goodbye open internet, hello mandatory surveillance technology

at the age of 36, i undertook the self-directed effort to learn html coding so that i could make the transition into the digital realm. i’ve always felt the urge to be involved in “people’s” media – community radio like kboo, and occasional bursts of zine publishing.

i felt compelled to get into it because i knew it was only a matter of time before the openness of the internet was taken away from us. i knew that the main obstacle to internet access was economic – it was a little pricey for people who did not have an “entertainment” budget. but i also knew it would only be a matter of time before technological innovation removed that obstacle for most working people.

the internet was way too powerful a vehicle for widespread communication to be left in the hands of the public, and would eventually be seized and tightly controlled.

it was great while it lasted. i’d be surprised that it took so long , but if they hadn’t left it open for as long as they have, they wouldn’t have years of incriminating information against hundreds of million people with enough access to resources to challenge the power of the institutions – government, business and banking – who’ve been running things for us for so long.

try to use it as much and as wisely as you can in the coming months, cuz it’s going bye-bye.

what could have been the development of technology to enable undreamed-of advances in education and science will soon become an omniscient – perhaps mandatory – method of oppression.

i love the web, and think it’s the greatest innovation since libraries. future generations will curse its existence for every second of their miserable, highly scrutinized lives.

see  this is how the internet as we’ve experienced it will die, on july 12, from endtimes news

power to the imagination!

from the arissa press book, This Country Must Change

The Revolution continues not to happen, despite the presence of many revolutionary organizations in this country. Or is the presence of these groups actually inhibiting revolutionary activity here in the US? I don’t want to examine this point too deeply now, but I do wish to address the first point above, and that is the failure of allegedly revolutionary organizations to gain any following amongst the masses they always discuss at their meetings and in their literature.

The main activity of most revolutionary groups is to educate people about the need to rise up and overthrow the capitalist system which oppresses them. No doubt, they are sincere in this desire to reach out and organize the masses.

Despite appearances to the contrary, most people are too cynical to blindly follow self-appointed leaders — unless they see there is something immediately rewarding to them – personally – in doing so. The difficult part for the revolutionaries is not the actual educational aspects of this form of organizing, but is to be found in the challenge of educating people while not awakening in them a sense of empowerment.

Sure, every revolutionary group would like to see people arise and set alight the Powers That Be – but only if the resulting revolution would result in the rise to power of their revolutionary organization. To this regard, they are not to be seen as enemies of the system, but as yet another faction in contention for State power. The revolutionaries don’t want to smash the State; they want to be the State. This is why so few people – college students, mostly – fall for their schemes.

It’s all but impossible for people to live in this era and not have an opinion about the legitimacy of authority. Almost everyone has run afoul of some code of conduct, law or regulation at some point in their lives, and almost every one of these instances very likely convinced the transgressors of the unfairness of the enforcing authority’s power, or the idiocy of the rule/law/code transgressed. With few exceptions, authoritative power is seen as something rather arbitrary by most people.

This distrust of authority can become a knee-jerk reaction that is difficult to unlearn, as it tends to burn itself deeply into the psyche of the person who it has transgressed. Why do you think we have to attend school for so long? Definitely, it is because we must be trained in obedience. This is why so many kids detest school. They do not desire to submit to an authority that is pre-existent, which they were given no voice in establishing.

Sometime in a person’s life, she must learn to handle the fact that she must recognize some entity’s power over her, whether that power emanates from a religion, school, family, or workplace. This generally does not make the person happy. To most people, it is humiliating.

Looking for a job is possibly the least favorite activity most people experience during their lifetimes. Since almost all of us are forced to work by the economic structure society imposes upon us, we manage to struggle through the pain and humiliation as best we can, often with some combination of booze, drugs, pharmaceuticals, religion and sex.

And when we hear someone speak about the need for revolution in our country, even when sympathetic to the message, folks generally tend to hope that someone else will take up the challenge, seeing as how they don’t have the time or energy, or think they don’t have the strength and courage needed to fight against the authorities. This is the weakness the revolutionary groups seek out in their intended victims. If there is a general feeling of something being very wrong in our society, but people feel helpless in the face of the overwhelming task of overthrowing the social order, the revolutionary group has at least a slight chance to convert some of the population into followers.

But, here lies the trick: how does one awaken another person’s sense of indignation at the ills of society, while maintaining that person’s willingness to submit to the group’s purpose? lt would be so much easier for the revolutionaries if they could hypnotize their intended followers into accepting the group’s leadership. This is, of course, precisely what the revolutionaries attempt to do.

By ceaselessly bleating the same slogans, the group can entrap their intended victims into believing that their group is much different than the many other tiny revolutionary groups. Some gullible people will accept the group’s message and begin to adopt that party’s doctrine. If the hypnosis doesn’t take effect„ the revolutionaries can always try to use guilt, try to shame people into submission. This works particularly well on people who were raised as Catholics, by the way.

It’s quite a difficult trick, trying to move people to action, while keeping them docile enough to be herded around by the leadership of the revolutionaries. No wonder revolutionaries find so little success in these endeavors. Most revolutionary literature is more boring than can be tolerated. And it is often written in some obscure idiom that is only decipherable to the initiated, much like the Bible. Indeed, the revolutionaries often offer the same thing as the bible-thumpers: salvation!

By joining their movement, people are told, together they can save the Nation, the Earth, the Blue Footed Booby – depending on the focus of the group. Still, there’s that knee-jerk reaction to authority that most Americans never seem to fully outgrow.

Why awaken to one scam, just to be lulled to sleep again by a different one’? Why choose Boss 13 over Boss A’? This changing-of-the-guard has happened so often that its ftitility is glaringly obvious, even though this is not bluntly stated in textbooks. The combination of boring obscurity and the spectre of yet another authoritarian regime the  wannabe revolutionary groups represent is not a winner in many people’s hearts and souls. In a nation obsessed by the mythology of self-reliance, it’s difficult to sell doctrines which require blind obedience. Not to the people most likely to arise with the rage needed to achieve any drastic changes in the systems that oppress us. In the marketplace of ideas, then – although the System gets much of the blame for what is going wrong – the revolutionary’s attempt to take over State power – rather than overthrow the System and disperse power into the population – does not gain a wide following. The revolutionaries are content to sit on the sidelines of history, and only make a fuss when some weakness in the System presents itself — like the current economic depression.

Inevitably, they will attract a number of people with their own ideas about what should be done about the situation at hand, and the revolutionaries will patiently explain that only their leadership can provide the proper solutions. Maybe not in this lifetime, though.

During the Bush II regime, Junta leaders demanded that leftists, environmentalists, and scientists never condemn the American Way of Life. That is to say, they were willing to go to war in order to secure oil and gas for Americans to use for whatever purpose they desired. As long as American citizens are willing to send their children to war in distant lands to ensure the flow of petrochemicals to the Fatherland, we can rest assured in knowing that there will be plenty of gas for our commutes to work, trips to the mall, and riding lawnmower races. Rather than criticizing consumers about the incredible amount of damage their lifestyles are inflicting upon the biosphere — as the revolutionaries often do — the Bush Junta insisted that it was inexcusable to suggest that the American Way of “Life” was in any way wrong. Which message do you think most people wanted to hear? That their over-consumption of the world’s resources must end before we destroy our planet’s ability to support life, or that everything’s just fine the way it is? Yes, Americans, like most people, are guided more by immediate self-interest than they are by wisdom gained by introspection and observation. This is what the revolutionary groups recognize as well. They do not call for a drastic change in the way we live our lives, they just want the ability to collect and spend the tax money we pay to the government in order to do so. It would be wonderful to think that the emergence of radical environmentalism would have produced some sort of alternative vision for our collective future at this point in the (end)game, but it hasn’t – and perhaps can’t.

Here we are, 30-odd years after the first Earth Day, and the most extreme change most people can envision in their lives is to drive hybrid cars to their wretched, demeaning jobs. (Just for the sake of enlightenment — there are regular, internal-combustion engine cars that are more fuel-efficient than hybrids. You IDIOTS!)

Youth are at least acknowledging the horrors they will have to face during their lifetimes, but even though they are questioning the consumerist lifestyle, what they generally come up with is more of the same – like riding bikes to their wretched, demeaning, collectively-owned-and-managed jobs, with some recycling thrown in along the way.

It’s clear to me that what we are suffering from is a failure of imagination. We cannot envision a world, or a way of living, that is vastly different (personally rewarding, nurturing, co-operative, gentle on our planet) because it is beyond the reach of our imagination.

At least part of the blame for this is the prevalence of Pragmatism in most educated people’s minds. Pragmatism is a way of thinking that is meant to defeat imaginative thinking and stifle creativity. We are told to be “practical” or “realistic.” This is a way of thinking that is inherently submissive. It is how a slave justifies her continued obscquience to her master, or a person trapped in an abusive relationship rationalizes her consent to remain in the relationship. Pragmatism discards the immense possibilities for the future in favor of those more immediately obtainable.

In this era of dwindling resources, Pragmatism is the logic of gradual, mass suicide, which rejects life and its infinite potential. Few of us find any meaning, comfort, or reward in our present lives, yet we cling to them. It’s all we know. Pragmatically thinking, there are powerful forces in place — economics, religion, police, and military, to name a few — which enforce consumerism, to ensure we do not wander astray of the Ruling Powers’ plans for our lives. This is a philosophy of fear. We are afraid of what will happen to us if we turn away from economics as our source of survival. We are afraid of how the police will treat us. We are afraid of the concentration camps and prisons our government is busy building to contend with the future unrest which will arise as the economy continues to take more from the majority of the population and hands it over to those already massively wealthy. But, by abandoning the workers here in favor of cheaper labor overseas, the Ruling Powers have left us little choice but to look for answers elsewhere. Their economic models just do not work, and require government intervention every now and then in order to continue to exist.

While preaching to the voters that it is tragically inappropriate – even evil – to suggest the government provide healthcare to its people (the way almost every nation on Earth already does), the public mouthpieces of the monied elite demand taxpayer money to protect their investment swindles. When the current economic meltdown began to spiral out of control, the voting public expressed their disapproval for any sort of bailout for the embezzlers and con-men responsible for the mess. Most public officials acknowledged that their constituents were voicing their opposition to such subsidies by a margin of 10-1. Yet there was never even a hint of doubt that the swindlers would get the funds they demanded. The needs and opinions of the general public mean nothing to the people in power in this country. Money — huge, mountainous piles of money, inaccessible to the vast majority of the population – is what this economy is all about.

And where is the outrage over this debacle — the greatest single instance of theft in recorded history? The public has moved on to other issues, mostly because they have to work so much harder in order to maintain their standard of living. Also, many of them were suckered into believing that a changing of the guard in the White House could potentially lead to a re-assessment of priorities by the government. What most people desire is a fix to the economic ills the nation is experiencing. They want what they see on TV. They desire to purchase the good things in life — a home and everything that makes a home life comfortable and desirable. They want this without having to sacrifice their privileged positions as first world consumers in order to achieve it. If we are not capable of envisioning a lifestyle vastly different from the one handed down to us, or the one depicted in advertisements and sitcoms, it’s because any sort of alternative vision of how to organize our lives has not been presented to us.

The one model we have now (Work or Starve!) was originally forced on people through overwhelming military force. Where people did not acquiesce to such a lifestyle, campaigns of genocide were – and still are to this day – conducted until the resisters are unable to continue with their ways of providing for themselves outside of Western economies. Instead of radically transforming our lives so that we can meet our needs without over-taxing what our environment can provide for us, even the Visionaries among us can only seem to envision more of the same — only “New and Improved”, or “Sustainable!” This society is horribly sick and twisted.

Even now, as our elected (or self-appointed) leaders demand human sacrifice (the war in Iraq, the War on Drugs, etc.) to the god of the marketplace, many people refuse to question the values that shape our society. And how can we, when so many of us require pharmaceuticals, booze or other coping mechanisms in order to function in our day-to-day roles?

Our consumer-driven way of life is destroying us as human beings as well as our planet’s ability to support life, and. still we reproduce our place within it, day after wretched day. What the fuck is wrong with us?

This may sound silly, but it’s something that bothered me as a child and pisses me off to this day: Some of the iconic cartoons I grew up watching on Saturday morning served to re-enforce consumerism in the viewers by presenting it as both natural and never-changing. From the Flintstone’s Stone-Age to the futuristic lifestyle of the Jetsons, the lives depicted were little different from the lives being lived by the viewers. The level of technology may have changed from one show to the next, but the consumerist lifestyle was never any different: Work, buy, try to get ahead, buy some more! How can we break out of this cycle, when every element of society forces us to accept it as some sort of natural occurrence?

It’s not enough that some of us attempt to think outside of the proverbial box. We have to think beyond the means used to produce boxes.

The imperative we face now – those of us who can see beyond the mechanisms of the Ruling Powers – is to enact our visions of very different ways of relating to the places where we dwell. In order to do so, we must band together with strong-willed and like-minded people in order to produce working models of how we think life could be, were there not coercive forces severely limiting our options. It’s also important that more than one model of a different society be created. There should be as many as there are people committed to making their visions manifest in reality. There are, after all, many different ecosystems here on Earth, and each provides for different challenges for the people who desire to live within them., based on their unique attributes, as well as the amount of damage industrialism has inflicted upon them.

It is not difficult to live on this planet. It has nurtured an astonishing variety of such ecosystems capable of providing for every imaginable need a human population requires in order to thrive. Everything we need is available almost everywhere, if we only know where (and how) to look for it. The greatest danger and difficulty will be found in the struggle to rid ourselves of the control the Ruling Powers possess in enforcing their lifestyle upon the rest of us.

They will use every method of coercion and violence available to them to either force us back into the vast herd of their docile servants or kill us if we will not be enslaved. As it stands now, they seem to be poised to jettison the bulk of humanity, as tremendous numbers of us are no longer required to fulfill their needs. To use the U.S. as just the most glaring example: Our standard of living has (just in my lifetime) gone from being equal to or above that of any nation on Earth to being “better than Somalia.” The U.S. ceased being a First World nation when it was crushed under the heel of the Reagan regime. And the bottom of this downward trend is nowhere to be seen. Food prices continue to rise, while people’s ability to purchase food continues to erode even among those still legally employed.

What we truly require in these times are courage and resolve.

We must turn away from slavish obsequience to this dead-end society. Since we are all but blind to any other vision of a society, there is no blueprint or pathway prepared for us to follow in order to establish a radically different method of conducting our lives. But we must turn away from the one we are trapped in now. In doing so, we will suffer – and. not a little. But not to do so is suicide.

We can create options for ourselves and our offspring— human beings are clever and adaptable creatures – and we need to do it immediately!

The one issue that continually comes to my mind is the abolition of economics. At the very least, the use of money as a means of exchange and accumulation should be abandoned. There is absolutely no sane argument for continuing along that path. It has only brought about severe limitations in the way most people conduct their lives, while rewarding thieves, thugs, warlords and swindlers. If that is not readily apparent to you, you should remind yourself every day that during this economic debacle, where over one-third of America’s accumulated wealth has evaporated in less than one year, the oil corporations and their subsidiaries are recording unprecedented profits. Then, ask yourself a question: Is this something worth the sacrifice of our children?

Shelter: a Squatumentary

May 21st, 2009 by politicalmediareview

Shelter: a Squatumentary
Hannah E. Dobbz
(Kill Normal Records 2008)
Reviewed by Rob Los Ricos

 

For me, one of the highlights of this spring’s anarchist bookfair in San Francisco was the opportunity it provided for me to reconnect with the squatting scene in the Bay Area. In several communities I’ve visited recently, there has been much discussion of squatting. And, as luck would have it, over the weekend of the bookfair, there was a screening of the filmShelter – a Squatumentary.

Shelter tells the stories of three squats in the East Bay Area. For anyone who has wondered about the feasibility of squatting, but has not yet made an attempt, this film will give an honest idea of the hassles, harassment and effort involved in doing so. Two of the squats featured in the film were suppressed. The police and courts hassled one squatter to the point that he gave up after years of on-again, of-again effort to legally inhabit a house . He put a lot of work into making the abandoned property into a home, but was constantly chased away by the police. His interactions with the cops are great, as he continually reasserts his right to live in the squat, and refuses to acknowledge that he is committing any sort of crime by being in his home.

More successful was a squat in Emeryville. At least while it lasted. After returning one day to find the squat behind a chainlink fence, the squatters must plead for a little time to gather their belongs before the building was demolished. This segment is particularly useful for novice squatters who wonder about the dynamics of sharing a squatted space with other people, both as housemates and temporary housing for travelers.

Far more successful by far is Hilarity squat in Oakland. Hilarity has been around for years, and Shelter does a lot to clear up some of the legends about the house and its history. At the end of the Hilarity segment, the inhabitants are awaiting a court decision which could potentially have resulted in the squatters having legal ownership. The film was released in 2008, and the residence of Hilarity were concerned over the prospect of losing the property altogether. I’m glad to report that at the time of the bookfair, the squat was still going strong, with a dynamic core of people living there and utilizing the space as place to organize. I stayed there for a week, so I got a chance to observe this first-hand.

Filmmaker Hannah Dobbz was present for the screening, as well as other people either featured in the film or squatting at the moment. She did a great job with the filming and editing, and was one of the principle participants in the Power Machine squat in Emeryville. Overall, Shelter is a good representation of what lies in wait for anyone who is considering opening up a squat, or curious about how they function.

Shelter Trailer:

overcoming a culture of slavery

“As late as 1700, the prevailing European social system was still one in which vast power, the greater part of landed wealth, and the prime control of political life belonged to the hereditary landed aristocracy. The factor of continuity of the perpetuation down to the modern industrial world of a one-class social structure, or, in another phrasing, of the domination of a landed aristocracy, is one of the fundamental facts and continuing conditions of the history of western civilization.”

–Norman F. Cantor, introduction to The Civilization of the Middle Ages

As history and archeology students continue to make critical examinations of the “progress” of history, it’s become all too clear that, not only do we not live in the best of all worlds, but the ascension of Western civilization to world domination has been a catastrophe, rather than any sort of divinely ordained blessing. Especially when one considers how our technological civilization treats the Earth – as both a source of wealth to plunder, and as a garbage dump.

The thought that human beings are apart from the natural world, rather than part of a living Earth’s biosphere, is the original source of alienation. This is what made civilization possible. Once people began to build cities, the urbanites developed feelings of superiority over their fellow, less-civilized humans. So, first people became alienated from their habitat, then from one another. The rest, of course, is history.

Something else all civilizations have in common, one of their defining characteristics, is the creation of wealth and privilege for a ruling elite. Regimes may come and go, but the structure is never more than slightly modified. Elitism is preserved as the sole focus of civilized societies, no matter who is in charge.

The lives of the wealthy and privileged are so dissimilar to those of the poorer members of civilized societies, the elite constitute a distinct race – the Master Race. The oppression of civilization’s have-nots by this elite can therefore be accurately described as racism. This racism is the cornerstone upon which our Ultramodern civilization is built. It permeates every facet of the social fabric, so that everything which occurs everyday reinforces the domination of the citizens by a minority. Anyone who doesn’t serve the interests of the elite is seen as a deviant, an undesirable, and is dealt with as such.

The ruling elite of our current era is not made up of any ethnically “pure” people. People of all ethnic groups are allowed – encouraged, even – to fight their way into the inner circle, provided they are ruthless and cunning enough, and that they don’t present a challenge to institutionalized elitism. What the members of the Master Race do have in common is that they have received a Western education and they do business with Western banks, for the benefit of Western interests. It’s not ethnicity that makes one part of the Master Race. Only loyalty and service to Western institutions can grant one a pass into the upper echelons of our Ultramodern civilization. Which is, by the way, one of the primary aspects of fascism – defining one’s existence through service to institutions. Like, for instance, defining one’s life by vocation – “What do you do for a living?

The Master Race had its beginning when the legal concept of sovereignty was developed by ancient empires. In many instances, the ruling authority was not only a mighty king, but a god incarnate. His word was thus more than law, but divine writ. The authority not just unchallenged, but unchallengeable. Sovereignty, by legal definition, is absolute authority embodied in a single person. This concept is crucial to the process of historical Progress – the Modern-era justification for centuries of genocidal carnage.

As Europe was overtaken by civilization, the idea of sovereignty was introduced there. Sovereignty was, by this time, invested in a ruler whose authority was ordained by a single deity, which handed out royal titles as if its very existence depended on them. Once this single, divinely anointed, authoritative power was established, most of what we recognize as contemporary civilization began to intrude into people’s lives: nationalism, economics and urbanization among them.

As cities grew and trade became more profitable, the rise of prosperous merchants and craft guilds in European societies was part of a process of liberalization of wealth that Karl Marx saw as potentially liberating for those who create the privileges and material abundance for the ruling elite to enjoy. The leaders of Marxist revolutionary groups, however, never seem to desire anything beyond taking their own places among the Master Race.

The elite’s wealth was stolen from lands and Peoples all over the world, and they’ve been doing this for over half a millennium, with no end in sight. That’s why the Master Race has vast stores of wealth, and why all the impoverished, underdeveloped countries are in debt to the former colonial powers. It’s a pretty good racket, isn’t it? Take away all the natural resources from some people, then loan or sell it back to them at a hefty profit.

Then, as now, the Master Race used its wealth and power to perpetuate elitist racism, and to nurture subdivisions among the masses in order to prevent them from uniting against the Master’s rule. This disunity then prevented the general population from holding the elites accountable for the atrocities committed in order to maintain the elite’s status. Instead, many of the ruled people emulated their Masters and competed against one another in order to obtain a greater share of the Master’s plunder.

Today, in the Ultramodern era, the Master Race has conquered over all, and reigns supreme. It presents one and only one worldview – its own – as acceptable, and obliterates everything that could potentially challenge its omnipotence. The Master Race doesn’t rule because its ways are inherently superior to other People’s. They rule because everywhere their minions venture, the local population is forced to accept the rule of the Master Race.

After the annihilation of their cultures, the various defeated Peoples began to see the world with their conqueror’s vision. They rebuilt their societies to accommodate the Master Race’s objectives. Everyone learned to think and act like their Masters, speak the Mater tongue, and were taught to desire a lifestyle comparable to that of the elite. Once a society was infected with this racist elitism, everyone in that society began to identify with the Master Race.

In the first attempt to permanently establish the rule of the Master Race around the world, they orchestrated World War I. Though U.S. President Woodrow Wilson lied that this war was fought to make the world “safe for democracy,” its true result was to ensure that representational rule be reserved for those who could be trusted to look out for the interests of the Master Race. For everyone else…horrible lives under ruthless, cruel dictatorships – in service to the Masters, of course!

Attempts to divide civilized societies into sub-divisions such as middle or working classes miss this essential point. The parts of society which do not comprise the elite are irrelevant. The single focus of every element in civilized societies is the creation and perpetuation of wealth and privilege for the benefit of the Master Race. The unfortunate masses left out of the elite ranks are insignificant. Our lives pass with little notice. We are interchangeable parts of an inhuman system.

We could be slaves, conquered by the armed forces of the elite; either from foreign lands, or from the homeland. The more privileged among us are mostly wage slaves these days. Let’s face facts: people who are compelled to toil for the benefit of others are slaves, no matter how rich their rewards

Working-class rebellions have not resulted in the abolition of slavery, but at best have only put some of the slaves in control of slavery. This is not a good deal for most people. The reason working people fall for this proposition at all is because there has been little or no questioning of the false promise of industrial society – unlimited material abundance – at least not in the more advanced industrial states.

The proponents of class struggle whole-heartedly accept industrial society as the right and proper way of life. The benefits generated through the exploitation of natural and human resources make the costs of such exploitation bearable, desirable even. Here in the 21st century, the ecological, psychological, spiritual, and social costs of industrialism are becoming increasingly and unavoidably obvious, even to the most willfully ignorant, and the benefits portioned out to a dwindling percentage of the public. We will be rid of the shackles of the Master Race when we can meet our needs without being forced into economic servitude. For that to happen, we need to pursue our own goal: control of land to utilize for our own needs.

It is not possible to create a new society – one based on integration with other People, our inner (higher) selves, and the world at large – within the context of the current society. Control of industry won’t free us from the grasp of the Master Race. Worker-controlled industries would still be dependent on elitist financial institutions. We’d still be crushed into dehumanizing, industrial standardization. We’d still be forced to compete for, even fight wars over, dwindling natural resources.

Alienation is the root of all of civilization’s problems. We are alienated from our environment by the insane belief that we are its masters. We are separated from other cultures by feeling we are rivals. We are in competition with our neighbors, and often struggle for domination within our own households. Our short-term desires can supersede our commitments and relationships with the people in our everyday lives. Our lives are so defined by alienation that almost everyone is resigned to live lives that bear no resemblance to their innermost desires. Not only that, but most people actively pursue daily routines that will prevent them from living rewarding, fulfilling lives. Alienation from our own selves is so entrenched in our social consciences that we think, “Well, that’s just the way it is.”

No, that’s not the way it is. That’s the way it is constructed anew, everyday. Things could be very different, if we find within ourselves and our relationships the strength and resolve to MAKE it different.

A new society must be built outside of this one. By working “within the system,” one is only integrating oneself further into the system. That’s how the Ultramodern world works. Anything that expands or requires economic activity feeds the elitist system. This is what is expected of us. In order to create a healthier, nurturing future for ourselves and our descendants, we are going to have to create new lives outside of the realm of economics and alienation.

That would require devoting our lives and energy into making these changes, as opposed to working for wages or otherwise acquiring money. This may sound scary and weird, but let me clue you in on something: Many native Peoples once held festivals where everyone gathered together and gave away all their possessions. At first, some people may have a lot more than others, but by the end of the festival, everyone pretty much had an equal share of all of their combined resources. Such outpourings of communal devotion are so great of a threat to civilized alienation that they are illegal in Canada and the U.S.

protecting the forests of cascadia from globalization

not content to passively watch the eliot state forest expand clear-cutting of ancient forests, the youth of cascadia are rising to protect these amazing, complex ecosystems, where human cultures have thrived for centuries in an area abundant in life-giving, pure water.

with so many people across the world rising up against globalized market forces – that demand trillions of tax dollars for banksters, so that nothing is leftover to care for the sick, or even to provide people with a means to meet their family’s basic needs – such actions as forest occupations and lockdowns in the former united states of america are no longer isolated incidents, on some far away ridge in the mountians. they can now be seen in their rightful context – the worldwide attempt to wrest control of our lives and our planet from economic scams which are leading the human race towards obliteration.

just as the people gathered in tahrir square in cairo continue to believe in their own inherent ability to determine their own fate, we in cascadia must ask ourselves if we are well-served by the political power structure amassed on the east coast of this continent. few people in this country can honestly answer positively. knowing that our politic leaders will see our homes seized by the same banks who were given trillions of our tax dollars, and then destroy the benefits we formerly received from the government and make a huge noise about the need to go further into debt. and – again! – to the same banskters who crashed the economy through their hypno-economics.

let us acknowledge that the world is changing, that the current era’s institutions of power and authority are not up to the challenges brought about by their own policies and actions. and let us stand together to make cascadia a place we can rely on to provide for us, so long as we don’t fuck it up.

cascadia forest defenders blockade Elliott State Forest 

“The Oregon Department of Forestry’s 2011 Implementation Plan aims to increase clearcutting in the Elliot from 500 acre to 850 acres per year,” says Meredith Cocks of Cascadia Forest Defenders. “The clearcutting in the Elliot is the worst in the state. They would never allow cuts like this on federal forest.” … “Some of the biggest trees in the state and some of the last native forests are on the chopping block here in the Elliot. Oregonians would be horrified if they saw the wholesale massacre that happens in this public lands year after year,” says Ben Jones of Cascadia Forest Defenders.

Updates from the tree tops, coast to coast! 

Early Tuesday morning a number of activists with Cascadia Forest Defenders and Cascadia Earth First! unfolded a series of road blockades in the Elliott State Forest closing access points to timber sales along the west fork of the Millicoma River. The blockades consist of an array of Tree-sits and ground level locking devices.

The sales are all slated for clear-cut logging, and are areas of native forest that have never before seen a chain saw. They exist on steep slopes where erosion from logging threatens to further damage Salmon habitat, as well as devastate protected species including Marbled Murrelet and Northern Spotted Owl.

“For decades, activists in the northwest pushed the forest service into changing there ways for the better, and we have seen dramatic improvements in the types of projects federal agencies are working on, The Oregon Department of Forestry has taken the opposite route, showing total disregard for life, and the health of these ecosystems, this is the beginning of a long term campaign that aims to see state lands managed for sustainability, bio-diversity and the overall health of the ecosystem, we will keep the pressure on in The Elliot, and all over the state of Oregon from this point forward” –Jason Gonzales, Cascadia Forest Defenders.

“The clearcutting in the Elliot is the worst in the state. They would never allow cuts like this on federal forest.” —Meredith Cocks of Cascadia Forest Defenders.

Forest Defensers Lockdown In Oregon Dept. of Foresty Office

As a culmination of the annual Trans and Womyn’s Action
Camp, activists occupied the regional Oregon Department of Forestry office.
Three members of the camp have locked themselves together inside the
office using modified pipes. Currently the trio is refusing to leave
until the Oregon Department of Forestry revoke their support for the 2011 Elliott State Forest Management Plan.

Today is the last opportunity for citizens to comment on the plan. Activists involved in the action criticized the plan for opening up areas to logging which were previously off limits. They also criticized the plan for increasing clear cutting to boost local timber jobs while not making any decisive moves to regulate or even
monitor the large timber export industry which ships logs and jobs overseas.

Billboard banner drop opposes clear cutting and log exportation in Oregon 

The Lies of Progress

Progress is a lie used to justify the domination of the world by Europeans and their post-colonial bastard offspring. Global warming, chemical warfare, women and children sold into slavery: it’s all the price of progress. Genocide isn’t a concern of Progress, Progress is only concerned with economics.

Let’s imagine a people living peacefully along the shores of a lake, as their ancestors have done for centuries. Families share garden plots and homes. People hunt and fish. The people are, as a whole, are healthy. No one goes hungry, and their culture of dancing, festivals, folk medicine and sharing encourages everyone to integrate into the community.

This is unacceptable. These people are not generating profits for corporations or banks, nor paying taxes to a government. These people and their land need to be developed. Let’s have a look at these people after a couple of generations of progress.

First of all, disease killed off a great many of them when they first encountered Haoles (Hawaiian for “death breathers”). With liquor and firearms, the developers corrupted a few of the people to help seize lands once held in common by the community. The majority of the people refused to go along with this plan, so the military was brought in to subjugate them.

With military occupation achieved, Progress picked up steam.

A dam was built upstream from the lake, to provide electricity for future development. Water is also diverted from the lake for use by the town that has grown around the military base. A paper and lumber mill once employed some of the people, but when the forest was gone, the mills closed.

The lake is full of mercury and dioxin– by-products of industrial processes. People still eat the fish, which gives them cancer. The land is all owned by former military leaders, who raise cattle on it. Jobs are hard to come by and most people work servicing the military: doing laundry, cooking food, prostituting themselves. The soldiers, in return give the people unwanted children, venereal diseases, liquor and drugs.

This is Progress on a micro level, and this Progress has been repeated over and over again-in the Americas, Africa, Asia, even in Europe. On a larger scale, the lie of Progress is even easier to see. Look at Argentina. Once, it had an economy built around beef production. After the Great Depression, Argentinians were determined to progress into a first world nation, like Canada or Australia. It took them 50 years, but they made it.

Sadly for them, this wasn’t acceptable to global corporate and financial interests. You see, first world nations require a great deal of the world’s natural resources to maintain their affluent lifestyles. There just isn’t enough to share! No, there is only enough for a few first world countries. I don’t know—how bout eight?! So the IMF and World Bank stepped into Argentina and destroyed its economy. Just 10 years ago, Argentina was a prosperous country. Now its economy is all but imaginary, the currency unstable, unemployment is greater than 50 percent and the economy is centered around debt servicing, just like any other third world country. And it’s happening again, in Greece and Romania.

This is Progress: the disempowerment of local people in order to increase the power of global corporations and financial institutions.

Empire for Beginners

The following review was published in the Spring/Summer 2002 issue of
Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed.

Empire by Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt (Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, MA, 2000) 478 pp. $18.95 paper.

In his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in 1988,
Bush the Elder proclaimed that we had entered into a New World Order. I was
alarmed to hear someone drunk with power-and who knows what else-crowing
over the seemingly unlimited authority the ruling powers had achieved. The
media tried to pretend it never happened, but the concerns of many, many
people-who, like myself, were stunned into disbelief by Bush I’s
proclamation of power forced conservative political pundits to eventually
address the President’s megalomaniacal statement.

Mostly, they stressed the “fact” that the NWO had been in existence for quite a while and was nothing
new after all. Most lefty-liberals fell in line with the conservatives and
even tried to outdo them by claiming that the NWO was just more of the
same old capitalist imperialism. This isn’t so. In Hardt and Negri’s book,
Empire they describe how the emergence of the NWO/Empire represents a new epoch
in human evolution, an event so profound as to put an end to history, not by
negating it, but by bringing historical processes to their conclusion.
This (Empire) is IT: the ultimate fulfillment of human endeavor.

To the authors, this is not necessarily a bad turn of events. To me,
however, Empire/NWO represents the triumph of the darkest aspects of human
capability and must be resisted with every bit of energy by everyone who
treasures life.

When Empire hits the fan

“Our basic hypothesis is that sovereignty has taken a new form, composed
of a series of national and international organisms united under a single
logic of rule. This new global form of sovereignty is what we call Empire….”
-Hardt and Negri, from the prologue to Empire

The most important aspect of this book is its rebuke of all those who have
tried-unconvincingly, yet doggedly-to claim that the neo-liberal era of
global capitalism is merely more of the same old capitalism. This is not
the case. The era of Empire is as different from the era of European imperialism
as that time was different from the ages of the ancient empires of Rome or
Persia.

The concept of sovereignty was developed by the ancient empires. The ruling
emperor was not only a mighty king, but a god incarnate. His word was thus
more than law, but divine writ. His authority not just unchallenged, but
unchallengeable. Sovereignty is absolute authority embodied in a single
person. This concept is crucial to the processes of historical Progress.

As Europe entered the modern era the idea of sovereignty was introduced
there. Modern sovereignty was invested in a ruler whose authority was
ordained by a single deity, who handed out royal titles as if his very
existence depended on them. With a single divinely anointed, authoritative
power established, most of what we recognize as basic tenets of modern
societies began to take shape: nationalism, capitalism and urbanization
among them.

Having been born and grown up together, capital and the state are
co-joined twins, each dependent on the other. The state created the social crises
capital required in order to move into the Industrial Age. Capital
rewarded the state with wealth. For instance, capitalists needed desperately
impoverished people to destroy in their mines and factories. The state
provided them when it confiscated the common lands and thereby reduced the lives
of subsistence farmers and prosperous herdsfolk to destitution.

Even before these implementations of sovereign authority, the ruling
powers had turned their coercive forces outward to plunder the fabulously exotic
lands being discovered around the world.

Whereas the various peoples of the European states had been welded into
national identities-for example, Catalans, Castilians, Galicians and Basques
turned into Spaniards-during the era of European imperialistic conquest,
there was no real effort made to bring the conquered people into the
imperial realm as citizens. Once the discovered people had been relieved
of the riches it had accumulated over generations, it was relieved of its
lands and forced to produce trade goods and otherwise increase the wealth of the
ruling powers. Imperial power was represented in the foreign colonies by
administrators who were citizens of the realm. Those they ruled over were
not citizens, and thus were at the mercy of the administrator’s whims.

At the beginning of the modern era, almost everyone on Earth was a
subsistence farmer, hunter, herder, fisher or forager. By the end of the
modern era, the Industrial Revolution had become the greatest force of the
historic process. Industry turned agricultural people into proletarian
masses, accelerated the urbanization of society and enabled European
empires to force their cultures upon the rest of the world.

With the concept of the nation firmly established, a sense of historic
continuity was manufactured. Instead of remembering their ancestral
heritage, the various peoples of each nation were only taught about events
and places within their national boundaries. This gave an illusion of
permanence to the state, which in reality was only a recent innovation.

The war to end history

Rebellions against European imperialism in the Americas started historical
processes which eventually led the world beyond Modernism into a new,
post-modern social order.

The new American-style state was not based upon the divine right of kings,
but on the popular will of the citizenry. By the turn of the 20th Century,
the few nations which had not exchanged the rule of nobility for that of
elected legislatures were suffering political turmoil. When revolutionary
forces of the masses finally succeeded in crushing the regimes of local
aristocracies, a schism formed which was to prevent the development of
Empire for as long as the conflict remained unresolved. This was the Cold
War era, which began with the Bolshevik coup in October of 1917.

The historic conditions for the emergence of Empire were created during the
modern era. People no longer identified themselves as different ethnic or
racial groups, but as nationalities. WWI was an attempt to divide the
world  into permanent national entities and spheres of Euro-American influence.
The Russian Revolution upset the effort, not only by challenging the dominant
form of capitalism (liberalism) with a socialistic one, but also by serving
as an example of how even the most backward, underdeveloped nation could
rapidly industrialize and grow into a powerful, modern state. This was not
appropriate for Empire, which requires a single world with every country
appointed its specific imperial role.

It was tragically naive of the non-Europeans to fall for the ideals
promoted by the ruling powers. The lie was that each nation could develop
its own economy along the industrial and economic paths forged by European
and American states in order to gradually develop into societies identical
to those of the First World. The reality is that the power and wealth
enjoyed by the First World is dependent upon the exploitation of the
resources and people of lesser developed places. In order to keep those
resources available to the ruling powers, lesser developed nations must
remain so.

This was one of the reasons WWI was fought-to divide the world’s resources
among the already industrialized nations. Though U.S. President Woodrow
Wilson lied that this war was fought to make the world “safe for
democracy,” its true result was to ensure that democratic rule be reserved for those
who could be trusted to look out for the interests of the ruling powers.

The lie of progressive development is a lovely one to believe, which is why
so many people continue to believe it to this day. During the late modern
era (the 19th Century), the ideologies of Progress (Manifest Destiny,
historical determinism, dialectical materialism, et al) evolved, one from
the other, in order to rationalize the horrific “sacrifices” made to further
Progress. Genocide, ecological ruin, slavery-no crime against Earth or its
inhabitants was so great as to be unabsolvable through the anointment of
wealth upon its perpetrators. As long as enough wealth was generated through
plunder, slaughter and exploitation so that the ruling powers could
benefit, all sins were forgivable.

Such corruption isn’t a symptom of modernism, but is the cornerstone of its
very existence. Indeed, it would not have been possible for the imperial
powers to stifle development, or exploit the people and resources of distant
lands were it not for massive political and economic corruption. Its economy
would collapse without periodic infusions of corrupt profits-dirty money.

In contrast to this corruption, the Russian Revolution was an
abomination-an attempt to create a counter-Empire. The Soviet Union had all
the attributes of the fledgling Empire, including a nationalistic doctrine
that could lead people in any country that desired to achieve modernity
through economic development, into the Industrial Age. Unfortunately for
the communists, their development was achieved through brute force, rather
than economic persuasion or liberal Progress. Communism’s corruption was
based upon coercive power more than creation of wealth. Unable to generate
vast amounts of reserve wealth via racketeering and shadow economies, the
Soviet economy was unable to keep pace with America’s rampant
militarization, which itself was fueled by economic and political
corruption.

The Soviet economy collapsed spectacularly. Suddenly, there were no more
obstacles to the final implementation of Empire-the groundwork was complete.
The project of reducing people to workers, forcing them off their land and
into ghettoes, had been a monumental success. The urbanized masses were
transformed into proletarians, powerless people dependent upon industrial
production for their survival. Even agriculture became industrialized.
Most farmers in industrial states now work for corporations, rather than
farming land they own. They would be called peasants or campesinos in other
countries, but that would be rude to point out in an industrialized,
wealthy nation like the US.

When its rival imploded, the path was cleared for the coming of the one,
true Empire. People’s lives have been reduced to monotony, their
allegiance to the ruling powers unquestioned by minds too dull to conceive of any
alternative. Loyalty to schools, corporations and states is instilled in
their minds. This is the time of the Pepsi Generation, the culmination of
the historic march of Progress.

Empire: You will be assimilated

So far, the retelling of history has been fairly predictable, a classic
Marxist rendition of the development of contemporary industrial societies.
Marx and Engels proposed faith in the proletarian masses to one day seize
control of the state and therefore the means of production. Then we’d all
live in a workers’ paradise according to their fairy tale.

It is Hardt and Negri’s description of Empire that makes this book worth
reading, despite the Marxist fundamentalism that skews their perspectives.
In their discussions of the composition, function and goals of Empire, the
authors truly bring it into focus for all those who are concerned with the
various aspects of globalization, yet fail to grasp its totality. The
failure to see the big picture is what makes the many critics of Empire/NWO
sound naive and hopelessly foolish in their shallow attempts at reform.

An ex-lover of mine, a Leninist, once related a story about a cab driver
she’d encountered who’d been involved with the Industrial Workers of the
World prior to the Palmer Raids. They talked at length about class struggle,
the suppression of the IWW and current events. He summed up by saying,
“You think it was bad back then, wait ’til they have the whole world.”

Empire’s definitive quality is its omnipotence. It is everywhere and
manifest in all our daily activities. Empire represents the triumph of
Western Civilization as embodied in capitalism. All cultures, ethnicities
and other categorizations of human beings have been commercialized, turned
into different varieties of consumers. Our differences have been turned
into marketing devices, our cultures into demographics.

The nationalism that dominated the Cold War era has been forsaken for a
borderless land of opportunity for economic endeavor. Regional differences
are merely justifications for the hyper-exploitation of workers and
resources. Whereas in the postmodern era there were three worlds, now
there is one that has absorbed all three and scrambled them in the process.
Shopping centers, sports stadia, financial districts and industrial parks
are indistinguishable in any country-Canada, Vietnam, Mexico or Nigeria.
The same is true for shantytowns, homeless people’s camps, landfills and
ghettoes.

Human existence has become banalized to the point of meaninglessness, the
alternative being horrific irrelevance. The former, present and future
proletariat are offered the incentive of the shopping mall while menaced
with the specter of homeless beggars. The Third World has migrated to the
First, the First exported to the Third, while the Second is being
destroyed.
The mega-wealth being generated by these processes is being reserved for
the elite, who will invest it to further increase its own wealth, while less
and less is left for the multitude to compete over.

As factories disappear from what was once the First World, the former
members of the proletariat take their places among the multitude-unskilled,
landless workers whose financial stability is always in doubt. The multitude
has taken the place of the proletarian masses, who still retained some
distinguishing characteristics as people. The multitude has one identity,
one function-consumer.

In former times people could find fulfillment through spiritual service to
their communities, or through helping their communities become
self-sustaining. The forces of Empire will not tolerate such alternatives.
All activities by all people must serve the needs of Empire-to increase the
wealth of the wealthy. Governments, non-governmental organizations, even
religious organizations all enforce the same omnipotence of Empire by
solidifying areas where imperial presence is weak and by sanctifying
imperial power.

The historic union of twin power shared by capital and state is a thing of
the past. International capital needs no state support, unless such
support better suits its needs. Corporations are wealthier, face fewer social or
legal restrictions and are not usually held accountable for their actions
by the multitude. Their institutions-the World Trade Organization,
International Monetary Fund, etc.-shape laws and regulate economic
activity.

The state must sustain itself through terroristic wars against its own
citizens. The state is the muscle backing up Empire’s demands. In addition,
the United Nations must maintain the illusion that lines on maps have
relevance, or it loses its own relevance. Current political boundaries
must be maintained, no matter how many Rwandas, Kosovos, Kashmirs, Kurdistans.
UN peacekeeping forces enforce the lies of maps in order to keep Empire
functioning smoothly. National identities must remain intact, not because
they are just, fair or even functional, but because we have reached the
post-historic era. Nation-states that exist now have always existed and
will always exist, thus says Empire.

If it weren’t for its function of protecting Empire’s interests from the
retaliatory outrage of the multitude, government would have little
justification for its continued existence.

Empire and Its Discontents

In the preface to their book, Hardt and Negri admit they were working on
their analysis in the very earliest stages of Empire’s emergence, between
the end of the Gulf War and before the NATO invasion of Yugoslavia. Events
since then have shown that they “misunderestimated” (in the word of Bush the
Lesser) Empire’s insidious nature. Or perhaps they chose to understate the
corruption and violence inherent within the New World Order. This is
understandable, given the authors’ progressivist love of the state. To
apologists for the state, atrocities like genocide and widespread political
repression are minor inconveniences that must be tolerated in the interest
of historical development.

No matter the reason, Empire falls well short of a condemnation of its
namesake. Because Hardt and Negri believe so strongly in the progressive
nature of history, they welcome Empire’s arrival with the enthusiasm of
any fundamentalist who sees the master’s hand in every turn of events.
Hardt and Negri see within Empire the seeds of its own destruction, though
they fail to disclose upon what they base this vision.

History Happens

To people who believe in destiny, fate, or historical materialism,
determinism, divine will, or other such dogma, when events of significance
occur it is proof of some sort of Grand Design.

So, the development of civilization is seen by many people as the crowning
achievement of human endeavor. However, it can also be viewed as an
abomination against life on Earth. As far as I’m concerned, civilization
represents the triumph of the worst characteristics of human capabilities.

Hardt and Negri agree that capitalism and the state were born and grew up
together as a result of corruption and crisis. Crises helped to establish
the dominance of capitalism and were often created by the state. From the
beginning of this alliance, the state and capital have depended on one
another. If capital falters the state intervenes on its behalf. When the
state grows weak capital recreates it in a manner more beneficial for
itself and in a way that pulls the state through its political crisis.

Capital funded the voyages of discovery and conquest that brought about
the modern world. This benefitted capital, but nowhere near the extent it
benefitted the aristocracies of Europe and their military agents. Whereas
the capitalists reinvested their earnings into colonial plantations and
domestic industries, the feuding aristocracies squandered vast fortunes on
senseless continental squabbles over territory. The states used these wars
to solidify their claim to legitimacy and, of course, capitalists profited
from these conflicts.

It’s very easy to see how the deliberate creation of social crises in
order to justify increased state intrusion into peoples’ lives leads to the
development of a corrupt civilization. However, Hardt and Negri don’t look
into corruption at the heart of the ancient empires. Brute force was
deployed to bring “law and order” to places destabilized by the actions of
the very same forces which later assumed power. This strategy worked as well
for Akkadian warrior-kings as it did for Persian god-emperors, and as well
for Roman caesars as it did for fascist dictators. It’s no surprise that
Hardt and Negri don’t seem to appreciate the extent corruption infests
Empire, since they don’t acknowledge the extent it has shaped civilization
from its beginnings.

Land and Liberty

Tracing the corrupt roots of civilization could have led to an
anti-civilization tendency within Marxist doctrine. That would be heresy,
though. The thought that civilization was a wrong turn in the evolution of
Homo sapiens is a blasphemy against everything progressive-minded people
believe. Western civilization is the logical, only possible course for
human development. Never mind the rivers of blood and the spreading
desertification, deforestation and homogenization of ecosystems civilization
has brought to the world. Civilization is not only good and proper, but
absolutely essential to the lives of human beings-the ultimate achievement
of life on Earth.

According to progressives, industrial society is the epitome of human
endeavor. Once the world has been properly industrialized, say the Marxists,
the proletariat shall be empowered to rise up and seize control of
industry and the state. It shall then lead the world into a new era of material
plenitude and establish an egalitarian utopia, wherein everyone will share
the fruits of industrial society, no doubt portioned out by the tooth
fairy, riding on her flying pig.

The failure of Marxist revolutionary movements is the main indication for
Hardt and Negri’s alleged end of history. The workers did not seize control
of anything and in the Imperial Age the proletariat has become irrelevant.

If workers become uppity in one place, industry packs up and goes elsewhere.
Because of the immiseration of the vast majority of people around the world,
there will always be people willing to accept low wages, unhealthy working
conditions, atrocities against human dignity-anything-in order to earn the
right to live with a minimum of economic security.

The only reason this arrangement is acceptable to people is because the
ability to provide for themselves has been taken away from them. The point
of contention between the masses and the state has always been over control
of and access to land. In the Russian, Mexican, Chinese, Vietnamese-even
the American-revolutions, it was the desire of people to have land to grow
crops and otherwise provide for their families that inspired people to fight
against the old imperial powers, not the desire to control industry.

Industrialism itself would never have been possible if the imperial states
had not forced people off their communal lands and into destitution. This
made them dependent on wages in order to buy their food at markets, rather
than grow it themselves. Until the postmodern era, it was still possible
for landowning people to live with very little utilization of money if they
wished to do so. What their land could not provide for them, they could obtain through barter.

This independent lifestyle is what people have fought for repeatedly,
throughout the modern and postmodern eras.

In the few instances where the proletariat has fought during a revolution,
it has, more often than not, sided with the reactionary forces of the
state against the genuinely revolutionary forces of the rural masses and
indigenous peoples. Even when the proletariat has joined with the
revolutionary masses, once the battle has been won the workers and their
communist overlords have usually suppressed the redistribution of land and
instead imposed industrialized, unsustainable agriculture upon them, just
as the capitalist states have done elsewhere.

An attempt to reconcile human existence with Earth’s biosystems would put
an end to the ideologies of human supremacy, whether of the secular humanist
or divinely ordained variety. To claim that people are but a part of Earth’s
biosystems and that we need to live accordingly is to spit in god’s face,
to turn one’s back on thousands of years of historical progress, to forfeit
mankind’s triumph over Nature, to admit that sometimes things happen for
no reason, that there is no divine plan guiding our collective existence, and
that we are responsible for the choices we make in life.

The subjects of Empire seem to be reluctant to take responsibility for
their own lives and instead surrender them to abstract social forces. This
might be due to the hopeless impotence imperial life presents us, with no
alternatives possible, or even imaginable. Add to this the overbearing
pressure of history and it is little wonder that suicide is rampant and
loss of life so routine as to be trivial under Empire.

With no place left to expand capital is forced to return to the same
consumers time and again. New cars, new houses, new computers are sold to
the same consumers who have the old ones. With wages falling across the
globe, there will be no expanding markets created through the spread of
industry to previously undeveloped lands. Each abandonment of one country
for another brings another downward movement in the global economy. More
prosperous consumers-better consumers-will be forsaken to create lesser
consumers somewhere else.

With this redundant economic system, we have not only entered a
post-historic era, but a post-capitalist one as well. Capitalism is based
on increase. Investing money to generate profits, thereby creating more money
for more investments to increase production and generate still more
profits.

you’re gonna get what you deserve

Where the post-capitalist economy fails this equation is in the increase
of production. Production now remains stagnant, if it doesn’t actually
decrease. Capitalism has discarded its historical imperative to increase
material abundance. The new goal of the imperial economy is to boost stock
values.

Traditionally, stock values increased when a company increased
profits through increased production and expanding markets. However, the
dizzying heights reached by stock markets at the end of the 20th Century
were created by downsizing rather than expansion. Instead of building
additional factories and manufacturing new products, corporations nowadays
add to their bottom lines by firing their employees, closing old, outdated
factories and building new, updated ones in Asia. Health benefits for the
work force are cut, as are their wages. Retirement funds are robbed. The
increase in profits generated this way gives stocks a false value. In
order to keep inflating their stock values, corporations must continue to
downsize. This is not sustainable.

The movement of industry between countries may generate profits for the
ruling powers, but they leave economic ruin in the abandoned states. The
sudden loss of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in exports can
devastate most nations’ economies.

The Multitude

The effects of Empire upon societies take various forms according to the
level of development each society has achieved in the postmodern era.
Hardt and Negri claim that all cultural and social differences are now
irrelevant, since Empire has reduced all possible identities to one-that of the
consumer.

This is simply not true.

But to the believers in Progress, anyone
who does not fit Empire’s single mold will shortly become an imperial
subject or perish. For the authors, it is unbelievable that there are
people who are resisting the encroachment of civilization. The fact that some
people are successfully waging war against Empire is inconceivable to
Hardt and Negri.

Rebellions in New Guinea, Chiapas and Ogoniland, by the U’wa of Colombia
as well as First Nation peoples throughout Canada: all these peoples are
struggling to maintain cultural identities outside of Empire’s domain.

These are primarily conflicts in the way people relate to land.

People dependent upon intact ecosystems for their sustenance have no interest in
“developing” the resources of their homelands, which are fully developed already, and
provide for all their needs. The idea is not to fuck it up and to live
within the limits of one’s bioregion.

Resistance to Empire is not always so noble, however. Both Somalia and
Afghanistan exemplify the horrors inherent in xenophobic hatred of all
that Empire promises.

Rather than upholding strong connections to the land,
many warlords and tribal strongmen are more interested in asserting their own
authority over that of Empire’s. This distrust of foreigners and their
schemes would be a mere nuisance to Empire, except that in the cases of
both these nations, and increasingly in Indonesia, political turmoil is
preventing imperial access to natural resources. Such xenophobic civil
strife has led to tribal and nationalist warfare in Kosovo, Rwanda,
Chechnya-all across Asia and Africa.

There is no silver lining to be found
in these conflicts, but one thing they display is that ethnic and
nationalist identities have not yet been supplanted by teaming multitudes
of consumers. It seems as though Empire is not quite as omnipotent as Hardt
and Negri think.

The notion that 500 years of genocidal carnage was necessary and desirable
to bring humanity into one all-encompassing social order, shaped by and in
the interests of Euro-American economic interests is nothing short of
racist. Hardt and Negri would understand that if they themselves were not
Euro-Americans. To them, the bloody ascendance of European civilization to
global domination is only proper. To many people-those of us of mixed
heritage, indigenous peoples and non-believers in Progress- it is obvious
that there are serious problems with the direction civilization is moving. We
choose to create different identities for ourselves, Empire be damned.

Empire’s “multitude” is a disgusting attempt to create a sort of
multicultural racism. Anyone of any race or culture is permitted to
participate in the annihilation of social and cultural differences and
share in the plunder gained. Empire buys out cultures and discards what is
unmarketable. Where it finds rich, varied cultures with lovely folklore,
obscure languages and customs, it develops plastic trinkets, pornography

and brothels for the tourists. The local languages die out, the old stories
are forgotten and everyone becomes an American.

Hardt and Negri alike underestimate the strength, resilience and
intelligence of many peoples. They also do not take into consideration the
unexpected consequences of Empire’s actions. Worldwide climate changes are
beyond its control. This will play havoc with agribusiness, whose
frankencrops are also having in unforeseen consequences.
And there are people within Empire who have come to the realization that
they have nothing in common with Empire’s schemes and machinations. So, we
are witness to uprisings against imperial decrees, like the Zapatistas’
insurrection against NAFTA and the international days of action against
Empire’s administrative bodies-the WTO, G-8, IMF, WEF, etc. Just as
worldwide Empire seemed to be imminent, widespread opposition has arisen.

The Relevance of Nations-or Not

Imperial sovereignty does not reside within the nation-state, but is
wielded by transnational entities-treaty organizations and financial
institutions of regional and global scope. In many instances Empire relies
upon the state to enforce its dicta over the objections of its citizens
and in contradiction to its own laws. States are becoming increasingly
unnecessary to Empire, however.

The Democratic Republic of Congo exists only on paper. In the actual land
delineated on maps as constituting the DRC the federal government controls
only a segment of the country around the capital. The rest of this vast
nation has been overrun by bandits from Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and even
as far away as Angola. In this region, a strong, centralized government does
not suit Empire’s needs. The corruption at the heart of capitalism has
always prevented the development of DRC’s abundant mineral resources and
potential agricultural production.

Until recently, most of the people in the DRC enjoyed an
easy life of gardening, fishing, foraging and hunting. They were too
preoccupied by dancing and festivals to work for wages. In short, they
led lives that were rewarding and satisfying, with little or no need for
consumer goods. Any government which tried to change these circumstances has
met with resolute indifference or determined resistance, and failed.

Unable to access the DRC’s incredible bounty of natural resources through economic
development, Empire fell back upon tried-and-true methods to get at them:
conquest and plunder. Since the invaders are not connected to the land and
people of DRC, they have no hesitancy to clearcut the rainforests in order
to plant coffee and cocoa, or to strip-mine the mountains and thereby
poison the local water supplies. How many Congolese have died during these past
fifteen years of carnage? Six million? Twelve million? It doesn’t matter,
because these people were not producing anything of value for Empire and
were therefore as expendable as they were irrelevant.

And where did those tiny, impoverished nations acquire the military
capability needed to invade and occupy a country five times their combined
size and at least that much more populous? There are many billions of
dollars being made through this holocaust. What Empire wants, Empire gets.
This sort of regressive behavior doesn’t fit into the progressivists’ neat
little worldview of purposeful, linear development leading toward utopia.
Unless one drops the pretension that this is not racism, that the utopia
to be achieved will be enjoyed by the Euro-Americans and their lackeys, and
created by the sweat and blood of the rest of the world. The example of
the DRC may be the most extreme but it is hardly unrepresentative of how
Empire functions.

Congoization of South America

Plan Colombia, a strategy developed by oil corporations and the US
military-industrial complex, will bring about extraordinary political and
economic chaos in Peru, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador.

This plan is based on two goals: the flow of oil through pipelines, and the flow of funds
through banks. Political and economic conflict, like that in the
DRC, will likely never affect the flow of either cash or oil from this
region, but will prevent the overwhelming majority of the people there
from benefitting from either pipeline, or from having any say in the matter.

Cocaine production is the big money item for most rural people in the
region, the only thing that prevents many from complete economic
destitution, which makes the future of the area look frighteningly similar
to conditions in Afghanistan over the past 25 years-rival warlords
fighting over control of coca fields, some controlled by leftist guerrillas, some
controlled by the local state, some by foreign armies, some by organized
criminals.

Evil, evil, evil, evil, stupid!

The willful naïveté of most of Empire’s dissidents is obscene. Their
emphasis on dialogue and education will do nothing to change Empire, or
challenge its existence. Empire understands what it is doing. All the
death and environmental ruin it causes are not a series of unfortunate accidents
that occur unintentionally. Billions of people’s lives are not necessary
for Empire. If they cannot find some way to serve Empire, or if they somehow
get in Empire’s way, they will be done exterminated.

Under capitalism, the creation of a postmodern, consumer-driven economy
made it seem as if we had entered a post-scarcity era of abundance. In the
post-capitalist, imperial era, economies are built around the concept of
downsizing. Economic progress in lands outside of the Euro-American sphere
of influence will not be tolerated. Industrialization in undeveloped
countries is being carried out by and for Empire. The local people do not
benefit from having their cultures, societies, land, families,
individuality and sense of dignity destroyed.

People who act in the interest of Empire are absorbed into it. However,
when industry flees from one country to a newer, more exploitable one, the
economic contractions in the abandoned country ensure Empire’s downward
spiral. There are limits to Earth’s resources. Knowing this Empire is
placing limits on the availability of privileges, granted to ever fewer
people. These select few, however, will have tremendous wealth at their
disposal.

Those who still lead cheers for economic democracy have yet to get a clue
about finite natural resources, or about imperial economics. Argentina, a
classic example of a developing state that built itself into a First World
economy during the postmodern era, had its economy crushed by Empire.
Argentinean prosperity doesn’t suit Empire’s needs, just as Korea’s or
Yugoslavia’s don’t.

Hypno-economists want people to believe that China’s entry into the WTO
will usher the world economy into a new era of expansion. But wages there
are so low, they will not support families. And to paraphrase Free Market
apostle Ross Perot, the giant sucking sound one hears these days is that
of factories being shipped off to China from every corner of Empire.

There will be no economic expansion-there’s no room left for expansion.

Capitalism isn’t dying, it’s dead already. Yet, its rotting, bloated corpse staggers
on. Capitalism is undead, sustaining itself by feeding on the living,
consuming life in all its manifestations.

Empire presents an interesting analysis of the New World Order, one which
is valuable in helping to understand the power dynamics that define it.

However, I’ve pointed out above how I think some of Hardt and Negri’s
basic precepts-progressivism, Marxism, Euro-centrism-lead them to sad,
predictable conclusions, the main one being their enthusiasm for the arrival of this
horribly dehumanizing Empire under which we live. This isn’t the most
serious problem the book presents, though. That would be the wretchedly
obtuse language the authors inflict upon the reader. I understand that
translating philosophical and political theory can create syntactical
difficulties, but some of this is as unforgivable as it is unnecessary.
Hardt and Negri also enjoy redefining words that have recently taken on
new meanings, like “virtual” and “posse.” At least with these the authors made
the effort to explain themselves. I suppose it’s everyone’s right to use
words according to their desires, but it is rather laborious for readers
to have to constantly guess at the meanings of words, or even the same word
used for widely different purposes.

Still, the authors’ tortuous literary stylings shouldn’t deter anyone with
the patience to wade through such muck. It’s very important for us not to
treat Empire as a mere continuation of the same old capitalist society.
Empire is a different monstrosity, one that recognizes its limitations and
seeks to preserve privilege and fabulous wealth for a very few, while
discarding the bulk of humanity.

Hardt and Negri are enthusiastic about Empire containing within itself the
seeds of its own destruction. They don’t know what form this will take and
they also make the classical Marxist mistake of believing that the
multitude will overthrow Empire by subverting its global nature for their own ends.

But resistance to imperial power won’t come from within. Anything which
takes place within Empire can be recuperated for Empire’s own needs.
Anything. Everything. That’s its nature.

Resistance must come from without, which means, primarily, creating human
identities that emphasize our relationships with the biosystems we inhabit
rather than with commodities, economics, the state or nationalities. One
thing Hardt and Negri get right is that opposition to Empire must occur
worldwide, or Empire will crush it as resistance rises in one isolated
spot or another.

a missing nuke, the murder of john p. wheeler lll, and raymond davis

i’ve been tracking several stories lately that have me scratching my head in wonder. what i’ll write below will be the result of intuitive reasoning on my part, and a long-standing familiarity with just how far the bastards in power will go to tighten their control over the rest of us. as far as i can tell, the ruling powers see the vast majority of the human race as livestock, which must be herded about by the elite, for purposes only the elite know.

however, one of their pet projects – the internet –  has, in its current form, the ability to allow people to do lots of research in a short amount of time. and, when certain topics arise in seemingly unrelated stories, further examination can at least map out points that have been otherwise unconnected.

this is one of those stories that conspiracy buffs find irresistible: unsolved murders, shenanigans at the highest level of government, and grand schemes concocted and carried out in secret, by shadowy figures.

so, let’s begin this inquiry with a question much on the minds of anti-imperialists all over the world:

How will America handle the fall of its Middle East empire?

Peter Oborne, the Daily Telegraph

Empires can collapse in the course of a generation. At the end of the 16th century, the Spanish looked dominant. Twenty-five years later, they were on their knees, over-extended, bankrupt, and incapable of coping with the emergent maritime powers of Britain and Holland. The British empire reached its fullest extent in 1930. Twenty years later, it was all over.

Today, it is reasonable to ask whether the United States, seemingly invincible a decade ago, will follow the same trajectory. America has suffered two convulsive blows in the last three years. The first was the financial crisis of 2008, whose consequences are yet to be properly felt. Although the immediate cause was the debacle in the mortgage market, the underlying problem was chronic imbalance in the economy.

For a number of years, America has been incapable of funding its domestic programmes and overseas commitments without resorting to massive help from China, its global rival. China has a pressing motive to assist: it needs to sustain US demand in order to provide a market for its exports and thus avert an economic crisis of its own. This situation is the contemporary equivalent of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), the doctrine which prevented nuclear war breaking out between America and Russia.

Unlike MAD, this pact is unsustainable. But Barack Obama has not sought to address the problem. Instead, he responded to the crisis with the same failed policies that caused the trouble in the first place: easy credit and yet more debt. It is certain that America will, in due course, be forced into a massive adjustment both to its living standards at home and its commitments abroad.

This matters because, following the second convulsive blow, America’s global interests are under threat on a scale never before seen. Since 1956, when Secretary of State John Foster Dulles pulled the plug on Britain and France over Suez, the Arab world has been a US domain. At first, there were promises that it would tolerate independence and self-determination. But this did not last long; America chose to govern through brutal and corrupt dictators, supplied with arms, military training and advice from Washington.

The momentous importance of the last few weeks is that this profitable, though morally bankrupt, arrangement appears to be coming to an end.

Far from being inspired by Twitter, a great many of Arab people who have driven the sensational events of recent weeks are illiterate. They have been impelled into action by mass poverty and unemployment, allied to a sense of disgust at vast divergences of wealth and grotesque corruption. It is too early to chart the future course of events with confidence, but it seems unlikely that these liberated peoples will look to Washington and New York as their political or economic model.

The great question is whether America will take its diminished status gracefully, or whether it will lash out, as empires in trouble are historically prone to do. Here the White House response gives cause for concern. American insensitivity is well demonstrated in the case of Raymond Davis, the CIA man who shot dead two Pakistanis in Lahore. Hillary Clinton is trying to bully Pakistan into awarding Davis diplomatic immunity. This is incredible behaviour, which shows that the US continues to regard itself as above the law. Were President Zardari, already seen by his fellow countrymen as a pro-American stooge, to comply, his government would almost certainly fall.

we already know that the ruling powers will throw our lives away for any, or no definable, reason. just why did the u.s. invade and
plunder iraq?

we also know that our government is going bankrupt in part by financing the continued occupation of iraq, after assuring american taxpayers that the whole affair would be paid for by oil revenues.

we also know that our elected officials in d.c. are actively cutting funds for programs that benefit common citizens, but will throw billions of dollars to banks anytime the bankers command them to do so.

but, to get back to the question posed above, one quick answer is that the u.s. empire may well choose to consolidate its power in the western hemisphere. it has already shown a willingness to return to cold war style ruthlessness by backing military regimes in order to keep control of local resources out of the hands of the local population.

for that matter, the american people must be  prevented from having any say in how their tax dollars are spent. otherwise, things like the bank bailout never would have happened. former vice-president dick “go fuck yourself” cheney set up a secretive, shadow government just for that purpose. immediately after he set about implementing his schemes, two military adventures were undertaken. he seized the opportunity these interventions provided in order to greatly enhance his private fortune.

all of this is based on actual facts, and i’ve not made any great leaps of logic or jumped to any conclusions. links provided above will at least give a curious reader someplace to start investigating the following story on their own.

as the article excerpted above explains, the the cowboys in charge of our nation are herding us into oblivion in order to have more control over us, and in order to create vast fortunes for themselves. just how far are they willing to go? would they play both sides against each other in the war on terrorism just to further their aims? obama has acknowledged that the u.s. puppet regime in afghanistan is negotiating with elements of the dreaded taliban, while terror-war ally pakistan is actively at war with the taliban, who have carried out numerous bombings and assasinations in pakistan.

which brings us to the strange case of raymond davis.

though many news outlets refer to davis as a “u.s. diplomat,” he in fact owns Hyperion Protective Consultants, LLC, which provides clients with “loss and risk management professionals.” investigations into the shadowy company seems to indicate that it only exists on paper – lending credence to the rumors that davis is, indeed, a cia operative.

firedoglake reports that hpc is difficult to pin down, with multiple websites and operations in different states, including nevada, florida and colorado, where hpc has apparently been involved with recruiting fairs, encouraging youth to work for the cia.

davis has in the past been part of the u.s. military, apparently in some special operations unit. but, as the u.k. times reported, he was carrying a run-of-the-mill u.s. passport at the time of his arrest, not a diplomatic one. the u.s. has at times refused to admit his identity, and has later denied that it has refused to admit his identity.but – wait! – the story gets even stranger!at the time of his arrest, rumors abounded that davis had been meeting with known terrorists in lahore, just prior to the shootout which led to his arrest. as is the case in such shady dealings, davis, along with several other americans, had met with some terrorist bigwigs, who directed them to another location to conduct a higher-level meeting. the shootout occurred as the parties were in transit to the second meeting site.

from reuters:

Two U.S. citizens with diplomatic status were quietly withdrawn from Pakistan after being involved in a fatal car accident last month while trying to help Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor being held by Pakistani authorities on murder charges.

Two officials familiar with U.S. government activities in Pakistan said the two Americans who left the country worked for the CIA under contract as protective officers. This means they were employed as highly skilled bodyguards, like Davis, for CIA operations officers serving in Pakistan.

The two Americans who left Pakistan have not been otherwise identified by U.S. or Pakistani authorities. The CIA declined to comment.

rumors circulating around the time of davis’ arrest assert that he had been attempting to sell his contacts in pakistan fissible material for use in a nuclear weapon, and biological/chemical weapons.this is a serious allegation, and has caused serious rifts in the relationship between the u.s. cia and their pakistani counterparts, the isi. there could be a good – to the cia and the u.s. state department – explanation for all of this. davis was likely making contacts that woud enable him to provide targeting information for unmanned drone attacks inside pakistan. this has been a sore point for the people of pakistan, as numerous civilians have died in the drone attacks, particularly children. pakistanis rightly feel like their governement is letting the u.s. get away with murder, that the drone attacks are acts of war against the pakistani people, and that their government is a puppet regime, propped up with american military aid.

but the story could potentially be much stranger than at first meets the eye…

anyone interested in personal autonomy, liberty, freedom of thought and speech, or just constitutional rights should by now be aware of the shadow government established during the reign of bush the lesser. it was set up and run by dick “go fuck yourself” cheney.the obama administration has set about to dismantle this apparatus, but events this year show that the rogue elements put into place to advance the neocon agenda – permanent war(s), for permanent war profiteering – are not under the control of any authority, other than their own, self-contained one.as is the case with every organization, its main function has become perpetuating itself. with obama looking into the dark recesses of the intelligence agencies to clean up the mess created by his predecessors, the shadowy legions are desperate to carry out their aims while they can still operate under the cover of the u.s. government. meanwhile, they’ve been busy making sure that their nemesis from their past mistakes are silenced.

a number of suspicious deaths have occurred, connected to a bizarre episode a few years back, involving some nuclear weapons that went missing for a while, only to be discovered later, at a different facility. the problem – unreported by the press – is that 6 weapons disappeared, but only 5 were found. the sixth one was launched while in transit between air force bases.

a quick summary of the incident:

Someone, operating under a special chain of command within the United States Air Force…stole a nuclear weapon

 

 

It was the Secretary of the Air Force who discovered that Richard Cheney had set up an alternative chain of command to the nuclear weapons wing of the AF. In the process, six missiles armed with nuclear warheads were secretly transported from Minot AFB to Barksdale AFB. The latter is the chief staging base for the Middle East war.

The alarm system for the weapons was deactivated for the transport, something that not even the base commander could authorize. The orders had to have come from above. Many point to Cheney.

Before the warheads could be flown via B-52 to the Iraq/Iran theater, the Secretary of the Air Force ordered the stand-down of all B-52 flights. When he discovered the alternative chain of command to Cheney, he fired all military personnel who were involved. Cheney was said to have been livid. The Secretary ordered an investigation of what the AF press release called an oversight, and 70 enlisted men and 5 officers were removed from the Minot nuclear system.

Someone in an irregular chain of Air Force command authorized loading and transport of nuclear weapons.  

And that would never have been done without a reason. Given the magnitude of regulatory violations involved, the reason must be extremely important.

The paramount issue will be avoided, if necessary with repetition of the reassurance that the Air Force was in control at all times. The weapons were only missing during the 3.5-hour flight between Minot and Barksdale AFBs.

At Barksdale, the missiles were considered to be unarmed items headed for modernization or the scrap heap, and of no particular importance. They were left unguarded for almost ten hours.

According to one report, almost ten hours were required for airmen at Minot AFB to convince superiors that the nuclear weapons had disappeared.

According to information provided to Congress, this time lapsed before airmen at Barksdale “noticed” the weapons were present. News reports will continue to overlook this fact also.

Even here the focus is on time. The number of missiles and warheads issue was overlooked.

Early news reports spoke of five nuclear warheads loaded onto the bomber. Apparently, this information was provided from Barksdale.

That number was later updated to six weapons missing from Minot, apparently based on anonymous tips provided to Military Times by people at Minot.

This information has also been forgotten.

also, check this out: Minot launch component device ‘remains missing’ (the article is no longer available for free from the website where it resides)

10 Dec 2008 A Minot Air Force Base officer accused of stealing a missile launch control device will face a court-martial, the military said. Capt. Paul Borowiecki, who was a missile combat crew member assigned to the base’s 91st Missile Wing, is accused of taking the launch control device in July 2005, rather than destroying it as required when it was no longer in use. The Air Force also said Borowiecki told officials that another officer had lied in saying he destroyed a launch component. That device remains missing. That other officer, whose name has not been released, has not been charged.

What next?

The answer has been provided several times, most recently by CIA Director and General Michael Hayden. On September 7, dressed in full military uniform, Hayden told assembled members of the Council of Foreign Relations:

“Our analysts assess with high confidence that al-Qaida’s central leadership is planning high-impact plots against the U. S. homeland.”

“We assess with high confidence that al-Qaida is focusing on targets that would produce mass casualties, dramatic destruction and significant aftershocks.”

meanwhile, someone was busy covering their tracks:

Meanwhile, there are those six deaths. On July 20, 1st Lt. Weston Kissel, a 28-year-old B-52 pilot from Minot, died in a motorcycle accident while on home leave in Tennessee.

Another Minot B-52 pilot, 20-year-old Adam Barrs, died on July 5 in Minot when a car he was riding in, driven by another Minot airman, Stephen Garrett, went off the road, hit a tree, and caught fire. Airman Garrett was brought to the hospital in critical condition and has since been charged with negligent homicide.

Two more Air Force personnel, Senior Airman Clint Huff, 29, of Barksdale AFB, and his wife Linda died on Sept. 15 in nearby Shreveport, Louisiana, when Huff reportedly attempted to pass a van in a no-passing zone on his motorcycle, and the van made a left-hand turn, striking them.

Then there are two reported suicides, which both occurred within days of the flight. One involved Todd Blue, a 20-year-old airman who was in a unit that guarded weapons at Minot. He reportedly shot himself in the head on Sept. 11 while on a visit to his family in Wytheville, Virginia. Local police investigators termed his death a suicide.

The second suicide, on Aug. 30, was John Frueh, a special forces weather commando at the Air Force’s Special Operations command headquartered at Hurlburt AFB in Florida. Hurlburt’s website says, “Every night, as millions of Americans sleep peacefully under the blanket of freedom,” Air Force special Operations commandos work “in deep dark places, far away from home, risking their lives to keep that blanket safe.”

Frueh, 33, a married father of two who had just received approval for promotion from captain to major, reportedly flew from Florida to Portland, Oregon, for a friend’s wedding. He never showed up. Instead, he called on Aug. 29, the day the missiles were loaded, from an interstate pull-off just outside Portland to say he was going for a hike in a park nearby. (It is not clear why he was at a highway rest stop as he had no car.) A day later, back in Portland, he rented a car at the airport, again calling his family. After he failed to appear at the wedding, his family filed a missing person’s report with the Portland police. The Sheriff’s Department in remote Skamania County, Washington, found Frueh’s rental car ten days later on the side of a road nearly 120 miles from the airport in a remote area of Badger Peak. Search dogs found his body in the woods. His death was ruled a suicide, though neither the sheriff’s investigator nor the medical examiner would give details. What makes this alleged suicide odd, however, is that the sheriff reports that Frueh had with him a knapsack containing a GPS locator and a videocam—odd equipment for someone intent on ending his life.

and the rabbit hole gets deeper and darker:

A prominent Washington aide has been murdered and his body left in a garbage truck on a landfill site.

The killing of John Wheeler, 66, who served as a military adviser to three presidents, has left police mystified.

The body of the former Army officer and Vietnam veteran – who was instrumental in building the iconic Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall in Washington DC – was discovered on a Delaware landfill on New Year’s Eve.

But detectives say they have no motive for the crime, which has shocked the political community and devastated Mr Wheeler’s family and friends.

wheeler had been a special undersecretary to the secretary of the air force at the time of the missing nuke.

it’s bad enough that this man, who was part of the inner circle in the bush and reagan regimes, was bludgeoned to death, but there has been a steady flow of information leaking out to the press to discredit him.

within days of his death:

Wheeler Appeared Disoriented, Disheveled Prior to Death

and just this week – feb. 22, 2011

Why did Pentagon aide trash his home days before his body was found dumped in landfill site?

and as surveillance videos continue to be released to the press, claiming to show a disoriented wheeler, another search of his house was made, no doubt to remove incriminating evidence relating to ongoing operations. possibly related to the missing nuke incident, but also possibly linked to his area of expertise: biological and chemical weapons.

some have been quick to draw connections between wheeler’s work in the field to bird die-offs, as phosgene gas is shipped around the world, being secretly transported out of iraq, to an air force base in arkansas, and on to unknown destinations.

large die-offs of birds are not unheard of, and happen for a variety of reasons. still, i have no problem believing that some government agency or rogue elements within the government are conducting atmospheric testing of deadly agents, both here and abroad. the only problem i have in accepting that such experimentation is happening globally would be with logistics, but with all the intelligence and military resources available to the u.s. government, it’s not a great stretch to believe that some, if not many, of the mass bird deaths are related to atmospheric releases of potentially deadly chemical agents.

so, why the need to continue this misinformation campaign against a dead man?

here’s where the greatest stretch of imagination takes place.

an american  private security contractor in pakistan was being followed by members of the pakistani isi – their secretive intelligence agency. raymond davis was involved in a shootout that left two pakistani men dead in lahore, pakistan. captured by an enraged mob, davis’ arrest has led to a diplomatic spat between pakistan and the u.s. see this article for more on davis: raymond davis, privatized intelligence, the cia, and the war in afghanistan.

Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) is warning that the situation on the sub-continent has turned “grave” as it appears that open warfare is about to break out between Pakistan and the United States, The European Union Times reports.

The most ominous point in this SVR report is “Pakistan’s ISI stating that top-secret CIA documents found in Davis’s possession point to his, and/or TF373, providing to al Qaeda terrorists “nuclear fissile material” and “biological agents”, which they claim are to be used against the United States itself in order to ignite an all-out war in order to re-establish the West’s hegemony over a Global economy that is warned is just months away from collapse,” the paper added.

i would not have thought that the raymond davis incident and the assassination of john p. wheeler were remotely related, if wheeler had not been both an expert in chemical weapons AND was involved in an incident  in which a nuclear weapon was stolen, and if there were not continued attempts by people with media savvy and connections still working to discredit wheeler, months after his death.

the alert people of pakistan may have done what the u.s. department of homeland security, our armed forces and the pakistani government could not – they may well have thwarted an attempt by american extremists to launch a devastating attack against an unwitting population. the enraged crowd on the streets of lahore may have save thousands of lives, possibly even american lives.

 

time to put away the ideology

to anti-authoritarian commies, syndicalists, class warriors, anarchists of all varieties, and everyone else sick to death of our schisms…

as turmoil spreads throughout the arabic world, there has been a tendency for all the usual suspects to trot out their pet ideologies. these attempts to validate ideology through current events are sad, but predictable.  yet again, 19th century dogma is being re-animated by the blood of people fighting for their survival. once again, the words of long-dead white men are being used to describe situations unforseen by them two centuries ago.

the unrest sweeping across the globe have one, readily identifiable, often-mentioned cause: people cannot afford to feed their families, or themselves.

don’t listen to economic analysts  belching their lists of reasons why food has become unobtainably expensive. they are lying.

don’t listen to anyone preaching about retribution from on high. characters in books have no effect on the real world except when insane people cannot distinguish one from the other.

what’s actually happening – here and now on this planet – is that fabulously wealthy people are investing vast sums of money in food commodities, then withdrawing the commodities from the market until people’s demand for food drives prices up. prices will continue to rise until the investors feel they have earned enough profit. by the time the food reaches store shelves, the added costs have raised the price beyond what many people can afford. plain and simple: people are rebelling because they are hungry, despite the usual abundance of food on market shelves and stalls.

and, what are people to do about this, here in  the u.s.? common, everyday people who do not have investment portfolios? what can we do? over the past three decades, we have witnessed an unfathomable consolidation of wealth. there are only 44 countries on earth that have a greater divide between the wealthiest and poorest people than in the u.s. many of the wealthiest americans have more personal wealth than entire nations.  and this does not take into consideration the wealth of corporations, which now outright own the federal government, as sanctioned by the supreme court.

those of us who still believe enough in economic systems to think their needs can be met through markets are delusional. when a can of beans gets to be over $50, and you still earn$12 per hour, then you’ll understand. of course, by that time it will be too late to do anything but beg for wage increases, or jobs for the 40 million of us currently unemployable.

jobs will not be forthcoming, and if anything, wages will continue to fall. and anyone willing to entrust their survival to government-funded assistance just hasn’t been paying attention to the shenanigans going on in the halls of power, as politicians continue to best one another in cutting social programs that assist people. after all, they have a war and military occupation to fund.

are we – those of us not among the wealthy elite – completely helpless against the entire array of forces the wealthy have to wield against us? only so long as we allow them to continue defining our lives.

as things stand now, we can only aspire to be and do what we can afford. once we realize that life has nothing to do with money, we will be free from the trap of poverty, and free from the yokes that wealthy elites wish to fasten upon us.

the class warriors have it all wrong. we cannot shake loose the control banks and rich entities have over us so long as we continue to play their game – a game in which they control every aspect; from making and enforcing the rules (rules which they can ignore), to selecting who will play which role.

we cannot and will not be free until we have stopped playing their game.

our only chance is to make a total break from economics. to do so, we must have land to utilize for our own needs. cultivable land, with clean water sources.  there is precious little of that left in the world. we are going to have to take it for our own.

right now, not many people reading this can imagine hunger so persistent that it forces one into action. right now, food is costly, but obtainable. not for long, as speculators will continue to profit off of food commodities, and our currency will begin to become worthless.

by the end of this year, if not sooner, food prices will be considerably higher than they are now.  as will be housing. and fuel. if we don’t collectively get our act together, we’re doomed, and we’ll be condemning our descendents to hellish lives we cannot even imagine.

or, we can stop analyzing everything through the eyes of corpses, set aside our differences, and build a future that will be unimaginably rewarding.

it won’t be easy. it will be dangerous, bloody and painful. giving birth is always this way.

can a society create such a change in one generation? it’s possible…see this video…

raymond davis – the war on terror is a mess

the case of raymond davis gets more and more convoluted.

in case you missed it the first time around, an american private military contractor, was arrested in lahore, pakistan about a month ago, after killing two men in a shootout. witnesses, outraged over the sight of an anglo male killing pakistanis, surrounded davis and  prevented him from leaving until police came to take him into custody.

a low-level diplomatic row insued, with the obama administration asserting that davis had diplomatic immunity and should be released to u.s. custody. u.s. senator john kerry was in pakistan last week to request davis’s release, and president obama has begun to suggest that this incident has strained u.s-pakistan relations.

pakistan is the u.s.’s chief ally in the war in afghanistan, where islamic extremists roam the countryside at will and often carry out bombings in the major cities. the people of pakistan are in an untenable position, as they are under occupation by taliban extremists, involved with a territorial dispute over the kashmir province with neighboring india, and are often under attack by unmanned predator drones. not to mention recent floods and earthquakes.

just this very brief outline of the hardships endured by the pakistani people points to the complexity in dealing with a protracted war in the region, which often spills across the afghan border.

all of this affects the story of raymond davis as well.

though many news outlets refer to davis as a “u.s. diplomat,” he in fact owns Hyperion Protective Consultants, LLC, which provides clients with “loss and risk management professionals.” investigations into the shadowy company seems to indicate that it only exists on paper – lending credence to the rumors that davis is, indeed, a cia operative.

firedoglake reports that hpc is difficult to pin down, with multiple websites and operations in different states, including nevada, florida and colorado, where hpc has apparently been involved with recruiting fairs, encourging youth to work for the cia.

davis has in the past been part of the u.s. military, apparently in some special operations unit. but, as the u.k. times reported, he was carrying a run-of-the-mill u.s. passport at the time of his arrest, not a diplomatic one. the u.s. has at times refused to admit his identity, and has later denied that it has refused to admit his identity.

but – wait! – the story gets even stranger!

at the time of his arrest, rumors abounded that davis had been meeting with known terrorists in lahore, just prior to the shootout which led to his arrest. as is the case in such shady dealings, davis, along with several other americans, had met with some terrorist bigwigs, who directed them to another location to conduct a higher-level meeting. the shootout occurred as the parties were in transit to the second meeting site.

as it turns out, the two gunmen davis killed were members of the pakistani i.s.i., an elite intelligence agency the u.s. helped to establish during the cold war, under the carter and reagan administrations.

rumors are also beginning to circulate that davis was in possession of secret u.s. government files about fissionable nuclear material and biological weapons.

another development that has caught the attention of the pakistani media is that there have been no unmanned drone attacks in pakistan since davis’s arrest – which could have a lot to do with why obama is making such a fuss over this incident.

pakistani officials have long denied having any involvement with the drone attacks, which often leave dozens of civilians dead and injured, with questionable target selections.

so far, this incident raises questions at so many levels as to make one’s head spin. the longer this drags on, the more rumors circulate, but with the war on terrorism being such a nefarious episode – particularly in pakistan – the complete story will likely never come to light. was davis looking to escalate the war on terrorism in order to make millions of dollars as a military contractor? was he – as rumors suggest – responsible for delivering target information for drone attacks in pakistan, and trying to meet with terrorist suspects in order to locate and exterminate them? and why isn’t the u.s. able to work with their i.s.i. cohorts to the extent that their and our operatives end up in shootouts?

many news outlets are quick to draw a connection between davis and america’s elite counter-terrorist commandoes in afghanistan, tf 373.

the guardian (uk) reported on operations by tf 373, after obtaining documents released by wikileaks:

On the night of Monday 11 June 2007, the leaked logs reveal, the taskforce set out with Afghan special forces to capture or kill a Taliban commander named Qarl Ur-Rahman in a valley near Jalalabad. As they approached the target in the darkness, somebody shone a torch on them. A firefight developed, and the taskforce called in an AC-130 gunship, which strafed the area with cannon fire: “The original mission was aborted and TF 373 broke contact and returned to base. Follow-up Report: 7 x ANP KIA, 4 x WIA.” In plain language: they discovered that the people they had been shooting in the dark were Afghan police officers, seven of whom were now dead and four wounded.

The coalition put out a press release which referred to the firefight and the air support and then failed entirely to record that they had just killed or wounded 11 police officers. But, evidently fearing that the truth might leak, it added: “There was nothing during the firefight to indicate the opposing force was friendly. The individuals who fired on coalition forces were not in uniform.” The involvement of TF 373 was not mentioned, and the story didn’t get out.

also:

later that week, on Sunday 17 June, as Sherzai hosted a “shura” council at which he attempted to reassure tribal leaders about the safety of coalition operations, TF 373 launched another mission, hundreds of miles south in Paktika province. The target was a notorious Libyan fighter, Abu Laith al-Libi. The unit was armed with a new weapon, known as Himars – High Mobility Artillery Rocket System – a pod of six missiles on the back of a small truck.

The plan was to launch five rockets at targets in the village of Nangar Khel where TF 373 believed Libi was hiding and then to send in ground troops. The result was that they failed to find Libi but killed six Taliban fighters and then, when they approached the rubble of a madrasa, they found “initial assessment of 7 x NC KIA” which translates as seven non-combatants killed in action. All of them were children. One of them was still alive in the rubble: “The Med TM immediately cleared debris from the mouth and performed CPR.” After 20 minutes, the child died.

and, from the same article:

In spite of this tension between political and military operations, TF 373 continued to engage in highly destructive attacks. Four months later, on 4 October, they confronted Taliban fighters in a village called Laswanday, only 6 miles from the village where they had killed the seven children. The Taliban appear to have retreated by the time TF 373 called in air support to drop 500lb bombs on the house from which the fighters had been firing.

The final outcome, listed tersely at the end of the leaked log: 12 US wounded, two teenage girls and a 10-year-old boy wounded, one girl killed, one woman killed, four civilian men killed, one donkey killed, one dog killed, several chickens killed, no enemy killed, no enemy wounded, no enemy detained.

war is, indeed, a messy affair. and the case of raymond davis points out the dangers inherent to conducting a protracted war against a tactic (terrorism), rather than an identifiable enemy army. the secrecy with which this war is being conducted only adds to its wretchedness.

hunger fuels rebellions

as turmoil spreads throughout the arabic world, there has been a tendency for all the usual suspects to trot out their pet ideologies. these attempts to validate ideology through current events are sad, but predictable.  yet again, 19th century dogma is being re-animated by the blood of people fighting for their survival. once again, the words of long-dead white men are being used to describe situations unforseen two centuries ago.

the unrest sweeping across the globe have one, readily identifiable, often-mentioned cause: people cannot afford to feed their families, or themselves.

don’t listen to economic analysts  belching their lists of reasons why food has become unobtainably expensive. they are lying.

don’t listen to anyone preaching about retribution from on high. characters in books have no effect on the real world except when insane people cannot distinguish one from the other.

what’s actually happening – here and now on this planet – is that fabulously wealthy people are investing vast sums of money in food commodities, then withdrawing the commodities from the market until people’s demand for food drives prices up. prices will continue to rise until the investors feel they have earned enough profit. by the time the food reaches store shelves, the added costs have raised the price beyond what many people can afford. plain and simple: people are rebelling because they are hungry, despite the usual abundance of food on market shelves and stalls.

and, what are people to do about this, here in  the u.s.? common, everyday people who do not have investment portfolios? what can we do? over the past three decades, we have witnessed an unfathomable consolidation of wealth. there are only 44 countries on earth that have a greater divide between the wealthiest and poorest people than in the u.s. many of the wealthiest americans have more personal wealth than entire nations.  and this does not take into consideration the wealth of corporations, which now outright own the federal government, as sanctioned by the supreme court.

those of us who still believe enough in economic systems to think their needs can be met through markets are delusional. when a can of beans gets to be over $50, and you still earn$12 per hour, then you’ll understand. of course, by that time it will be too late to do anything but beg for wage increases, or jobs for the 40 million of us currently unemployable.

jobs will not be forthcoming, and if anything, wages will continue to fall. and anyone willing to entrust their survival to government-funded assistance just hasn’t been paying attention to the shenanigans going on in the halls of power, as politicians continue to best one another in cutting social programs that assist people. after all, they have a war and military occupation to fund.

are we – those of us not among the wealthy elite – completely helpless against the entire array of forces the wealthy have to wield against us? only so long as we allow them to continue defining our lives.

as things stand now, we can only aspire to be and do what we can afford. once we realize that life has nothing to do with money, we will be free from the trap of poverty, and free from the yokes that wealthy elites wish to fasten upon us.

the class warriors have it all wrong. we cannot shake loose the control banks and rich entities have over us so long as we continue to play their game – a game in which they control every aspect; from making and enforcing the rules (rules which they can ignore), to selecting who will play which role.

we cannot and will not be free until we have stopped playing their game.

our only chance is to make a total break from economics. to do so, we must have land to utilize for our own needs. cultivable land, with clean water sources.  there is precious little of that left in the world. we are going to have to take it for our own.

right now, not many people reading this can imagine hunger so persistent that it forces one into action. right now, food is costly, but obtainable. not for long, as speculators will continue to profit off of food commodities, and our currency will begin to become worthless.

by the end of this year, if not sooner, food prices will be considerably higher than they are now.  as will be housing. and fuel. if we don’t collectively get our act together, we’re doomed, and we’ll be condemning our descendents to hellish lives we cannot even imagine.

or, we can stop analyzing everything through the eyes of corpses, set aside our differences, and build a future that will be unimaginably rewarding.

it won’t be easy. it will be dangerous, bloody and painful. giving birth is always this way.

can a society create such a change in one generation? it’s possible…see this video…

 

spOIL (video)- great bear rainforest threatened by tar sands extraction

The International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP) has teamed up with Pacific WILD, the Gitga’at First Nation of British Columbia, LightHawk, TidesCanada, Save our Seas Foundation, Sierra Club BC, and the Dogwood initiative to carry out a Rapid Assessment Visual Expedition (RAVE) in the Great Bear Rainforest of British Columbia. We are focusing our energy and cameras on this pristine region in response to plans by several large multinational companies to build a pipeline for heavy crude oil from the Alberta tar sands across British Columbia to the coast of the Great Bear Rainforest.

The tar sands in northern Alberta are arguably one of the world’s most environmentally-devastating extractive industries and the proposed pipeline would put one of our planet’s most ecologically-sensitive and intact marine ecosystems at risk for a catastrophic oil spill through increased mega tanker traffic.

The 14-day expedition to the Great Bear Rainforest called upon 7 world-renowned photographers and 3 videographers to thoroughly document the region’s landscapes, wildlife, and culture. The RAVE provided media support to the First Nations and environmental groups seeking to stop the proposed Enbridge Gateway pipeline project (and thus expansion of the tar sands) and to expose the plan to lift the oil tanker ship moratorium.

the great bear rainforest is inhabited by native people who still live off of the bounty of nature. there few stores to be found in their lands. if the waterways which provide their substance become polluted, their way of life will disappear, as it has on so much of this continent already.

the video is available online, from iLCP

it is also viewable from vimeo:

The Tar Sands “Gigaproject” is the largest industrial project in human history and likely also the most destructive. The tar sands mining procedure releases at least three times the CO2 emissions as regular oil production and is slated to become the single largest industrial contributor in North America to Climate Change.

The tar sands are already slated to be the cause of up to the second fastest rate of deforestation on the planet behind the Amazon Rainforest Basin. Currently approved projects will see 3 million barrels of tar sands mock crude produced daily by 2018; for each barrel of oil up to as high as five barrels of water are used.

read more about the tar sand, from oil sand truth

Aspartame exposed – GM Bacteria used to create deadly sweetener

Wednesday, January 05, 2011

by: Anthony Gucciardi

The manufacturers of the most prevalent sweetener in the world have a secret, and it`s not a sweet one. Aspartame, an artificial sweetener found in thousands of products worldwide, has been found to be created using genetically modified (GM) bacteria. What`s even more shocking is how long this information has been known.

A 1999 article by The Independent was the first to expose the abominable process in which aspartame was created. Ironically, the discovery was made around the same time as rich leaders around the globe met at the G8 Summit to discuss the safety of GM foods. The 1999 investigation found that Monsanto, the largest biotech corporation in the world, often used GM bacteria to produce aspartame in their US production plants. The end result is a fusion between two of the largest health hazards to ever hit the food industry — artificial sweeteners and an array of genetically altered organisms. Both have led to large-scale debate, with aspartame being the subject of multiple congressional hearings and scientific criticism. Scientists and health advocates are not the only ones to speak out against aspartame, however.

The FDA received a flurry of complaints from consumers using NutraSweet, a product containing aspartame. Since 1992, the FDA has stopped documenting reports on the subject. The process in which aspartame is created involves combining an amino acid known as phenylalanine with aspartic acid. First synthesized in 1965, aspartame requires bacteria for the sole purpose of producing phenylalanine. Monsanto discovered that through genetically altering this bacteria, phenylalanine could be created much more quickly.

In the report by The Independent, Monsanto openly admitted that their mutated bacteria is a staple in the creation process of aspartame. “We have two strains of bacteria – one is traditionally modified and one is genetically modified,” said the source from Monsanto. “It’s got a modified enzyme. It has one amino acid different.

see the rest of the article, from natural news

corporations intend to starve the entire human race into submission

how many times do we have to keep pointing this out before it sinks in? this is the greatest on-going event in human history, and it’s happening right now, all around us. tell me you haven’t noticed price increases at the grocery store.

International Speculation Culprit in Rising Food Prices by Umberto Mazzei

Henry Kissinger once said that whoever controls food controls people. In other words, everyone surrenders when they see their children starve. That is how the U.S. government subdued the American Indians defending their lands, by exterminating the bison that provided them food and instead handing out food on reservations. The British government did the same to subdue the Boer republics in South Africa by forcing the Boer civilian population into the first concentration camps ever and letting them starve.

International cartels now use their control over the global food supply to make huge profits. There are six major corporations that control the purchase and sale of agricultural products: Cargill, Kraft, Bunge & Born, ADM (Archer Daniels Midland), Nestlé and General Mills. Food prices are set at exchanges in Chicago, New York and London.

Some countries shield their population from commodity speculation on basic foods by restricting the export of their agricultural staples until domestic demand is satisfied. This has a clear and legitimate purpose: to stabilize domestic prices and ensure supply for their own people. Domestic prices are also an uncomfortable testimony of real prices and temper full international market control over pricing.

On January 22, agriculture ministers from 50 countries met in Berlin, to examine the rise of international prices of commodities during the second half of 2010. Before the assembly, World Trade Organization (WTO) director, Pascal Lamy, earned merits with the global food cartels by attacking export restrictions. No doubt hoping that the cartels will hire him when he loses his present position, Lamy attributed the record high international prices of agricultural products to the export limits that some countries apply. His claim was a classic case of sophistry—a distortion of the truth with a false arguments.

“Export restrictions are a prime cause of current and recent surges in global food prices, and countries should find other ways to secure domestic supplies,” the WTO chief said. “Export restrictions lead to panic in markets when different actors see prices rising at stellar speed,” he added. Mr. Lamy illogically ignores the fact that a sudden rise in agricultural commodity prices, as reported three weeks ago by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), cannot be attributed to controls that have always been there. Those controls, as he acknowledges, are imposed to assure supply to the population of the producing countries and, although Lamy did not say it, also to stabilize national and to an extent, international agricultural prices. This last point is very annoying to the cartels that dominate international food trade.

After attacking export restrictions, Mr. Lamy stated that exporting countries seek other ways to assure their own national supply. But here his proposals for a different approach are misleading. Lamy called for an increase in global food production, “more social safety nets, more food aid and food supplies and …humanitarian aid exempt from export restrictions.”

do you see their game? the WTO says publicly that governments should increase social services, but cuts off their funds funds if they do so. the policies of the IMF/WB demand that services be cut and/or privatised, or no more loans. the only countries that are not seeing food costs sky-rocketing are those who reject WTO and IMF/WB policies. a document released by wikileaks shows that governments are willing to starve people in order to force boitech agriculture upon people unwilling to adopt frankenfoods.

On January 11, Senators Charles Grassley and John Thune, together with the Deputy Chief of Mission, AgCouns and EconOff, met with the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade,s Secretary of State for International Trade, Pedro Mejia, and Secretary General Alfredo Bonet. Senator Grassley emphasized the importance of science-based decisions in the agricultural biotechnology context. Mejia said that Spain had a relatively “liberal” view with respect to biotechnology. However, even in Spain the technology was controversial and faced NGO opposition, albeit not as strong as in some other EU member states. Senator Thune asked what influence Spain could exercise in Brussels on this issue. Bonet noted it was very difficult to get a qualified majority for biotech approvals in the EU Environment Council so in the end the Commission was taking decisions in favor of biotechnology. Both Mejia and Bonet noted that commodity price hikes might spur greater liberalization on biotech imports. (emphasis added)

soaring food prices are creating unrest across the world:

• egypt – Protesting on an Empty Stomach: How the Egyptian economy is fueling unrest in Egypt.
• pakistan –  Soaring food prices hit Pakistan: Basic food items out of reach for many Pakistanis after food prices quadrupled.
• yemen – Like Egypt, Yemen Suffers from High Food Prices
• bolivia - Bolivia: protests over food prices

and these are just a few examples. most news reports, and even the UN, talk about the many factors that have caused this sudden rise in food prices worldwide, but these factors are always present, and food production is at an all-time high. it’s clearly not food shortages causing hunger, but food PRICES!

World Food Price Hikes Driven by Speculation and Derivatives

The same banks, hedge funds and financiers whose speculation on the global money markets caused the 2008 world financial meltdown are thought to be causing food prices to yo-yo and inflate. The charge against them is that by taking advantage of the deregulation of global commodity markets they are making billions from speculating on food and causing misery around the world. As food prices soar again to beyond 2008 levels, it becomes clear that everyone is now being affected. Food prices are now rising by up to 10% a year in Britain and Europe. What is more, says the UN, prices can be expected to rise at least 40% in the next decade.

and who didn’t see this coming?

Biofuels – NY Times

first-generation biofuels — chiefly, ethanol made from corn or sugar cane, or biodiesel made from vegetable oil — have provoked intense backlash. They have been blamed for causing unintended environmental damage and for displacing production of food crops, which may have helped raise world food prices.

Amid these attacks, the political momentum of biofuels has slowed in the last couple of years. In principle, biofuels offer a huge advantage over fossil fuels. The source plants absorb carbon dioxide from the air as they are growing, and consequently, the carbon dioxide that is released when biofuels are burned does not represent a net addition of that greenhouse gas to the atmosphere. In practice, some fossil fuels, especially natural gas, are consumed in refining today’s biofuels, one source of controversy about them.

when biofuels were first proposed as a source of renewable energy, many people warned of the way this would affect food prices. adding billions of hungry engines to food demands was a catastrophic mistake.finally, i have to mention that as i researched this online, some of the articles i had bookmarked as references were no longer available. many no longer turned up in searches. someone’s fucking with the internet, someone with loads of money and resources.

 

end-civ, hipbone studios, feb. 8th

last night was astoundingly wonderful.

frank lopez – creator of the anarchist video newszine “it’s the end of the world as we know it and i feel fine” – came through town to screen his latest film - end-civ:

END:CIV examines our culture’s addiction to systematic violence and environmental exploitation, and probes the resulting epidemic of poisoned landscapes and shell-shocked nations. Based in part on Endgame, the best-selling book by Derrick Jensen, END:CIV asks: “If your homeland was invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air, and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?”

haga clic aquí para version en Español

The causes underlying the collapse of civilizations are usually traced to overuse of resources. As we write this, the world is reeling from economic chaos, peak oil, climate change, environmental degradation, and political turmoil. Every day, the headlines re-hash stories of scandal and betrayal of the public trust. We don’t have to make outraged demands for the end of the current global system — it seems to be coming apart already.

But acts of courage, compassion and altruism abound, even in the most damaged places. By documenting the resilience of the people hit hardest by war and repression, and the heroism of those coming forward to confront the crisis head-on, END:CIV illuminates a way out of this all-consuming madness and into a saner future.

Backed by Jensen’s narrative, the film calls on us to act as if we truly love this land. The film trips along at a brisk pace, using music, archival footage, motion graphics, animation, slapstick and satire to deconstruct the global economic system, even as it implodes around us. END:CIV illustrates first-person stories of sacrifice and heroism with intense, emotionally-charged images that match Jensen’s poetic and intuitive approach. Scenes shot in the back country provide interludes of breathtaking natural beauty alongside clearcut evidence of horrific but commonplace destruction.

END:CIV features interviews with Paul Watson, Waziyatawin, Gord Hill, Michael Becker, Peter Gelderloos, Lierre Keith, James Howard Kunstler, Stephanie McMillan, Qwatsinas, Rod Coronado, John Zerzan and more.

the event was packed beyond capacity, with activists, rewilders, musicians and assorted anarchists filling the room.

in addition to the film – followed by a brief Q-and-A session – there was music provided by holy! holy! holy!, a nomadic band of anarchists and hell-raisers. their website has not been updated for a while, but they performed many of the song and streaming on their website.

the film itself was inspiring and disturbing in its clarity of vision and message. some viewers were shaken and saddened during the screening, but overall, people seemed to be inspired, and i’ve had conversations today and last night about the subjects addressed by the many people interviewed throughout the film.

personally, i respect the fact that lopez included many native elders and activists in the film. if anarchists are serious about rewilding and fighting back against civilization, we need to make more ties with native peoples in struggle against our mutual enemies.

based mostly on derrick jensens’ book End Game, vol.s 1 and 2, the film illustrates 4 of the 20-some points jensen brings up in his books. perhaps the most important aspect to end-civ are the segments about the tar sands mining being done in canada, which are poisoning pristine mountains, rivers and lakes in areas where few white settlers live, but which are still inhabited by native peoples who live off their lands. poison the water and land, and the people get poisoned, too. this amounts to a slow-rolling act of genocide.

lopez is touring with the film and upcoming dates are posted on the end-civ website.

big kudos to hipbone studios for hosting this event!

here’s a trailer for the film:

racism blinds media and researchers to truth about crazed gunmen

this country is so racist, it can’t admit the truth about random, crazed killers. media pundits spreading hatred of illegal immigrants, gays and “liberals” are quick to denounce lone gunmen, and insist that fiery rhetoric is in no way responsible for inciting the many, many instances of mass shootings, and targeted assassinations in the U.S.

however, there are certain facts that are undeniable…these (usually) young men are white heterosexuals who are poorly socialized and frustrated. how would the media react if ALL of these acts of violence had been perpetrated by blacks, asians, homosexuals?

as this article shows, when it comes to blaming white people, science gives whitey a pass…

Scientists: You Can’t Profile School Shooters

…trying to come up with a profile of a “typical school shooter,” is not only unproductive but invalid, one scientist says. “I get a little nervous when people are trying to come up with simple answers, like he was a loner,” said Robert Geffner, a neuro-psychologist and president of the Institute on Violence, Abuse and Trauma at Alliant International University. “I think every report I’ve seen is focusing on ‘He’s a loner.’ It would be nice if somebody said, ‘Yes he is a loner, but most loners don’t kill people.’”

A slew of factors determine our behavior, social scientists say, including external factors, our mental states and the state of our brain. There are, however, a few things that keep resurfacing when scientists review violent and aggressive actions by youth, including depression, anger and resentment, low self-esteem, feelings of victimization and sometimes serious psychiatric disorders. “These are people who often suffer from mental illness, in this case there was evidence this guy was pretty depressed; they sometimes have difficulty telling what’s real and not real,” said Daniel Nelson, a psychiatrist who counsels children affected by trauma at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. But again, most mentally-disturbed individuals don’t pick up a gun and use it.

“You can’t say they have isolated themselves and they are depressed, so they are going to turn into a mass murderer,” Nelson told LiveScience. “The problem is now you’ve labeled literally tens of thousands of people incorrectly, because most people who are depressed, isolated and can’t talk, don’t become mass murderers.”

see the rest of the article, from live science…

how true…other than the fact that these are white, heterosexual young males, there is no way to absolutely determine which ones are prone to violent outbursts…as this listing shows…

– July 2008: A gunman named Jim David Adkisson, agitated at how “liberals” are “destroying America,” walks into a Unitarian Church and opens fire, killing two churchgoers and wounding four others.– October 2008: Two neo-Nazis are arrested in Tennessee in a plot to murder dozens of African-Americans, culminating in the assassination of President Obama.

– December 2008: A pair of “Patriot” movement radicals — the father-son team of Bruce and Joshua Turnidge, who wanted “to attack the political infrastructure” — threaten a bank in Woodburn, Oregon, with a bomb in the hopes of extorting money that would end their financial difficulties, for which they blamed the government. Instead, the bomb goes off and kills two police officers. The men eventually are convicted and sentenced to death for the crime.

– December 2008: In Belfast, Maine, police discover the makings of a nuclear “dirty bomb” in the basement of a white supremacist shot dead by his wife. The man, who was independently wealthy, reportedly was agitated about the election of President Obama and was crafting a plan to set off the bomb.

– January 2009: A white supremacist named Keith Luke embarks on a killing rampage in Brockton, Mass., raping and wounding a black woman and killing her sister, then killing a homeless man before being captured by police as he is en route to a Jewish community center.

– February 2009: A Marine named Kody Brittingham is arrested and charged with plotting to assassinate President Obama. Brittingham also collected white-supremacist material.

– April 2009: A white supremacist named Richard Poplawski opens fire on three Pittsburgh police officers who come to his house on a domestic-violence call and kills all three, because he believed President Obama intended to take away the guns of white citizens like himself. Poplawski is currently awaiting trial.

– April 2009: Another gunman in Okaloosa County, Florida, similarly fearful of Obama’s purported gun-grabbing plans, kills two deputies when they come to arrest him in a domestic-violence matter, then is killed himself in a shootout with police.

– May 2009: A “sovereign citizen” named Scott Roeder walks into a church in Wichita, Kansas, and assassinates abortion provider Dr. George Tiller.

– June 2009: A Holocaust denier and right-wing tax protester named James Von Brunn opens fire at the Holocaust Museum, killing a security guard.

– February 2010: An angry tax protester named Joseph Ray Stack flies an airplane into the building housing IRS offices in Austin, Texas. (Media are reluctant to label this one “domestic terrorism” too.)

– March 2010: Seven militiamen from the Hutaree Militia in Michigan and Ohio are arrested and charged with plotting to assassinate local police officers with the intent of sparking a new civil war.

– March 2010: An anti-government extremist named John Patrick Bedell walks into the Pentagon and opens fire, wounding two officers before he is himself shot dead.

– May 2010: A “sovereign citizen” from Georgia is arrested in Tennessee and charged with plotting the violent takeover of a local county courthouse.

– May 2010: A still-unidentified white man walks into a Jacksonville, Fla., mosque and sets it afire, simultaneously setting off a pipe bomb.

– May 2010: Two “sovereign citizens” named Jerry and Joe Kane gun down two police officers who pull them over for a traffic violation, and then wound two more officers in a shootout in which both of them are eventually killed.

– July 2010: An agitated right-winger and convict named Byron Williams loads up on weapons and drives to the Bay Area intent on attacking the offices of the Tides Foundation and the ACLU, but is intercepted by state patrolmen and engages them in a shootout and armed standoff in which two officers and Williams are wounded.

– September 2010: A Concord, N.C., man is arrested and charged with plotting to blow up a North Carolina abortion clinic. The man, 26-year–old Justin Carl Moose, referred to himself as the “Christian counterpart to (Osama) bin Laden” in a taped undercover meeting with a federal informant.

see the entire article, from alternet…

at least the liberal media hints at the problem…the problem being that in this country, white males are terrified of losing their positions of privilege and will kill to preserve it. after all, that’s how they won it in the first place.

Extremist Wreckage Pockmarks the American Landscape

Beyond the shootings—and those enumerated above are only a sample of such incidents since 2008—there is a landscape of rubble and carnage. In February 2010, Joseph Stack, infuriated by the IRS and US tax policy, crashed his small plane into an Austin office building housing 200 IRS workers, killing himself and two others and injuring 13. Violence, he wrote in a “manifesto,” is “the only answer” to oppressive government policies.

Sometimes the wreckage left behind from such incidents is easily overlooked, a roadside crash on a springtime day. In Nashville last March, a motorist was so enraged by an Obama bumper sticker that he rammed his SUV into the offending car, pushing it off the road and onto the sidewalk, leaving a man and his 10-year-old daughter terrified inside.

Sometimes the incidents reveal deep emotional wounds. Just before Christmas in 2008, in Belfast, Maine, an abused wife shot and killed her husband, James Cummings, a wealthy California native and Nazi devotee. Loathing Barack Obama, he was planning to join the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement at the time he was shot. Police and federal agents subsequently found radioactive materials and instructions for the making of a “dirty bomb” in his house, according to an FBI document released by WikiLeaks.

see the rest of this article, from mother jones…

dissaffected youth worldwide hate their evil, greed-fueled societies

massive die-offs of animals around the world, eternal warfare for no purpose but profits for contractors (human sacrifice), greedy goddamned corporations stealing trillions of dollars, politicians eager to serve corporate interests at the cost of human lives and environmental ruin, and prison cells awaiting anyone who tries to do anything to preserve life on earth or oppose lethal corporate activity…no wonder youth around the world are in revolt against this globalized deathcamp…

Partisan news missing the point: Youth, poor have greater reason for dissatisfaction than tea parties

Predictions of a youth uprising sweeping the United States in 2011 appear to be turning increasingly true, according to a recent poll.

Figures supporting that hypothesis, produced by the left-leaning Public Policy Polling (PPP) for a liberal blog, were cited by partisan news figures as proof of a growing violent radical element in the tea parties.

But that’s missing the larger statistic.

Across Europe in the last year, youth have led sweeping civil unrest in protest of corrupt governance, harsh austerity measures and what they see as a guided collapse of their economies.

In Greece, riots became a daily reality in 2010 as Athens has been repeatedly crippled by black-clad youth openly fighting police in the streets.

In France, hundreds of thousands shut down the economy in response to a proposal to raise the retirement age.

In Italy, cars burned and shops were smashed over the barely-there coalition government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

In London, a massive hike to college tuition fees led throngs of angry students to smash up the Supreme Court, Treasury and conservative party buildings. Protesters even got within grabbing range of Prince Charles and the Dutchess of Cornwall, attacking their car with blunt objects and paint as it passed.

In Tunisia, acting on disclosures by WikiLeaks about the economic dominance of the former dictator’s family, a 26-year-old street vendor set himself ablaze in protest of high unemployment, sparking the unrest that quickly toppled their government. Thanks to his success — even in death — more self-immolations have been reported in Algeria, Egypt and Mauritania as authoritarian Muslim regimes looked on in fear of their populace.

And that could just be the beginning, if the predictions prove accurate.

see the rest of the article, from raw story…

while liberals scratch their heads over the anger raging against the new world order, one government has fallen (so far) due to riots caused by greed and corruption in their government, which has done nothing to protect its people from starvation – caused by capitalist financiers speculating in food commodities…

TUNISIA’S TIDE OF DEFIANCE, from al-jazeera…

As revolutionary zeal engulfs the region, the people must be on their guard against the forces seeking to smother it.

Eastern European nations, for decades shackled under the weight of Communism, were the last geographical bloc to break the chains of oppression en masse, and in the process shed a history of subservience to a far off and, to many, an alien political culture. How that landscape has now changed.

While Eastern Europe is now free, the plight of the majority of the Arab world is reminiscent of the worst excesses of Soviet rule: Political repression is the norm, civil society is suffocated while a political elite operates in a parallel existence intoxicated by the stench of absolute power.

Lest anyone think oppression breeds indifference, however, the people of Tunisia have just turned history on its head and unleashed a defiance that is bound to resonate with the people of neighbouring nations and to shake the thrones of Arab despots.

Do not underestimate the psychological impact of what Tunisians have just achieved. Arab regimes have had a free hand at imposing their will on reluctant populations through the use of a single instrument: Fear. In the space of just a few weeks, masses of Tunisians have demonstrated to the Arab region the limits of dictatorial rule.

calling eastern europe “free” is kinda like describing prisons as “freedom centers.” while on the topic…if someone you admire or care about is doing prison time for opposing corporate greed and violence, you must read this…i remember when the U.S. once inspired people around the world as a beacon of freedom and hope for the future…

Why Is the Counter-Terrorism Unit Briefing Police About My Lectures and Website?

by Will Potter
The Counter-Terrorism Unit briefs prison officials and law enforcement about the communications of “terrorist” prisoners. It’s an important function, since prisoners have actually communicated with terrorist cells from within U.S. prisons; in 2005, it was revealed that three men convicted of bombing the World Trade Center in 1993 wrote 90 letters to extremists abroad. And they did it from within the Supermax.

This unit was created to prevent such potentially fatal errors from happening again. However, new documents raise some troubling questions about the Counter-Terrorism Unit’s priorities:

The unit is monitoring the PR campaigns of environmental activists, and its briefings have included my lectures and this website.

read the rest of the article, from green is the new red…

and check out this pdf, from the federal bureau of prisons, where environmental activists are being held in the same facilities as muslim terrorists…if you are not in revolt right now, or preparing for open rebellion, you are either a coward or a tool…this is a matter of self-defense against EVERY INSTITUTION OF POWER IN EXISTENCE!

here’s a video on this topic…the ending segment of a film called END-CIV

Rebellion is about to begin. From November 22nd to the 28th…

The Carnivalesque Rebellion is about to begin. From November 22nd to the 28th, culture jammers of all kinds – from artists to churchgoers, anarchists to carpenters – will disregard the illegitimate laws of consumer society. For seven nights, they will honor instead the dictates of their hearts and the demands of their conscience. Overwhelmed by a myriad of insurrections and unexpected acts of resistance, consumer capitalism will grind to a halt.

With little time remaining before these events, what is needed now is not a treatise on the injustice of consumerism. It is true that 36 million humans starve to death each year, that there is an island of plastic the size of Texas floating in the ocean, and that one in four Americans have a mental illness. But these facts roll across our consciousness; they do not impel us to remake society. Whether we have become desensitized to the severity of our plight or our minds simply cannot fathom the direness of our situation, the fact remains that today what we need is the opposite of information.

The success of our insurrection will not depend on quantity of the crowd nor extent of the media coverage. In some cities the rebellion may be invisible and in others its impact downplayed. None of that matters. The Carnivalesque Rebellion will be victorious when we stop waiting for the majority, the mainstream, or the consumer class to give us permission to rebel. The revolution against consumerism will come when we trust our intuition and find within ourselves the permission to act.

The Carnivalesque Rebellion is, above all else, a chance to rise above cynicism, skepticism, and ironic detachment. It is an invitation to don the prankster’s mask, to regain the sense of magical possibility, and to finally start living.

Meet up with fellow activists and download posters and campaign materials at www.adbusters.org/bnd.

I, Revolution

by Kalle Lasnv

In all revolutions, the agents of change – usually a small core of fired-up individuals – reach a personal point of reckoning where to do nothing becomes harder than to step forward. Then come the televised actions, the rebellions on campus, the random acts of defiance in high schools, supermarkets, malls, workplaces. A mass of support accrues. The little daily confrontations escalate. Momentum builds.

And finally the revolution ignites. Very often the ignition spark is a single symbolic act that takes the old power structure by surprise, a gesture that becomes a metaphor, living forever. Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on the bus. A Vietnam protester feeds a daisy into the barrel of a rifle. A dissident stares down a line of tanks in Tiananmen Square. Nelson Mandela walks out of his prison cell in South Africa. A freedom flotilla breaks the siege on Gaza. These memes penetrate skulls like bullets.

The biggest impediment to revolution is a personal one: our own deep-seated feelings of cynicism and impotence. How can anything “I” do possibly make a difference? Most of us have trouble accepting radical change as a viable option. Entrenched in a familiar world, we cannot imagine another. It’s hard to see our current system as simply one stage of a never-ending cycle that sooner or later will fall and be succeeded – but this process of creative destruction is exactly how the world works.

We don’t need a million activists to jumpstart this revolution. We just need an influential minority that smells the blood, seizes the moment and pulls off a set of well-coordinated strategic moves. We need a certain level of collective disillusionment (a point I think we have now reached) and then we need the leaders of the affluent, “First” world nations to fumble a world crisis like global warming, a stock market crash or a nuclear standoff in the Middle East. By waiting for the right moment and then jamming in unison, a global network of a few hundred of us can pull the coup off. This November we create a sudden, unexpected moment of truth – a mass reversal of perspective; a global mindshift – from which the corporate/consumerist forces never fully recover.

What will you do? Share your ideas: memewarriors@adbusters.org

from adbuster’s magazine

the cldc kicked some ass this summer…

Ending the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act

On March 12, 2009, Joseph Buddenberg, Mary Khajavi, Nathan Pope and Adriana Stumpo were indicted in Northern California, San Jose Division for conspiracy (18U.S.C. 371) and force, violence, and threats involving animal enterprises (18U.S.C. 43). Download the indictment (pdf).

On May 21, 2009, the Civil Liberties Center, Center for Constitutional Rights and other civil rights attorneys moved to dismiss the indictments (read the motion to dismiss pdf.) against 4 individuals charged under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (.doc) which labels the activist as “terrorists” even though they are charged with protesting, chalking the sidewalk, chanting and leafleting, and using “the internet to find information on bio-medical researchers.” All of these are clearly and traditionally protected under the first amendmant. (Read more doc.)

On June 13, 2010, Judge Ronald M. Whyte of the Northern District of California dismissed the inditment against the four animal rights activists. The Court ruled that the US Government could not proceed under the current indictment because the charges were so vague and general as to fail to provide defendants with notice as to what they were alleged to have done to violate the law.

though i’m still moving around, i’m going to start trying to catch up on what’s been happening in the world while i was out in the mountains. most likely i won’t have a lot of online time until next year (jan.), but i’ll try to make an occasional post in the meanwhile…rlr

NEST photos, 2010

there’s a phototbucket account with photos i took this summer…

NEST 2010

have a look!

International call for solidarity with mapuche political prisoners and chilean anarchist political prisoners – 9/24

This last week, September 11th marked the Chilean anniversary of Pinochet’s coup. Today, September 18th marks Chile’s bicentennial day of independence. These events take place amidst a state of intense governmental repression against the indigenous Mapuche resisters and Chilean anarchists. A U.S. based activist currently traveling in Chile comments that, “This is taking place during a backdrop of intense repression against the Mapuche people, with 32 Mapuche political prisoners participating in a hunger strike, demanding the demilitarization of their traditional lands, and an end to the use of the Pinochet-era antiterrorist law to repress their struggles. And also, since a raid of police raids in August, 14 anarchists have been facing heavy charges, framed with carrying out bombings, though in reality targeted for their participation in radical social centers in Santiago and Valparaiso.”

“The government is trying with little luck to not shatter the illusion of national cohesion. The wave of repression has consisted of a media circus and much legal absurdity as the anti-terrorist laws are being used liberally against the anarchists and the mapuche prisoners. They are trying to pin a wave of anonymous bombings of recent years on anarchist youth who run squatted social centers in Santiago and Valpariso as well as continue the heavy repression against the Mapuche communities that continue to call for autonomy from the state.”

On September 24th, Mapuche resisters and chilean anarchists call for a day of international solidarity with their struggle. more info here:

“September 11th Riots in Santiago“

“Update on Solidarity for the Arrested Anarchists in Chile“