bodies overlooked Player’s citizenship because if they had blacklisted him, they would have been forced to confront their own racist policies.
Player cultivated an image as a man of the world, but he never called for a boycott of South Africa or renounced his country’s racist and authoritarian policies during the apartheid era. Should today’s top South African golfers be expected to answer for their country’s deplorable policies of the not-so-distant past? No, of course not. But wouldn’t it be refreshing to hear Ernie Els or Retief Goosen or Trevor Immelman or Louis Oosthuizen discuss how their parents’ anti-apartheid activism provided them with the courage to drain a four-foot putt with the tournament on the line? Or hear them dedicate their victory to Steve Biko or Lilian Ngoyi or Oliver Tambo or Dennis Brutus? If they ever mention anyone but themselves or their family, it’s usually to salute their hero Gary Player or, although rare, give an obligatory nod to Nelson Mandela.
South Africa’s elite golfers are no different than professional golfers anywhere else. They live in an insulated world where the dirty deeds of governments and large corporations mean nothing to them, as long as they’re allowed to play golf at their favorite country club.
(Dedicated to Bill Spiller, Ted Rhodes, Charlie Sifford, Lee Elder, Jim Dent, Calvin Peete and Jim Thorpe.)
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Short fiction: "Got It All Wrong"
(A short story of mine)
The Amtrak terminal at Penn Station is no place to be. That’s what Frank Morgan was thinking as he waited for his girlfriend to arrive from Boston. Not really his girlfriend, but they saw each other often enough to use the word. Seated against a billboard advertising something or another, he tried to make himself as invisible as possible while he watched the hordes of humans dashing about.
“This is no way to do anything,” he mumbled, and the woman next to him jumped ever-so-slightly…startled by the sound of his voice.
She was about 36, overweight in her New York Liberty t-shirt, squatting against the billboard with her nine-year-old daughter. The little girl was covered head-to-toe in Liberty gear. Neither of them looked very happy.
Frank turned to the woman.
“Look at all this,” he said. “Makes you realize that somewhere, someone got it all wrong.”
“Whatever.”
The woman was in no mood to talk with a stranger, so Frank decided to try another tack.
“Did the Liberty win?”
“No,” the little girl moaned, “they lost by 14 points.”
“Too bad. Are they still going to make the playoffs?”
Frank knew enough about practically any sport to fake a conversation. The little girl seemed pleasantly surprised that she had encountered a fellow WNBA fan. She was pretty in a suburban kind of way. Her mother just stared straight ahead, only occasionally letting her eyes move to her right to make sure Frank wasn’t getting any closer.
“Yeah, they’re in the playoffs,” the little girl explained, “but they may not get home-court advantage.”
Frank let the little girl talk and talk about her beloved Liberty, tossing in just enough comments to keep the conversation from turning into a monologue. He focused most of his attention on her mother. He didn’t place it right away but then it hit him. This woman was the spitting image of someone from his past. Charlene Sapia was a neighbor and Frank was best friends with her son, Nicky. The Sapia apartment always smelled like garlic. Charlene couldn’t cook worth a damn so she used garlic to hide the taste.
When they were about twelve, Charlene got divorced and began to date an endless parade of losers. Nicky told Frank about these boyfriends and what he heard from the other side of his mother’s bedroom door.
Dreams of Charlene Sapia fueled Frank’s adolescent imagination right up to the day he saw her emerge from the shower, drying herself off. Frank stared at Nicky’s Mom until she barked at him.
“Whaddya looking at?”
Frank watched Charlene turn and disappear into her bedroom, making no effort to cover herself. Two weeks later, Charlene and Nicky moved away without an explanation. The garlic smell lingered in the hallway for about a month.
“Whaddya looking at?”
Frank snapped out of his daydream when the woman next to him spoke up. The little girl was still talking about the Liberty but her mother was scowling at Frank for staring at her.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, “you remind me of someone.”
“Yeah, right.”
“You wouldn’t be related to Charlene Sapia, would you?”
“No.”
The woman scratched her right breast, looked at her watch, and sighed. The little girl had finally stopped talking and was transfixed by the image of a gay male couple, holding hands.
“Mommy—”
“I’ve got a headache.”
“But, Ma—”
Frank watched the woman’s lips move as she scolded her daughter. The memories came flooding back. How often he watched Charlene Sapia’s mouth when she talked. And then there was the night he saw her kissing one of her boyfriends, her mouth opening so wide as she did.
“You remind me of Charlene Sapia.”
“You don’t say.”
Frank was lost now. What if this woman invited him to her home in New Jersey? His girlfriend wasn’t expecting him anyway. He was surprising her in the hope he could use the good will this appearance would create to borrow some money. Instead, he could give the little girl the few bucks he had left and send her to the café car to get snacks. Frank would be alone with Charlene’s clone. He’d put his arm around her as they shared a few whispered jokes, and by the time they got to her place, she’d really want to be with him. Little Miss Liberty would be off in her room playing video games. Isn’t that what all the kids wanted to do anyway? Frank and her mother would have some time alone. They’d order in some Italian food with a big loaf of garlic bread.
“Now boarding New Jersey Transit train…” The announcer’s voice droned on as the woman struggled to her feet and yanked on her daughter’s arm.
“That’s us, let’s go.”
Panicked, Frank grabbed her arm. The woman was not pleased.
“Let go of me, we have a train to catch.”
“Do you smell garlic?”
“Fuck off, loser,” she sneered before walking away.
“Charlene?”
The little girl turned around to wave and Frank waved back.
“Who are you waving to?”
It was Frank’s girlfriend. She didn’t appear surprised to see him.
“Oh,” Frank mumbled, “someone I knew from when I was a kid.”
“So what are you doing here? Out of money already?”
“No, I—“
“Save it, Frank, and take this bag, will ya?”
Frank’s girlfriend handed him a heavy duffel bag and walked towards the subway.
“I didn’t come here for money,” Frank whined as he followed her. “You got it all wrong.”
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Another of my recent photos:
Drawing a crowd
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Saturday, April 09, 2011
"Banned in Vermont": My interview with Rosemarie "RMJ" Jackowski
A wide ranging collection of essays, memoirs, and more, Banned in Vermont shines a light on topics the US justice (sic) system, wartime propaganda, feminism, capital punishment, GMOs, and so much more—all fulfilling the book’s cover promise: “unedited, uncensored, unpretentious, unabashed.”
Read our interview in Spanish here
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Another of my recent photos:
5 Pointz as seen from the 7 Train
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Thursday, April 07, 2011
Banned in Vermont
An interview with advocacy journalist and author Rosemarie Jackowski
By Mickey Z.
I’ve known radical grandma Rosemarie Jackowski (RMJ) for several years now and even interviewed her in 2005 about her arrest and court case. In light of her unique story and her tireless commitment to justice, I (and others) have encouraged her to write a book for years. Well, I’m happy to say, RMJ has delivered as only she can with Banned in Vermont.
A wide ranging collection of essays, memoirs, and more, Banned in Vermont shines a light on topics the US justice (sic) system, wartime propaganda, feminism, capital punishment, GMOs, and so much more—all fulfilling the book’s cover promise: “unedited, uncensored, unpretentious, unabashed.”
To follow is a conversation I recently had with Rosemarie Jackowski:
Mickey Z: Why did you write this book?
Rosemarie Jackowski: My main purpose was to chip away at some of the misinformation out there. Not only in Vermont, but across the US. For example, many people believe that protesting, or as I prefer to think about it, resistance to the government, is a fun filled, rowdy experience reminiscent of images of the ‘60s. Protests now are different. Much more serious. Right now there are many peace advocates in prison. Recently those who protested at the US School of the Assassins at Fort Benning were convicted. Usually those who are prisoners because of acts of conscience get very little news coverage. They are in reality secret political prisoners. Bradley Manning is a political prisoner—one of the few who has attracted any media attention.
MZ: With all the ground you cover in Banned in Vermont, is there anything you left out?
RMJ: Thanks for that question. There are many little secrets hidden in the book. One of them I will leave to the reader’s imagination. It concerns testimony during the sentencing hearing. I refer to this statement on page 20: “... Seems like we were at an impasse.” Imagine being the judge who had to impose my sentence. By this time, the war had become very unpopular. I, on the other hand, was receiving a lot of public support. The press dubbed me ‘The Vermont Peace Grandma’. I had no prior record and even the prosecution admitted that my act of conscience had good intent. It was clear from testimony that my motivation was a love of children and an abhorrence to violence and war. It does appear that I had secured the moral high ground. I expressed my willingness to go to prison. It almost made me feel sorry for the judge who would have to impose a sentence. The undisclosed secret in the book that the reader will have to decide is: Was this checkmating of the system a result of my well thought out legal strategy, or was I just lucky in having the events unfold this way?
Also, left out of the book was an irrelevant bit of legal trivia. During part of this long process, I had two cases before the Vermont Supreme Court and no lawyer. I don’t think that happens very often, if ever.
MZ: What would you like readers to experience while reading your book?
RMJ: I hope that readers will experience humor, joy, and sometimes sadness—which can sometimes inspire one to action. One of the most important messages of the book is something that I sprinkled on every page that I could. That is the Madeleine Albright admission that the USA killed 500,000+ Iraqi children and she thought that the price was worth it. I remember seeing that interview with Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes way back in 1996. My immediate reaction was, ‘finally’. Now the sleeping US conscience would be awakened. I was wrong. The lack of empathy for victims of US foreign policy is mindboggling. How can that be explained?
One other important message in the book concerns the Black Budget. I pose the question: Has every election since 1947 been illegal? The Black Budget was authorized in 1947. How can those elections be legal if no informed votes were cast? If you can’t follow the money, you can’t know what your secret government is doing. Too many believe that if all uniformed members of the military were brought home, the killing would end. It is clear that more have died because of actions of the State Dept., CIA, private contractors, etc. etc, etc. In actuality, the uniformed military is only the tip of the iceberg. The real danger is with the secret US forces.
MZ: Should we expect another book from you soon?
RMJ: Not on my very old computer. Unfortunately, writing does not pay. Most authors that I know, even the really great ones, are struggling. I expect to make less than zero money on this book.
MZ: In light of the current rhetoric, do you feel there’s any “hope”?
RMJ: Not until US citizens change. That will require a change in almost everything—from the way US history is taught in schools, to the way information is disseminated to the general public. Just last night, I was talking with a friend who is a high-ranking administrator in the educational system. He has a copy of my book and said that there was a good chance that it would be banned in school libraries. On the other hand, I have already been invited to speak to a college class.
(Banned in Vermont can be ordered now)
Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, Mickey Z. can be found on this crazy new website called Facebook. His eleventh book (and third novel), “A Darker Shade of Green,” can be pre-ordered now.
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My April 30 NYC event
My third novel (and 11th book overall) is called Darker Shade of Green and will be published by Raw Dog Screaming Press in mid-April (but it’s available for pre-order now).
With that in mind, I’ll be speaking at Bluestockings Bookstore on Saturday, April 30 (which just so happens to be my birthday) at 7:00pm
Hope you’ll join me and/or spread the word. Thanks…
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Another of my recent photos:
Dusk hits Astoria
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Monday, April 04, 2011
7 Ways to See Trees in a New Light
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is now.”
– Chinese proverb
Sure, trees are fun to climb, to swing on, to picnic under or to hug. But we’ve reached a critical point on Planet Earth. 80% of the world’s forests are already gone, and the planet is running a little short on green. Without proper appreciation and love for our barked co-inhabitants, well…we’re screwed.
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Another of my recent photos:
23rd Street
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Saturday, April 02, 2011
America: "Home" of the brave
11.4% of all U.S. homes are vacant
As of the last, “official count,” about 671,859 people experience homelessness on any given night in the United States
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Another book announcement:
My first novel, CPR for Dummies (2008), is now available as an e-book for only $2.99. Order it at the link below and please spread the word. Thanks…
Order the CPR for Dummies e-book for only $2.99 here
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Another of my recent photos:
Boast? Complaint? Simple observation?
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Thursday, March 31, 2011
Peak Dirt (and yours truly on the radio)
BUT FIRST: I’ll be on the (internets) radio today (March 31) at 2:00 EST to shill my new novel, Darker Shade of Green and you can pre-order that book right now. Thanks…
We now return to our regularly scheduled wake-up call...
“Peak” is a popular word these days—in particular when used before the word oil. But Peak Dirt? The concept refers to topsoil or, to be more specific, topsoil depletion. “On average,” writes Tom Paulson in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, “the planet is covered with little more than 3 feet of topsoil—the shallow skin of nutrient-rich matter that sustains most of our food and appears to play a critical role in supporting life on Earth.”
“We’re losing more and more of it every day,” David Montgomery, a geologist at the University of Washington, told Paulson. “The estimate is that we are now losing about 1 percent of our topsoil every year to erosion, most of this caused by agriculture.”
It’s been estimated that 75 percent of original US topsoil has already been lost and 4,000,000 acres of US cropland is lost each year to soil erosion (that’s roughly the size of Connecticut). An acre of US trees disappears every eight seconds. Since 85 percent of US topsoil loss is directly associated with livestock raising, there is a good first step we can take to battle Peak Dirt: go vegan.
After that, it’s time get really busy…
P.S. Garden as if your life depended on it (because it will)
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Another of my recent photos:
Another fire in Astoria
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Monday, March 28, 2011
5 Reasons Why Technology Can Never Be Neutral
It’s repeated so often that few of us even stop to question its validity: Technology is neutral. It’s only as good or as bad as those using it. Here are 5 reasons why this is far from true:
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Another book announcement:
My first novel, CPR for Dummies (2008), is now available as an e-book for only $2.99. Order it at the link below and please spread the word. Thanks…
Order the CPR for Dummies e-book for only $2.99 here
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Another of my recent photos:
"I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn’t park anywhere near the place.” - Steven Wright
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Friday, March 25, 2011
The many costs of war
Total US Outlays (Federal Funds): $2,650 billion
Military: 54% ($1,449 billion)
Non-Military: 46% ($1,210 billion)
Plus, the US Dept. of Defense (sic) is the planet’s worst polluter
Good place to start resisting: Don’t support our (sic) troops
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Another of my recent photos:
Wrong kind of green
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Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Corporate meltdown
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P.S.
It would be way easier to create a list of countries not bombed or invaded by the home of the brave.
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Another of my recent photos:
Great gig in the sky
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Saturday, March 19, 2011
My yearly Iraq War anniversary (sic) correction
Activists will be tweeting and texting on March 19 to mark the eighth anniversary (sic) of the Iraq War. However, while a drastic escalation and illegal occupation began eight years ago on that date, the war actually commenced on August 6, 1990...four days after Iraq invaded Kuwait (with America’s tacit approval). On that date, at the behest of US leaders, the UN imposed murderous sanctions upon Iraq.
The bombing started on January 16, 1991—and has never stopped—thanks to both wings of the American Corporate Party.
Personally, I’d rather focus on March 20 being Meatout Day...
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Please order my new book:
My first e-book, Personal Trainer Diaries: Making the Affluent Sweat Since the 1980s Vertical Club is now available for just $4.99 (link below).
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Another of my recent photos:
2011 St. Patrick’s Day parade, NYC
My parade photo slideshow here
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Wednesday, March 16, 2011
From Celebrities To Tsunamis
‘If They Can Get You Asking the Wrong Questions, They Don’t Have to Worry About the Answers’
By Phil Rockstroh
Even before the floodwaters of the tsunami that inundated western Japan receded (and a threat of a global-wide disaster, engendered by the core breach of multiple nuclear reactors, loomed) in the US, Godzilla jokes began trending on Twitter.
A number of years back, Pauline Kael took Steven Spielberg to task for his depiction of rural Georgia circa 1909 in his movie, The Color Purple ... averring that Spielberg’s only field of reference seemed to be images culled from cinematic history, rendering his movie tone deaf regarding the rhythms and cadences of life during the era.
On a cultural level, a great many people in the US evince a similar, media-wrought shallowness of apprehension, and therefore are prone to a contemptible callowness, when faced with tragedy and human suffering. This trait, coupled with a toxic ignorance about the larger world, is an ugly thing to behold, and does not bode well for our collective destiny as a people.
What are the origins of these less than admirable characteristics? On a cultural and political level, due to the constant saturation and an attendant internalization of “free market” platitudes, sans a counter narrative of compassion and social awareness, many in the US experience acute cognitive dissonance when confronted by the demonstrable fact that the nation’s much heralded tales of equal opportunity and class mobility are little more than the self-serving propaganda of a privileged few.
National character traits, such as these, display an always present, ever-vigilant, defiant ignorance—a pride-ridden predilection best summed up, albeit inadvertently, by that stumble-mouth poet of the American spirit, George H. W. Bush. During a press conference in August of 1988, when he was asked a question regarding the recent downing of an Iranian passenger jet, killing 290 civilians onboard, by the US warship, USS Vincennes, Bush the Elder bandied, “I won’t apologize for the United States. I don’t care what the facts are.”
A more subtle and compelling intelligence assessed the origin of such utterances with this: “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.” - Albert Einstein
An additional aspect of this national obtuseness stems from a collective squeamishness, a revulsion and resultant denial, regarding the truth of the exponential rate of decay of US Empire. Of which, the knowledge is avoided for the same reason one avoids taking a stick and turning over days dead roadkill. Because it would be a mortifying sight to glimpse what is eating, from within, the putrefying remains of the carcass known as the US political system.
Apropos, for many of the progressive minded who went round-heeled for the shimmering promise of hope and change, pledged by Barack Obama, the fact of his betrayal is very painful and depressing to face. Exacerbating the situation is the mendacity and flat-out lunacy of his right wing adversaries—including those spittle spraying prone legions of racist sub-cretins, out in the US spleenland, who refuse to accept Obama’s legitimacy, as president, due to the problem they have accepting the darker shade of his skin pigment.
In this context, the siege mentality of Democratic partisans is understandable … but only to a degree. Ergo, recently, it has been revealed that the Obama administration’s new Gitmo policy has a great deal of resemblance to the Bush administration’s old Gitmo policy. So it seems, at last, we have found who has been concealed within that empty suit known as Barack Obama. Damn, if it isn’t, George W. Bush. We should have taken Bush at his word—never misunderestimate Dubya.
The bailout of Wall Street and the corporatist coup of the kleptocratic class in Madison, Wisconsin and the Obama administration’s continuation of US foreign policy (i.e., the same, blood-soaked stupid empire tricks) as that of his predecessors, should serve as an object lesson and wakeup call to Democratic Party-promoting progressive types regarding whose interests the two parties of duopoly represent.
Moreover, the US public has been willfully ignorant, habitually self-centered, and so easily manipulated by the PR specialists of the corporate controlled state, for so long, they don’t even know what a democratic republic is—much less that they lost one.
With wages stagnant for more than thirty years now, it is maddening to hear economically besieged, debt-beholden members of the US middle and laboring classes, who, because they have had their heads up their corporate master’s privileged rear ends for so long now, continue to convince themselves they’re viewing the glens, glades and fruited bowers of a free market paradise.
The hand of the rightwing intellectual berserker cult of the Chicago School of Economics can be seen in this. At present, we’re witnessing the entire repertoire of the neo-con clown school of misdirection and mendacity. What is unfolding is straight out of the Leo Strauss playbook for the intellectually bankrupt: First, employ a Reagan/Bush/Walker/ type manqué, and have these ambulatory Pez Dispensers shower the public at large with candied covered “noble lies” i.e., promulgating faux populist sound bites serving to conceal the machinations of a corrupt elite, thereby ensuring the retention and expansion of elitist power.
The fairness-phobic and freedom-defying tendencies of these sorts of toxic alliances are woven into the very DNA of contemporary conservatism and have left their adherents devoid of a compass of common sense and civic responsibility.
Again and again, I’m astonished to witness the manner that US citizens mistake this smoke and mirrors casuistry for a political mandate. Over the last three decades, anyone (who has been even nominally conscious) can see how destructive to the health and well-being of the general population of the nation, conservative, “market-driven” economic dominance has been. And how the cynical manipulation of factions within the Republican base, comprised of Christ fantasists and states’ rights fetishists, by the neo-con and corporate wing of the so-called “conservative movement,” have weakened both the civil libertarian contract of government and its social safety net obligations to its citizenry almost to the breaking point.
The Koch Brothers and their quisling, Governor Walker, are an object lesson in this personal pathology being played out as public tragedy.
The Koch Brothers were born into a family of oil-rich multi-millionaires. They have never known anything but wealth beyond any reasonable measure. Yet it is never enough. The brothers seem akin in character to a spoiled malicious brat whose greed for gifts can never be sated, a nightmare child, who not only breaks the expensive toys he demands and receives, but breaks the toys of other children, simply because they’re not his.
In deranged opposition to both common sense and common decency, the actual children of the US, those who were careless enough to be born into poverty, will just have to suck it up—and give up their school lunch programs so that the billionaires of the plundering class can continue to receive tax write-offs.
That’s right, good people of the US, it is high time we nipped this problem in the bud: Those damn spoiled brats have just gotten too damn fond of eating. Fortunately, the roar of the engines of fleets of private Gulfstream jets will drone out the rumblings of those entitlement-maddened little monsters bellies.
What is equally disheartening is the public at large has internalized the narrative of the dissemblers of the ruling elite, to such a great degree, that: Even before being defeated by legislative weasel maneuvers in Wisconsin, union members were willing to give up their benefits; they only agitated to keep “the right” to go to the table and ask for their master’s scraps.
This is a “rock bottom” situation. Liberals working within the system are like drunks who need to be told, just go out there and do some “controlled drinking.” Perhaps when the situation grows painful enough, then we’ll talk about the problem.
“Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation” -Oscar Wilde
Short of a mass awakening on the part of the US public (one can have ones little fantasies, right?) and an attendant Islamic world style uprising against the soft totalitarian structure of oligarchic rule in the US, the consolidation of power by the plundering class will continue unabated.
A couple of circumstances have to be present for freedom to flourish and economic exploitation to be mitigated: (1) Have the propitious presence of an enlightened elite in place willing to contribute to the common good by curbing their cupidity and obsession with retaining power; (2) An aware, civically engaged citizenry willing to risk all to secure their dignity. Or: We can just wait around for an enlightened monarch or dictator of benighted intent to arrive on the scene.
“We do not know what is happening. And that is what is happening.” - Ortega y Gasset
In numerous ways, due to a confluence of constant inundation by distracting media influences and enervating, time-decimating financial burdens, the act of discerning the agendas of veiled corporate power, and the manner by which this nebulous, yet almost implacable structure, impacts ones life becomes difficult. Still, continually, I’m startled when I hear US citizens state: “It is a free country.”
At present, we are at liberty to hold and voice our opinions, as long as doing so has almost no effect on the status quo. The US corporate media has endowed us with the right to decide for ourselves and voice, unfettered, our opinions on the destructive choices made by celebrity millionaires or wax feckless before our televisions about the devastation wrought by natural disasters. In our faux republic, we are guaranteed the right to free speech, as long as it remains marginalized and ineffective.
The Gnostics had a term germane to the shallowness of thought that passes for discourse in our time, political or otherwise—“hylicism,” which means an inability to see below the surface of things. This is why, over and over, “news consumers” are diverted by news as gossip and, on a political level, fall for the demagogic ploys of Republicans and the phony populism of married-to-the-status quo Democrats. It is the mode of mind of the duopolistic state.
As a result of the contrivance of powerful mass media interests, combined with a complicity on the part of the general public, the witless indulgences and perpetual excesses of the idiot empire of celebrity news and gossip grip the popular imagination and provoke a greater degree of indignation from the populace than the tearing to tatters of the social contract, ongoing since the Reagan era, by the nation’s government and business classes.
The proliferation of news as celebrity gossip serves as a kind of corporate propaganda e.g., Charlie Sheen’s private contretemps being hyped to public spectacle and topping the news cycle, as opposed to, let’s say, a series of investigative reports exposing the degree of wealth inequity in the US, how it was established, and is maintained. Or why large-scale news events, such as the very likely catastrophic effects of the meltdown of a nuclear power plant, are treated with all the depth of a mindless Hollywood action movie, devoid of a deepening historical context.
To paraphrase Warren Buffett, his side has won the class war. At present, we are experiencing the mopping up operation in progress. In this cultural milieu, there should be little mystery regarding which stories the ultra-wealthy owners of huge media conglomerates would prefer their underlings to investigate and expose.
Another reason, Charlie Sheen has been placed in the media’s electronic stock and pillory is the manner in which a persistent strain of Puritanism in the US endures, and engenders, in the nation’s collective psyche, both a compulsive curiosity about excessive behavior merged with an intolerant, punitive reaction to it. Hence, aberrant behavior seizes the cultural imagination and fosters powerful, repressed desires.
First arrives the secret desire to make a daring, perhaps violent escape from the quotidian prison of everyday obligation and restrictive social nicety, as Pablo Neruda limned in verse, “to terrify a law clerk with a cut lily,/or kill a nun with a blow on the ear./It would be great/to go through the streets with a green knife/letting out yells until I died of the cold.”
Next, one is seized with the compulsion to make somebody pay for evoking such untoward, vile thoughts in a good person like me … I’m still a good person … right? That spoiled celebrity should be made to pay for this, damn it.
Conveniently, this situation works out well for those who benefit from the deeply inequitable system now in place: Their agenda is served by having the public direct their animus at the hubris of dim-witted celebrities as opposed to the incompetence and criminality of the powerful.
In the city center-devoid, suburban archipelago of the US, there exists scant real estate where an immersion in the mass (for either constructive purpose or odious design) can take place and private rage can be vented as civil disobedience, or rise, in its demented shadow form, as the public psychosis of fascist pageantry.
Although, in the US, our variety of Nuremberg Rally mobs don’t throng down wide boulevards, in torch lit processions, culminating with the sweat-lacquered faces of snarling Brown Shirts reflecting the flames of pyres of burning books. In contrast, the analog in the United States takes place on a hundred million, Cheetos-stained couches, as the corporate media’s propaganda by distraction induces fools and tools of the class-stratified, corporate state to gibber about the latest celebrity contretemps.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.” -Thomas Pynchon (from Gravity’s Rainbow).
In this way, the so-called “culture wars” serve the ruling elite. This is a technique the operatives of corporate duopoly have down. Unloose social conservative activists to kick up dirt with divisive issues e.g., the rightwing wants to roast Big Bird on a spit and legislate that every unborn fetus be declared Jesus Christ himself. All the while, above the obscuring dirt cloud, the financial elite fly off in their private jets, elated as thieves luxuriating on a bed piled high with their loot.
I don’t mean to imply one should not fight extant inanity and prevailing idiocy … fight it with a vehemence sacred in its fury. Ironically enough, one must allow oneself to be idiot enough to risk the fight against the proliferation of eternal stupid. Yes, one can win a battle, but the war is endless. But within the fury of the moment, you are fully alive.
Yet every victory is fleeting, and the eternal stupid returns ... having no memory of its whipping, and ready for another round. And it will kick your ass from time to time. I have the scars to prove it.
Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at: phil@philrockstroh.com. Visit Phil’s website http://philrockstroh.com and Facebook.
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Another St. Patty's Day (and all that)
Remember St. Patrick’s Battalion
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Filed under “inevitable”:
In light of the growing nuclear nightmare in Japan, an old related article of mine…
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Please order my new book:
My first e-book, Personal Trainer Diaries: Making the Affluent Sweat Since the 1980s Vertical Club is now available for just $4.99 (link below).
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Another of my recent photos:
Trees not flags
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Poem: “haiku tastes like chicken"
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Sunday, March 13, 2011
My first e-book: Buy it now for only $4.99
My first e-book, Personal Trainer Diaries: Making the Affluent Sweat Since the 1980s Vertical Club is now available for just $4.99 (link below).
From hanging with Arnold, Sly, Fabio, Tyson, and Bianca Jagger in the go-go 80s right up to working in today’s ever-growing training market Mickey Z. has witnessed firsthand the evolution of a fitness revolution. An upscale health club is one place where the divergent classes meet...and mingle. After all, any personal trainer worth his or her supplements craves an elite clientele. Conversely, their wealthy customers just want to wield buff buns and ripped abs like twenty-first century status symbols. Trainers and clients are from different worlds—sometimes at odds but often in synch. Their relationship is a complex and unique offshoot of a society in which the top 20 percent of Americans control 85 percent of the wealth. But in the gym, comrades, you can’t use your stock portfolio to get through a tough set of lunges…that’s what trainers are for.
Order my e-book here for only $4.99
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Another of my recent photos:
Welcome to the superdome
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Thursday, March 10, 2011
America is still temporary
Watching the collapse accelerate got me thinking of an article I wrote in 2006...
I’m sure the Aztecs, the Incas, the Romans, and the Mongols were pretty damn pleased with themselves and figured what they were doing could never end. Yet, like Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias,” they are ancient history. (Shelley and his brand of poetry, alas, are also prehistoric.) The Ottoman Empire ran longer than Cats, for chrissake, and all they left is a place to put your feet after a long day of trading pork bellies.
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Another of my recent photos:
The patron saint of bran?
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Monday, March 07, 2011
In advance of summer re-runs
Two blasts from my somewhat recent past:
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Another of my photos:
Good advice
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Friday, March 04, 2011
Murderer's Row (or is it Murderers' Row?)
Anyone wanna suggest a caption?
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Another of my photos:
Strange fruit
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Thursday, March 03, 2011
Republicans Turn to Nazi Germany for Inspiration in Latest Energy Bill
By Press Action
The War Party in Washington, d/b/a Republican and Democratic Parties, often is accused of taking its cues from Nazi Germany. The Nazis built their society and economy around the concept of perpetual war. The U.S. government and its War Party rulers have wrapped their institutions and economy around the concept of perpetual war.
The Nazis were determined to procure and manufacture enough fuel to wage their wars. U.S. War Party members are getting worried about potential fuel shortages for their bloated military machine. The Nazis embraced coal-to-fuel technologies. War Party members want U.S. companies to partner with the U.S. military to put this established technology to good use today.
War Party members, led by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives on March 3 that demonstrates the Nazis are still held in high esteem, more than 65 years after their defeat.
The bill, H.R. 909, also known as A Roadmap for America’s Energy Future, calls for expanding the production of almost every type of energy source in the United States. Ramping up the deployment of coal-to-fuel technology is a particularly important component of the bill because it would help sustain the rampaging ways of the U.S. military. And, to highlight the technology’s potential, Nunes turned to Nazi Germany. In a summary of the bill, Nunes writes:
“Germany had 25 liquefaction plants that, at their peak in 1944, produced more than 124,000 barrels daily and met 90 percent of the nation’s needs.”
U.S. national security “is dependent on the availability of liquid fuels. For example, the U.S. Department of Defense is the single largest consumer of transportation fuels in the country, using 369,000 barrels per day,” Nunes writes in the summary. The bill “removes barriers to expanding the uses of our nation’s extensive coal supplies to fill the tanks of American military vehicles and jets,” he says.
On March 3, the bill had 40 co-sponsors, including House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Reps. John Shimkus, R-Ill.; Mike Simpson, R-Idaho; and Rob Bishop, R-Utah.
“There are more than 250 billion tons of recoverable U.S. coal reserves—equivalent to an estimated 800 billion barrels of oil (compared to Saudi Arabia’s proven reserves of 260 billion barrels),” Nunes explains. “United States coal can be converted through proven, existing modern technology into clean, zero-sulfur synthetic oil and oil products at a cost of approximately $35 per barrel. Unlike other energy resources, the location and quantity of U.S. coal reserves are known and mapped—exploration isn’t necessary.”
Coal-to-liquid fuel technologies are well-established and have been improved by 30 years of U.S. government research and development efforts, Nunes says, adding “the technology is ready for widespread commercialization.”
Unfortunately, according to Nunes, “the Democrat [sic] Congress enacted Section 526 of Public Law 110-140, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007,” which was added to the 2007 bill “largely to stifle the Defense Department’s plans to buy coal-based (or ‘coal-to-liquids’) jet fuels. To limit the ability of the Pentagon to get its fuels from friendly sources and force increased petroleum importation from unfriendly or unstable countries does nothing less than put our national and economic security at risk.”
Nunes says his bill will spur the development of “alternative fuels by repealing the ‘Section 526’ prohibition on government purchasing fuels derived from sources such as oil shale, tar sands and coal-to-liquid technology. It also encourages the use of clean coal-to-liquid technology by allowing the Department of Defense to plan, construct and operate a coal-to-liquid facility to ensure a secure domestic supply of fuel for the United States military.”
Martial America, über alles.
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Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Noam Chomsky on Industrial Society: Deja Vu All Over Again
By Press Action
Noam Chomsky is the greatest living American intellectual. He knows a lot about a lot of things. That’s probably what makes him the greatest living American intellectual. And his views have remained remarkably consistent through the years. Take his views on industrial society.
When asked whether he had sympathy for the anti-civilization perspective, Chomsky told the editors of Anarchy magazine in a 1991 interview that some of the worst forms of oppression occurred in pre-technological societies.
Chomsky told Anarchy that he has “always felt more attuned with the parts of the anarchist movement that were interested in and took for granted the existence of industrial society and wanted to make it free and libertarian.”
Chomsky explained that he has always leaned more toward the anarcho-syndicalist tradition. “Something’s got to happen to the 5 billion people in the world,” he said. “They’re not going to survive in the Stone Age.”
Twenty years after that Anarchy interview, Chomsky still firmly believes in the positive role that technology can play in helping humans do whatever it takes to avert ecological collapse. And he believes technology also can help humans sustain their industrial society.
In a January 2011 interview with Mickey Z., Chomsky scoffed at the idea of a de-industrial revolution. “I don’t think that entails downsizing industrial culture,” Chomsky said when asked whether humans can or should downsize their industrial culture before it downsizes itself. “Rather, converting it to sustainable form to serve human needs, not private profit. For example high speed rail and solar technology do not downsize industrial culture.”
Chomsky told Mickey Z. that “the choice today is not between eliminating transportation and wasting fossil fuels, but between more and less wasteful forms of transportation.” According to Chomsky, humans should embrace aggressive energy efficiency efforts, make sharp changes in transportation policies, move toward a sustainable energy future, and make other adjustments that are feasible.
“If done effectively, that might be enough to stave off disaster. If not, then we can give up the ghost, because there are no alternatives in this world, at least none that I’ve seen suggested,” he said.
Based on his answers to Mickey Z.’s questions, Chomsky—20 years after the Anarchy editors asked him for his views on industrial civilization, a period in which the planet has been forced to endure unthinkable abuse at the hands of humans—still takes for granted the existence of industrial society.
Other anarchists and great thinkers, 20 years after Chomsky’s Anarchy interview, now express rage with how humans are committing “ecocide,” a term they probably discovered in the past 10 or 15 years. They view the world from a far less human-centric standpoint. They now realize that the planet, as with nonhuman animals, does not exist for the benefit of humans or their economic system.
When they read that the surging human population on Earth—it’s expected to hit 7 billion later this year—will contribute greatly to the widespread extinction of plants and animals, they don’t shrug their shoulders and say “humans have a right to procreate too.” They take action.
When they read that the second-oldest known Bald Eagle in Alaska was electrocuted on a power line on Kodiak Island, they don’t roll their eyes and say, “I’m not going back to the days before we had electricity just to save a few birds.” They take action.
As many other anarchists and great thinkers have pointed out, embracing industrial society and unencumbered economic growth will lead to a dramatic and violent collapse of human society and the world around it. Instead of taking industrial society as a given, if humans start now—right now—to focus on dismantling this culture and destroying all oppressive relationships, then they and the world around them will have a betting chance of a softer landing.
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Isn't there some country somewhere that uses the Bald Eagle as its symbol or something?
When David Hancock saw the bald-eagle count on the Chehalis River drop from more than 7,000 to fewer than 400 over a few days in December, he knew a crisis was coming. Earlier this week, news reports that starving eagles were “falling out of the sky” in the Comox Valley, on Vancouver Island, confirmed his fears.
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Another of my recent photos:
Uneasy lies the head
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Poem: “haiku overheard on bus"
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Sunday, February 27, 2011
My new novel, "Darker Shade of Green," is now available for pre-order
J.T. is a sensitive but privileged 12-year-old who’s runaway to New York City. He soon comes under the guidance of Allie Romano, a homeless man who stays afloat by challenging people to chess and scamming book clubs for free books to sell. Allie quickly becomes a teacher and mentor for J.T. setting off a chain of events that just might explain how an American chess champion could wind up wanted by the FBI for “eco-terrorism.”
Told in a documentary style, this manifesto/expose weaves internet posts, diary entries, quotes and interviews to tell stories within stories. The reader, much like J.T., has a lot to learn. Award winning author Mickey Z. brings an unrelenting compassion to the troubles of our modern world, pointing us in one clear direction: It’s time to embrace a darker shade of green.
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Another of my recent photos:
Neither rain nor snow, nor sleet nor dark of night...
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Saturday, February 26, 2011
WSJ Expunges Range Resources PR Exec's Comment on 'Gasland'
By Press Action
Gasland Director Josh Fox is bewildered by a quote from a Range Resources Corp. public relations official in a Wall Street Journal article by Ben Casselman, dated Feb. 26, 2011, that suddenly disappeared.
“Why would the quote be published, go on line, and then something happens and they censor it and suppress it,” Gasland director Josh Fox wrote in a statement posted on the documentary’s Facebook fan page. “Not only is the quote deleted but then in its place Tom Price a Vice-President from Chesapeake gets to defend the industry?”
The quote was refreshing. It wasn’t the usual drivel we’ve been getting bombarded with since the gas industry began its all-out campaign to discredit Gasland, a documentary that’s been nominated for an Academy Award.
In the origial version of the article, Casselman, who has covered the energy industry at the Journal for several years, quoted Range Resources-Appalachia Director of Public Affairs Matt Pitzarella as saying: “We have to stop blaming documentaries and take a look in the mirror.”
With this quote, Pitzarella was explaining how the natural gas industry needs to do a better public relations job explaining how it believes its drilling efforts in the Marcellus Shale and other shale gas regions across North America are safe and environmentally sound. But what made the quote unique was the fact that Pitzarella did not blame Gasland or Josh Fox for shining a light on the industry’s practices in the Marcellus, the Barnett Shale in Texas and gas producing basins in Colorado.
Press Action contacted Casselman on Feb. 26 to find out if he knew why the Range Resources spokesman’s quote was removed from his article. In an e-mail response, Casselman wrote: “As a matter of policy, the Journal doesn’t discuss its editorial decisions, so I can’t get into details. But stories are edited all the time between editions, for all sorts of reasons (space, clarity, etc.). So it’s not unusual for the early versions of a story to look different from the final version.”
Dallas-based Range Resources appears to run its drilling operations—as well as its PR shop—a little differently than other well-known shale gas producers. Last summer, in an attempt to placate drilling opponents in Pennsylvania, the company’s Appalachian unit voluntarily decided to disclose the chemical additives it uses in its hydraulic fracturing jobs in the Marcellus Shale. The information is sent to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection as part of the company’s well completion reports and is available on Range’s website.
Other companies have refused to disclose the chemicals they use, arguing that it is proprietary information that might give other producers a competitive advantage if divulged.
Range Resources Chairman and CEO John Pinkerton said in a statement last summer that the disclosure initiative is the start of a series of announcements that aim to educate residents about natural gas production.
“We are very pleased with the response we have received to our initiative and our commitment to achieving the proper balance of pursuing the enormous opportunity that the Marcellus Shale provides and implementing a standard of care for the environment and the communities where we live and work,” Pinkerton said. “We’re hopeful that our voluntary effort will help to dispel misconceptions about the process and allow Range and others to deliver on the potential of this extraordinary resource base.”
Here’s the statement from Josh Fox on Gasland’s Facebook fan page:
Something bizarre just happened at the Wall St. Journal. At 6pm I was reading a home page story on WSJ.com called Oscar’s Attention Irks Gas Industry” by Ben Casselman which contained perhaps the most honest and revealing quote from the gas industry that I have read to date about their obsession with attacking my film GASLAND. The quote reads “We have to stop blaming documentaries and take a look in the mirror,” said Matt Pitzarella, a spokesman for gas producer Range Resources Corp. …
Just thirty minutes later the quote mysteriously disappears, edited out and in its place is a far more typical spin controlled statement from Tom Price of Chesapeake energy saying, “We need to be able to respond objectively and accurately.” Sounds like a robot at a PR agency, more than a person.
What the hell happened? Why did this key quote disappear from the article? Why did the WSJ censor its own piece? Does the Gas industry get to edit the Wall St. Journal?
Was this comment too honest? Is it a crack in their facade? Who pulled the quote? Who made that call saying that this moment of honesty was simply too embarrassing or too true for the industry to admit?
For the first time a Gas Industry spokesman told the truth, that they should look in the mirror instead of attacking our film. You can find the original quote by googling “mirror, Wall St. Journal and Range Resources” but if you read the article now, the quote has vanished.
What is going on here?
Why would the quote be published, go on line, and then something happens and they censor it and suppress it. Not only is the quote deleted but then in its place Tom Price a Vice-President from Chesapeake gets to defend the industry?
Does the Wall St. Journal care to comment? Does WSJ have any independence or integrity? Or does the Gas Industry get to just write it for them.
Is this evidence of what we have long suspected, considerable industry pressure on the mainstream media?
Anyone?
Josh Fox
Director, GASLAND
The article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704692904576166572520368788.html
The original quote:
“We have to stop blaming documentaries and take a look in the mirror,” said Matt Pitzarella, a spokesman for gas producer Range Resources Corp. …”
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Friday, February 25, 2011
Friday Fotos
Thought I’d post a few of my recent images (with a link to more):
Good advice
Old school
Gloves from the film, Raging Bull
Check out more of my photos here
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Tuesday, February 22, 2011
US Establishment Media: Loyal Servants of Government and Big Business
By Press Action
The U.S. establishment media is really no different than Egypt’s state media outlets, the target of criticism and ridicule during Hosni Mubarak’s final days for focusing only on the pro-government demonstrators. Establishment media outlets in the U.S. generally provide uncritical coverage of the pronouncements of government and corporate officials.
Imagine if demonstrations erupted in the United States on the scale of Egypt’s uprising, calling for the ouster of Barack Obama and for the Democrats and Republicans to relinquish their stranglehold on power. The establishment media would be falling all over themselves to parrot the government line about how the protesters are “dangerous terrorists” who want to lead the country into a “state of anarchy.” The U.S. establishment media’s response to such an uprising would make Egypt’s state media outlets look restrained in comparison.
There are so many examples of how the establishment media operates as the propaganda arm of the U.S. government and Corporate America. The Raymond Davis affair, however, offers a clear example of this relationship because the establishment media outlets are unabashedly admitting that they concealed information about Davis’ connection to the CIA at the request of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
The New York Times, Washington Post and Associated Press reported Monday that Davis, an American who shot and killed two people in Pakistan last month, was working for the CIA at the time. While reporting that news, all three establishment media outlets revealed something else: They had been holding back that information at the U.S. government’s request.
On Monday, Glen Greenwald blasted the New York Times for helping the government conceal information and only reporting the facts after the paper had won the government’s “permission”.
“It’s one thing for a newspaper to withhold information because they believe its disclosure would endanger lives,” Greenwald wrote. “But here, the U.S. government has spent weeks making public statements that were misleading in the extreme—Obama’s calling Davis ‘our diplomat in Pakistan’—while the NYT deliberately concealed facts undermining those government claims because government officials told them to do so. That’s called being an active enabler of government propaganda.”
Here’s a list of the media outlets that are known to have either concealed Davis’ connection to the CIA or scrubbed the information from their reporting. I’m sure the list will grow longer as additional scandalous behavior by the establishment media is disclosed or uncovered:
New York Times
The New York Times had agreed to temporarily withhold information about Mr. Davis’s ties to the agency at the request of the Obama administration, which argued that disclosure of his specific job would put his life at risk. Several foreign news organizations have disclosed some aspects of Mr. Davis’s work with the C.I.A.. On Monday, American officials lifted their request to withhold publication, though George Little, a C.I.A. spokesman, declined any further comment.
Associated Press
The Associated Press learned about Davis working for the CIA last month, immediately after the shootings, but withheld publication of the information because it could endanger his life while he was jailed overseas, with at least some protesters there calling for his execution as a spy.
The AP had intended to report Davis’ CIA employment after he was out of harm’s way, but the story was broken Sunday by The Guardian. The CIA asked The AP and several other U.S. media outlets to hold their stories as the U.S. tried to improve Davis’ security situation.
Washington Post
The Washington Post learned of Davis’s CIA affiliation after his arrest but agreed not to publish the information at the request of senior U.S. intelligence officials, who cited concern for Davis’s safety if his true employment status were disclosed.
Those officials withdrew the request Monday after other news organizations identified Davis as a CIA employee and after U.S. officials made a final attempt to prevail upon Pakistan’s government to release Davis or move him to a safer facility.
9NEWS (Denver)
The Guardian newspaper reported Sunday that a Colorado television station, 9NEWS, made a connection after speaking to Davis’s wife. She referred its inquiries to a number in Washington which turned out to be the CIA. The station removed the CIA reference from its website at the request of the US government.
Reuters is not disclosing whether it also withheld information about Davis’ connections to the CIA. However, it would be hard to believe that veteran reporter Mark Hosenball, who has been listed as the lead reporter on the news agency’s stories on Davis since Monday, or one of his colleagues would not have known about Davis’ relationship with the CIA prior to Monday.
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One mo' time: Extinction is forever
After the birds vanish, plants are next to go
Some numbers (as of 2009):
Polar Bear: 3500 left in Alaska
Wolverine: 300 left in lower 48
California Condor: 336 (180 captive)
Whooping Crane: 538 (181 captive)
Mount Graham Red Squirrel: 300
Woodland Caribou: 40
List of extinctions
Michael’s extinction blog
Kurt Vonnegut sez: “Humans are a mistake. We have destroyed our entire planet.”
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Another of my recent photos:
Local branches
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Monday, February 21, 2011
The Associated Press' New Motto: All the News the CIA Permits Us to Print
By Press Action
The Associated Press is a propaganda arm of the U.S. government. Most informed people already knew the AP couldn’t be trusted. But its cover is now officially blown. The AP admitted today that it had learned about Raymond Davis’ connection to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency last month, but declined to report that important piece of information out of deference to the U.S. government.
“The AP had intended to report Davis’ CIA employment after he was out of harm’s way, but the story was broken Sunday by The Guardian,” the AP said in a Feb. 21 story, with Adam Goldman bylined as the lead reporter. “The CIA asked The AP and several other U.S. media outlets to hold their stories as the U.S. tried to improve Davis’ security situation.”
When it comes to foreign affairs reporting, the AP’s editorial decisions are controlled by the U.S. government. Given the CIA’s history of paying reporters to do its bidding, it would not come as a shock if the CIA had an employee assigned to the AP’s newsroom in Washington, giving the so-called news service clearance before it runs with stories on foreign affairs and other matters related to “national security” or “intelligence.”
Davis, a former Special Forces soldier who left the military in 2003, shot two men in the city of Lahore, Pakistan, in what he apparently has described as an attempted armed robbery as they approached him on a motorcycle. He had been working as a CIA security contractor for the U.S. consulate in Lahore.
Hypothetically, let’s say the AP had found out that Jared Loughner had been working closely with al-Qaeda prior to his shooting rampage in Tucson, Ariz., in January. Would the AP had delayed reporting on Loughner’s alleged connections because politicians were already calling for him to be executed and that exposing such a connection would have greatly inflamed passions against him and made it almost impossible for him to receive a fair trial?
Of course the AP would have reported such a connection, just like it would almost certainly report on any potential or confirmed connections of any person suspected of killing Americans. There might be some exceptions to this rule, however. If it were discovered that Israeli agents were behind multiple killings in the United States, for example, AP would likely hold that information until given permission to report it by the U.S. and Israeli governments.
The so-called news service’s new modern tagline is “the essential global news network.” But informed people know the AP is really the U.S. government and Corporate America’s propaganda news network.
I wonder how many other news organizations withheld this information. It might be interesting to learn the identity of the other official U.S. government propagandists in the Raymond Davis affair. But, of course, it wouldn’t be hard to guess … New York Times, Washington Post, Reuters, et al.?
Here’s a copy of the AP story:
Arrested US official is actually CIA contractor
ADAM GOLDMAN
From Associated Press
February 21, 2011 1:38 PM EST
WASHINGTON (AP) — An American jailed in Pakistan for the fatal shooting of two armed men was secretly working for the CIA and scouting a neighborhood when he was arrested, a disclosure likely to further frustrate U.S. government efforts to free the man and strain relations between two countries partnered in a fragile alliance in the war on terror.
Raymond Allen Davis, 36, had been working as a CIA security contractor for the U.S. consulate in Lahore, according to former and current U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk publicly about the incident.
Davis, a former Special Forces soldier who left the military in 2003, shot the men in what he described as an attempted armed robbery in the eastern city of Lahore as they approached him on a motorcycle. A third Pakistani, a bystander, died when a car rushing to help Davis struck him. Davis was reportedly carrying a Glock handgun, a pocket telescope and papers with different identifications.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration insisted anew Monday that Davis had diplomatic immunity and must be set free.
In a hastily arranged conference call with reporters shortly after details of Davis’ employment were reported, senior State Department officials repeated the administration’s stance that he is an accredited member of the technical and administrative staff of the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad. They said the Pakistani government had been informed of his status in January 2010 and that Pakistan is violating its international obligations by continuing to hold him.
The officials would not comment on Davis’ employment but said it was irrelevant to the case because Pakistan had not rejected his status The officials spoke only on grounds of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.
The revelation that Davis was an employee of the CIA comes amid a tumultuous dispute over whether he is immune from criminal prosecution under international rules enacted to protect diplomats overseas. New protests in Pakistan erupted after The Guardian newspaper in London decided to publish details about Davis’ relationship with the CIA.
The U.S. had repeatedly asserted that Davis had diplomatic immunity and should have been released immediately. The State Department claimed Davis was “entitled to full criminal immunity in accordance with the Vienna Convention” and was a member of the “technical and administrative staff” at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad.
The Associated Press learned about Davis working for the CIA last month, immediately after the shootings, but withheld publication of the information because it could endanger his life while he was jailed overseas, with at least some protesters there calling for his execution as a spy.
The AP had intended to report Davis’ CIA employment after he was out of harm’s way, but the story was broken Sunday by The Guardian. The CIA asked The AP and several other U.S. media outlets to hold their stories as the U.S. tried to improve Davis’ security situation.
A U.S. official says Davis is being held at a jail on the outskirts of Lahore where there are serious doubts about whether the Pakistanis can truly protect him. The official says the Pakistanis have expressed similar concerns to the U.S.
A senior Pakistani intelligence official said the government had taken measures to ensure the safety of Davis, stepping up security at the facility, removing certain inmates from the prison and sending a contingent of well-trained paramilitaries known as the Rangers.
The State Department said the Pakistani government was informed that Davis was a diplomat and entitled to immunity when he was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad. “We notified the Pakistani government when he arrived in Islamabad,” department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.
Davis identified himself as a diplomat to police when he was arrested and “has repeatedly requested immunity” to no avail, Crowley said. The U.S. Embassy said he has a diplomatic passport and a visa valid through June 2012. It also said in a recent statement the U.S. had notified the Pakistani government of Davis’ assignment more than a year ago. However, the senior Pakistani intelligence official says that Davis’ visa application contained bogus U.S. contact information.
Since Pakistani authorities took the ex-Special Forces soldier into custody Jan. 27, U.S. officials said, the situation has slowly escalated into a crisis, threatening the CIA’s ability to wage a dangerous war against al-Qaida and militants. Some members of Congress have threatened to cut off the billions in funding to Pakistan if Davis isn’t released.
Davis was attached to the CIA’s Global Response Staff, which provides security overseas to agency bases and stations, former and current U.S. officials told the AP. In that role, he was assigned to protect CIA personnel. One of their duties includes protecting case officers when they meet with sources. On the day he was captured, he was familiarizing himself with the area. He was living out of a CIA safe house in Lahore.
“Davis is a protective officer, someone who provides security to U.S. officials in Pakistan,” the U.S official said. “Rumors to the contrary are simply wrong.”
In a YouTube video of local police interrogating him, Davis says he’s a consultant and he’s with the “RAO,” a reference to the American Regional Affairs Office. Davis also said at one point he was attached to the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad.
Working for the agency’s GRS comes with risks — sometimes fatal ones. The head of security at the CIA’s base in Khost, Afghanistan, was killed with six others in December 2009 after a suicide bomber detonated a powerful explosive under his belt.
The CIA has a major presence in Pakistan, where it runs the drone program in Islamabad and offensive operations against militants, al-Qaida and Pakistan’s spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence.
Former and current U.S. officials say the Pakistanis might have been stalling to release Davis so he could be extensively questioned, hoping he could provide more information about CIA activities in the troubled country or possibly even identify other agency officers.
The senior Pakistani intelligence official told the AP the two men in the response vehicle that went to aid Davis, killing the bystander, have left the country. The official said the Pakistani government’s decision to let them leave was a concession to the U.S.
The U.S.-Pakistani partnership had begun to fray in recent months. In late 2010, a pair of civil lawsuits filed in the U.S. accused Pakistan’s spy chief of nurturing terrorists involved in the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Shortly after the lawsuits were filed, the name of the CIA’s top spy in Pakistan was publicly disclosed and his life threatened. He was eventually pulled out of the country in December, a month before the scheduled end of his tour.
A former CIA officer said militants have also threatened the children of ISI officers. And the CIA in recent years has become increasingly concerned about the safety of its officers in outlying areas like Lahore and Peshawar, a former senior U.S. intelligence source said. But the danger was more pronounced in Lahore, where the CIA learned there might be government elements willing to harm agency officers.
Former CIA officials said the agency officers could have been killed in 2009 when terrorists attacked an ISI compound in Lahore. CIA officers regularly met their counterparts at the compound but didn’t have a meeting scheduled the day of the attack.
Further inflaming tensions, the wife of one of the men Davis shot committed suicide. She had said she feared her husband’s killer would be freed without trial.
Military records show Davis, a Virginia native, served a decade in the Army, including five years with the 3rd Special Forces Group in Fort Bragg, N.C., home to the Green Berets.
Davis also worked for security contractor Blackwater Worldwide, now known as Xe Services.
Davis and his wife run a Las Vegas-registered company called Hyperion Protective Services. The address for its headquarters is a mailbox at a UPS store in a strip mall. The truth about Davis’ true employer briefly slipped out after a local television reporter in Colorado called his wife.
In a story posted on the website of Denver’s 9News, the wife provided the name and number of a “CIA spokesperson” in Washington, D.C. But the story was quickly taken down, edited and then reposted with new language eliminating any reference to the CIA.
The incident in Pakistan also raises serious questions about how an armed CIA employee could become involved in a fatal shooting with street bandits and allow himself to be captured. Former CIA officers say they were taught to make their way back to the safety of the embassy or consulate in potentially dangerous situations, but the circumstances could have made that impossible in Davis’ case.
Former CIA officials say this is not the first time an agency employee was detained in a foreign country. In the 1980s, a CIA officer with diplomatic immunity was abducted in Ethiopia after he was suspected of spying. The case was quietly resolved and the officer was eventually released.
Associated Press writers Oskar Garcia in Las Vegas and Anne Gearan and Matt Apuzzo in Washington and Kathy Gannon in Islamabad contributed to this report.
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Game Over, Washington Nationals! It's Time to Honor America's Anti-Warriors
By Press Action
With the start of baseball’s regular season about a month away, I thought it would be a good time to strongly urge the owners of the Washington Nationals to give a little love to America’s great anti-warriors and freedom fighters. Instead of honoring the U.S. war machine, its foot soldiers and the arms manufacturers that provide the Nats with big advertising dollars, why not honor the people who believe in scaling back or dismantling the U.S. war machine.
Nationals Park, home of the Washington Nationals baseball team, has a wide selection of food it sells to fans. Lots of choices, compared to the old days at RFK Stadium when choice was measured by whether you could get sauerkraut on your half-smoke. Today, the new stadium still boasts the traditional ballpark fare, but the hot dog vendors are complemented by concessions selling hummus plates, grilled vegetable wraps and veggie burgers.
Too bad the Nats aren’t providing fans with a similar variety of people it honors on game days. Unfortunately, the game-day experience is dominated by a celebration of America’s endless wars against the world. Every third inning, for example, the Nats salute a group of soldiers, currently receiving treatment at the nearby Walter Reed Army Hospital, who were wounded through their participation in the U.S. military’s atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan.
My suggestion to the Nats is to mix up its selection of honorees and end the military’s monopoly on the third inning. The team’s owners should honor America’s anti-warriors, the people who’ve made great sacrifices and efforts to stop the U.S. wars on Iraq and Afghanistan and who were active against previous U.S. wars of aggression.
Perhaps the Nats could alternate—recognize a warrior one day and an anti-warrior the next home game. There’s a long list of local residents who’ve made great sacrifices in the cause of stopping war. U.S. Army veteran and career CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who lives in D.C., would make for a perfect third-inning honoree. In 2003, together with other former CIA employees, McGovern founded the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He is also a courageous anti-war activist who was recently assaulted by security personnel and then thrown into D.C.’s jail. Why was McGovern treated this way? Because he had the audacity to stand with his back to Hillary Clinton during her Feb. 16 speech at George Washington University where, ironically, she condemned governments that arrest protesters and don’t allow free speech.
Cindy Sheehan, whose son, U.S. soldier Casey Sheehan, was killed in Iraq in 2004, has since worked tirelessly as an anti-war activist. She would be a perfect third-inning honoree.
Attorneys Carl Messineo and Mara Verheyden-Hilliard have dedicated their lives to protecting anti-warriors’ right to speak out against U.S. militarism and would be ideal candidates for a third-inning honor and standing ovation. Preeminent historian William Blum has long deserved greater recognition for his contributions to helping us better understand U.S. military inventions abroad and honoring him at a Nats game would be a good first step to making amends.
Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, many of whom have endured prison and court martial for their resistance to the U.S. war on Iraq, should have been honored during the third inning of a Nats game long ago. Daniel Ellsberg often travels to D.C. for talks and protests and also is long overdue for such an honor at a game.
And even though he’s being held in solitary confinement at the Marine Base in Quantico, Va., the Washington Nats could generate tremendous goodwill among true believers in democracy and accountability by honoring Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who performed a great service to this country and the entire world by allegedly leaking a video of a U.S. helicopter attack that killed at least eleven Iraqi civilians and allegedly leaking many documents that provide evidence of the terrible crimes committed by the U.S. government around the world.
The list of anti-warriors living in the D.C. area and across this country is long and diverse. Instead of its endless recruitment activities on behalf of the military, the Nats should be doing a better job of honoring people who have made great sacrifices to end U.S. military aggression against planet Earth and its inhabitants. Opening day is more than a month away. That should give the Nats plenty of time to make arrangements for anti-warriors to be honored at a special time during each game or every other game during the upcoming season.
To make your voice heard about ending the U.S. military’s monopoly on the third-inning honors, contact the Nats at 202-675-6287 or the Lerner family, owner of the Nats, at 301-284-6000. Or contact the Nats’ community relations office at http://washington.nationals.mlb.com/help/index.jsp?c_id=was .
In their community relations office, the Nats employ a “community relations assistant for military affairs” named Rafael Delgado. Let the Nats know it’s time to hire a “community relations assistant for antiwar affairs.”
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Sunday, February 20, 2011
Tell the San Diego Padres: Stop Using Children as Instruments of War
Dear San Diego Padres,
I am again appalled that you have decided to sell children on the concept of war-through-baseball. “Dog Tags for Kids” on military opening day? You do realize, I’m sure, that Dog Tags are used to identify the corpses of dead soldiers. Why would you giveaway these items to children? Are you expecting them to die while attending Padre games? I realize that flying baseballs are dangerous, but surely not every child in attendance will be struck with a line drive and perish. Or perhaps there is a bomb inside of the baseball which will ignite the entire downtown area. Is this what are you suggesting? I would think not. So, why do you associate the enjoyable afternoon past-time of baseball with the gruesome world of dead soldiers and camo jerseys?
OK, so you want to honor veterans—no issue there. How about starting with the homeless vets that are herded out of eyeshot from Petco Park? Shouldn’t we take care of those men and women before recruiting new eight-year-olds to serve as cannon fodder?
Sincerely,
Kap Fulton
San Diego, CA
Lifelong Padres Fan
Click here to sign a petition.
We are asking for the San Diego Padres to end all military promotions targetting children. Specifically:
Military Opening Day, April 10, 2011, DOG TAGS FOR KIDS
US Navy Recognition Day Presented By USAA, May 22, 2011, PADRES CAPS FOR KIDS
US Army Recognition Day Presented By USAA, June 12, 2011, PADRES SWEATBANDS FOR KIDS Presented By Northgate Gonzalez Market
US Marine Corps Recognition Day Presented By USAA, June 26, 2011, PADRES BATTING GLOVES FOR KIDS Presented By Cox/Channel 4
US Coast Guard Recognition Day Presented By USAA, July 31, 2011, PADRES BACKPACKS FOR KIDS
National Guard Recognition Day Presented By USAA, August 21, 2011 PADRES MINI BATS FOR KIDS CA
US Air Force Recognition Day Presented By USAA, September 18, 2011, PADRES Hot Wheels™ FOR KIDS
http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-the-san-diego-padres-stop-using-children-as-instruments-of-war
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Saturday, February 19, 2011
My Mom would've been 75 on February 20
A photo slideshow I made this year
I created her very own Facebook memorial page last year
Happy Birthday, Mom...
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Another of my recent photos:
Subway skills
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Thursday, February 17, 2011
Always do the right thing
Individual lifestyle changes won’t do anything to “save the planet,” so why bother? To help answer that question, I defer to Valter, one of the catadores (pickers of recyclable waste in Brazil) featured in the excellent documentary, Waste Land (see post below this one). “One single can is of great importance,” Valter explained, when asked about the value of recycling, “because 99 is not 100.”
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Another of my recent photos:
Cans and bottles, bottles and cans
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Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Always Do the Right Thing (Because 99 Is Not 100)
By Mickey Z.
Da Mayor: Always do the right thing.
Mookie: That’s it?
Da Mayor: That’s it.
Mookie: I got it. I’m gone.
If every American were to make every single lifestyle change suggested in the film, An Inconvenient Truth, it would only result in a 21% decrease in carbon emissions. In fact, while the average human produces 2500 pounds of waste per year, the average per capita waste output is 26 tons…because 97% of waste is produced by agriculture and industry.
Individual lifestyle changes won’t do anything to “save the planet,” so why bother?
To help answer that question, I defer to Valter, one of the catadores (pickers of recyclable waste in Brazil) featured in the excellent documentary, Waste Land. “One single can is of great importance,” Valter explained, when asked about the value of recycling, “because 99 is not 100."
My translation: Never lose sight of the big picture but always do the right thing.
Who wouldn’t want to witness a major reversal of some of our current catastrophic global eco-trends? But, as the legendary journalist I.F. Stone once said: “If you expect an answer to your question during your lifetime, you’re not asking a big enough question.” Making daily—even hourly—choices of resistance isn’t necessarily about being present when the current corporate-dominated paradigm shifts (or is shifted). It’s about doing the right thing ... here and now. It’s about defying the dominant culture in any way we can.
For example, when you buy a used shirt at a local thrift shop instead of opting for a brand new article of clothing sold by a store that supports sweatshop labor, you don’t expect that specific purchase to end workplace inequality and put a halt to conspicuous consumption. You buy the used shirt simply because it’s the right thing to do.
This mentality counters those who say stuff like: “Why should I use public transportation instead of drive? All those other motorists are still using their cars anyway.” Sure ... they are. But you’re not. 99 is not 100 and you, dear comrade, are doing the right thing.
Whether you aim to recycle your old cell phone or to knock over a cell phone tower—again—it comes down to remaining aware of the institutional framework while still doing the right thing many times a day ... all with the same ultimate goal: dismantling a societal system that’s relentlessly assaulting our planet and everything that lives on it.
Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, Mickey Z. can be found on an obscure new website called Facebook.
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Waste Land
I was recently floored by this amazing documentary at the Museum of the Moving Image here in Astoria and I strongly urge you to see it on the big screen:
Learn more about Waste Land here
Find a screening of Waste Land near you
For context, read my 2009 article about landfills
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Another of my recent photos:
As Mussolini sez: “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."
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Sunday, February 13, 2011
Egypt Is Not a Revolution
By Ted Rall
Back in October David Swanson and I debated the role of non-violence in revolutionary change. As it became clear that Egyptian protesters had driven President Hosni Mubarak out of office, Swanson tweeted, in essence, that non-violence had succeeded and that my contention that radical change is impossible without violence (or the credible threat thereof) was wrong.
Let’s be clear: the uprising in Egypt is not a revolution.
It may become a revolution. Right now, however, all we have is a nice start that–based on observation from outside–appears to have little chance of success. Which is sad, because I am so inspired and elated by the events in Cairo and elsewhere in Egypt.
Revolution is the radical restructuring of society, politics, ideology and, not least, economic classes. In a revolution, everything changes. The rich are no longer rich. The poor are no longer poor. Old elites are driven out of power. Outsiders take over.
In Egypt, the military is in charge. They are run by an existing set of elites. The civilian government of Omar Suleiman, though nominally in charge, remains in place. Suleiman was appointed by Mubarak, and was Mubarak’s right-hand man for many years. Mubarak has been allowed to escape. None of these events reflect a revolutionary scenario.
In a revolutionary scenario, Egypt’s poor would enjoy the prospect of no longer living in slums. Former elites, including Suleiman and the generals, would be on trial or have been killed.
If the protesters in Egypt become revolutionists, they will almost certainly be forced to resort to violent force in order to force the capitulation of the oppressor class, which remains in charge. The removal of Mubarak, though exciting, is little more than a palace coup, a change of personnel.
Emancipation requires more—much more—than sitting in Tahrir Square and singing songs.
I hope the people of Egypt step forward and start that process. Freedom awaits, not only for them, not only for the Middle East, but for all of us.
Reprinted with permission of the author from TedRall.com.
Ted Rall is the author of “The Anti-American Manifesto.” His website is TedRall.com.
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Saturday, February 12, 2011
Reflections on the (Possible) Revolution in Egypt
By As’ad AbuKhalil
This is big: very big. I was talking to a friend earlier: this is possibly the biggest strategic shift in the Middle East since the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. The beauty of it for dreamers (and its alarm for enemies like Israel) is that it is unpredictable. The biggest victory is that `Umar Sulaman is out of the picture now. Israel/US/Saudi Arabia were hoping that he would be the extension of Mubarak until some other clone of Mubarak is found. That was not meant to be.
Don’t get me wrong: US and Saudi Arabia will now rush with bags of gold and cash to influence all members of the military command council. The beauty of that is that there is no one person: it is a collective leadership (even if this rules for a transitional period) and the momentum of the Egyptian people will restrict their powers, notwithstanding wishes to the contrary by US/Israel/Saudi Arabia. One person in the council will emerge; we don’t know who: and there will be leaks and back-stabbing and plots and conspiracies.
There will be chaos in Egypt: which is good. People will come from nowhere: don’t memorize the news names of this developing news story: you will hear of new names soon.
This is a big strategic development: if Tunisia affected Egypt: Egypt is destined to affect the entire region (unless you believe that the announcement of cash bonuses from the Bahraini King this morning was a pure act of charity). Israel is in deep trouble, as is the US; Egypt was an intelligence and sabotage center. The entire country and its dyamics are now unleashed on the world. There will be new ideas and new current and trends.
Certainly, the freer the Arabs are, the more trouble for the US/Israel/Saudi Arabia. Read the statement of the Saudi foreign minister: he just yesterday remembered the justice of the Palestinian cause. There is panic in Arab ruling circles. I spoke to a dear Jordanian friend this morning: he was calling to congratulate me. I told him: I now think that I will finally see your farm in Jordan.
Those who stood by the Egyptian uprising (the Arab people and Hizbullah—Hamas was too afraid to speak a word—and Aljazeera and Arab nationalists everywhere) will be in the good grace of the Egyptian uprising. And those who were opposed: the Wahhabi Arab liberals, Israel, House of Saud and its propaganda outlets will be in trouble.
Let me put it this way: Saudi princes will not feel comfortable in returning to the brothels of Cairo anytime soon. The shock for Israel and US is double: not only is Mubarak gone, but so is Sulayman. The ouster of Sulayman ran against their scheme. I believe that Mubarak arranged for that (although the people insisted on it) to get back at the US. Leaving them to scramble. The good thing is that Minister of Defense Tantawi has the leadership skills of Joe (six pack) Biden. Stay tuned.
Reprinted with permission from Angry Arab News Service.
As`ad AbuKhalil is a professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus and a visiting professor at UC, Berkeley and editor of the Angry Arab News Service Web site.
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In case you're planning to buy some chocolate this weekend
From an old Planet Green post of mine:
Some 14 million people are directly involved in cocoa production but that doesn’t mean they love chocolate as much as us. For example, Global Exchange reports that tens of thousands of children between the ages of 9 and 12 have been sold into forced labor cocoa plantations in northern Ivory Coast in Africa. By instituting Fair Trade Certified production criteria, says Global Exchange, we guarantee “a minimum price and insure that no child or forced labor is used. The criteria also stipulate that farmers’ organizations should be organized democratically, and that plantation workers should be able to participate in trade union activities. Fair Trade producers are monitored at least once a year.”
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Another of my recent photos:
The spaces in-between
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Thursday, February 10, 2011
WWF's Hassle-Free Guide to Avoiding Environmental Catastrophe
By Press Action
Saving the planet from environmental collapse will not prove too burdensome for the people who live in the ultra-industrialized regions of the world, according to a new World Wildlife Fund report on global energy resources.
WWF says its report (PDF), released Feb. 3, takes into account “projected increases in population, long-distance travel and increased economic wealth—it does not demand radical changes in the way we live.”
The human population can eat its cake and have a future too. It’s a simple solution, according to WWF, and it’s called biofuel.
“By 2050, we could get all the energy we need from renewable sources. This report shows that such a transition is not only possible but also cost-effective, providing energy that is affordable for all and producing it in ways that can be sustained by the global economy and the planet,” James P. Leape, director general of WWF International, writes in the introduction to the report, “The Energy Report: 100% Renewable Energy By 2050.”
WWF commissioned Ecofys, a Netherlands-headquartered consultancy, to determine if it would be possible to achieve 100% renewable energy supplies for everyone on the planet by 2050. The group wanted to find out how humans would provide for their future needs—in other words, maintain their destructive way of life—without running into such huge issues as conflicting demands on land/water availability and use; rising, and in some cases, unsustainable consumption of commodities; nuclear waste; and regionally appropriate and adequate energy mixes.
The report notes that supplies of cheap, conventional oil and gas are declining while energy demand continues to increase. “It is clear that our reliance on fossil fuels cannot continue indefinitely. With the world’s population projected to increase to over 9 billion over the next 40 years, ‘business-as-usual’ is not an option,” WWF says.
Why does the World Wildlife Fund care about the world’s diminishing energy resources? Because its mission is to protect “the magnificent array of living things that inhabit our planet and to create a healthy and prosperous future in which humans live in harmony with nature,” it writes. “Solving the energy crisis is fundamental to this, whatever tough choices and challenges it brings.”
Energy derived from the sun, the wind, the Earth’s heat, water and the sea has the potential to meet the world’s electricity needs many times over, according to the report. But the key ingredient to saving the planet without disrupting our lavish way of life is biofuel.
“Biomass from waste, crops and forest resources has potential to provide a renewable source of energy—although this raises significant social and environmental issues,” WWF says.
WWF concludes that bioenergy (liquid biofuels and solid biomass) will need to be used as a last resort when other renewable energy sources are not viable—primarily in providing fuels for airplanes, ships and trucks, and in industrial processes that require very high temperatures.
The world can meet part of this demand from waste products, but it would still be necessary to grow sustainable biofuel crops and take more wood from “well-managed forests” to meet demand, according to WWF. “Careful land-use planning and better international cooperation and governance are essential to ensure we do this without threatening food and water supplies or biodiversity, or increasing atmospheric carbon,” the report says.
Imagine all of the crops and forests that will need to be grown and harvested to provide enough bioenergy to sustain growth among the world’s capitalist economies. The scope and awesome intensity of these practices could be even more devastating to the planet than the current techniques used to extract fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas.
How does the WWF intend to grow these crops and sustain their “well-managed forests”? As environmentalist and writer Derrick Jensen points out in his book Endgame, oil and natural gas are used not only as energy sources. “Natural gas is the feedstock from which nearly all chemical fertilizers and pesticides are derived,” he explains. “No natural gas, no industrial agriculture.”
Also, according to Ecofys, the world will still need to burn a small amount of coal in 2050 (less than 5% of total energy supply) because some industrial processes, such as steel manufacturing, depend on specific chemical properties, as well as the very high temperature heat that it can produce.
In fact, WWF and its partner Ecofys really don’t have it all figured out. “Research is needed into alternative production processes or materials that will allow us to phase out fossil fuels altogether,” WWF writes.
Some industrial processes, such as steel manufacturing, require fuels not only for their energy content, but as feedstocks with specific material properties, the report says. By 2050, 60% of industrial fuels and heat will come from biomass, while 13% of building heat will come from biomass and some biomass will still be needed in the electricity mix (about 13%) for balancing purposes with other renewable energy technologies.
For cement, because of the high temperatures required, only half of the fuel needs can be provided by biomass, with the rest coming from fossil fuels. But where biomass is used, any combustible biomass is suitable, according to the report.
Essentially, WWF’s report offers no ultimate solution to our society’s addiction to fossil fuels and, through WWF’s proposed reliance on biofuels, it offers no solution to our society’s addiction to destroying the land and contaminating the water.
Instead of spending a large chunk of its members’ money on this study, WWF probably should have told its members that our existing way of life is unsustainable and should have instructed them to focus on the hard task of dismantling our industrial culture if, in fact, their goal is to provide future generations with a livable planet.
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My new poem: "It's show time, kids"
Somewhere between the factory farms
or perhaps just below the land mines…
I can sense it
Right there, despite the rapist’s leer
Above the WHOOSH of the cruise missile’s launch
You can hear it (can’t ya?)
The prison gates lock, the sweatshops whir
But nothing can slow it down…
anymore
Not even the yellow ribbons or the veal crates
Not the smell of napalm or
the clinking coins in a homeless man’s cup
It’s bigger than the strip malls
Deeper than the strip mining
It’s not genetically modified
Can’t be patented or commodified
You won’t find it in your inbox
Can’t learn it from a text or tweet
Not visible with your gaze so diverted
But it’s there
It’s always been there, in fact
The difference, friends:
Now there’s nothing left to hide it
All you gotta do is open your eyes
...and see
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Another of my recent photos:
Just dunk it
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Tuesday, February 08, 2011
Coming soon: My new novel, "Darker Shade of Green"
It will be published by Raw Dog Screaming Press in April 2011.
A random excerpt:
What amazed me most was Allie’s hand movement from the chessboard to the time clock. It was like he knew exactly how far each piece was from the clock. In blitz chess, every second counts and Allie’s fluid motion gave him a major league edge. Plus, I just loved to hear him lecture as he played.
“A good opening is vital, but vastly overrated,” Allie whispered to his overmatched opponent. “The opening lays the foundation and sets the pace for the middle-game.” His opponent made a tentative move and I noticed a minute smirk on Allie’s face as he aimed a subtle glance in my direction.
“What most people neglect to accept,” declared Allie, “is the necessary improvisation of the endgame.”
As he spoke the word “endgame,” Allie plunked down his bishop and his opponent meekly offered his hand in resignation. I knew what Allie really meant by “endgame,” but this poor sap only knew that he had just gotten his chess butt royally kicked.
You can order my first novel, CPR for Dummies, here
You can order my second novel, Dear Vito, here
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Another of my recent photos:
Just imagine what our lungs look like
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Sunday, February 06, 2011
Remembering Ronnie Raygun
Noted war criminal Ronald Reagan was born on February 6, 1911. So, as the myopic media mark his “centennial,” I choose instead to dig out the “obituary” of sorts I wrote back when he died:
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Another of my recent photos:
Fossilized?
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Friday, February 04, 2011
Interview with "Love in the Time of Dinosaurs" author, Kirsten Alene
Kirsten Alene sez: “When I was writing it I was just thinking that dinosaurs with guns are fucking awesome.”
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Another of my recent photos:
Serf’s up
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Thursday, February 03, 2011
'Love in the Time of Dinosaurs'
An Interview with Author Kirsten Alene
By Mickey Z.
Dinosaurs and insightful writers ... or am I being redundant? Well, I’m happy to say reports of their mutual demise have been greatly exaggerated. Case in point: Love in the Time of Dinosaurs by Kirsten Alene.
The Portland, Oregon resident is the author of Chiaroscuro (2009), a poetry chapbook and “several stories and poems currently circulating the worldwide web.” Most recently, she’s penned the above-mentioned Love in the Time of Dinosaurs, a novella from Eraserhead Press, that’s been said to portray “a world filled with complex politics, spirituality, history, and a sense of actual existence in some parallel dimension.”
As I dug into Alene’s novella, I was at the ready for metaphors, allusions, and other buried treasures within the Bizarro context. After just one chapter, I was too busy getting attached to the characters, plot, and pace to analyze. That could wait for the ensuing interview … which went a little something like this:
Mickey Z.: Extinct creatures have returned to wreak havoc using modern weapons. Seemingly pious monks are trapped by long-obsolete paradigms. Limbs and other body parts haphazardly reattached and reanimated with help of magical kung fu. Forbidden love. And so much more. Can you provide a roadmap of sorts through the metaphors and meanings?
Kirsten Alene: All summed up in those words, I would say the only roadmap is that I was very recently a teenager. I will try to say this without being poetic but, to be young is to be at war with the world, isolated, estranged, in conflict internally and externally, and dying all of the time just to be sewn back together again by people you don’t really like. That’s where that could probably came from. When I was writing it I was just thinking that dinosaurs with guns are fucking awesome. The plastic guns were inspired by a character in Cameron Pierce’s Shark Hunting in Paradise Garden who has something like the Midas Touch only he turns things into mannequins.
MZ: It feels to me that you’re still at war - not with the world but with those fucking up the world, those using all kinds of new weapons to create all kinds of new extinctions. Yet at the root of the story is star-crossed love, growing and thriving amidst all the sliced off limbs.
KA: Well ... I’m getting married in eight days, so there had better be some epic romance in there. I’ve been in the love-y mode. Maybe my next book will be less obvious on that front.
MZ: I’ve written: “All you need is love ... and a small, well-trained army.” Looks like you might agree?
KA: And some chickens and a goat. And also 2-3 solar panels and a large plot of land. And corn. Other than that—yes.
MZ: Can you walk us through the process that brought you to not only becoming a writer but a writer of Bizarro fiction?
KA: When I was seven (soon after winning a school poetry contest with a touching prose poem entitled “I Opened My Eyes"), I told my grandfather I was going to be a writer when I grew up. He told me that was fine, but that I would need to get a real job. I decided to be an English professor. For practice, I read every book on the Harvard Classics Library bookshelf and preached obnoxiously to my three younger siblings. But despite my classical literature obsessions, I’ve always written weird, disjointed fiction where a lot of people die and get eaten by monsters. I started talking to Cameron Pierce a year ago and he directed me to a free download of Andersen Prunty’s Zerostrata. It was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to write. It made me angry that someone else had written it. I read a bunch of Bizarro really quickly after that and Love in the Time of Dinosaurs erupted out of my brain.
MZ: Was the book’s relatively short length by design?
KA: I felt like it was a story that needed to be told relatively quickly and without any nonsense. (My goal was 20,000 words and it ended up being about 19,000.) I am a huge fan of short novels. There is beauty in brevity.
MZ: Any advice for wanna-be writers?
KA: About writing: write all the time and be published everywhere. Short stories, news articles, poems, horoscopes, it doesn’t matter.
About editors: be gracious and not afraid of compromise. No story is ever complete when the author finishes writing it. Most editors know what they’re talking about, even if you’re 55 and they’re 22.
About books: people have told me over and over, and I have discovered myself that no one can ever do more for your book than you can. Agents, publishers, editors ... no one is going to promote your book as well as you.
MZ: William Burroughs once said that artists were the true architects of change. What would you like readers to take away from reading Love in the Time of Dinosaurs? What change might your work inspire?
KA: I think the only thing I (and this book) want to tell people is that they should love one another and themselves. That sounds a bit lame. But it’s the only thing worth telling people. This book doesn’t have a message - but I think every time love sneaks into a conversation or a story and changes someone, it’s a little triumph for people.
Kirsten Alene is also the editor of the webzine Unicorn Knife Fight.
Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, Mickey Z. can be found on this crazy new website called Facebook.
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Wednesday, February 02, 2011
The logic of democracy?
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Another of my recent photos:
Dumpster divers welcome here
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Poem: “haiku concurrence, part deux"
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My relatively new Facebook project:
(Please click “like” and join the page)
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Monday, January 31, 2011
60 Minutes: Putting the BS in CBS
By David Swanson
The reason people in Tunisia, Egypt, and other parts of the world have been influenced to some extent by the work of Wikileaks is that they have read or heard about the material that Wikileaks has helped to make public. The CBS program “60 Minutes” has just published video of an interview with Wikileaks’ Julian Assange—with the video focused, of course, on Assange himself, with almost no substantive content related to the massive crimes and abuses that have made news around the globe.
The value of the “60 Minutes” video is not in its potential to inform anyone about Wikileaks. We can’t, after all, judge the utility of informing Americans about their nation’s illegal spying, bombing, war making, or coup facilitating until Americans are actually informed of it, which will require that we finally drop the BS “reporting” on Assange’s childhood and haircuts.
The value of the “60 Minutes” video is in its potential to inform us about CBS and the corporate media in the United States, of which it is a typical or even above average example. 60 Minutes’ Steve Kroft shot six hours of interview with Assange, which “60 Minutes” cut down to snippets for tv viewing. Some decent questions may have been asked. If so, they didn’t make the cut.
Kroft tries desperately in the interview to distinguish Assange from respectable journalists. At one point he explains to Assange that most reporters interpret information, whereas Wikileaks puts out raw data for others to interpret. Of course, this isn’t true of Wikileaks, which has often provided context and explanations, transcriptions and timelines. What it hasn’t done is pile ideological spin and fluff on the information it has sought to communicate.
An example of what’s wrong with the practice of most U.S. reporters is Kroft’s video presentation of this interview. Kroft does show a bit of the famous “Collateral Murder” footage but “interprets” it by leaving out the criminal shooting of the van, a clear crime committed by U.S. forces in Iraq.
Immediately after accusing Assange of not really being a reporter, Kroft asks Assange why he mistrusts authority. Assange begins to answer, and before three words are out Kroft jumps to a voiceover focusing on Assange’s childhood. Who knows whether Assange tried to answer the question Kroft should have asked: “Where do you see the greatest and smallest gaps between actual governmental behavior and public pretenses?” Kroft had already introduced the segment by calling the belief that governments use secrecy to suppress truth a “conspiratorial view,” so presumably Kroft thought he already knew the answer: there are no such gaps.
Kroft describes Assange as paranoid and explains nonsensically: “There are reasons for his paranoia.” Kroft cites Wikileaks’ release of information that might have displeased governments in Kenya and Tunisia, a neo-Nazi group, and the Scientologists. When Kroft finally comes to the United States, it doesn’t seem as likely a source of danger to Assange as the dreaded Scientologists’ death squads. Assange points out the number of U.S. government officials and media figures who have called him a terrorist or proposed killing him. Kroft insists that not many people take seriously the idea that Assange is a terrorist. And yet Kroft later claims that Americans believe Bradley Manning, an accused leaker of information to Wikileaks, is “a traitor.” Kroft cites no polling to substantiate either claim. We’re just supposed to credit his wisdom as a real journalist.
Digging for a way to accuse Assange of something (just as the U.S. Department of Justice is openly and criminally engaged in trying to invent a crime for which to prosecute him), Kroft reaches for that old standby, the laughably inaccurate suggestion of hypocrisy. Kroft tells Assange that he abhors secrecy and yet runs a secretive organization. Assange rightly responds that he keeps sources secret for good reason (something U.S. journalists were once able to relate to) and that he does not oppose governments keeping any secrets at all, he opposes them covering up crimes and blocking accountability.
Well, well, well, says Kroft, you’re just weird, cult-like, and paranoid—or at least that’s what I heard. Kroft always attributes his fluff and BS to others, which is what makes it “objective,” although it fails to make it valuable. When the you’re-weird accusation doesn’t seem to stick, Kroft tells Assange that he can’t be a journalist because he’s an activist. When Assange replies that “activist” has become a dirty word in the United States, Kroft agrees. But Assange points out that Wikileaks does a particular sort of activism; it doesn’t advocate for policies, it informs people so that they are able to advocate for or against things. This strange sort of activism could also be called journalism, if “journalism” hadn’t come to mean advocacy for a corporate agenda and celebration of government secrecy.
Without noting the power of investigative journalism, Kroft does note the power of Wikileaks—without apparently wondering where it comes from. This is another, more absurd than ever, chance to accuse Assange of hypocrisy. If you are a check on the powerful, Kroft says, who is a check on you? A-ha, caught him!
Assange replies that sources and donors would dry up if Wikileaks were not doing good work. There is a far better answer than that one. For all I know, Assange gave it and it was cut. That answer is this: If Wikileaks releases information that people find valuable and informative, then that information will make its way to those who diligently search for it on the internet or live in nations with decent communications systms. If not, then Wikileaks will be ignored. But as long as Wikileaks is interesting masses of people, any error of any sort made by Wikileaks will be attacked by those in control of governments and television networks.
When Kroft calls Assange anti-American, Assange claims the lineage of Jefferson and Madison. In fact, Jefferson, on his best days, wanted the public fully informed of what its government was doing, and believed that only an informed public could prevent complete corruption. We’re almost there—at complete corruption—right now. Wikileaks is an exception. Those following its lead are a threat to the current system. Kroft, a so-called journalist, tells Assange that there are special rules to be followed in handling classified information. Assange corrects him. There are rules, Assange points out, for government employees and members of the military, but not for publishers. Publishers are covered by the First Amendment. Assange is right, of course, but shouldn’t Kroft know this already? And shouldn’t he be deeply ashamed to have published this video?
If they let you get away with this . . . , Kroft tells Assange, who interrupts to finish his sentence: “. . . they’ll have to have freedom of the press.” Exactly. Assange tells Kroft he’s willing to risk jail for that. Kroft gives us no reason to believe he doesn’t hold such behavior in contempt. No doubt the early Christian saints, if alive today, would be smart enough not to risk punishment and professional enough to intersperse advertisements for Pfizer’s drugs in their pronouncements, as Kroft does.
And yet, Kroft almost certainly believes that by asking Assange about every crazy point of view invented on Fox News he has done Assange a great favor, played devil’s advocate, offered Assange a platform from which to respond to what everybody who’s anybody thinks of him. In an extra video on the “See BS” website, Kroft declares Assange a journalist or at least a publisher.
This extra clip, believe it or not, is an interview of Kroft by one of his colleagues who praises him for his “intellectual sparring” with Assange, as he recounts the exciting behind-the-scenes work of conducting an all-fluff interview of an actual reporter.
It’s all the more frustrating to watch this crap after having spent days watching actual live television news reporting from Egypt on Al Jazeera English. The lack of journalism in the United States is not a function of the medium of television. It is a function of many systemic weaknesses, but also of our willingness to treat the pretense of journalism like the real thing.
Those who consider “activist” among the cleanest of words can get involved in preventing the United States from imprisoning or killing Assange here: http://warisacrime.org/node/56469
David Swanson is the author of “War Is A Lie” and “Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union.” He blogs at http://davidswanson.org and http://warisacrime.org.
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An interview with poet, Andrew Rihn
Some guy named Percy Shelley once said poets were the “unacknowledged legislators of the world.” So, I’m thinking maybe Percy’s been hanging out in Canton, Ohio with Andrew Rihn, author of the inventive new poetry collection, America Plops and Fizzes, from sunnyoutside press.
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Another of my recent photos:
A passage to Malkovich?
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Saturday, January 29, 2011
Utah Phillips sez:
"The earth is not dying. It is being killed, and the people killing it have names and addresses."
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Another of my recent photos:
Stop in the name of snow
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My new Facebook project:
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Thursday, January 27, 2011
It's FAQ time
With extra time on my hands thanks to being phased out of all my paid writing gigs, I’ve started penning more old school “radical” articles lately. Not surprisingly, a lot of the same reader reactions have been provoked and have thus inspired me to create the following:
Why are you attacking me for my way of life?
Why don’t offer any step-by-step solutions?
Why do you always focus on the negative?
Why aren’t you marching in lockstep with me? You suck.
Since you seem to think you have all the answers, exactly what should we do?
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Another of my recent photos:
Flaking out
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Bonus link:
My latest Long Island Pulse fitness column
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Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Why Are You So Negative? (and Other FAQ)
By Mickey Z.
FAQ: Why are you attacking me for my way of life?
MZ: That’s easy: Our way of life is really a “way of death” and is directly responsible for the current global crises I write about. We also might want to agree to save the word “attack” for, say, those living under the US taxpayer-funded predator drones, cruise missiles, and depleted uranium shells. Let’s save it for countless victims of child abuse. Let’s save “attack” to describe the reality of one rape every 46 seconds in America. Okay?
FAQ: Why don’t you offer any step-by-step solutions?
MZ: Way too many people imply that unless a critic expounds a specific strategy for change, his/her opinion is worthless. This remarkably unsophisticated 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.
Besides, what value would my “solutions” hold while we are still in the midst of myriad global crises? I like to imagine that if we began detaching ourselves from a system designed to destroy us (and all life) and began dismantling that system, we’d create a space in which we could recognize paths and options currently invisible to us.
FAQ: Why do you always focus on the negative?
MZ: Becoming an activist can be an incredibly positive experience: creating community, inspiring change, feeling empowered. While most humans choose instead to use their meager time chasing money, collecting possessions, and obsessing over pop culture, the activist sees a bigger picture, a longer view, a deeper connection. However, being an effective activist also requires us to tear off the blinders and become acutely aware of how our way of life has devastated the planet.
More importantly, what does the term “negative” mean in this context anyway?
If you went to a doctor, would you deem him/her negative for talking about how high your cholesterol levels are instead of, say, focusing on your excellent fingernail health? If you brought your car in for a tune-up, do you want the mechanic to compliment you for keeping your tire pressure at the right level but stay away from a negative topic like defective brakes? Of course not …
Why then do so many humans shut down when confronted with the realities of our current social, economic, and environmental crises? Why is analysis that presents a dose of reality smugly dismissed as “negative”? Don’t you want to know what’s going on and how you can help address it beyond minor lifestyle changes and the petty conflicts of party politics? Why not save your knee-jerk “negative” retort for those who directly or indirectly support the corporate-sponsored rape of our planet?
News Flash: It’s not “negativity” that’s the issue here, folks. It’s denial.
Antonio Gramsci wrote, “I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.” I can think of no better mantra for activism. Don’t shy away from learning the ugly realities of industrial civilization but never let these brutal truths prevent you from taking urgent action and believing you can create change and save lives—human and non-human lives. It’s a delicate balance but our ability to walk this fine line could literally make all the difference in the world. We need a planet brimming with pessimistic optimists …
FAQ: Why aren’t you marching in lockstep with me? You suck.
MZ: Of course, no one phrases this question quite so bluntly but it’s astonishing to me how often a fellow human can be virtually in synch with my perception/lifestyle/worldview but choose instead to angrily dwell upon the issues on which we differ. Purity is not a realistic or productive goal.
FAQ: Since you seem to think you have all the answers, exactly what should we do?
MZ: This is the most disingenuous FAQ of all. You know exactly what needs to be done. If you walked into a room and saw a man attacking someone you loved, would you ask an obscure writer like me what you should do? Would you write a letter to Congress, sign a petition, hold a candlelight vigil, vote for a Democrat … or would beat the attacker’s ass from one end of the room to the other?
And for the record, I definitely do not think I have all the answers … but I sometimes feel I have more questions than most.
Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, Mickey Z. can be found on this crazy new website called Facebook.
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Monday, January 24, 2011
My conversation with Derrick Jensen
Derrick Jensen sez: “My loyalty is with the nonhuman and human victims (or targets) of this culture, and my work is toward stopping this culture’s assaults on nonhumans, on the land, on the planet itself, on women, on indigenous peoples, on the poor.”
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Another of my recent photos:
Grate full
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Sunday, January 23, 2011
'We Need to Stop This Culture Before It Kills the Planet'
A Conversation With Derrick Jensen
By Mickey Z.
As you begin reading this interview, take a look at the nearest clock. Now, dig this: Since yesterday at the same exact time, 200,000 acres of rainforest have been destroyed, over 100 plant and animal species have gone extinct, 13 million tons of toxic chemicals were released across the globe, and 29,158 children under the age of five died from preventable causes.
Worst of all, there’s nothing unique about the past 24 hours. It’s business as usual, a daily reality—and no amount of CFL bulbs, recycled toilet paper, or Sierra Club donations will change it even a tiny bit.
As you do your best to convince yourself of the vast chasm between the two wings of America’s single corporate party, I suggest you listen carefully to hear if even one of the politicians mentions any of the following:
- Every square mile of ocean hosts 46,000 pieces of floating plastic
- Eighty-one tons of mercury is emitted into the atmosphere each year as a result of electric power generation
- Every second, 10,000 gallons of gasoline are burned in the US
- Each year, Americans use 2.2 billion pounds of pesticides
- Ninety percent of the large fish in the ocean and 80 percent of the world’s forests are gone
- Every two seconds, a human being starves to death
This is just a minute sampling, folks, and sorry, but your hybrid ain’t helping. That reusable shopping bag you bring to the market has zero impact. Your home composting kit is not gonna start a revolution.
In fact, even if every single person in the US made every single change suggested in the movie An Inconvenient Truth, carbon emissions would fall by only 21%—in contrast to the 75% emissions decrease that scientific consensus believes must happen ... now.
None of this, of course, is news to Derrick Jensen. He is the author of essential works such as A Language Older Than Words and Endgame. His worldview has nothing to do with party politics, incremental reform, leftist in-fighting, corporate compromise, or anything that seeks to tweak but ultimately maintain the ongoing global crime we call civilization.
“My loyalty,” he told me, “is with the nonhuman and human victims (or targets) of this culture, and my work is toward stopping this culture’s assaults on nonhumans, on the land, on the planet itself, on women, on indigenous peoples, on the poor.”
If you’ve grown weary (and wary) of the entrenched Left and all the words left unspoken, you owe it to yourself to read the rest of our conversation below. Afterwards, you just might start realizing that you also owe it to the planet to get busy.
Our exchange took place during the week of January 17 and went a little something like this …
Mickey Z.: We’re starting this conversation as another MLK Day is observed. Not much of a chance that we’ll hear this Dr. King quote—“The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be”—mentioned much by the corporate media, huh?
Derrick Jensen: Just today I read an article stating that, no surprise, industrial-induced global warming will be far worse than estimated, and if carbon emissions continue as expected, could render much of the planet uninhabitable within 100 years. Even now, 150-200 species are driven extinct every day. This culture extirpates indigenous peoples. The oceans are being murdered. And today I saw a study of rates of fire retardant in every fetus. And on and on. And yet those of us who are working to stop this planetary murder are sometimes characterized as extremists.
I think the real extremists are the people who value capitalism over life, the people who value civilization over life. I cannot think of any more extreme position than valuing this insane culture over life.
MZ: Not surprisingly, another major African-American figure from the 1960s—Malcolm X—had some positive words for extremism in the name of toppling that insane culture. Using Hamlet as a springboard, Malcolm wrote:
“(Hamlet) was in doubt about something—whether it was nobler in the mind of man to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune—moderation—or to take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. And I go for that. If you take up arms, you’ll end it, but if you sit around and wait for the one who’s in power to make up his mind that he should end it, you’ll be waiting a long time. And in my opinion, the young generation of whites, blacks, browns, whatever else there is, you’re living at a time of extremism, a time of revolution, a time when there’s got to be a change. People in power have misused it and now there has to be a change and a better world has to be built and the only way it’s going to be built with—is with extreme methods. And I, for one, will join in with anyone—I don’t care what color you are—as long as you want to change this miserable condition that exists on this earth."
DJ: I think the key has to do with wanting to change this miserable condition.
I try to be fairly inclusive of the people I would work with, but I’ve realized over the past many years that I’m not working toward the same goals as many of the environmentalists who are explicitly working to save capitalism or to save civilization, rather than the real world. In talks and interviews I often ask what all of the so-called solutions to global warming or the murder of the oceans, or biodiversity crash, etc, all have in common. And what they all have in common is that they all take industrial capitalism as a given, and the natural world as that which must conform to industrial capitalism. That is literally insane, in terms of being out of touch with physical reality. I mean, look at Lester Brown’s Plan B 4.0 to Save Civilization. What does he want to save? Could he be any more explicit? He wants to save civilization. But civilization is killing the planet. It’s like writing a book about how to save a serial killer who is murdering so many people he’s running out of victims. We see this attitude all the time. When people, for example, ask how we can stop global warming, they’re not asking how we can stop global warming; they’re asking how we can stop global warming without changing the physical conditions (burning oil and gas, deforestation, industrial agriculture, and so on) that lead to global warming. And the answer to that question is that you can’t. Likewise, when they ask how we can save salmon, they aren’t really asking how we can save salmon, they’re asking how we can save salmon without removing dams, stopping industrial logging, stopping industrial agriculture, stopping industrial fishing, stopping the murder of the oceans, stopping global warming, and so on.
A question I keep asking is: with whom (or what) do you identify? Where is your loyalty? Whom, or what do you want to save? And if what you really want to save is this “miserable condition”—capitalism, civilization, what have you—at the expense of the planet, then we’re not really working toward the same goal, are we? My loyalty is with the nonhuman and human victims (or targets) of this culture, and my work is toward stopping this culture’s assaults on nonhumans, on the land, on the planet itself, on women, on indigenous peoples, on the poor.
MZ: It’s a testament to the power of propaganda how even well-meaning folks will choose the options—both public and private—that work against their own interests. Gay rights activists are currently applauding the alleged repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” In the name of promoting diversity and inclusion, they are celebrating the ability to volunteer for an institution that exists to violently crush all diversity and inclusion.
The conditioning is so interwoven throughout every aspect of our culture that even respected Leftist thinkers simply cannot comprehend your comment, “civilization is killing the planet” and resort to retorts about “misanthropy.”
So, the question must be asked, Derrick: Can these people be reached with the message that we can’t have industrial capitalism as a given without all the murderous side effects?
DJ: There’s a great line by Upton Sinclair about how it’s hard to make a man [sic] understand something when his [sic] job depends on him not understanding it. I think that’s true even more for entitlement. It’s hard to make someone understand something when their entitlement, their privilege, their comforts and elegancies, their perceived ability to control and manage, depends on it.
So much nature writing, social change theory, and environmental philosophy are at best irrelevant, and more often harmful in that they do not question human supremacism (or for that matter white supremacism, or male supremacism). They often do not question imperialism, including ecological imperialism. So often I feel like so many of them still want the goodies that come from imperialism (including ecological imperialism and sexual imperialism) far more than they want for these forms of imperialism to stop. And since the violence of imperialism is structural—inherent to the process—you can’t realistically expect imperialism to stop being violent just because you call it “green” or just because you wish with all your might.
Here’s another way to say this: as I say in Endgame, any way of life that requires the importation of resources will a) never be sustainable and b) always be based on violence, because a) requiring importation of resources means you are using more of that resource than the landbase can provide, which is by definition not sustainable (and as your city grows you’ll need an ever larger area to harm); and b) trade will never be sufficiently reliable, because if you require some resource (e.g., oil) and the people who live with or control that resource won’t trade you for it, you will take it, because you need it. It’s inherent. One of the many implications of this is that if you don’t question imperialism itself, the solutions you present will be absurd, and either irrelevant or harmful.
Here’s a story. A couple of weeks ago a tree fell down in a storm and knocked down an electric wire in this neighborhood. My neighbor told me about it, and when I saw the downed tree I looked and looked and looked for the stump, to see where the tree came from. I couldn’t find it. I’ve looked again every time I’ve gone by that place. Well, today I was walking and I saw where it came from. The top of a big tree had broken off. It was really obvious when I looked up instead of down. Point being (instant aphorism): You can search as thoroughly as is possible, but you’ll never find what you’re looking for if you’re looking in the wrong place.
This applies to everything from personal happiness to solutions to global warming.
But the problem is worse than mere entitlement. RD Laing came up with the three rules of a dysfunctional family:
Rule A is don’t.
Rule A.1 is Rule A does not exist
Rule A.2 is Never discuss the existence or nonexistence of Rules A, A.1, A.2
This is as true of dysfunctional cultures as dysfunctional families. So we cannot talk, for example, about the fact that this culture is only one way of living among many, that this way of living is based on conquest and the acquisition of power, that this way of life systematically destroys landbases, other cultures, and on and on. Systematically, functionally.
But it’s worse than this. In the 1960s a researcher attached electrodes to people’s eyeballs to track where they looked, and then showed them pictures. What the researcher found is that if the photo contained something that threatened the person’s worldview, the person’s eyes would not even track to it once: they would evidently see it out of the corners of their eyes, and know where not to look. So far too often you can make the point as reasonably as you can, and the person will have no idea what you are talking about.
MZ: Considering the glacial rate by which most humans—myself very much included—recognize and address destructive or self-destructive patterns in their personal life, it’s difficult to imagine a lot more humans allowing their eyeballs to focus in on global crises and their obscured causes. High Noon is approaching and it seems most of us don’t even know how to tell time.
Speaking of High Noon, I recently watched the classic 1952 film and found myself focused on the moment when Amy (Grace Kelly), the pacifist wife of Marshal Kane (Gary Cooper), shoots and kills a man to save her husband’s life. Earlier in the film, Amy had declared: “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, she not only ends up shooting a man, she also fights off the main villain, which allows Marshal Kane to finish him. Now, before some readers run and tell Gandhi on me, what I’m proposing as the lesson is that when faced with the clarity a crisis can sometimes inspire, we can recognize that those clock hands are inching towards noon and surprise ourselves (as Grace Kelly’s character did) with our ability to take things to a new level.
If not, what chance do we (the animals, the trees, the eco-system, etc.) have?
DJ: Very little chance. Even if people don’t care about nonhumans, recent estimates are that billions, literally billions, of humans will die in what is beginning to be called a climate holocaust. This is if the temperature rises 4 degrees Celsius.
And the most recent estimates are revealing that global warming is far worse than previously believed (have you ever noticed how the previous estimates were always low?), and could go up 16 degrees C within 90 years, rendering much of the planet uninhabitable ("Science stunner: On our current emissions path, CO2 levels in 2100 will hit levels last seen when the Earth was 29°F (16°C) hotter—Paleoclimate data suggests CO2 ‘may have at least twice the effect on global temperatures than currently projected by computer models’"). This means that there are young people now who will die in this climate holocaust. And there are too many people who prefer this wretched, destructive way of life over life on the planet, and literally over their own children. We need to stop this culture before it kills the planet.
MZ: Although I feel there’s way too much hand-holding in the realm of activism and far too many progressives sitting idle as they wait for a leader to give them direction, I must ask you this: What types of immediate direct action might you suggest to those reading this interview, in the name of stopping this culture before it kills the planet?
DJ: I think the important thing is that they start doing some form of activism. I can’t tell people what to do, because I don’t know what is important to them and I don’t know what their gifts are. But the important thing is that they start. Now. Today.
So how do you start? The problems are so huge! Well, the way I started as an activist was the result of the smartest thing I ever did. When I was in my mid-20s I realized I wasn’t paying enough for gasoline (in terms of including any of the ecological costs, etc), so for every dollar I spent on gas I would donate a dollar to an environmental organization (never a national or international organization, but rather local grassroots organizations), but since I didn’t have any money I would instead pay myself $5/hour to do activist work, whether it is writing letters to the editor or participating in demonstrations. My first demos were anti-fur demos and anti-circus demos. And don’t let your perceived ignorance stop you: I had no idea what exactly was wrong with circuses, but I knew they were exploitative of nonhuman animals and so I showed up, and other people handed me signs. If anyone asked me, What’s wrong with circuses? I just pointed them to the person standing next to me. I went from there to other forms of activism, including filing timber sale appeals, and so on. The point is that I started. At the time it cost $10 to fill my tank with gas, and if I filled it once a week, that meant two hours per week. And I started having so much fun with the activism that I stopped keeping track of how many hours I was doing activism, and just did it. But the important thing is that I got off my butt and started doing something.
It’s also important that when people do activism, that it not simply be personal stuff: environmentalism especially has gone down the dead end of lifestylism, where people think that changing their own life is sufficient. Just today I read an article that said, about water, “First of all, turn off the water when you don’t need it. It’s that simple. I don’t want to sound too preachy, but, according to UNICEF and the World Health Organization, lack of access to clean drinking water kills about 4,500 children per day. The water won’t magically travel from our taps to someone in need, but creating a mind-set of conservation will certainly help. There is absolutely no purpose served by letting water you are not using run down the drain.” This is just absurd. Yes, lack of access to clean water kills 4500 children per day, but it’s not because of my own water usage. 90 percent of the water used by humans is used by agriculture and industry. So all these environmental pleas for simple living are tremendous misdirection: these children (and what about the salmon children, and the sturgeon children, and so on) aren’t dying because I brushed my teeth: they’re dying because agriculture and industry are stealing the water. Just yesterday I read that Turkey is sacrificing all nature reserves to put in dams. This is not so people can have showers. It’s for agriculture and industry.
I live pretty simply, but that’s because I’m a cheapskate. I turn off the water while I brush my teeth, too. Big fucking deal. That is not a political act. There are no personal solutions to social problems. None.
So when I say that people should do some activism, I mean do something good for your landbase. Stop destructive activities. Do rehabilitation. Or if your primary emergency is violence against women, then do work against domestic violence, or against pornography, or against the trafficking in women. Get started.
Like Joe Hill said, “Don’t mourn, organize.”
MZ: I like to tell people that we live in the best time ever to be an activist. We’re on the brink of economic, social, and environmental collapse. What a time to be alive. We can take part in the most important work humans have ever undertaken. How lucky are we? In this era of “hope and change,” I say action is always better than hope. Or, as Rita Mae Brown said, “Never hope more than you work."
DJ: Yes, I get so tired of people saying they hope salmon survive, or hope this or hope that. But what is hope? Hope is a longing for a future condition over which we have no agency. That’s how we use the word in every day language. I don’t say, “Gosh, I hope I put my shoes on before I go outside.” I just do it. On the other hand, the next time I get on a plane I hope it doesn’t crash. After I get on the plane I have no agency. Think of this: if a parent says to an eight-year-old child, “Please clean your room,” and the child says, “I hope it gets done,” we all know that’s ridiculous. I asked an eight-year-old what would happen if she said that to her parents, and she said, “Someone has to clean the room!”
That kid is smarter than a lot of environmentalists. It’s ridiculous to say we hope global warming doesn’t kill the planet when we can stop the oil economy that is causing global warming. I’m not interested in hope. I’m interested in agency, and I’m interested in people no longer waiting for some miracle to solve their problems. We need to do what is necessary.
MZ: When you first began writing and speaking about civilization and the eventual collapse, did you ever truly imagine that you’d be around to see things as bad as they are right now?
DJ: No. And even though I wrote in The Culture of Make Believe about the ways in which economic collapse can lead to more and more brownshirt-ism and fascism, I’m still kind of stunned at the way it is happening here. But more to the point, even though I’ve written something on the order of fifteen books about this culture’s insanity, I still cannot believe this isn’t all a bad dream, with this frenzied maintenance of this culture as the world is murdered. I keep wanting to wake up, but each time I awaken this culture is still killing the planet, and not many people care.
MZ: I’m sure you can’t even calculate how many times you’ve been interviewed but I’m wondering if there’s a question you always wished you’d been asked but so far, no one has done so. If so, by way of wrapping up, please feel free to ask and answer that question.
DJ: Four questions:
Q: You’ve said many times that you don’t believe that humans are particularly more sentient than other animals. Where do you draw the line?
A: I don’t draw the line at all. I don’t see any reason to believe anything other than that the universe is full of a wild symphony of wildly different voices, wildly different intelligences. Humans have human intelligence, which is no greater nor less than octopi intelligence, which is no greater nor less than redwood intelligence, which is no greater nor less than flu virus intelligence, which is no greater nor less than granite intelligence, which is no greater nor less than river intelligence, and so on.
Q: How did the world get to be such a beautiful and wonderful and fecund place in the first place?
A: By everyone making the world a more beautiful and wonderful and fecund place by living and dying. By plants and animals and fungi and viruses and bacteria and rocks and rivers and so on making the world a better place. Salmon makes forests better places because of their existence. The Mississippi River makes that region a better place because of its existence. Bison make the Great Plains a better place because of their existence.
Civilized humans do not make the world a better place because of their existence. They are collectively and individually making the world a less beautiful and wonderful and fecund place. How can you make the world a better place? What can you do to make the landbase where you live more healthy, more beautiful, more fecund? And why aren’t you doing it?
Q: What will it take for the planet to survive?
A: The eradication of industrial civilization. Industrial civilization is functionally, systematically incompatible with life.
The good news is that industrial civilization is in the process of collapsing.
The bad news is that it is taking down too much of the planet with it.
Q: So if industrial civilization is collapsing, why shouldn’t we just hunker down and make our lifeboats and protect our own, and basically take care of our own precious little asses?
A: I would contrast the narcissism and cowardice of this attitude with that expressed by Henning von Tresckow, one of the members of the German resistance to Hitler in World War II. When the Allies invaded France in 1944, anybody paying any attention at all knew that the Nazis were going to lose: it was just a matter of time. So some members of the resistance suggested that they stop working to take down the Nazis, and instead just protect themselves until the war was over, basically hunker down and make their lifeboats and protect their own. Henning von Tresckow responded that every day the Nazis were killing 16,000 innocent civilians, so basically every day sooner they could bring down the Nazis would save 16,000 innocent civilians.
There is more courage and wisdom and integrity in that statement than in all the statements of all the craven lifeboatists put together.
Between 150 and 200 species went extinct today. They were my brothers and sisters. It is not sufficient to merely hunker down and wait for the horrors to stop. Salmon won’t survive that long. Sturgeon won’t survive that long. Delta smelt won’t survive that long.
Here’s another way to say all this. I would contrast the narcissism and cowardice of the lifeboatists with the attitude expressed by my dear friend, and the person who really got me started in environmentalism, John Osborn. He has devoted his life to saving as much of the wild as he can, through organized political resistance. When asked why he does this work, he always says, “We cannot predict the future. But as things become increasingly chaotic, I want to make sure that some doors remain open.” What he means by that is that if grizzly bears are around in 30 years they may be around in fifty. If they are gone in 30 they are gone forever. If he can keep this or that valley of old growth standing, it may be standing in 50 years. If it’s gone now, it will be gone for a long, long time, maybe forever.
As you said, Mickey Z, we are living at a time when we have perhaps more leverage than at many previous times. Any destructive activity we can halt now may protect that area until the collapse: people couldn’t realistically say that in the 1920s. I believe it was David Brower who said that every environmental victory was temporary while every loss was permanent. I think we are quickly reaching the point where every victory can be permanent.
One final thing: the single most effective recruiting tool for the French Resistance in WWII was D-Day, because the French realized once and for all that the Germans weren’t invincible. Knowing that this culture is collapsing should not lead us into narcissism and cowardice, but should give us courage, and should lead us to defend the victims of this culture.
For more about Derrick Jensen and his work, you can find him on the Web here.
Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, Mickey Z. can be found on a somewhat obscure website called Facebook.
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The Seven Stages of Mickey Z.
Expendable Michael recently explained to me how he feels my work “has changed in these stages” over the years he’s been reading it:
1. Here is a problem, they are liars and/or idiots
This developed to...
2. Here is a bigger problem, they are liars and this is getting serious
Then:
3. We all know they are liars, don’t trust them
4. Fuck them
5. They are fucking us
6. They are fucking us, what are we going to do about it?
7. Really, what the fuck are we going to do about it?
Any thoughts?
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Another of my recent photos:
Caught red-handed
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My new Facebook project:
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Friday, January 21, 2011
Beat Your Daisy Cutters Into Daisies
Green-spirited seed bombs and mean-spirited Daisy Cutter bombs. Take a wild guess which one is illegal here in the land of the free.
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Another of my recent photos:
Splish splash...
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Wednesday, January 19, 2011
My interview with Noam Chomsky
What will happen if activists don’t kick things up a few thousands notches and provoke massive changes in the way humans currently live? Chomsky and I, of course, agree it’d be best to create such change and not find out the answer to that question. On a few other points, we didn’t agree.
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Another of my recent photos:
Beam me up...
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Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Downsize or Modify? A Conversation with Noam Chomsky
By Mickey Z.
While Noam Chomsky surely needs no introduction, as they say, that doesn’t mean interviewing him has to follow a blueprint. So, after seeing him in a video called “Are We Running Out of Oil?”, I decided to initiate a conversation about the future…or perhaps lack thereof.
What will happen if activists don’t kick things up a few thousands notches and provoke massive changes in the way humans currently live? Chomsky and I, of course, agree it’d be best to create such change and not learn the answer to that question. On a few other points, we didn’t agree.
Our discussion went something like this…
Mickey Z.: I recently watched a video on climate change in which you were one of the featured interviewees. You talked quite somberly about the recent elections being a “death knell” for humanity and us “kissing our species goodbye.” I’ve read your work for decades but can’t seem to recall you using such language in this context. In your view, have we humans waited too long to take action? Do you believe we can/should downsize our industrial culture before it downsizes itself?
Noam Chomsky: If I said the elections are a death knell, I went too far. But I think it’s fair to say that they do threaten that outcome. Even the business press is concerned. Bloomberg Business Week reported that the elections brought into office dozens of climate change deniers, swelling support for Senator James Inhofe, who has declared global warming to be the “greatest hoax ever perpetuated on the American people” and feels “vindicated” by the election. He probably is also celebrating the ascendance of representative John Shimkus who assures us that God would prevent dire effects of climate change; analogues would be hard to find in other societies. And probably is also celebrating the fact that according to recent polls, barely a third of Americans now believe that human activities are a factor in climate change—very likely the result of a major corporate propaganda offensive, openly announced, to achieve this result. It’s important to bear in mind that those who orchestrate the campaigns know as well as the rest of us that the “hoax” is real and ominous, but they are pursuing their institutional role: maximizing short-term profit and putting aside “externalities,” in this case the fate of the species. Modifying the core institutions of the society is no small challenge. This confluence of factors should serve as a grim warning. If the US continues to drag its feet on addressing these grave problems, the rest of the world will have even less incentive to proceed with serious measures. I don’t think that entails downsizing industrial culture. Rather, converting it to sustainable form to serve human needs, not private profit. For example high speed rail and solar technology do not downsize industrial culture.
MZ: When I say “downsizing industrial culture,” I’m suggesting that any lifestyle based on relentless resource extraction is by definition, un-sustainable. So, I would counter that “serving human needs” is partly what got us in this mess in the first place. Considering that 80% of the forests have been destroyed and 90% of large fish in the ocean are already gone, maybe we need a more holistic perspective on “needs”?
NC: I’d still give the same answer. Human needs are served by a sustainable lifestyle, almost by definition, if humans include coming generations. And a shift to such technologies as high-speed rail instead of maximizing fossil fuel use, and solar energy, is not “relentless resource extraction.”
MZ: I guess what I mean is what about non-human needs? We can’t survive without a functioning eco-system and most of the accepted suggestions—recycled goods, CFL bulbs, etc.—are way too little, way too late. As someone who has surveyed the shifting tides of human culture, can you foresee Americans stepping up to make the kind of changes and sacrifices required to ensure “coming generations”?
NC: I’m not sure what you mean by “non-human needs.” A functioning eco-system is a human need. Are you thinking of the needs of non-human animals? Say beetles? They’ll probably survive whatever we do to the eco-system. I quite agree that the standard suggestions are too little. If they are too late, then it follows, logically, that we really can kiss each other goodbye. But I think that’s too grim a forecast. On whether Americans can step up, it’s hard to be optimistic. Certainly current trends are in the opposite direction, as I mentioned.
MZ: So, if you’re not optimistic about Americans stepping up, what it is that keeps you from maintaining as “grim” a forecast as I?
NC: Because not being optimistic falls a long way short of predicting that all is finished. There are still options. If you really think the game is over, what’s the point of even discussing these topics?
MZ: The only game I feel is over is the widespread belief that minor tweaks and changes can make enough of a difference. What I’m sincerely wondering is what, as you see it, are the options that remain?
NC: I think we agree on that. The options that remain are much more dramatic and far-reaching initiatives, and the sooner the better.
MZ: Which brings me back to my initial point about downsizing. High-speed rail requires unsustainable and toxic practices like mining, etc. Solar energy is obviously better than fossil fuels but isn’t truly sustainable if it’s solely used to replace fossil fuels in the name of supporting an unsustainable industrial/technological culture. As for those beetles you mentioned earlier, surely you know that valuable insects like bees are being wiped out by this same human culture. So what I’m asking is for a clearer idea of what you see as the dramatic and far-reaching initiatives we need.
NC: Bees are being wiped out, but beetles aren’t. The choice today is not between eliminating transportation and wasting fossil fuels, but between more and less wasteful forms of transportation. Same with regard to solar energy. There’s no point discussing options that haven’t even a remote chance of being implemented, and would be massively destructive if they were. What has to be done today is (1) large-scale conversion (weatherizing, etc.), (2) sharp change in transportation to greater efficiency, like high-speed rail, (3) serious efforts to move to sustainable energy, probably solar in the somewhat longer term, (4) other adjustments that are feasible. If done effectively, that might be enough to stave off disaster. If not, then we can give up the ghost, because there are no alternatives in this world, at least none that I’ve seen suggested.
Also, I do not see how we can rationally oppose high speed rail because of the environmental and other costs without considering the social and human consequences of the radical elimination of transportation that this entails.
MZ: I do so because I feel the “environmental and other costs” are virtually indistinguishable from the “social and human consequences.” Preserving the unsustainable system that has put all life on earth at risk, to me, carries far worse potential consequences than beginning the process of dismantling that system. Neither option is even remotely appetizing but only one option accepts the inherent destructive nature of the industrial infrastructure as it stands now.
NC: Your reply illustrates exactly the problem I see constantly. You are certainly entitled to this opinion, but merely asserted, it cannot carry any conviction. I’m sorry that you don’t see that your comment does not address the issue.
MZ: I’m sorry that you can’t see how it does.
NC: Then we agree.
MZ: Although we continued talking at that point, this marked the end of our official interview. However, I feel I would be remiss if I did not voice my fervent disagreement that there are “no alternatives in this world” to the four options Chomsky lists above.
We all know there’s much, much more everyone of us could be doing—right now—and the only reason so many believe these tactics don’t have “even a remote chance of being implemented” is that so few activists can see past (non-indigenous) “human needs” and/or have the stomach for drastic change. To me, the option that’s most “massively destructive
Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, Mickey Z. can be found on this crazy new website called Facebook.
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Monday, January 17, 2011
Too bad we don't get to hear the real MLK
MLK sez: “One day the absurdity of the almost universal human belief in the slavery of other animals will be palpable. We shall then have discovered our souls and become worthier of sharing this planet with them.”
(Thanks, RMJ)
MLK sez: “When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
Read my 2010 MLK Day article here
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Another of my recent photos:
On the coat check line at the newly re-opened Museum of the Moving Image (MOMI) in Astoria
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Saturday, January 15, 2011
Planet Overkill
Look around the gym. How many people do you see lifting more weight than they can handle? You know the type: usually men, big arms and chest, equally big gut, thin legs, and not a shred of muscular definition. Not to mention, the aching shoulders, elbows, knees all covered in an assortment of Ace bandages. All of them chasing what cannot be caught because it doesn’t exist…like the missile gap.
In 1960, John F. Kennedy gave America the infamous “missile gap” when he claimed the U.S. nuclear arsenal had fallen behind the Soviet stockpile. Upon his election, JFK revealed that a gap indeed existed but it turned out that it was the U.S. that had the advantage. “That didn’t stop Kennedy from launching a nuclear-arms buildup,” adds Crock.
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Another of my recent photos:
The sun contains 99.85% of the mass in the solar system
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Thursday, January 13, 2011
Photos from Bluestockings: Jan. 12
Signing Self Defense for Radicals
Q&A with Jasmin and Marisa
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Tuesday, January 11, 2011
My January 12 vegan/AR event (weather-permitting) is dedicated to Mom
January 12 marks three years since my Mom passed away. Each year so far, I’ve struggled with finding the “right” way to mark such a sad occasion.
On Jan. 12 2011, I will participating—along with Marisa Miller Wolfson and Jasmin Singer—in a vegan/activist/animal rights event at Bluestockings.
My lifelong love of animals and thus my eventual transition to veganism can be directly traced back to my Mom’s influence. No one loved animals more than she.
So, this event is an ideal way to honor her...and also an ideal way to educate my fellow activists about the importance of extending their quest for justice beyond human rights before it’s too late.
I hope some of you can be there at the event (and I hope it doesn’t get snowed out). You will not regret it. Either way, please spread the word.
Thanks...
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Another of my recent photos:
Fountain range
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Sunday, January 09, 2011
It's even worse than we imagined...
The effects of climate change are about to get much, much uglier. With my Jan. 12 vegan event looming, I thought I’d re-run this article highlighting a damn good reason for choosing a plant-based lifestyle:
According to a new report from World Watch, animal byproducts are responsible for 32.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide human caused greenhouse gas. It’s even worse than we imagined…
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Another of my recent photos:
Streetlight snowflakes
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My brand new Facebook project:
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Please tell your NYC friends about my writing workshops:
Starting in early February in Astoria
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Thursday, January 06, 2011
Consider yourselves "stung"
I’m no fan of Sting or his safe, trendy political stances...but he did write some decent lyrics back in the day, e.g. “Driven to Tears":
“How can you say that you’re not responsible?/What does it have to do with me? What is my reaction, what should it be/confronted by this latest atrocity?”
Noam Chomsky sez: “You are responsible for the predictable consequences of your actions.”
...but how many of us ever consider the “predictable consequences” of how we eat, what we say, where we shop, how we spend, whom we trust for information, what stances we’re willing to take and/or support? Terror attacks have become increasingly common. More often than not, these atrocities can be traced back to something the US government or the corporations that own it or nations aligned with it have done while we averted our eyes. As Americans, it is our tax dollars that fund the US war machine...and the retribution that war machine provokes cannot be shrugged off by any of us. Our lack of curiosity and suspicion enables the corporate media. Our willingness to trust and believe our leaders empowers them far more than our votes.
“Seems that when some innocent die/all we can offer them is a page in some magazine. Too many cameras and not enough food/this is what we’ve seen.”
Billions of our fellow humans live in abject poverty. Yes, Sting...there are too many cameras (not to mention all the other diversions disguised as consumer electronics) but there is enough food (at least for now). Why are so many starving in places overflowing with resources and what does that have to do with me, you, and every single one of us?
“Protest is futile, nothing seems to get through/What’s to become of our world? Who knows what to do?”
Amen to the protest line (as Mitch Hedberg sez: “I’m against picketing, but I don’t know how to show it.")...and we can readily see what will “become of our world” if we remain on the current path: if a select few continue to rape the planet, hoard the resources, and spend billions to keep our eyes averted and our focus distracted.
Look around...it’s already happening.
Who knows what to do? Just about every single one of us knows what to do...but most have yet to find the impetus to start doing it. It requires seeing with new eyes, making changes in way we live, and perhaps exposing ourselves to a fair amount of sacrifice and risk. The sides are being drawn...but the world’s 587 billionaires cannot stare down the hungry, angry eyes of three billion living on two dollars a day without the support of proxy armies and the tacit approval of distracted, disinterested Westerners.
“Hide my face in my hands/shame wells in my throat.
My comfortable existence is reduced to a shallow meaningless folly”
The ball, as they say, is in our court.
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Another of my recent photos:
Astoria-bound N Train now entering the station
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Monday, January 03, 2011
It's 2011: Are you ready for the revolution?
Being a revolutionary needn’t require one to sleep till noon, dress entirely in black, and sport a rail-thin, heroin addict physique. Then again, neither should Michael Moore ever serve as anyone’s role model for healthy rebellion. If you agree that fitness—both mental and physical—is a crucial component for any serious subversive, read on…
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Another of my recent photos:
The outer fringe of the Times Square New Year’s Eve madness
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New Boro link:
Go Back to the Future at the New York State Pavilion
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Sunday, January 02, 2011
Press Action Heroes: Bringing Clarity to the Madness
By Press Action
You don’t cover your ears or shield your eyes. You understand the value of inner peace but refuse to turn away from the violence. You realize you cannot control everything around you. But you have the courage to do what you can to undermine the people who purport to control you. The cynics label you an idealist, a dreamer, impractical and unrealistic. But you ignore them.
Your actions bring greater clarity to the world around you. You challenge conventional wisdom. The motives of the people who wish to sustain the status quo of endless aggression are now in sharper focus because of you, as are the motives of those who wish to ratchet up the violence to an even higher level of madness.
No matter which elite faction controls the levers of power, the issues that you care most about remain front and center. You recognize conditions will get much worse before there will be wholesale improvement. Real change, as you are accustomed to saying, will not come easily.
And yet, you embrace small victories and can appreciate the value of incremental change. You’re not averse to compromise. At the same time, you take steps to confront, weaken and eventually dismantle the systems and institutions that allow the violence to continue.
You care about the planet and its inhabitants. You love life and the beauty of this world.
You have an edge. You get frustrated with the slow pace of change and sometimes wonder if it’s worth the effort and sacrifice. But you have the ability to free up and focus on yourself, the one thing you can control and change. That’s why you don’t get burned out or disillusioned. While others may become numb and decide to give up the fight, you recognize there is no other way. That’s why you’re a Press Action Hero ...
Ali Abunimah, journalist
Meredith Aby, anti-war activist
Adam Engel, philosopher
Julian Assange, editor
Missy Comley Beattie, writer
Steve Best, professor
William Blum, historian
Thomas Burke, anti-war activist
Noam Chomsky, professor
Rod Coronado, animal rights activist
Tim DeChristopher, environmental activist
Bruce Dixon, journalist
Daniel Ellsberg, military analyst
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet
Norman Finkelstein, professor
Glen Ford, journalist
Peter Gelderloos, author
Amy Goodman, journalist
David Graeber, professor
Glenn Greenwald, lawyer
Chris Hedges, journalist
Joseph Iosbaker, anti-war activist
Dahr Jamail, journalist
Derrick Jensen, philosopher
Robert Jensen, professor
Diana Johnstone, journalist
Mick Kelly, anti-war activist
Margaret Kimberley, journalist
Kevin Kjonaas, animal rights activist
Naomi Klein, journalist
Saul Landau, filmmaker
Franklin Lopez, filmmaker
Dara Lovitz, lawyer
Lacy MacAuley, journalist
Bradley Manning, soldier
Sarah Martin, anti-war activist
Marie Mason, environmental and animal rights activist
Eric McDavid, environmental activist
Keith McHenry, political activist
Stephanie McMillan, cartoonist
Cindy Milstein, author
Tracy Molm, anti-war activist
Chuck Munson, organizer
Ralph Nader, social and political activist
Michael Parenti, political scientist
Leonard Peltier, Native American activist
Ann Pham, anti-war activist
John Pilger, filmmaker and author
Will Potter, journalist
Ted Rall, cartoonist
Phil Rockstroh, philosopher
Mike Roselle, environmentalist
Arundhati Roy, author
Jeremy Scahill, journalist
Cindy Sheehan, anti-war activist
Jeffrey St. Clair, journalist
Lynne Stewart, lawyer
Paul Street, journalist
Jess Sundin, anti-war activist
Stephanie Weiner, political and social activist
Naomi Wolf, author
Steff Yorek, anti-war activist
John Zerzan, author
Mickey Z., anti-war, environmental and vegan activist
Dave Zirin, sportswriter
... as are millions of other people around the world.
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Friday, December 31, 2010
One More Year of Inhumanity Coming to a Close: What Happens Next?
By Pablo Ouziel
This year the list of atrocities committed under the guise of representative democracy is extensive, as anyone concerned in analyzing the actions of governments in the West can ascertain. If it was our wish, we could bombard the airwaves with images of suffering people from around the world, and swiftly link their pain to the corrupt institutions of government we have accepted as legitimate. With similar ease, we could trace the wealth accumulated by a small minority of ruthless economic elites, to their governmental bonds. But I see little need in contributing to this exercise considering the amount of relevant information already available. Instead, I find it more useful to speculate about what happens next. I am fairly confident that is what those bearing the brunt of our inhumanity must wonder. Will we end the bombs? Will we stop the banks? Will we transform our democracies?
What a meaningless term democracy has become when uttered under the context of our 21st century Western reality. Do we really think the democracy we live embodies the dream our ancestors thought they were fighting for? I do not think it does. I think instead, that Western democracy, the democracy of imperial expansion embodies the violence and misery it claims to diffuse. The tragic thing is, that many Western citizens one speaks to, make similar observations, yet, the wheel continues to turn and its movement destroys many innocents. How can the wheel stop, when the citizenry goes along for the ride? When there is little will to change direction?
Let us take for example the self-proclaimed left-wing progressives of the United States. Imbued by arrogance and complacency, two years ago, they went along with the message of hope communicated by the now president of the United States. Their strategic plan was to vote Mr. Obama into office, and then convince him to act on their wishes for a better world. Their argument being, that he represented the lesser of the two evils. In retrospect, one can see that he was not the lesser of the two evils; he was a different evil representing the same class interests, with different rhetoric and face. Nevertheless, the progressive embrace of yet another criminal into the office of the United States has served to fuel and legitimize once again, the Nation’s expansionary venture of military violence and legalized capitalist crime.
With the year coming to a close, one can only assume that either these so called progressives made a strategic blunder, or they had no will for real change. I am inclined to believe that the choice was made to continue with the charade because there is no will for a paradigmatic change. But these are big words, and for this reason, many will discard what I have to say. So in order to at least begin the process of describing the kinds of actions, which I think are needed for a paradigm change to take place, below I will present a few suggestions a wilful citizenry can undertake in the coming year, in order to stop the inhumanity that today has become the norm.
Global General Strike
If there was indeed a true sense of solidarity and responsibility, those around the world who claim to fight for the betterment of the human experience on earth, could begin 2011, with an attempt to coordinate a Global General strike. A strike for peace and equality, in which workers refuse to work until everyone on earth is guaranteed equal social rights to shelter, food, and medicine. In the century of globalized capital, only a globalized citizens movement can effectively ward-off the ruthless attacks coming from the capitalist class. One does not need to be a Marxist in order to understand this, reading the day’s headlines of any mainstream newspaper clearly reveals the ruthless game being played by those running our capitalist economies.
Removing Our Money from the Banks
Another action that could proof useful in 2011 would be for those interested in real change to undergo a coordinated action of removing their money from banks. During the current global financial crisis it has become blatantly clear to what extent our money in the bank is serving to finance our own material and moral impoverishment. Why would we be interested in continuing to finance our own demise?
Refusal to Pay Taxes
The next action, which I would suggest, would be a globally coordinated effort to encourage citizens to stop paying the proportion of their taxes used for financing military ventures. Contrary to what we are led to believe, there is no such thing as a benevolent army, soldiers are trained to kill, and that is what they are doing around the world on a daily basis. Let us stop it if we really want change.
Hunger strike
Staging a hunger strike for peace with the collaboration of millions of concerned citizens from around the world, would certainly force governments to revise their continued militarization. A Gandhian inspired strike of this type in which those who refuse war are willing to suffer in themselves in order for things to change, could have a great impact. Imagine students, workers and retirees from around the world, together succumbing to such a painful ordeal in solidarity with their brothers and sisters in conflict zones, where our governments are destroying people’s existence.
Blank Vote
If you do not agree with the candidates presenting themselves to the next election, please do not vote for the lesser of the two evils, it is the surest way to avoid any meaningful change. If you have doubts about this, look at what Obama’s message of hope and change has amounted to.
I did not invent any of these tactics, so I claim no originality, I am just one more concerned Western citizen, using the internet while we still have it available for this kind of dialogue, in order to ask publicly the question I often ask myself: What must we do if we hope for change? I understand that many will disagree with my suggestions, and indeed might be offended by the tactics I propose, but if you really want change and you are not seeing it, tell me what we can do. As far as I am concerned, our current collective path is the path of No-Hope and No-Change, and I refuse to be a part of the charade. Let us hope next year is a little more humane.
Pablo Ouziel’s articles and essays are available at pabloouziel.com.
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2011: Coming Attractions?
Alfred McCoy sez: “A soft landing for America 40 years from now? Don’t bet on it. The demise of the United States as the global superpower could come far more quickly than anyone imagines.”
Read McCoy’s full article here
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The primary mental “disorder” is called “Corporate Capitalism"
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Another of my recent photos:
Up and down
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Wednesday, December 29, 2010
On the Run: From Agee to Assange
By Press Action
WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange has reportedly reached book contracts with a pair of publishers to write his autobiography. Assange recently told The Sunday Times that the deals will bring in more than $800,000 from New York publisher Alfred A. Knopf and another $500,000 from U.K. publisher Canongate. Assange said he agreed to the deals because he is under financial pressure due to repercussions from his work with WikiLeaks. A publication date has yet to be determined.
While you wait for the release of Assange’s book, check out a copy of Philip Agee’s On the Run from your local library. It’s a chronicle of the former CIA officer’s struggle to survive after the publication of his book Inside the Company.
On the Run is a fast-paced political thriller. Agee is the hero, the individual who puts his life on the line by exposing the CIA’s dirty work around the world. He is the champion of government transparency. Because his disclosures embarrass and effectively undermine the interests of the U.S. ruling elite, Agee is hunted down by the CIA, banned from several European countries, and imprisoned and detained on multiple occasions. The U.S. ruling elite call him a traitor, a criminal and many other unsavory names—badges of honor for the CIA defector. Sound familiar?
Agee describes how in 1978, Joseph Biden, a young senator from Delaware and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, “called for a new law to stop my revelations by criminalizing the exposure of undercover intelligence officers.”
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Here we are 32 years later and Biden is continuing in his role as stalwart defender of state secrecy and authoritarian rule. Speaking Dec. 19 on NBC’s Meet the Press, Biden, now as vice president of the United States of America, likened Assange to a “hi-tech terrorist.”
“If he conspired to get these classified documents with a member of the U.S. military that is fundamentally different than if someone drops on your lap … you are a press person, here is classified material,” Biden said.
Back in 1978, when Agee was helping to launch the pioneering magazine Covert Action Information Bulletin and releasing his second book (co-edited with Louis Wolf), Dirty Work: The CIA in Western Europe, another Democratic senator (and future vice presidential candidate) railed against the rights of Agee to engage in free speech. Agee wrote in On the Run: “Lloyd Bentsen of Texas stood up on the Senate floor saying I ‘should go to jail’ and calling for passage of a so-called ‘Intelligence Identities Protection Act’ that he had introduced two years earlier.”
In 2010, aside from Biden, many other members of the U.S. ruling elite have made incendiary comments about Assange, displaying their true totalitarian colors.
Establishment foreign policy guru William Kristol asked: “Why can’t we use our various assets to harass, snatch or neutralize Julian Assange and his collaborators, wherever they are? Why can’t we disrupt and destroy WikiLeaks in both cyberspace and physical space, to the extent possible?”
Former Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin said WikiLeaks has committed “treasonous” acts and asked why Assange is not treated like an Al Qaeda or Taliban leader.
Long-time Democratic political consultant Bob Beckel said: Assange is “a traitor, he’s treasonous, and he has broken every law of the United States. And I’m not for the death penalty, so ... there’s only one way to do it: illegally shoot the son of a bitch.”
In an apparent reference to U.S. Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning and not Assange, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said “whoever in our government leaked that information is guilty of treason, and I think anything less than execution is too kind a penalty.” Imagine what Huckabee would be calling for if a CIA officer defected from the Agency today and started naming names like Agee did in the 1970s.
In 1982, the U.S. Congress passed the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, legislation aimed at protecting the integrity of the U.S. intelligence state. The law made it a federal crime to intentionally reveal the identity of an agent whom one knows to be in or recently in certain covert roles with a U.S. intelligence agency.
According to Agee, though, the law also made it a crime for a religious organization, a university, or a political group to expose a CIA or FBI agent who has infiltrated them for information, manipulation or disruption. He wrote in On the Run that the law was crafted to protect secret operations as well as secret agents “because exposures of ‘activities,’ including crimes, usually were impossible without including ‘participants.’”
Philip Agee died in Cuba in January 2008. Agee’s wife Giselle Roberge Agee donated his massive collection of papers to New York University’s Tamiment Library. In an October 2010 press release, the library said:
"The collection spans some 20 linear feet, and is currently being catalogued. Items include: legal records, correspondence with left-wing activists, mainly in Latin America, and others opposed to CIA practices and covert operations; papers relating to his life as an exile living and working in Cuba, Western and Eastern Europe; lecture notes, photographs, and posters."Share
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My final Planet Green interview (with author/activist David Swanson)
David Swanson sez: “War is a Lie is a handbook of sorts, a manual to be used in debunking future lies before future wars have a chance to begin.”
Yep, after many threats to do so, Planet Green has finally phased me out. It’s a shame that an environmental (sic) website has chosen to shed its greenest (by far) writer. A shame...but certainly no surprise.
This development - and a few others in my life - have me really scrambling for income. Anyone have any leads for paid writing/freelance work? Anyone?
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Another of my recent photos:
Going nowhere fast
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Please tell your NYC friends about my writing workshops:
Starting in early February in Astoria
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My brand new Facebook project:
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Monday, December 27, 2010
My interview with Ron Jacobs
Ron Jacobs sez: “I see this book as something like a travelogue—a journey through physical, intellectual, and psychic space, as it were ... I would hope that reading this book might provide people with hope that it is possible to live a life of relative integrity in the belly of the beast.”
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The Blizzard of 2010:
Early morning view from my kitchen window
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Another photo from Zen Prole:
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Saturday, December 25, 2010
Elvis ain't the only one who's left the damn building...
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Another of my recent photos:
...with a wreath on top
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Please tell your NYC friends about my writing workshops:
Starting in early February in Astoria
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My brand new Facebook project:
(Please click “like” and join the page)
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Thursday, December 23, 2010
My interview with Bruce Friedrich of PETA
Bruce Friedrich sez: Animal rights and human rights go hand in hand; Tolstoy called vegetarianism the taproot of humanitarianism, because - he argued - if you’re choosing to support suffering and taking the side of the strong against the weak at every meal, what does that say about your commitment to any humanitarian values?
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Please tell your NYC friends about my writing workshops:
Starting in early February in Astoria
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Another of my recent photos:
Looks like they’ve got the Smurf surrounded
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Tuesday, December 21, 2010
My interview with "Grandma for Peace," Joan Wile
Joan Wile sez: “Many women have broken free of the image of grandmothers as rocking-chair-bound, cookie-baking old women who spend their time watching soap operas and knitting sweaters for their grandkids.”
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My brand new Facebook project:
(Please click “like” and join the page)
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Another of my recent photos:
Surrounded by a sea of propaganda
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Friday, December 17, 2010
My interview with Jeffrey Masson
Jeffrey Masson sez: “The single best step anybody can take right now is to become vegan.”
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My brand new Facebook project:
(Please click “like” and join the page)
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Another of my recent photos:
Air Jesus
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Wednesday, December 15, 2010
The United States of War Criminals
More than half (53.3%) of US tax dollars go to a criminal enterprise known as the US Department of Defense (sic), a.k.a. the worst polluter on the planet. We hear about tax cuts this and budget that and all kinds of other bullshit from the US government and the corporations that own it…but the reality remains: Roughly one million tax dollars per minute are spent to fund the largest military machine (read: global terrorist operation) the world has ever known.
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Another of my recent photos:
These icicles don’t melt
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Tuesday, December 14, 2010
A Zoo Of Our Own Making: We Will Kill for Empire and a Parking Space
By Phil Rockstroh
In an age, when nature is besieged and the political landscape blighted, and one stands, stoop shouldered and wincing into the howling wasteland of epic-scale idiocy extant in the era, a solitary person can feel lost ... marooned inside an increasingly isolated sense of self. Whether urban, suburban, or rural dwelling, the sense of alienation, for an individual, is profound ... as discernible to the eye as the constellations of foreclosure signs stippling overgrown front lawns across the land ... as hidden as the abandoned dreams within.
The fraying ligature of the landscape of the United States reveals an inner geography of alienation and anomie. Living on the island of Manhattan, I daily negotiate an urban layout of practical, but identity-decimating grids—a cityscape of harsh, inhuman right angles ... a geography that renders street encounters abrupt, curt and intrusive.
After a time, one begins, by reflex, to buffer oneself against such intrusions, withdrawing inward ... becoming a self-enclosed, walking fortress, shielding oneself from the degradations of these impersonal affronts (that feel altogether personal)—with I- Pods, Blackberries, and other vestments attendant to the muttered prayers of the self-absorbed.
While above the street—corporate towers—that are steel and concrete kingdoms of blind, willful ascension—blot the skyline ... these structures flee upward, as if to escape the implications of life lived at street level and sharing in the consequences of decisions made within their sterile, insular sanctums of power and cupidity.
This is architecture as blind hubris: creations made by the hands of mortal men ... yet failing to have any connection to the ground, these buildings crowd out the real estate of the sacred. Moreover, their manic skyward thrust leaves them, and those imprisoned within, bereft of roots that reach down into the renewing loam of the earth, to where mortal vanity is delivered to dust and desperate hopes rot and transubstantiate into the compost that nourishes new life.
And blooms of renewal, I suspect, will not be found online as well. The electronic sheen of social media sites is no substitute for communal fabric. There is no animal musk nor angelic apprehensions to en-soul the flesh and tease wisdom out of obdurate will ... No matter how many restless shades want to friend you on FaceBook nor ghostly texts descend upon you in an unholy Pentecost of Tweets, online exchanges will continue to leave you restless, hollow, and yearning for the colors and cacophony of an authentic agora.
The adolescent purgatory of FaceBook—with its castings into the Eternal Now of instant praise, acceptance, and rejection—reflects, magnifies, and acerbates the perpetual adolescence of the contemporary culture of the United States, intensifying its shallow longings and displaced panics, its narcissistic rage and obsession with the superficial. It devours libido, by providing a pixilated facsimile of the primal dance of human endeavor, leaving one’s heart churning in thwarted yearning, locked an evanescent embrace with electronic phantoms, as one, paradoxically, attempts to live out unfulfilled desires by means of hollow communion with the soul-negating source of his alienation.
One can never get enough of what one doesn’t need. Ergo, the compulsions and panic of millions of hungry ghosts will hold an ongoing, hollow mass online, in a futile campaign to regain form, gain direction, and walk in meaning and beauty among the things of the world, but instead will remain imprisoned within the very system that condemned them to this fate.
And this is the place, we, as a culture, will remain, for a time. This electronic inferno will be our vale and mountaintop, our sanctuary and leviathan. We will stare baffled into its vastness, stupefied and lost within its proliferate array of depersonalizing distractions and seductions. The more we try to lose ourselves in it, by surrendering to its shimmering surface attractions, the more tightly we will become bound in the bondage of self.
Naturally, living in the grinding maw of such monsters of alienation will engulf one with ennui and angst. Moreover, the judgment of anyone claiming not to be afflicted should be regarded as suspect.
Possessed by this mode of being: we languish in a zoo of our own making where we gaze, without comprehension, at the confines of our enclosure, chew our paws, pace the cage, and are restless for mealtime. Like an animal in a cage, we are no longer what we were meant to be ... we have forgotten what it is to be alive. With the exception of superficial form, we begin to lose our affinity to what makes us recognizable as a human being and as an animal—for we have become simply a sad thing that waits for lunch. And I defy any caged clock-watcher in a cubicle to defy that point.
Restless and agitated in our confinement, we sink further into anomie ... into the benumbing embrace of comfort zones (over- eating, anti-depressants, consumerism as emotional distraction, addiction to electronic media) where we chose safety over the truth of our being. In these cages of inauthenticity, our heart’s longings and human needs are held in stasis by the perfunctory persona we cultivated for approval and acceptance; there, consigned to a barren region of mind where one is rewarded for docility and duplicity, one languishes, bereft of eros and pothos ... unconsciously self-convicted and sentenced for the crime of being a serial betrayer of one’s essential self.
So much of the criteria of the modern condition has atomized us, stripped us, collectively, of ritual, purpose and meaning, and placed us in the midst of what T.S. Eliot expressed in prosody as a “heap of broken images.”
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only There is shadow under this red rock, (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
-From The Waste Land
There is danger, of course, in such places—but there is also the possibility of renewal.
Personal and historical traumas leave a legacy of bewilderment. And being bewildered i.e., being in a psychic wilderness, lost, having wandered or been cast past the known horizon of experience ... is to be in position to engage the novel, be in the thrall of unfolding mystery, and wander in a soul- suffused landscape of the sublime.
A state of alienation is right where we should be: To be able to adapt to a culture dedicated to little more than finding efficient means of exploiting the hours of the greater public’s lives for the benefit of a greedy few ... would be a tragedy. Living within this culture should bring on despair ... It is a leviathan that has devoured your existence. Do you think you can renovate the belly of the beast ... set up a time-share with Jonah and Pinocchio there ... and live in comfort?
Should not one stagger and stammer in mortification when shown a handful of dust?
Moreover, the solution we are offered—making ourselves a dwelling within a prison of consumer kitsch—should and does only bring on more anomie. Eliot wrote the following regarding a psyche attempting to adapt to a dying culture
[...] Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death. We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death.
-From The Journey of the Magi,
One of the notions, as Rilke might put it, that is “brooding like a seed” in my psyche has been the distinction James Hillman makes between civilization and culture. Hillman avers that, and I agree, civilization is a dead thing—an edifice of crumbling marble enshrined in an eros-devoid museum of the mind where we do little more than give empty, obligatory homage to a fossilized tableaux ... our forced reverence is but a perfunctory prayer muttered before the iconography of a dead religion; in contrast, culture is a living, breathing phenomenon of the collective mind, heart, and soul of the people within it. Its logos inhabits the very air of existence, permeating it like the sound of birdsong, and cricket and cicada stridulation throughout a high summer night.
Moreover, he avers that culture is akin to a madhouse; in fact, the solution lies in the back ward of the asylum, the area where are housed the hopeless cases. In other words, like Dante ... proceed to the place you most fear looking upon, embrace it, and hear its awful keening and heart-opening agonies. There is the location of rebirth, the last circle of hell ... retreating to a comfort zone will simply leave the situation is stasis.
So the question arises: How does one enter the soul-making shabbiness of the human condition, even though, as always, we are powerless against the trajectory of history and lost within the mad proliferation of culture—and, as Bob Dylan limned in lyric regarding the alienation this situation evokes, “[one has] no direction home?”
Try this: embrace the bracing pain of your alienation: make a home in being lost. Gaze with wonder of upon the sacred scenery of your bewilderment ... Wandering in the wilderness is a holy state.
Wendell Berry believes such ventures to be one of the true vocations of the soul:
The Real Work
It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.
-Wendell Berry
In other words, in times such as ours, when we embrace our alienation then we will be welcomed home ... to share a common shelter with the multitudes who are also lost.
Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at: phil@philrockstroh.com. Visit Phil’s website http://philrockstroh.com and Facebook.
Angela Tyler-Rockstroh is a Broadcast Designer/Animator who has worked with major Networks such as Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, HBO Family, PBS, as well as, with Michael Moore on his documentaries, “Fahrenheit 9/11. and Sicko."
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The United States of War Criminals
By Mickey Z.
"People from poorer places and poorer countries have to call upon their compassion not to be angry with ordinary people in America." -Arundhati Roy
More than half (53.3%) of US tax dollars go to a criminal enterprise known as the US Department of Defense (sic), a.k.a. the worst polluter on the planet. We hear about tax cuts this and budget that and all kinds of other bullshit from the US government and the corporations that own it…but the reality remains: Roughly one million tax dollars per minute are spent to fund the largest military machine (read: global terrorist operation) the world has ever known.
What do we get for all that money? To follow, is but one tiny example that mostly slipped through the cracks earlier this year.
On July 23, 2010, Tom Eley at Global Research wrote:
"According to the authors of a new study, ‘Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005–2009,’ the people of Fallujah are experiencing higher rates of cancer, leukemia, infant mortality, and sexual mutations than those recorded among survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the years after those Japanese cities were incinerated by US atomic bomb strikes in 1945."
For those unfamiliar with the US attacks on Fallujah, first of all: You should be fuckin’ ashamed of yourselves. Secondly, here’s Patrick Cockburn’s basic description:
"US Marines first besieged and bombarded Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, in April 2004 after four employees of the American security company Blackwater were killed and their bodies burned. After an eight-month stand-off, the Marines stormed the city in November using artillery and aerial bombing against rebel positions. US forces later admitted that they had employed white phosphorus as well as other munitions. In the assault US commanders largely treated Fallujah as a free-fire zone to try to reduce casualties among their own troops. British officers were appalled by the lack of concern for civilian casualties."
Of crucial importance is this: A high proportion of the weaponry used by the US in the assault contained depleted uranium (DU).
And you and I paid for it all.
The aforementioned study found that the cancer rate “had increased fourfold since before the US attack” and that the forms of cancer in Fallujah are “similar to those found among the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb survivors, who were exposed to intense fallout radiation.”
Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Yeah, Americans paid for those bombs, too.
In September 2009, Fallujah General Hospital had 170 newborn babies:
- 24 percent were dead within the first seven days
- 75 percent of the dead babies were classified as deformed
Cockburn writes of a “12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s. Infant mortality in the city is more than four times higher than in neighboring Jordan and eight times higher than in Kuwait.”
Dig this: After 2005, thanks to this “major mutagenic event” (DU), the proportion of girls born in Fallujah has increased sharply likely because “girls have a redundant X-chromosome and can therefore absorb the loss of one chromosome through genetic damage,” explains Eley.
And you and I paid for it all.
“The impact of war on civilians was more severe in Fallujah than anywhere else in Iraq because the city continued to be blockaded and cut off from the rest of the country long after 2004,” adds Cockburn.
While I could go on with the gory details, I’d much rather you ask a few questions:
- Now that you know these facts (and they are just the tiniest proverbial tip of a massive proverbial iceberg), how do you feel and what are you going to do about it?
- Is it time you stop buying military video games, hanging yellow ribbons, and allowing our hard-earned money to finance mass murder?
- Can enjoy “the holidays” while women in Fallujah are petrified to have children?
- Are you still able to insulate yourself with all those cute puppy videos on YouTube?
- Are you ready to stop believing there’s a difference between the two wings of the same corporate/military party and start accepting that they’re all accessories to heinous crimes?
- Will you still “support” the volunteer mercenaries as “heroes” or will you recognize them as willing—and paid—accomplices to war crimes?
- Are you okay with 85.1% of US wealth being owned by the top 20% while 53.3% of your tax dollars subsidize atrocities, torture, oppression, occupation, and the literal destruction of the planet’s eco-system?
- What is your threshold? Which taxpayer-funded horror story is the one that will finally make you scream “enough”?
- When you’ve screamed “enough,” what can/will you do and how soon will you start doing it?
You don’t have to tell me your answers. I’m a co-conspirator just like you.
Save your answers for the children of Fallujah. I’m sure they’re wondering why the fuck we all choose to remain silent and inactive.
Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, Mickey Z. can be found on the Web here.
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Monday, December 13, 2010
My interview with Bill McKibben
Bill McKibben sez: “At some point it became obvious to me that we were losing badly in the global warming fight, and that one reason was we had no movement. All the scientific studies and policy plans on earth don’t get you very far if there’s no movement to push them.”
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Another of my recent photos:
Off limits
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Sunday, December 12, 2010
This year, say NO to fir
In my neighborhood of Astoria, the most clear-cut (pun very much intended) sign that Santa season is fully upon us is the sudden appearance of Christmas tree lots hawking pines and firs long since separated from their roots.
(And please leave a positive comment on the article’s site)
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A cartoon from Rick:
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A photo from Zen Prole:
“A pygmy owl that’s recovering from (most likely) a windshield strike”
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Friday, December 10, 2010
An Open Letter to the Left Establishment
A Call for Active Support of Protest from Michael Moore, Norman Solomon, Katrina van den Heuvel, Michael Eric Dyson, Barbara Ehrenreich, Thomas Frank, Tom Hayden, Bill Fletcher Jr., Jesse Jackson Jr., and other high profile progressive supporters of the Obama electoral campaign.
With the Obama administration beginning its third year, it is by now painfully obvious that the predictions of even the most sober Obama supporters were overly optimistic. Rather than an ally, the administration has shown itself to be an implacable enemy of reform.
It has advanced repeated assaults on the New Deal safety net (including the previously sacrosanct Social Security trust fund), jettisoned any hope for substantive health care reform, attacked civil rights and environmental protections, and expanded a massive bailout further enriching an already bloated financial services and insurance industry. It has continued the occupation of Iraq and expanded the war in Afghanistan as well as our government’s covert and overt wars in South Asia and around the globe.
Along the way, the Obama administration, which referred to its left detractors as “f***ing retarded” individuals that required “drug testing,” stepped up the prosecution of federal war crime whistleblowers, and unleashed the FBI on those protesting the escalation of an insane war.
Obama’s recent announcement of a federal worker pay freeze is cynical, mean-spirited “deficit-reduction theater”. Slashing Bush’s plutocratic tax cuts would have made a much more significant contribution to deficit reduction but all signs are that the “progressive” president will cave to Republican demands for the preservation of George W. Bush’s tax breaks for the wealthy Few. Instead Obama’s tax cut plan would raise taxes for the poorest people in our country.
The election of Obama has not galvanized protest movements. To the contrary, it has depressed and undermined them, with the White House playing an active role in the discouragement and suppression of dissent, with disastrous consequences. The almost complete absence of protest from the left has emboldened the most right-wing elements inside and outside of the Obama administration to pursue and act on an ever more extreme agenda.
We are writing to you because you are well-known writers, bloggers and filmmakers with access to a range of old and new media, and you have in your power the capacity to help reignite the movement which brought millions onto the streets in February of 2003 but which has withered ever since. There are many thousands of progressives who follow your work closely and are waiting for a cue from you and others to act. We are asking you to commit yourself to actively supporting the protests of Obama administration policies which are now beginning to materialize.
In this connection we would like to mention a specific protest: the civil disobedience action being planned by Veterans for Peace involving Chris Hedges, Daniel Ellsberg, Joel Kovel, Medea Benjamin, Ray McGovern, several armed service veterans and others to take place in front of the White House on Dec. 16th.
Should you commit yourselves to backing this action and others sure to materialize in weeks and months ahead, what would otherwise be regarded as an emotional outburst of the “fringe left” will have a better chance of being seen as expressing the will of a substantial majority not only of the left, but of the American public at large. We believe that your support will help create the climate for larger and increasingly disruptive expressions of dissent, a development that is sorely needed and long overdue.
We hope that we can count on you to exercise the leadership that is required of all of us in these desperate times.
Best Regards,
Sen. James Abourezk
Michael Albert
Rocky Anderson
Jared Ball
Russel Banks
Thomas Bias
Cheryl Biren
Noam Chomsky
Bruce Dixon
Frank Dorrel
Gidon Eshel
Jamilla El-Shafei
Okla Elliott
Norman Finkelstein
Glen Ford
Joshua Frank
Margaret Flowers M.D.
John Gerassi
Henry Giroux
Matt Gonzalez
Kevin Alexander Gray
Judd Greenstein
DeeDee Halleck
John Halle
Chris Hedges
Doug Henwood
Edward S. Herman
Dahr Jamail
Rob Kall
Louis Kampf
Allison Kilkenny
Jamie Kilstein
Joel Kovel
Mark Kurlansky
Peter Linebaugh
Scott McLarty
Cynthia McKinney
Dede Miller
Russell Mokhiber
Bobby Muller
Christian Parenti
Michael Perelman
Peter Phillips
Louis Proyect
Ted Rall
Michael Ratner
Cindy Sheehan
Chris Spannos
Paul Street
Sunil Sharma
Jeffrey St. Clair
Len Weinglass
Cornel West
Sherry Wolf
Michael Yates
Mickey Z
Kevin Zeese
For more information or to sign the letter, click here.
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What if Julian Assange "disappears"?
If you’re asking yourself the question above, re-read my 2006 article based on a somewhat similar premise...
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I was asked to sign this anti-Obama letter:
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On a lighter note:
Please join me in wishing my Dad a Happy 78th Birthday...
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Another of my recent photos:
Skyscrapers at dusk
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Poem: “Blisters, Sister, Blisters"
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Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Support Bradley Manning
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Oakland, CA, December 8, 2010 – Since July 2010, the Bradley Manning Support Network, in collaboration with Oakland, CA based Courage to Resist, has solicited and distributed funds in support of accused Wikileaks whistle-blower Bradley Manning. Over 1,200 individuals and organizations have responded with contributions totaling over $90,000, either to the defense fund or to Bradley’s legal trust account. Thus far $50,000 has been transferred to Bradley’s lead civilian attorney, David Coombs, half of the total expected legal expense of $100,000.
The Support Network has also made expenditures for printing and international distribution of leaflets, posters and information cards; staging public forums, events and demonstrations; production of banners, t-shirts, stickers and whistles for organizers; travel expenses for Bradley’s visitors at the Quantico brig; communication expenses, including phone and Internet hosting; processing the “Stand with Brad” public declaration and petition (http://www.standwithbrad.org); accounting; fiscal fees and credit card company fees.
Immediately following Bradley’s arrest in late June 2010, the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks publicly solicited donations specifically for Bradley’s legal defense expenses. In July 2010, Wikileaks pledged to contribute a “substantial amount” towards Bradley’s legal defense costs. Since Bradley’s selection of David Coombs as his civilian defense attorney in August 2010, the Bradley Manning Support Network has unsuccessfully attempted to facilitate the pledged Wikileaks contribution.
“We understand the difficult situation Wikileaks currently faces as the world’s governments conspire to extinguish the whistle-blower website,” explained Jeff Paterson, Bradley Manning Support Network steering committee member and project director of Courage to Resist (http://www.couragetoresist.org). “However, in order to meet Bradley Manning’s legal defense needs, we’re forced to clarify that Wikileaks has not yet made a contribution towards this effort. We certainly welcome any contribution from Wikileaks, but we need to inform our supporters that it may not be forthcoming and that their continued contributions and support are crucial.”
Donations towards Bradley’s defense can be made at http://www.bradleymanning.org—to either the Support Network for both public education efforts and legal defense, or directly to Bradley’s legal trust account.
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It was 30 years ago today...
I’ll was there (with my camera) at the very crowded Strawberry Fields today to join the memorial sing-a-long:
Also, a new and related interview:
Steve Baldwin sez: “It’s been the thrill of my life. I grew up with the music of the Beatles and the British Invasion and it’s such an honor to play it and sing it. And each time the band plays in the subway is an adventure, and one never knows what’s going to happen.”
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What Would John Lennon Be Doing Today?
(if he had survived Dec. 8, 1980)
Savoring the warmth of bed on a cold New York City morning
Taking a taxi to IHoP for breakfast
Enjoying a mid-morning walk in Central Park
Negotiating a summer 2011 tour with Patti Smith
Reading Life by Keith Richards
Requesting Chinese food be delivered for lunch
Playing dominoes with Yoko
Taking a bath
Phoning John Pilger about offering to post bail for Julian Assange
Watching the Champions League on TV
Reminding assistant to make an appointment for colonoscopy
Writing a couple lines for a song on the proposed new album
Regretting his public support for Obama’s 2008 campaign
Wishing he had grandchildren
Looking for the remote
Watching Law & Order: SVU
Eating a small bowl of chocolate gelato
Cursing Paul’s Kennedy Center Honors
Applying a couple brush strokes to the almost-finished “Still Life with Skull and iPod”
Phoning Sean to invite him to spend Christmas in New York
Clearing his schedule to enjoy a stress-free Dec. 9
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Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Weak Links
By Frank Scott
The Wikileaks story has been treated by the establishment as a dangerous expose of imperial mind management and led to suppression, damage control and vindictive retribution. Meanwhile much of what passes for an anti establishment has expressed cynical disregard for what seems like old news, or treated the entire episode as another of the products of an all controlling deity-like complex of near invisible forces. These involve theories of manipulative plots and conspiracies to plot conspiratorial manipulations, all of them unknown to any but a chosen sect who seem to understand everything but how to stop the evil conspirators. The most extreme members of this cult are dangerously close to believing sunrise, sunset and the seasons are the result of machinations by a group of Talmudic billionaire Mossad agents sitting in a room in Tel Aviv or New York. In often mentally disabling ways, these sources almost make the dangers of global capitalism and Zionist dominance of the American government pale in importance or even existence beside the threat of seemingly invisible forces that conspire to arrange just about everything. But many establishment figures, among them some of the foremost jackals and hyenas of the foreign policy establishment, have joined in cynically asking “who is manipulating us here?” All but totally submerged in consciousness is the risk that has been run by the Wikileaks group and its sources, nor is there enough awareness of the panic among keepers of the public mind and their lashing out in ways as irrational as some of the critics, though far more threatening.
Along with near comical” illuminati” based theories of conspiracies, plots and counter plots, we have defamation of the character and intelligence of people taking heroic risk in making public what was once private. They are maligned as criminals, fools or enemy agents. A citizen of Australia is accused of being a traitor to America while Sweden charges him with a horrendous sex offense seemingly invented by otherwise sane Scandinavians: he refused to use a condom! It is almost bizarre enough to be funny but the potential tragedy is hardly humorous. The Wikileakers are subjected to death threats and demands for their execution by irrational voices in and out of government while small, shrill voices claim they are counter-counter-counter spies or dupes of dupes of dupes. Just what is going on here?
Instead of being grateful to people informing the public about matters normally kept secret from them, we have a variety of suspicions on the one hand, and the spinning of cables and messages by corporate media on the other. When major sources reveal only those parts of the information that fit the governing mind control operation and focus on Iran or China, it is not those media sources that are charged with misinforming but those bringing the information out of the darkness and into public light. Instead of often mindless speculation about what motivates Assange we would all do better to heed his warnings that the so-called journalistic process itself is nothing more than “a craven sucking up to official sources,” as is clearly indicated in the editorial opinions rendered and major media reportage of this story. This giant step toward democracy and anti-secrecy is reduced to the vicious charges being made by some of the most scurrilous and murderous individuals and institutional forces in the society. Indeed, what is going on here? Imperial business as usual, and what else is new?
Calls for the execution of Assange have been made by elected fanatics and their addiction rehab counterparts in media, with segments of the public whipped into a frenzy over his alleged treachery and nonsense that these leaks risk the lives of military personnel, despite not one shred of evidence to indicate anything of the sort. In fact and with rare exceptions, care has been taken by the Wiki leakers to omit what might indeed be dangerous to innocent employees of the empire. And the heroic military worker who turned the information over to Wikileaks is in a cell and facing a 50-year prison sentence for the crime of actually serving his people and not their rulers. The murderous pretenders to democracy who send thousands to their death in foreign wars now shriek that Manning and Assange are endangering the lives of those who would be safe in their homes if not for these political employees of global capital and its Zionist affiliates who allegedly serve “public” interest with their bloody and racist militarism.
Bradley Manning, Julian Assange and their cohorts are definitely a threat to diplomacy that hides reality from the public when not totally distorting it, and to perverted government policies of war carried out in the public’s name and called dedication to peace. Establishment leaders and their stenographers in media treat this assault on logic, language and morality as patriotism. Meanwhile, efforts to bring information that should have reached us long ago if corporate media were not under control of the very forces it supposedly reports on, are seen as treason, disregarded as nothing new or treated as an adventure story. Maybe we’d be better off is all of this were just the sort of conspiracy from a supernatural realm that some suspect, but it is very real and demands the concern of all who wish for a different reality. Assange, Manning, and all their cohorts yet unknown in this drama need and demand the support of all who believe in peace, social justice and open democratic government to achieve those things. They have given the lie to the notion that there are, or should be, secrets in an open society or that there should be behind the scenes manipulation of nations, governments and media sources.
The Wikileaks group are sending a signal that we can know and should know everything that is done in our name and that in this electronic age there are no longer any secrets that can be kept from us, if we would simply demand completely open government and defend those who take great risk to bring it about. The first call ought to be to come to the aid of Assange, and especially Manning. If we allow either of them to be made scapegoats and suffer more than they already have for their acts on behalf of humanity, we may all suffer far more ourselves. And we will deserve it.
Frank Scott writes political commentary that appears in print in The Independent Monitor and online at the blog Legalienate. He can be reached at frankscott@comcast.net
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Happy Birthday, Noam Chomsky!
As has become tradition here at Press Action, we celebrate and honor the life of Noam Chomsky instead of Japan’s raid on Pearl Harbor 69 years ago today that catapulted the United States into one of the wickedest periods in human history.
Happy 82nd birthday, Noam! And thanks for all your hard work during the past 45-plus years deciphering and explaining U.S. government policy. Here are some nuggets of Chomskyian wisdom:
“The problem of ‘freeing man from the curse of economic exploitation and political and social enslavement’ remains the problem of our time. As long as this is so, the doctrines and the revolutionary practice of libertarian socialism will serve as an inspiration and guide.”
— Revised version of Noam Chomsky’s introduction to Daniel Guérin’s Anarchism: From Theory to Practice, 1970
“The core of the anarchist tradition, as I understand it, is that power is always illegitimate, unless it proves itself to be legitimate. So the burden of proof is always on those who claim that some authoritarian hierarchic relation is legitimate. If they can’t prove it, then it should be dismantled. ... There’s a very heavy burden of proof to be borne by anyone who calls for violence. Maybe it can be sometimes justified. Personally, I’m not a committed pacifist, so I think that, yes, it can sometimes be justified.”
— UC Berkeley Institute of International Studies interview with Noam Chomsky, March 2002
“Anarcho-capitalism, in my opinion, is a doctrinal system which, if ever implemented, would lead to forms of tyranny and oppression that have few counterparts in human history. ... I should add, however, that I find myself in substantial agreement with people who consider themselves anarcho-capitalists on a whole range of issues; and for some years, was able to write only in their journals. And I also admire their commitment to rationality — which is rare — though I do not think they see the consequences of the doctrines they espouse, or their profound moral failings.”
— Z Net, “Answers from Chomsky to eight questions on anarchism,” 1996
“Grotesque as the Soviet empire was, its very existence offered a certain space for non-alignment, and for perfectly cynical reasons, it sometimes provided assistance to victims of Western attack. Those options are gone, and the South is suffering the consequences.”
— Red & Black Revolution interview with Noam Chomsky, May 1995
“In the Spanish Civil War, there was a popular revolution, and the Stalin-backed Republic, and the Fascists, first combined, along with the Western democracies, to destroy the popular revolution, and after that was done, they fought to pick up the spoils. Which is not an unusual pattern.
— John Pilger interviews Noam Chomsky on BBC, November 1992
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Monday, December 06, 2010
BORO news and my interview with its founder, Julian Lesser
But first: Wikileaks mirrors (in case they shut down the main site)
We now return to our regularly scheduled post...
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Julian Lesser sez: “I love speaking with people about my work, what I am trying to accomplish and create. And the dialogues I have with them inspire me further because they help me see clearer. My audience share their ideas and impressions of my work and open my mind to ideas I might not have previously had. Their fresh impressions and thoughts open up my mind.”
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Meanwhile:
The first issue of the magazine version of of BORO is now out
Click here to keep up with all my Boro writing (web and print)
(And please comment on my articles)
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Another of my recent photos:
Watching the wheels
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Sunday, December 05, 2010
Ted Rall
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Amnesia As A Way Of Life: WikiLeaks Amid The 'Careless People'
By Phil Rockstroh
As many wags have noted, the disclosures of Wikileaks have subjected the US Empire and its operatives to a full-body scan. Turnaround is fair play, because, until now, in the US, the powerless masses are subject to arbitrary pat downs and body scans, while the powerful and connected are massaged by privilege and ensconced in immunity.
In hindsight, one realizes, when the Obama administration promised transparency and accountability in government, National Security State enabler that Barack Obama has proven himself to be, that his administration’s definition of transparency would entail the countenancing of said body scans at the nation’s airports, revealing the private bits of the hoi polloi, as, all the while, his administration was engaged in stonewalling the hidden agendas and felonies of the corporate and governing elite. Recent events should remove any doubt regarding who stands exposed and who will remain cloaked by official aegis.
Unlike Julian Assange at Wikileaks, when the Democratic Congress had the opportunity to create an atmosphere of openness and transparency, they demurred. Once granted positions of authority, the Democrats didn’t exercise their constitutionally granted powers to initiate investigations, hold hearings, nor issue subpoenas. This failure of will and integrity amounts to complicity by omission. Withal, Democrats gave their tacit support and approval to the last administration’s (as well as to the present one’s continuation of more of the same) constitution-shredding, morally repugnant policies.
On most occasions, existing within the tacit repression and the benumbing, virtual reality carnival of the corporate/National Security State leaves an individual with a sense of being stranded in anonymity … cast into circumstances wherein one feels the necessity to follow the unspoken dictates of a nebulous form of authority that remains hidden, both by physical distance and organizational insularity. In contrast, when one is introduced to the apparatus of the National Security State, by means of a full body search, this unnerving intrusion upon the body can bring clarity to the mind as to how the elite and apparatchik of the US government regard that mass annoyance known as its citizenry and any quaint notions those wretches clutch pertaining to their constitutional granted rights and liberties.
These present outrages will flair up and spiral through the news cycle. Yet, the practices will remain in place, and, after a time, become normalized. This has proven to be the case with other previously revealed excesses of the so-call War on Terror and the attendant assaults against civil liberties and breaches of international law incurred in the name of this ongoing, seemingly endless, national psychotic episode e.g., the existence of the “detention camp” at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the illegal invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and those operations concomitant litany of war crimes and affronts to human dignity, such as the acts of torture committed at Abu Ghraib prison—as well as—the whole blood-sodden laundry list of outrages and excesses of present day US imperium.
If there is any hope for the US to ever function as a democratic republic, the revelations, unearthed by Wikileaks, should constitute the beginning of a long, painful process of grim discovery.
First, one must ask: Why is it the corporate media is so deeply invested in promulgating distracting and miss-the-point narratives, hyper-adrenaline arguments of narrowed context and little consequence—and, in general, trafficking in piffle packaged as news and public debate—rather than showing even a passing interest, much less an avidity, for the pursuit of stories that confront power and might present a challenge to the present order?
As with any criminal enterprise, the essential question to ask is: who benefits from the crime (and the subsequent coverup) and who gets the payoff? Although most of human existence is constituted by ambiguity, this situation is not. The evidence of war crimes and fiscal malfeasance committed by the nation’s political and financial elite are so pervasive that it cannot be missed, and that is precisely the reason the corporate media, as well as a large percentage of the general public, works so hard to ignore the situation.
Lord Northcliffe’s aphorism provides a clue:
"News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising.” ~ Lord Northcliffe, British publisher 1865-1922
Accordingly, at present, there arrives a paucity of news, but, hour after hour, comes a drowning deluge of advertising. Enveloped in this commercially dominated hologram, on a cultural basis, it has proven difficult to arrive at a common lexicon to tell the tale of truths buried and freedoms imperiled.
The weightless, insubstantial quality of the consumer age engenders a state of mind wherein consequences cannot be grasped then processed. As a result, a sense of drift prevails. Yet below the surface churns a nebulous dread—a feeling of being propelled towards a time of unbearable reckoning.
But such enervating thoughts must be banished from the mind; hence, amnesia, as a way of life, becomes the prevailing mindset of psyches minted in the media age hologram i.e., a manner of perceiving the world in which official accountability becomes as evanescent as last season’s advertising campaign roll-out.
Voting for “change” becomes as meaningless and inconsequential as the introduction of Coke “Classic” and “Be all you can be.” The US might as well have election campaigns in which the Michelin Man runs against the Energizer Bunny.
By means of its inherently self-narrowing context, the lingua franca of the media hologram reduces complex and conflicted human aspirations into consumer choices—and the vastness of life to retail experience, as, simultaneously, its proliferate narratives envelop, saturate and bind to the architecture of our psyches becoming the quanta of our thoughts and the shared lexicon of our utterances.
Living in this milieu, that is as manic as it is mind-grinding, decisions must be made rapidly, with little time allowed for reflection (decision-making carrying no more depth and lasting meaning than a text message vote by cell phone involving some contrived Reality TV competition) because the proliferation of empty, non-choices just keeps being proffered and the rate of arrival keeps accelerating.
Tragically, in this environment, the recent Wikileaks revelations will be marginalized in the electronic image-crowded air and quickly dissipate like any other media age phantom.
Yet the US consumer state’s infantilized inhabitants will never transfigure the raging Furies of truth-deferred into cooing Teletubbies of endless, imagined innocence (albeit, as terrifying as those homunculi of hell-bound cuteness are). The childishness of US Uberculture seems the voice of Orwellian Newspeak as it might have been composed by Dr. Seuss, in a fever delirium, dreaming he is Glen Beck.
Often, it is not the content of what a cartoonish demagogue, such as Beck, is saying; rather, it is the way they say it—the emotional tonality of the line reading that resonates with their audience. Apropos, the US is a depressing place nowadays. Viewed in the context of emotional catharsis, Glen Beck’s crying jags and feigned emotional disclosures resonate with his audience because there is much reason to weep regarding the degraded state of their lives.
In an era where policies of official secrecy and corporatist predation meet little resistance, dread and feelings of dislocation will be present just below the surface. If one listens to the subliminal criteria playing out beneath Beck’s bathos, one can hear inadvertent arias intimating the end of empire—a cheese-bag death-swoon—operatic in scale.
What is lamentable is—the emotional and intellectually dishonest, demagogic displacements he attributes to the cause of his audience’s discontent and the sleight of hand employed to create the illusion of truths revealed.
"Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.” - Eric Hoffer
This is the price paid when one affords scant deference to self-awareness, but, in contrast, possesses an unflagging fealty to the pursuit of shallow diversions and self-limiting delusion … All maintained by the crackpot casuistry, elevated to an art form, if not holy writ, in the US, that willful ignorance is a form of freedom of choice, that normalcy is maintained by official cover-ups and personal denial.
The system is rigged, from top to bottom; it is only through an astonishing (almost credulity-defying) degree of self-deception on the part of the general public of the US, in collaboration with the mendacity of its political and economic elite, this dim, brutal, unwieldy and wounded system continues to stagger onward.
Lamentably, the US Empire, as was the case with any imperium throughout history, has grown into a bloated abomination kept provisionally alive by self-deluded apparatchik and ignorant killers. What can one do about the situation, other than try to get out of the way of this wounded giant and stand clear upon its inevitable collapse? Unfortunately, damn little.
The structure of the revolving door dynamic of the governmental/corporate exploiter class has allowed the elite therein to escape any sense of accountability. In addition, their vastly inflated salaries, with attendant perks and privileges, have separated them even further from the general population; hence, providing them with immunity from consequences, as well as, insularity from commonplace experience; thus, allowing them to embrace the most airless of aspirations—that greed, grotesquely out of proportion privilege, and unchecked power run riot constitutes a viable means to move in the world and establish a social order.
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made […]” - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (Pg. 180-181)
Among the political elite of both major parties come few calls for the kind of disclosure and official accountability that could stem the decline of the nation. Facing the fact that, in the US, there is not a true opposition party causes many people in the general population to become understandably angry, anxious, and depressed, thereby primed for pronouncements of demagogues and the diversions of commercial media palliatives.
"What WikiLeaks is doing is to short-circuit this entire democratic process—claiming for itself the exclusive, unilateral, and unchecked power to decide what should and shouldn’t be made public. This is therefore not only an attack on our national security, but an offense against our democracy and the principle of transparency.” - Senator Joseph Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee
If one could cut through the thicket of false premises, logical fallacies, false dichotomies, arrays of strawmen, general flutter-headed palaver, and out and out paranoid fantasy marshaled by the caretakers and apologists of the present system, I would ask this question—why is it you are driven with such vehemence to defend and attempt to preserve the current order? As it is, it seems the nation is being held together with hydrogenated fat, wheat gluten, payday loans, Tyvek®, particleboard, and the provisional binding of homespun bigotry and official duplicity.
And what remains? How does one rise to meet the day confronted by such diminished prospects and prevailing degradations? Is there solace to be found in the following?
"It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.” - Samuel Adams
Sadly, in the provinces beyond the Washington/New York government/corporate state nexus, it may well be impossible to start an authentic populist brushfire when the political landscape is covered in flame-retardant, corporate-laid Astroturf.
Still: It would be entertaining, in the very least, to rock the foundation of the US House of Empire with the repeated force of numerous Wikileaks type revelations, until its closet doors are flung open wide, causing the skeletons within to dance.
Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at: phil@philrockstroh.com. Visit Phil’s website http://philrockstroh.com.
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Saturday, December 04, 2010
Press Action Awards 2010
Press Action presents its annual awards, which track achievements of reporters, authors and commentators in the print, broadcast and online communities. Without further ado, here are the 2010 winners:
Press Action Person of the Year 2010
Julian Assange
WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange is leading a righteous resistance movement. He’s not just talking the talk. He’s putting his life on the line by serving as the face of WikiLeaks, a media organization dedicated to shining light on the crimes and atrocities committed by nation-states, corporations and the global elite.
Press Action Commentator of the Year 2010
Chris Hedges
Chris Hedges, a former New York Times reporter, provided rousing commentary in 2010. No one could ever accuse Hedges, who obtained a master of divinity from Harvard Divinity School, of looking at the world through rose-colored glasses. The parting thoughts in many of his essays and interviews present bleak outlooks. And yet, Hedges often tries to offer a glimmer of hope. Among his many endeavors, Hedges writes a weekly column for the website Truthdig.com. In a recent essay, Hedges wrote: “If we resist and carry out acts, no matter how small, of open defiance, hope will not be extinguished.”
But Hedges is not naïve. And he is extremely analytical. “Our democratic system has been transformed into what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin labels inverted totalitarianism,” Hedges wrote in wide-ranging essay published in March. “Inverted totalitarianism, unlike classical totalitarianism, does not revolve around a demagogue or charismatic leader. It finds expression in the anonymity of the corporate state. … It does not forcibly suppress dissidents, as long as those dissidents remain ineffectual.”
Press Action Book of the Year 2010
The Anti-American Manifesto by Ted Rall
Ted Rall’s The Anti-American Manifesto takes a serious look at how U.S. political and economic elites are pushing the planet and its inhabitants down a road to ruin. The book is a cry for Americans to stand up and show some courage against the leaders who steal their money to fight endless wars and destroy the Earth. Rall is a gifted writer. The Anti-American Manifesto is not a dense treatise on the evils of capitalism. Some reviewers have criticized Rall for not offering a clearer vision of what the United States would look like in the wake of the revolution that he believes the nation so desperately needs. But Rall explains the primary purpose of the book is to incite Americans to do whatever they can to dismantle the nation’s oppressive and destructive systems as soon as possible, with the full knowledge that there will be counter-revolutionaries, with great firepower, who will seek to fill the ensuing power vacuum. Rall apparently is writing a follow-up to the manifesto that may quiet some of his critics by outlining his vision for a sustainable and compassionate society.
Press Action Cartoonist of the Year 2010
Stephanie McMillan
Minimum Security cartoonist Stephanie McMillan took her comic strip’s fans on a riotous journey in 2010 as her cast of characters pondered life in an economically depressed world where the political and corporate elite work hard to dupe the masses into believing a viable future depends on waging endless wars against other people and the Earth. McMillan’s strip explores a wide range of potential strategies and tactics for resistance against the dominant culture. In spring 2010, McMillan took Minimum Security to a new level by transitioning from a joke-a-day format into a long-form narrative. “It’s now a story about how a group of friends goes through twists and turns while figuring out how to effectively fight the system,” McMillan told Mickey Z. in a recent interview. Among her many other projects, McMillan also draws a weekly editorial cartoon called Code Green that focuses on the global environmental emergency.
Press Action Blogger of the Year 2010
Will Potter
In 2010, Will Potter, editor of the GreenIsTheNewRed website, further cemented his position as the nation’s leading authority on the government’s crackdown on environmental and animal rights activists. In recent years, police agencies and the courts have targeted these activists, primarily because the activists have found success in drawing attention to the atrocities committed against animals and the never-ending destruction of the environment. Potter follows these developments every step of the way, providing activists with legal updates and other information they need to wage effective campaigns to protect animals and the Earth. Along with his valuable work on GreenIsTheNewRed, Potter is the author of a forthcoming book from City Lights Books called Green Is The New Red: The Journey from Activist to ‘Eco-Terrorist’ and a contributing author of The Next Eco-Warriors, to be published by Red Wheel.
Press Action Reporter/Activist of the Year 2010
Lacy MacAuley
Using all sorts of media tools, reporter, media relations expert and political activist Lacy MacAuley reported on important issues and events across North America in 2010. She traveled to New Orleans to cover environmental and economic activism in the wake of the BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and then shortly thereafter headed north of the border for the anti-G-20 protests in Toronto, where she was arrested and assaulted by Toronto police while reporting on events in the city. More recently, MacAuley traveled to Pittsburgh, Pa., to raise awareness of the potential dangers of drilling for natural gas using a technique called hydraulic fracturing. If they value freedom and seek a livable future, all reporters would aim to adopt MacAuley’s fearlessness of authority and passion for justice.
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Friday, December 03, 2010
The war against Xmas?
Or maybe it’s Xmas against the war?
Or maybe we should just take inventory?
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More hope and change from Mr. Yes We Can:
U.S. wants to lift protections for wolf and grizzly
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Two upcoming Mickey Z. events:
Please take a glance over to your right for details on a reading I’m doing at Art House Astoria on Sunday, November 21...and a big vegan event at Bluestockings on January 12.
Hope you’ll help spread the word…
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My upcoming writing workshops at Art House Astoria:
I’ll be leading three writing workshops starting in late January
Hope you’ll help spread the word about this, too…
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Another of my recent photos:
An inflated sense of elf
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Wednesday, December 01, 2010
Them are fighting words
Some Planet Green re-runs worth a re-read:
How to Throw a Left Hook (Literally and Metaphorically)
How Bruce Lee Can Help Unleash the Green Dragon Inside You
Deliver a Green Knockout Punch: How Rocky Balboa Inspires Us to Win
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Bonus post:
My interview with Rocker Mom, Kristen Henderson
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Another of my recent photos:
No escape...
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Monday, November 29, 2010
My interview with novelist, Thaddeus Rutkowski
Thad Rutkowski sez: “When I’m talking about a social crisis - the existence of racism, say - I try to get the attention of a reader or an audience, and then I make a comment. “
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Two more Mickey Z. events:
Please check out the right-hand column for news on a Dec. 19 reading and a truly big vegan event at Bluestockings on Jan. 12. Please spread the word.
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Another of my recent photos:
Return of the Xmas Tree Killers
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Friday, November 26, 2010
Stone Age Brain, Space Age Culture
For starters, please join me in wishing Michele a Happy Birthday...
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An article of mine for Black Friday:
Stone Age Brain, Space Age Culture
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FYI:
Click here to keep up with all my Boro writing
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Another of my recent photos:
Justice isn’t blind, it’s myopic
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Thursday, November 25, 2010
Michael Vick's MVP Season and the Dreaded Hypothetical
spe•cies•ism – noun – discrimination in favor of one species, usually the human species, over another, esp. in the exploitation or mistreatment of nonhuman animals by humans.
Michael Vick tortured and killed many dogs. Lucky for him, Vick lives in a society in which speciesism is a defining characteristic.
If Vick had been caught red-handed torturing and killing human animals, the conversation would be radically different. There’d be no talk about a possible MVP season in the NFL. There’d be no redemption tour. No “everyone deserves a second chance” talk. Instead, Vick would be sitting on Virginia’s death row right now, nearing the day when his jailers would be escorting him to the execution chamber and placing him on the execution gurney. Would the sportswriters who claim to believe everyone deserves a second chance endorse that sentiment under such a scenario?
Because he was found to have tortured and killed only dogs, the U.S. legal system required Vick to spend less than two years in federal prison. And now, in the wake of his post-prison breakout game against the Washington Redskins, sportswriters are singing the praises of the new Michael Vick and growing impatient with people who dare to rehash the wicked ways of the old Michael Vick.
“I love dogs, too, but how long does Vick have to star in ‘The Unforgiven? He has faced it. Admitted it. Apologized deeply for it. Went to federal prison for it. Got cut for it. Suspended for it. And now campaigns against it. How long must he carry this cross?” Rick Reilly wrote in a recent column on ESPN.com.
On this Thanksgiving weekend, I hope Michael Vick is giving thanks to our society’s warped moral values that allowed him to resume his career as a professional football player.
During his visits with Humane Society of the United States officials, I wonder if the concept of speciesism has ever entered the conversation. I doubt Wayne Pacelle and the rest of his handlers at HSUS have urged Vick to discuss the concept of speciesism when he gives his anti-dog fighting talks to school children. It’s a simple concept and one that would resonate with young people. But I’m not so sure the HSUS officially opposes speciesism. Promoting animal welfarism over animal liberation can make an organization blind to the practice of speciesism.
I believe people who’ve committed violent acts deserve a “second chance,” as long as the offender shows the proper remorse, is never put in a position to commit the same violent acts again, actively works to prevent others from committing the same type of violence and is committed to undoing the damage caused by the violence.
While Vick’s prison sentence was far too lenient, given the sadistic nature of his actions, I don’t have a problem with him now playing in the NFL, as long as he continues to work with the HSUS to educate young people about the evils of dog fighting. And hats off to the animal rights activists and compassionate people among us who continue to monitor the actions of Vick to ensure he continues to speak out against dog fighting.
In his column, Reilly writes: “Before prison, he practically drove ruts in the McDonald’s drive-thru lane. After prison, he’s a chicken-and-broccoli guy.”
Vick could go even further to quiet the critics, many of whom still view him as a sociopath, by eliminating chicken from his diet and renouncing the entire factory farm system. But to make that important change in his life, Vick would need to diversify his coterie of advisers to include those who actually believe in animal liberation. -M.H.
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Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Day of thanks...and all that crap
Just Say No to Polite Small Talk This Thanksgiving
An Occupation Worth Applauding: Celebrate Un-Thanksgiving
William S. Burroughs: Thanksgiving Prayer (video)
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Another of my recent photos:
Marilyn x 2
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Monday, November 22, 2010
Do Ex-Vegans' Stories Make the Case Against Vegan Diets?
By Ginny Messina
When I read the recent blog post by Tasha, who used to be The Voracious Vegan, it felt like déjà vu all over again. Just a couple of months ago I was blogging about another woman—Lierre Keith—whose vegan diet made her so sick that she had to go back to eating meat and, in the process, she learned about how “nutritious” cholesterol is, became an advocate for a type of sustainability that depends upon animal foods (ie, learned that it’s more ethical to eat animals than to be vegan), and realized that in the final analysis, “life requires death.”
There is so much that is eerily parallel in these stories—not just the vague descriptions of the health-related experiences but also the evolving philosophy regarding food justice, and some very, very similar language.
I have to admit I’m always a little suspicious when an ex-vegan dives headlong into a love affair with meat. I understand that someone who believes they require meat may need to tweak their overall perspective to make it feel ethically okay to eat it. But, there is a big difference between choosing to include small amounts of meat in your diet for health reasons versus absolutely reveling in meat consumption as is reflected in Tasha’s recent twitter post: “Bacon, bacon, bacon…how did I ever live without you for so long?” Or this: “Lunch – bacon egg cheese and jalapeno quesadilla. I’m so happy to be eating food that I love.” Or the admission in her blog post that, when she took her first bite of meat after 3 ½ years, she was “moaning with pleasure and joy.”
That doesn’t mean I think she has made any of this up. I do think, though, that a desire to eat meat coupled with sickness due to nutrient deficiencies could make anyone more susceptible to a message about the alleged dangers of a vegan diet. And because those messages are out there, and they are very attractive, I think we’re going to continue seeing stories like this.
Tasha found herself getting sick after 3 years as a healthy vegan, but it’s not until some 4,500 words into her post that she shares that—at the same time and by sheer coincidence—she was also beginning to talk to or read about “revolutionary ecologists,” and was learning that eating meat is the real way to decrease one’s carbon footprint.
On October 4, she tweeted: “Time to reexamine my priorities. Discussions with feminist anthropologists, economists, and agronomists, have me discovering that agriculture, and especially annual grasses agriculture, is just as unethical, violent, and unsustainable as the animal agriculture I’ve been railing against for years. And this environmental devastation, violence, and havoc is nothing new; it’s been going on for 10,000 years.”
If you’ve read The Vegetarian Myth, this will all sound very familiar.
Also on twitter, she has words of praise for Derrick Jensen, who published The Vegetarian Myth (and says that the book saved his life). And then—more coincidence: She ends up under the care of a physician whom Tasha finds “surprisingly knowledgeable about vegan diets,” but, to me, sounds like she walked straight off the home page of the Weston A Price Foundation website. (The WAPF is the group devoted to diets high in animal fats, based on the “research” of a dentist in the 1930s. Their theories are not at all in sync with basic principles of nutrition science.)
Tasha’s doctor “explained how the health problems we are plagued with in the Western world are not caused by animal products, far from it.” And “According to her, avoiding healthy, organic animal products was not only unnecessary for good health, but in most cases positively detrimental to our well being.” Then her doctor talks about a long list of compounds, some of which have been erroneously touted by the WAPF and other anti-vegan groups as missing in plant foods and necessary for health.
Although Tasha had been taking B12 supplements, her doctor tells her that “supplements aren’t a substitute for whole foods.” Actually, as far as B12 is concerned and for those who have severe iron deficiency anemia, supplements are way better than whole foods. And because the body has to work harder to digest and absorb B12 from animal foods, the B12 in pills and fortified foods is actually much more easily absorbed. (There could be other reasons why Tasha wasn’t getting adequate B12 from her supplements; maybe she wasn’t chewing them or was taking doses that were too small or she had pernicious anemia. None would be a reason to start eating meat.)
And when Tasha couldn’t stomach prescription iron pills, her doctor recommended that she eat several eggs a day. Eggs for treating iron deficiency anemia? Yes, they’re a good source of iron, but the protein in eggs inhibits iron absorption, so this isn’t the first food that comes to mind for treating a severe deficiency. These are all issues that make me think that Tasha’s doctor was one more factor in convincing her that a vegan diet was unhealthy.
But it also seems clear that Tasha has bought into the myths behind The Vegetarian Myth. For example, kind of out of the blue—really, a total non-sequitur—she writes: “I know that the lipid hypothesis is completely fallacious.” The lipid hypothesis is the theory that saturated fat raises cholesterol and heart disease risk. Lierre writes about it extensively (rejecting it, of course) and it seems curious for it to be plunked down in Tasha’s post, where she also talks about “nutritious cholesterol and wholesome saturated fats.”
Nobody talks about “nutritious cholesterol” other than the WAPF gang and their protégées like Lierre. So while the post starts out making the case that some people just can’t get enough iron and vitamin B12 without animal foods, it steadily evolves into a full-blown embrace of the importance of animal products overall for both health and the environment.
And then there is the kind of instantaneous healing that occurs with the first bites of animal food. In The Vegetarian Myth, Lierre says “I could feel every cell in my body—literally every cell—pulsing. And finally, finally being fed.” Tasha says “I had only eaten a small piece of cow flesh, and yet I felt totally full, but light and refreshed all at once.” Eating meat also instantly improved her heart rate!
I don’t doubt for one second that Tasha experienced these feelings when she ate meat; I just know that it had nothing to do with what she had eaten and everything to do with her expectations about what the food would do for her. As I said in my review of The Vegetarian Myth, you have to actually digest and absorb the nutrients in food before you’ll feel any of its effects. And if you are consuming nutrients to reverse a deficiency, it will take weeks to feel the benefits.
The whole “listening to the wisdom of one’s body” philosophy is not scientific. Your body is notoriously bad at telling you exactly what you need. You can go for years on a diet that is deficient in calcium and your body won’t say a word about it until you hit your 50s and get osteoporosis. Likewise, you can have a marginal B12 intake and feel great, even though elevated homocysteine levels are busily wreaking long-term damage on your tissues.
Often, your body won’t start to complain until you are well on your way to a serious deficiency. Tasha was apparently deficient in both vitamin B12 and iron. Iron deficiency can be hard to treat especially since prescription doses are often difficult to stomach. But reversing a severe deficiency with food alone in the space of just a few weeks seems unlikely unless she was really eating a lot of red meat and liver. She seems to tweet mostly about eating bacon (not an especially great source of iron), eggs (they inhibit iron absorption) and dairy (it’s devoid of iron and also inhibits iron absorption). So none of that sounds like a blood-building diet to me. It’s true that the protein in meat boosts iron absorption but there are a lot of things that can be done to improve iron status on a vegan diet, and I wonder if Tasha’s pro-meat doctor explored them.
This is all conjecture, of course. I don’t know the extent of Tasha’s deficiencies or what she was eating. In her more than 7,000 word post, she’s rather vague about these details, as is Lierre Keith in her book. I do know that a lot of vegans think they are eating healthfully when they really aren’t. And I believe that a lot of vegans get sick and return to eating meat when all they needed was more sound information about vegan diets and less misinformation from the pseudo-scientific anti-vegan world (as well as the pseudo-scientific pro-vegan world.)
Do some people need to work a little bit harder to get adequate nutrition from a vegan diet? Sure. Young women with heavy periods may find it a challenge to keep up with iron needs. But are there healthy people whose needs absolutely cannot be met on a vegan diet? Maybe; I certainly can’t say that this is 100% impossible. What I can say is that Tasha’s post doesn’t make the case for this. It’s too vague, filled with too many questionable observations about nutrition, and is too clearly indebted to The Vegetarian Myth. I think there is a very good chance that she could return to a vegan diet and do well on it if she had appropriate nutrition advice.
But yes—some people do get sick from their vegan diet. And in some ways, the vegan community—or at least segments of it—are largely at fault for this. People like Lierre Keith do tremendous damage to the cause of animal rights because their stories appeal to others who are not thriving on a vegan diet. Some people are just bouncing around from one dietary philosophy to another, of course, and are especially susceptible to those stories. But others would stick with their vegan diet if they had the right information. That means that vegan activists need to do much more to make sure that good vegan information is available. And that is a segue to another post for later this week.
Ginny Messina, MPH, RD is a dietitian specializing in vegan nutrition. She works with organizations to promote healthy vegan diets and has been eating this way herself for two decades. This article is reprinted with permission from Messina’s blog, The Vegan R.D.
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My interview with radical activist, Zoe Blunt
Zoe Blunt sez: “Direct action for social change is the alternative to voting for politicians who won’t represent us, or petitioning a biased justice system, or lobbying toxic executives who won’t listen. It’s DIY.”
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From my Nov. 21 reading at Art House Astoria:
I’ll be part of “the faculty"
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Friday, November 19, 2010
The Great Depression of 2010 (and beyond)
1. After being sworn in as president in January 2009, Barack Obama - the Pope of Hope himself - declared to the world, loud and clear: “We will not apologize for our way of life nor will we waver in its defense.”
2. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, one in every 13 adults experienced at least one bout of major depression in 2007. (This, of course, doesn’t include those too private, too poor, or perhaps too ashamed to seek help or those who simply did not recognize their symptoms as such.) More recent studies found mental illness affects 1 in 5 Americans.
Am I implying there’s a palpable connection between our vaunted way of life and epidemic levels of mental illness?
You bet your ass I am…
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Another of my recent photos:
My latest vegan ink (on my lower left leg) as done by Mina Aoki at Daredevil Tattoos. It’s an inverted compass of sorts...a reminder of the here and the now and all that lies within. It’s also dark green in honor of my next novel, Darker Shade of Green (Raw Dog Screaming Press: April 2011).
(Shout out to Mark Hand for suggesting the placement)
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Wednesday, November 17, 2010
My interview with Project Censored's Mickey Huff
Mickey Huff sez: “Unfortunately, both the myth of a free press and the “liberal” media persist in the US, regardless of mountains of evidence to the contrary manifest in various social science studies dealing with media content and bias over at least the past few decades.”
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FYI:
Click here to keep up with all my Boro writing
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Another of my recent photos:
Rule breaker
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Monday, November 15, 2010
My interview with Ocean Robbins
Ocean Robbins sez: “We know how to judge and disconnect and become cynical. Been there, done that. But we also have the capacity to bridge across the divides, to speak our truth with compassion, and to listen to stories of people we have been taught to fear.”
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New writing venue:
I’m writing for a new Astoria-based magazine and website called Boro. If you click the link below, you’ll find a shitload of posts by me.
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Another of my recent photos:
My new neighbors
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Saturday, November 13, 2010
The "holidays" are almost upon us...
Two articles from last year’s shopping days nonsense...
Dark Green Holiday Choices Aren’t Always Easy
Holiday Eco-nomics: Choose Green, Not Greed
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Mickey Z. Event Alert:
Please take a glance over to your right for details on a reading I’m doing at Art House Astoria on Sunday, November 21. Hope you’ll spread the word…
I’ll be leading some writing workshops at Art House Astoria soon, too
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Another of my recent photos:
What comes between 1791 and 1792?
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Wednesday, November 10, 2010
The most terrorism-inducing words ever written
"And God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."
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For Veteran’s Day:
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Another of my recent photos:
Subway back flip
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Monday, November 08, 2010
Anthony DiMaggio on elections, the Tea Party, and punk rock (interview)
Anthony DiMaggio sez: “We have a real opportunity to work toward institutional progressive reform in this country today, and I am not the least bit deterred by the recent electoral turnout. “
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Another of my recent photos:
NYC Marathon passes through Long Island City
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Saturday, November 06, 2010
The Pope of Hope, revisited
I thought it might be fun to re-read some of what I was writing about the Dalai Bama around the time of his election two years ago. Did I miss anything?
Will Obama feel the pressure? (LOL)
Obama preserves our way of life
Obama and the Great Depression
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Another of my recent photos:
Some hearts can stretch
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Wednesday, November 03, 2010
My interview with LGBTQ activist Marisa Ragonese
Marisa Ragonese sez: “I’m a radical feminist from Queens who has been organizing for more than a dozen years with and on behalf of girls, women, LGBT people - especially the ‘L’ - and youth.”
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Another of my recent photos:
Myth America
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Monday, November 01, 2010
Why aren't you happy?
Don’t you realize all those brave men and women are over there dying so you can be happy? Why are you letting those heroes down? You’re not anti-American, are you?
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Bonus post:
Vegan triathlete Rich Roll lives out personal change we can believe in (interview)
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Another of my recent photos:
It changed color, broke free, and wafted slowly downward to finish its life’s mission...on the pavement?
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Friday, October 29, 2010
When Criminals Vote…
Election Day is mental illness in plain view—unabashed, unfettered lunacy not even trying to masquerade as sanity. If we woke up, it would take perhaps 3-5 seconds to recognize this: Obama is a heinous criminal. His Republican rivals (sic) are heinous criminals.
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Another of my recent photos:
The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls...
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Wednesday, October 27, 2010
When Criminals Vote …
By Mickey Z.
Election Day is mental illness in plain view—unabashed, unfettered lunacy not even trying to masquerade as sanity. If we woke up, it would take perhaps 3-5 seconds to recognize this: Obama is a heinous criminal. His Republican rivals (sic) are heinous criminals.
Then again, the same can be said for the volunteer soldiers and all those who give the orders; the law enforcement types and all those who give the orders; the judges; the professional liars who stock the media ranks; and, of course, the humans that comprise the power structure of Corporate America.
Since we habitually choose denial instead of rebellion, our willingness to play along at home by, for example, analyzing the subtle nuances that differentiate Obama from his Tea Party haters makes us heinous criminals, too. When things are as bad as they are now, there’s more than enough guilt to go around.
Just about every aspect of the US and global culture (e.g. raping the environment, the propaganda machine, avaricious materialism, insatiable military conquest, sexism, homophobia, racism, patriarchy, etc.) adds up to death and destruction. Yet we—the species with the allegedly superior cognitive skills—opt to spend our time getting worked up over which wing of the corporate party gets more votes on the first Tuesday in November.
Joe votes Republican. Joann votes Democrat. Nothing changes.
Jane loves Glenn Beck. John adores Jon Stewart. The planet remains in peril.
Joann and John think Obama is the cat’s meow. Joe and Jane agree with Newt. Big picture: It makes no difference at all.
Whatever side we choose in these fabricated conflicts, human society maintains its steady, relentless path toward mass homicide/suicide. If we’d ever look up from our text screens or peek out from our voting booths, we might actually catch the final act.
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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My interview with eco-activist Mark Hand
Mark Hand sez: “Confronting the machinery of the state, especially when it is so closely aligned with corporate power, is a daunting task. But what’s the alternative? Acceptance with no resistance? I don’t think so. The easiest thing people can do to get things rolling in the right direction is to simply raise their voices in opposition to all forms of injustice and violence. Speaking out can take many forms.”
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Another of my recent photos:
More than one way to ride an escalator...
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Monday, October 25, 2010
A vegan café...in Scranton? (interview)
Christian Pilosi sez: “Anyone can do things like this. Reach out to people in your community. Scranton is not a huge city and we didn’t have a lot of resources when we started, but we are doing it and going strong and growing as we are about to enter our third year.”
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Another of my recent photos:
Shaded
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Saturday, October 23, 2010
Randomness...
Whenever I find myself confronted by one of those very enthusiastic “Jews for Jesus,” I casually tell ‘em I’m a “Muslim for Buddha” and they begin looking for a new dupe.
There’s a homeless man I sometimes see near Grand Central Station. He looks so much like Jerzy Kosinski that I’ve begun to believe that he is.
To me, getting a wedding invitation in the mail is a lot like getting a bill…even worse. Con Edison doesn’t expect me to buy a new suit and dance for two hours on a stomach full of shitty food before I pay my electric bill.
Kurt Vonnegut has come up with as exemplary a rationalization as I’ve ever heard for being a writer in the Age of TV and the internets: “Many people desperately need to receive this message: ‘I feel and think as much as you do, care about many things you care about, although most people don’t care about them. You are not alone.’”
If your life were to be staged as a play, would it be a drama, comedy, musical, mystery, farce, or thriller? Would the audience laugh, cry, fall asleep, walk out, cheer, or sit in stunned silence?
Anyone else wanna share?
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Another of my recent photos:
Fare game
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Thursday, October 21, 2010
The Enemy Is Inertia
Review of The Anti-American Manifesto by Ted Rall (Seven Stories Press, 284 pages, 2010).
Don’t you know
They’re talkin’ about a revolution
It sounds like a whisper. -Tracy Chapman
The U.S. antiwar “movement” is dead, if it ever existed at all over the past 35 years. The U.S. government and its global partners are still invading and occupying nations and violently suppressing opposition movements. And the vast majority of people in the United States and the rest of the industrialized world are doing nothing useful to stop the nation-states in which they live from committing these atrocities. Holding weekly or monthly candlelight vigils doesn’t count.
Obviously, many people on the receiving end of these military attacks are resisting because they recognize they have something to gain—self-respect and possible eviction of the invaders. In the perpetrator states, the general public has been indoctrinated to tolerate their governments’ imperial policies and heartily salute the foot soldiers carrying out the lethal missions. Decades of brainwashing by nation-states cannot be erased overnight.
The cult of the military is one symptom of a more general condition of submissiveness that afflicts populations in imperial states. At the same time, politicians and the public overwhelmingly support killing the planet, although they may not realize it, or if they do, they’d never state it in those stark terms. The “economy” and “jobs” always trump preservation of life.
There are obvious and immediate steps we could take to end the warfare state, end the poisoning of our air and water, end the ritualized killing of plants and animals. But practically everyone around us prefers business as usual.
It would be unfair to minimize the harassment faced by the small number of activists in the industrialized world who are fighting back. Police agencies and courts are ramping up the surveillance, arrest and imprisonment of activists for thinking and acting against corporate and state interests that are behind the global mayhem.
But the consequences of fighting back in the so-called Western world are currently not as harsh as the everyday horrors faced by the people who are resisting foreign invaders and home-grown dictators in Afghanistan, Iraq and large parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
In his new book, The Anti-American Manifesto, cartoonist, columnist and author Ted Rall tries to awaken the American public from its decades-long coma (at least those people who haven’t gone completely brain dead) and remind them of the righteousness of fighting back against injustice and the importance of taking steps to dismantle the corporate state’s stranglehold on our lives and the world around us.
Rall wonders what it’ll take to get people off their butts and into the streets. A great recession hasn’t gotten people angry enough. (And the economy, according to conventional wisdom, is the issue that’s supposed to elicit the strongest reaction from Americans. But if an economy in terrible distress doesn’t cause a run on pitchforks, what will?) Bailing out the banks didn’t spark Americans to rise up. Spending hundreds of billions on invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan didn’t prompt Americans to storm the White House to stop the madness.
So, what’s keeping Americans from making radical change happen? Fear is one reason. Hopelessness is another. People don’t know where to begin because they don’t see any potential for success. “The tools of state and corporate repression have become airtight, approaching 100 percent efficiency in their ability to evade the slightest consequences of their actions,” Rall writes.
But Rall still must believe it’s possible—remote, but possible—that Americans will wake up one day and attempt to wrest control of the economic and political system from the people who prefer business as usual. If he didn’t believe this, he wouldn’t have bothered to write the book, you’d think.
Few people attended Rall’s book-tour stop in Washington, D.C. Granted, it was a drizzly, weekday night, but 15 people isn’t a good turnout for a fairly prominent cartoonist and author.
Frankly, I was surprised that Busboys and Poets, the bookstore and restaurant in D.C.’s bustling U Street corridor, agreed to serve as the venue for Rall’s book talk. The store/restaurant tends to avoid anything that gives off a scent to the left of the Democratic Socialists of America or Amy Goodman.
Hearing Rall talk about how dismantling the system could get messy was particularly delicious given the portraits of MLK and Gandhi hanging on the wall behind the podium. I doubt Busboys and Poets would welcome appearances by Derrick Jensen, Peter Gelderloos or Ward Churchill, each of whom has analyzed American power structures and resistance efforts in similar ways as Rall.
Speaking of Jensen, he wrote a blurb that dominates the back cover of Rall’s book. Jensen says:
"This great book lays the foundation for the revolution we all know is necessary. This is the book we’ve all been waiting for. Pick this book up. Read it. And then get ready to fight back."
Inside the book, Rall describes how “deep-green types fantasize about a collapse scenario that will save the world without anyone having to lift a finger.” Jensen certainly could be categorized as a “deep-green type,” but, as far as I know, he’s never said the industrial world would collapse without a struggle and terrible hardship. In fact, Jensen and Rall seem to be on the same page about life on earth getting quite untidy and dark before there can be a recovery.
Rall writes: “Collapse of the U.S. government will be a multidimensional disaster. People, infrastructure, and institutions we count on will be destroyed. How will we live without water treatment plants, heating fuel, and industrially manufactured medicines?” Jensen might argue such a scenario is where we need to head in order to wean ourselves off our unsustainable industrial culture.
Most of the people who showed up for the Rall’s D.C. talk appeared to be either traditional liberals or Michael Moore lefties curious to hear from someone with the guts to write and get a book published titled “The Anti-American Manifesto.” During his talk, Rall asked the audience a couple questions. First, what’s the worst problem we, as individuals, face that “the government” could solve? Second, what’s the biggest problem the world faces today that governments could fix? Rall passed the microphone around the audience. Healthcare was mentioned a few times as the most pressing individual problem and climate change got a few votes as the top global problem.
Next, Rall asked the attendees if they thought there was a significant chance the U.S. political/economic system would do what was necessary to have a positive impact on these issues. About a third of the attendees raised their hands. Based on responses from his book talks in other cities, Rall noted that D.C.-area residents are the most optimistic about the nation’s political and economic systems—hence, the low turnout for a talk by an author who’s promoting the dismantlement of those systems.
The moral of the story—and it’s an obvious one—is don’t count on Washington serving as a strong recruiting ground for any movement aimed at steering the United States off its suicidal course. As the nation’s political center, Washington’s day-to-day operations are focused on keeping the system as healthy as possible and fending off any destabilization attempts. The city serves as a large reeducation camp where any person who dares to say the system is rotten to the core is read the riot act by liberals and leftists who fear the state will grow even more repressive if too many people rock the boat.
Jon Stewart’s upcoming Rally to Restore Sanity in Washington, also known as the Million Moderate March, and Stephen Colbert’s companion March to Keep Fear Alive represent a triumph for the reeducation camp leaders who hope to see tens of thousands of people on the National Mall rallying in support of keeping Americans from getting too angry. As the organizers of the unrelated Million Molotov March, scheduled for the same day as the Stewart/Colbert event, state:
"Being moderate in a time of ongoing wars, economic collapse, and increasing hatred against immigrants is ridiculous. Do we want a more moderate occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan? A moderate amount of deportations? Only a moderate amount of homes being foreclosed? Stewart and Colbert are hosting a carnival of the absurd on the National Mall, so we say: embrace absurdity!"
As for tactics and plans, in more than one chapter, Rall applauds the decentralized work of groups such as the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front and says more activists should be following their model. But liberating mink or burning down an SUV dealership isn’t enough, Rall says.
“Freelance violence will always play an important role in attempts to overthrow a power structure,” he writes. In Nazi-occupied Europe, for example, such acts built up support by demonstrating action was possible. “But these slightly-more-than-symbolic acts are secondary at best,” he says. “These can never prove decisive in the struggle.”
Some people who’ve followed Rall’s work over the past 10 years will probably view a book about dismantling the U.S. political and economic systems as coming out of the blue. With this book, he transforms himself from an outspoken yet traditional American leftist into a revolutionary agitator who recognizes there’s no hope in the nation’s destructive system. Some people may view Rall with suspicion because he appears on the “dismantle-the-system” scene practically out of nowhere, espousing programs that are radically different than the potential strategies and solutions he was promoting not too long ago.
Toward the end of the book, Rall explains he wasn’t always a radical (of course, few of us can say we we’ve fought the system since our teenage years). As recently as six years ago, Rall wrote a book titled Wake Up! You’re Liberal! in which he scolded leftists who romanticize revolution. “Revolutionaries rarely rule; revolutionary principles rarely become law,” Rall wrote in the 2004 book. “Once you shake things up, the uncertainty principle goes into overdrive. If possible, it’s better to reform than to revolt.” (emphasis added)
Boy, how Rall has changed his tune on the value of “revolution” and “revolt”! He still fully endorses the “uncertainty principle” in his new book, although he now believes it’s not a deal-breaker. He argues it’s up to revolutionaries to be prepared to fill the power vacuum during the period when the state collapses and uncertainty is rampant. An even better scenario, though, would be for activists “to step into the breach before the current system collapses; if we fail, even worse forces will replace them,” Rall says.
Rall says he hated the title of Wake Up! You’re Liberal. “I didn’t say that I was a liberal—just that you are. Which is still probably true,” he writes in The Anti-American Manifesto. “But I have concluded several times throughout my life that nothing short of the radical actions I call for in this manifesto would be sufficient to save us, our nation, and the world with its plants and animals—and I have been afraid to say so.”
What led to Rall’s political transformation? Was it related to his employment situation, when he got laid off in April 2009 from his job as an executive editor at United Feature Syndicate? Rall writes in The Anti-American Manifesto: “My boss, Lisa, had been trying to harass me into quitting for months: insulting me at meetings in front of my colleagues …, assigning me Herculean tasks she knew I couldn’t perform …, attempting to humiliate me by making me do shit work previously assigned to entry-level employees.”
It sounds as if Rall’s experience at United Feature Syndicate was extremely painful, and one that further opened his eyes to how large corporations often mistreat their employees. Did this experience radicalize him on the issue of corporate wrongdoing?
Or perhaps, Rall had always held the radical beliefs expressed in The Anti-American Manifesto and getting laid off from his full-time corporate job at United Feature Syndicate emboldened him or created a situation in which he had less to lose by getting his “revolutionary” manifesto published.
You may trust Rall’s reasoning behind his conversion or you may think his call for “revolution” reeks of a cry for attention. But either way, The Anti-American Manifesto stands as a polished polemic against the modern American warfare state and the liberals and leftists who protect it through their obstructionism.
Rall is a clever and entertaining writer. And if you’re put off by the book’s title and his calls for revolution, let it be known that Rall doesn’t want to be the next Bob Avakian. And he’s doesn’t write in inaccessible Marxist jargon.
“We need to stop turning our anger into ourselves or against one another, while gobbling pills to keep sane,” Rall writes. “We need to direct the anger against its source: the people and institutions that are enslaving us. No one can enslave you without your consent. We are our own wardens. We can leave our prison any time.”
Perhaps a better title for the book, and one that could have served as a natural sequel to his 2004 book, would have been: “Wake Up … You’re Alive.” Essentially, Rall’s “manifesto” is a comprehensive and well-researched call for people to stand up and fight back.
- Review by Mark Hand
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Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Meredith Villano wants you to use the "F Word" (interview)
Meredith Villano sez: “Arriving at a feminist consciousness is a very personal process, which is often in response to contextualizing one’s own personal story within the larger cultural dynamic (i.e. sexual assault, bullying, poverty, abortion/reproductive health access). We can reclaim the F-word by voicing these personal narratives, and labeling them as feminist struggles, which only serves to destroy the feminist ‘man-hating bitch’ stereotype.”
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Another of my recent photos:
Plaid is the new black
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Monday, October 18, 2010
My interview with Food Not Bombs founder, Keith McHenry
Keith McHenry sez: “Food Not Bombs’ central unifying principles are a commitment to nonviolence, free unrestricted access to vegetarian food, and an honest attempt to make decisions as a group without hierarchy.”
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Another of my recent photos:
Wheels, large and small
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Friday, October 15, 2010
The media chills on Chile
In the midst of the media fixation on the Chilean miners, do you think we’ll learn anything about either of these topics?
The U.S.-sponsored coup in Chile in 1973
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The Pope Song:
(Thanks, Michael...)
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Another of my recent photos:
Bold as love...
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Thursday, October 14, 2010
Norman Finkelstein: Israel's Defeat in Lebanon? Never Again
Noted academic and author Norman Finkelstein told a large audience at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., Oct. 10 that Israel is likely preparing to invade Lebanon in the next 12 to 18 months and that this time Israeli politicians and military officials will not accept defeat at the hands of Hezbollah or any other group or country that comes to Lebanon’s defense.
The future is extremely ominous for the region, Finkelstein said, especially for the people of the countries who will bear the brunt of Israel’s immense firepower. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has indicated his forces will counter any attacks on Lebanon with similar strikes inside Israel, a scenario that would force Israel to take extreme measures if it hopes to be successful in destroying Hezbollah’s military wing and other resistance groups in the region.
Israel also will likely attack Syria, given its growing ties to Hezbollah and Iran. Finkelstein emphasized that Iran also would not allow Hezbollah to be defeated, which could lead to a much longer and devastating war in Lebanon that could eventually give Israel and the United States a pretext to attack Iran.
Finkelstein argued Israel has suffered several humiliating “defeats” over the past 10 years, starting with its 2000 withdrawal from south Lebanon after 18 years of occupation. The withdrawal was viewed by many as a victory for Hezbollah and its resistance movement. Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 2006 devastated a large part of the country yet revealed that Israel’s armed forces were vulnerable when met with a well-armed, veteran guerrilla fighting force. Instead of seeing itself splintered by Israel’s attack, Hezbollah actually saw its reputation and standing grow stronger among the Lebanese population and political leaders in the region.
Israel’s latest humiliation, Finkelstein said, occurred when a group of its elite naval commandos attacked the Gaza Freedom Flotilla on May 31, killing nine activists on one of the flotilla’s ships, the Mavi Marmara. Using makeshift weapons, activists on the ship successfully captured three Israeli commandos during the initial stages of the raid.
The captured Israeli commandos “looked like frightened children in the face of an abusive father,” one of the surviving Gaza freedom activists, Ken O’Keefe, noted in interviews after being released by Israeli authorities. Israel may have killed nine activists on the ship. But the activists’ success in briefly detaining Israel commandos demonstrated to the world that Israel’s military isn’t as invincible as advertised by the nation’s propagandists, Finkelstein said.
Israel’s attack on Gaza and its possible invasion of Lebanon are part of Israel’s policy of building a “deterrence capacity,” which had been undermined by Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Palestinians, Arabs and others in the Middle East no longer feared Israel. Israel believed Arabs and Muslims had become “too uppity,” thereby spurring Israel to attack Gaza in 2008-2009, murder activists on the Mavi Marmara and perhaps, once again, attack Lebanon, Finkelstein said.
In a rational world, it would be hard to understand how Finkelstein could be viewed as controversial. He’s the quintessential academic, scholar and teacher. He welcomes debate and independent thought. But there’s nothing rational about how the U.S. establishment views Israel and its actions. Because it’s a nation-state that can do no wrong in the eyes of the U.S. establishment, Finkelstein’s scholarship on Israel’s transgressions are viewed as heretical. The U.S. establishment permits only a very narrow range of debate on most political issues. These ideological confines are even more constricted when the topic is Israel.
Finkelstein enjoys virtually no job security as a professor and teacher in the United States. In his most recent position at a university, he was denied tenure in 2007 as a political science professor at DePaul University, a decision that most observers attributed to his views on Israel.
Finkelstein doesn’t hesitate to describe Israel as a nation-state that commits horrible atrocities. He’s an expert on the Israel-Palestine conflict and has spent his entire career researching the issue. But Finkelstein is quick to emphasize that the conduct of Israel pales in comparison to the actions of the world’s leading terrorist state: the United States.
The high level of security at Finkelstein’s talk was somewhat surreal. Entering the conference room where he spoke felt like going through airport security, albeit attendees weren’t asked to take off their shoes. But the campus police required us to remove all electronics, coins and gadgets from our pockets. We were told to raise our arms so they could wave their hand-held security wands up and down our bodies. And then we turned around, still with our arms raised, and the wand-waving was done a second time.
Once inside the room, I counted at least a dozen George Mason University police officers on the periphery of the room. When Finkelstein was introduced, security personnel escorted him to the podium, and then two security guards, dressed in suits with their audio earpieces and some type of weapon inside their jackets, stood guard in front of the stage on either side of Finkelstein. Behind Finkelstein’s left shoulder was a police camera aimed out into the audience to monitor and track any potential misbehavior. The cameraman moved a couple times, causing Finkelstein to glance nervously over his left shoulder.
But in the end, there were no protests by Jewish groups. Nobody attempted to jump the stage to attack Finkelstein. No one tried to shout him down. All of the security seemed like overkill, so to speak. In fact, toward the end of his speech, Finkelstein seemed embarrassed by the level of security. He said his views have become much less controversial than they were a few years ago—because American public opinion has shifted, not his—and that his talks are rarely interrupted these days.
When I attended one of Finkelstein’s speeches at American University in 2004, there was no security. And this was at the height of Finkelstein’s battle with Alan Dershowitz and only a few years after the publication of his seminal book, The Holocaust Industry.
Maybe next time I attend one of Finkelstein’s talks, the security will be toned down so as not to distract from his insightful message. And by then, perhaps Israel will no longer be operating as a lunatic state. - M.H.
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Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Vegan Revolution...with Zombies (interview)
David Agranoff sez: “Carlton Mellick who is on editorial board for my publisher, Eraserhead Press, e-mailed me and said there needs to be a vegan-themed zombie novel and that I should write it. Zombies are not my favorite subgenre of horror so it took me a little to think of a story I was excited to tell. I knew it had to be satire, and once I accepted that I came to the right story.”
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Another of my recent photos:
October scene
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Monday, October 11, 2010
The TRX fitness trend (interview)
Michael Margulies sez: “Instead of going to a traditional gym where you are consuming electricity for the lights, treadmills, televisions, and air conditioning, you can use a strap that is environmentally friendly to reduce your exercise carbon footprint. Thus, another way to protect the environment and get yourself in awesome shape.”
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Another of my recent photos:
Ghost hunting?
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Saturday, October 09, 2010
Happy 70th Birthday to John Lennon
October 9 is John Lennon’s birthday and, as usual, I spent day singing along (and taking pictures) at Strawberry Fields.
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Wednesday, October 06, 2010
"Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows" (interview)
Melanie Joy sez: “Most people care about animals and don’t want them to suffer. And yet most people eat animals, often multiple times a day, a behavior that enables the intensive, extensive, and unnecessary suffering of tens of billions of nonhuman beings every year.”
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Another of my recent photos:
Subway break dancer
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Monday, October 04, 2010
Mystical Visions and Cosmic Vibrations
Review of I Hope My Corpse Gives You the Plague: My Life in the Bush Era of Ghosts by Adam Engel (The Oliver Arts & Open Press, 267 pages, 2010).
Adam Engel’s essays on America in the early part of this century broke a barrier. His body of work was written in a voice that could smash through the walls of American empire and assault its supporting armies, academies and institutions, ownership systems and power support bases.
I essentially stole the above paragraph from comments Beat poet Michael McClure made after hearing Allen Ginsberg give a reading of Howl in San Francisco in the middle of the last century. For me, McClure’s observations also could have been made about the writings of Engel 50 years later. Engel’s prose has a familiar rhythm, similar to the poetry of Ginsberg.
I don’t know if Ginsberg wrote many essays on current events or the American psyche. I do know Ginsberg wrote poetry about a host of diseases afflicting American society. And if Ginsberg had lived into his late seventies and if he had taken a break from his poetry to write essays, his prose about America in the era of George W. Bush would have resembled the work of Adam Engel, whose essays are poetic in a Ginsbergian way. But don’t go looking for any formal rhyme and meter in Engel’s essays. Instead, you’ll find the same chaos and unconventional verse that marked Ginsberg’s work for most of his career.
The cleverness of Engel’s writing separated it from the work of other political satirists who rose to prominence during the Bush presidency. Engel embraced a fierce but fair tone in his essays at a time when online opinion journals were drowning in snark. Engel avoided getting bogged down in sarcasm because, at some point in his evolution as a satirist, he mastered the craft of writing.
Engel’s essays have appeared all across the Web in various online journals. Fortunately, the Oliver Arts & Open Press has published a comprehensive collection of Engel’s essays written during the reign of George W. Bush entitled I Hope My Corpse Gives You the Plague: My Life in the Bush Era of Ghosts. The title essay in the book reminds me of Ginsberg’s mesmerizing poem America in which Ginsberg wrote “America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing.”
“America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 17, 1956.
I can’t stand my own mind.
America when we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb.
I don’t feel good don’t bother me.
I won’t write my poem till I’m in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?”
In the title essay, Engel writes:
“What has ‘my’ country done for me lately?
Besides waste my most impressionable years drumming lies into my head?
Besides terrifying me with tales of nuclear menace and drudgery and breadlines and having to share apartments with strangers (!!!) and other horrors from them Commies Soviets who no longer exist, allegedly, because my tax money afforded Uncle Sam more missiles than ‘Collective Ownership’ provided Uncle Misha?...
I know, I know: ‘America, love it or leave it!’ Well I’ll leave it soon enough, Jackson, and YOU can pay the bill. I hope my corpse gives you the plague.”
Yes, Engel is fond of the caps lock on his keyboard. He’s not yelling at the reader, though. He’s expressing his frustration with THE MAN, the system that perpetuates the manufacturing of machines that are destroying our freedom and killing the planet.
Engel’s written thoughts will dazzle the reader, like a Beat poet, through his ability to turn a phrase in every paragraph of a single essay. Engel will make you laugh yet terrify you with his stark honesty about our dying world.
And yet, Engel’s essays typically contain a moment of inspiration, perhaps a dream that enough of us will wake up one day and put an end to the SYSTEM’s homicidal rampage. - Review by Mark Hand
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Interview with a rock climbing and base jumping vegan
Steph Davis sez: “I find that my greatest values are simplicity and freedom. I try to make sure I have all the things I need to pursue my passions and to have a happy, peaceful home life, but no more than that. Although it is still quite a lot, in reality. I feel that material possessions can actually create more and more responsibility and lead to restriction of freedom.”
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Project Censored event photo:
Making a point
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Friday, October 01, 2010
How to be an amateur athlete
The Tarahumara have a saying: “Children run before they can walk.” This taps into the true concept of play: The imaginative, creative, bond-forming approach chosen naturally by children. A child’s concept of play is usually unregulated and not goal-oriented; it’s ever-evolving.
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Don’t forget about my NYC event on Sunday:
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Another of my recent images:
Sometimes it pays to look up
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Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Portland's Green Microgym (Interview)
Adam Boesel sez: “The fitness industry is a big, fat, overeating slob. Why is it, when you join a gym, you’ll get counseling on proper nutrition, portion control, the most efficient workouts, etc. when the place where you’re working out isn’t even close to efficient. It’s built almost completely for comfort.”
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Another of my recent photos:
Turf war
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Monday, September 27, 2010
Eco-Activist Mike Roselle sez: "Action is the antidote to despair" (Interview)
Mike Roselle sez: “Today, I am 56 years old, own nothing bigger than a guitar, have no health insurance or savings, and yet I feel that my life is richer than that of many of the millionaires that I have met.”
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Another of my recent photos:
Capoeira
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Saturday, September 25, 2010
Leave it to Bubba to make veganism feel all creepy and war criminal-ish
(Bill Clinton goes almost vegan?)
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Another of my recent photos:
Technology tagged
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Poem: “Secret powers (via e-mail)"
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Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Yoga Agora: Just add community (interview)
Nick Velkov sez: “I’m happy doing what I do because I feel like I’m providing a form of preventative universal health care. Rather than misleading investors, or running a Ponzi scheme, or spilling oil in the Gulf, I feel that my efforts are being used to help my community.”
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Another of my recent photos:
Always looming
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Monday, September 20, 2010
My interview with Paul Street
Paul Street sez: “Every four years, many Americans invest their hopes in an electoral process that does not deserve their trust.”
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Another of my recent photos:
Striking fear into the hearts of millions
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