Electromagnetichealth.org, filmed at Columbia University Law School at a presentation on Wireless Hazards, explains how wireless radiation creates cognitive problems, damages DNA, diminishes fertility, causes disorientation and navigation difficulties for birds, bees and other wildlife, and may contribute to Bee Colony Collapse, which, if not reversed, will jeopardize the future of life on earth.
Wireless Hazards Panel - Columbia University Law School from ElectromagneticHealth.Org on Vimeo.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Cancer Calling
Witnesses testified at a Senate hearing about research into cell phones use and its potential impact on human health, as well as the potential side effects such as cancer, brain and salivary gland tumors.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
The Possum Party - We're Already Dead
Jon Stewart had some advice for the Democrats last night. A week after Scott Brown won the Massachusetts election, many Republicans have suggested that Obama's best option is to move to the middle, a move that a number of Democrats seem to support.
Shocked that the Dems would make such concessions, Stewart asked, "Don't you get what the Republicans are doing? They're fucking with you."
Shocked that the Dems would make such concessions, Stewart asked, "Don't you get what the Republicans are doing? They're fucking with you."
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Blues Clueless | ||||
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Monday, January 25, 2010
Well Shut My Wallet!
Well Shut My Wallet!
I believe the next presidential election will be between Ms. Sarah CitibankExxonMobilBankofAmericaWallStJournal Palin and Mr. Barack GMFordStarbuck'sSnappleGoogleHBO Obama. As usual, Ralph SubwayBob'sBailBondsCoffeeBeanandTeaLeafJiffyLube Nader will run as a spoiler. Their presidential racing suits will make Nascar look black tie, and the bumper stickers will be three feet long. The commercials will only be interrupted by three minutes of debate every half hour, hosted by the incomparable Mr. GoDaddy. I would like to offer myself, or "Your Name Here" as I am now known, in any capacity I can to serve my IRS.
In the meantime, can anyone fix me up with that cute Wal-Mart dude, or his friend ConocoPhilips? They're so dreamy, I'd like to bring them home to meet my Limited Partnership.
My breakup with AT&T is final and I'm done with Skype as the rebound guy. I don't care what you've heard about me, I did not have a three-way with Citigroup, big bragging liars, and I only slept with General Motors to support the troops. I'm a ten. So call me Time Warner, I want to take you to my friend's hostile takeover this weekend while his LLCs are out of town.
Tips For Welcoming Our New Citizens Into Society:
Remember, they are people, not corporations. Don't ask them how their quarter is looking, ask them how their day is going.
Forget the "whisper number," remember to whisper sweet nothings.
We're not "stockholders," we're family.
They're not mergers, they're marriages, even though gay corporations still can't.
They're not takeovers, they're adoptions, even though gay corporations still can't.
They're not conventions, they're family gatherings. You wouldn't bring a hooker to a family gathering, would you?
From now on all company reports will be once a year, in the Christmas letter.
Tips For Replacing Speech With Money:
Now that the Court has declared money to be speech, I say we replace the current Court with some Ben Franklins, Thomas Jeffersons, George Washingtons, a couple of Susan B. Anthony's, Roosevelts, Hamiltons, a Sacajawea or two, and an Abe Lincoln to cover Scalia in full.
"A piece of my mind" = About a dollar.
"You can't put a price on health" = Shut up. It's a hundred grand.
Hot Chick = Triple A Bond.
Loser = Negative return.
Marriage = Amortization.
Love = Undeclared interest
Singing = Literally throwing money out the window.
Poetry = High P/E ratio
It's not an apology, it's throwing good money after bad.
It's not equivocating, it's two dimes for a nickel.
How the Court will now start each session:
I pledge obeisance to the swag
Of the United Colors of Benneton
To Banana Republic on marked-down stands
Live Nation, Underwire
Unreturnable,
With Treasury, and just a free for all.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
If Corporations Were Human
Published on Friday, January 22, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
If Corporations Were Human
Yesterday's Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case removes all limits on large corporations to finance and influence federal elections. In its ruling the Court reverse a decades old ruling barring companies from using their general funds to fund political campaign, and guts pieces of the popular McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation. In so doing the Court implicitly embraces a 125 year-old precedent in the case of Santa Clara v. Santa Fe, where the Court first developed the legal doctrine of corporate personhood, explicitly granting corporations the same political and civil rights granted to human beings. Our nation's founders would be shocked to learn that their revolution had resulted in non-human entities like corporations being endowed with the same hard fought rights secured for citizens.
But what if we accept corporate personhood as the current reality and instead focus on changing the rules such that corporations would also have to be bound by other limitations of humanity? How would corporations be different if they were indeed human-like?
If corporations were human, they would pause for sleep and recreation. When human families vacation, they frequently go to parks or natural places which they inherently recognize as part of the commons set apart from the marketplace. Many corporations know no such bounds; if resources are available, even in the nation's National Parks, they will seek to develop them. Today's modern corporations are 24/7 affairs, that are always charging forward. The press for continuous growth and the need to deliver the next quarter's earnings, make corporation's urgency and intensity toward time a threat to many communities, which have other priorities like caring for children and elders, not the tireless quest to produce more profit.
If corporations were human, they would acknowledge their dependence on a healthy community for their well-being and contribute financially to the vibrancy of the community through payment of taxes. Fifty years ago, corporate taxes made up nearly 22% of the federal treasury receipts, today corporate taxes contribute less than 13% to the Federal budget. The mindset of many large corporations is that of takers, looking to be supported by society with a stream of tax credits and preferential tax rates. According to a 2008 report by the Government Accounting Office, 25% of large US corporations paid no Federal income taxes in 2005 (the latest year studied) despite reporting collective sales exceeding $1.1 trillion.
If corporations were human, they would recognize that their brains are only one of many vital organs. The brain, which provides the executive function for the body whole, nonetheless consumes a relatively modest share of the body's nutrition. A brain which swells beyond a normal healthy state is a dire threat to the body and most often requires the dramatic intervention of surgery. Inhuman corporations provide ever larger amount of nutrition in the form of money to its executive function. These swollen levels of pay are a cancer that often results in excessive risk, putting both the corporation and society at risk.
If corporations were human, they would be accountable to society when they break the law and would be punished with a loss of their freedoms. When a person steals or murders, they are sent to prison, where they lose their freedom to practice their trade, and to participate in the economic and political life of the community. When corporations produce products they know to be deadly, or withhold important information on the safety of their products are they not guilty of murder? When corporations submit fraudulent financial statements to investors, or engage in deceptive marketing practices that cost people their homes or their life savings, are they not guilty of felonious theft? Shouldn't corporate criminals, particularly repeat offenders, be denied their freedom to practice business and have their license revoked?
If corporations were human, they would one day die. Unlike the finitude of human life, modern corporations can live forever under the law, growing in size and gaining political and economic power generation after generation. It was not always so. When our nation was young, people recognized both the good things that business contributed but also the risks of concentrating too much power in the hands of businesses. Business charters were granted for a set period of time, commonly a generation, after which time the businesses would be dissolved. While businesses could still prosper and grow to have influence, they were kept from becoming too big to fail, where their size alone was a threat to the social order.
Corporations can't have it both ways - insisting upon the political and civil rights guaranteed human rights under the Constitution, while at the same time refusing to live within the constraints of human life in terms of longevity, size, accountability and support of the communities which grant them their existence.
But what if we accept corporate personhood as the current reality and instead focus on changing the rules such that corporations would also have to be bound by other limitations of humanity? How would corporations be different if they were indeed human-like?
If corporations were human, they would pause for sleep and recreation. When human families vacation, they frequently go to parks or natural places which they inherently recognize as part of the commons set apart from the marketplace. Many corporations know no such bounds; if resources are available, even in the nation's National Parks, they will seek to develop them. Today's modern corporations are 24/7 affairs, that are always charging forward. The press for continuous growth and the need to deliver the next quarter's earnings, make corporation's urgency and intensity toward time a threat to many communities, which have other priorities like caring for children and elders, not the tireless quest to produce more profit.
If corporations were human, they would acknowledge their dependence on a healthy community for their well-being and contribute financially to the vibrancy of the community through payment of taxes. Fifty years ago, corporate taxes made up nearly 22% of the federal treasury receipts, today corporate taxes contribute less than 13% to the Federal budget. The mindset of many large corporations is that of takers, looking to be supported by society with a stream of tax credits and preferential tax rates. According to a 2008 report by the Government Accounting Office, 25% of large US corporations paid no Federal income taxes in 2005 (the latest year studied) despite reporting collective sales exceeding $1.1 trillion.
If corporations were human, they would recognize that their brains are only one of many vital organs. The brain, which provides the executive function for the body whole, nonetheless consumes a relatively modest share of the body's nutrition. A brain which swells beyond a normal healthy state is a dire threat to the body and most often requires the dramatic intervention of surgery. Inhuman corporations provide ever larger amount of nutrition in the form of money to its executive function. These swollen levels of pay are a cancer that often results in excessive risk, putting both the corporation and society at risk.
If corporations were human, they would be accountable to society when they break the law and would be punished with a loss of their freedoms. When a person steals or murders, they are sent to prison, where they lose their freedom to practice their trade, and to participate in the economic and political life of the community. When corporations produce products they know to be deadly, or withhold important information on the safety of their products are they not guilty of murder? When corporations submit fraudulent financial statements to investors, or engage in deceptive marketing practices that cost people their homes or their life savings, are they not guilty of felonious theft? Shouldn't corporate criminals, particularly repeat offenders, be denied their freedom to practice business and have their license revoked?
If corporations were human, they would one day die. Unlike the finitude of human life, modern corporations can live forever under the law, growing in size and gaining political and economic power generation after generation. It was not always so. When our nation was young, people recognized both the good things that business contributed but also the risks of concentrating too much power in the hands of businesses. Business charters were granted for a set period of time, commonly a generation, after which time the businesses would be dissolved. While businesses could still prosper and grow to have influence, they were kept from becoming too big to fail, where their size alone was a threat to the social order.
Corporations can't have it both ways - insisting upon the political and civil rights guaranteed human rights under the Constitution, while at the same time refusing to live within the constraints of human life in terms of longevity, size, accountability and support of the communities which grant them their existence.
The Road to Corporate Fascism
From Free Speech Television
Unequal Protection
“Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights” by Thom Hartmann
The Seminal Book on How Corporations Came to Have the Same “Rights” as People, Leading to the Disastrous Supreme Court Decision on Jan. 21.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Granny D - 100 and Still Kicking Ass
Published on Thursday, January 21, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
Ten years ago, I walked from California to Washington, D.C. to help gather support for campaign finance reform. I used the novelty of my age (I was 90), to garner attention to the fact that our democracy, for which so many people have given their lives, is being subverted to the needs of wealthy interests, and that we must do something about it. I talked to thousands of people and gave hundreds of speeches and interviews, and, in every section of the nation, I was deeply moved by how heartsick Americans are by the current state of our politics.Wisdom at 100: Defend Democracy Against the Corporate State
Well, we got some reform bills passed, but things seem worse now than ever. Our good government reform groups are trying to staunch the flow of special-interest money into our political campaigns, but they are mostly whistling in a wind that has become a gale force of corrupting cash. Conditions are so bad that people now assume that nothing useful can pass Congress due to the vote-buying power of powerful financial interests. The health care reform debacle is but the most recent example.
The Supreme Court, representing a radical fringe that does not share the despair of the grand majority of Americans, has today made things considerably worse by undoing the modest reforms I walked for and went to jail for, and that tens of thousands of other Americans fought very hard to see enacted. So now, thanks to this Court, corporations can fund their candidates without limits and they can run mudslinging campaigns against everyone else, right up to and including election day.
The Supreme Court now opens the floodgates to usher in a new tsunami of corporate money into politics. If we are to retain our democracy, we must go a new direction until a more reasonable Supreme Court is in place. I would propose a one-two punch of the following nature:
A few states have adopted programs where candidates who agree to not accept special-interest donations receive, instead, advertising funds from their state. The programs work, and I would guess that they save their states more money than they cost by reducing corruption. Moving these reforms in the states has been very slow and difficult, but we must keep at it.
But we also need a new approach--something of a roundhouse punch. I would like to propose a flanking move that will help such reforms move faster: We need to dramatically expand the definition of what constitutes an illegal conflict of interest in politics.
If your brother-in-law has a road paving company, it is clear that you, as an elected official, must not vote to give him a contract, as you have a conflict of interest. Do you have any less of an ethical conflict if you are voting for that contract not because he is a brother-in-law, but because he is a major donor to your campaign? Should you ethically vote on health issues if health companies fund a large chunk of your campaign? The success of your campaign, after all, determines your future career and financial condition. You have a conflict.
Let us say, through the enactment of new laws, that a politician can no longer take any action, or arrange any action by another official, if the action, in the opinion of that legislative body's civil service ethics officer, would cause special gain to a major donor of that official's campaign. The details of such a program will be daunting, but we need to figure them out and get them into law.
Remarkably, many better corporations have an ethical review process to prevent their executives from making political contributions to officials who decide issues critical to that corporation. Should corporations have a higher standard than the United States Congress? And many state governments have tighter standards, too. Should not Congress be the flagship of our ethical standards? Where is the leadership to make this happen this year?
This kind of reform should also be pushed in the 14 states where citizens have full power to place proposed statutes on the ballot and enact them into law. About 70% of voters would go for a ballot measure to "toughen our conflict of interest law," I estimate. In the scramble that would follow, either free campaign advertising would be required as a condition of every community's contract with cable providers (long overdue), or else there would be a mad dash for public campaign financing programs on the model of Maine, Arizona, and Connecticut. Maybe both things would happen, which would be good.
I urge the large reform organizations to consider this strategy. They have never listened to me in the past, but they also have not gotten the job done and need to come alive or now get out of the way.
And to the Supreme Court, you force us to defend our democracy--a democracy of people and not corporations--by going in breathtaking new directions. And so we shall.
War Is Terrorism With a Bigger Budget
Published on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 by
The wars in distant lands were always going to come home, but not this way.A Very American Coup: Coming Soon to a Hometown Near You
It's September 2016, year 15 of America's "Long War" against terror. As weary troops return to the homeland, a bitter reality assails them: despite their sacrifices, America is losing.
Iraq is increasingly hostile to remaining occupation forces. Afghanistan is a riddle that remains unsolved: its army and police forces are untrustworthy, its government corrupt, and its tribal leaders unsympathetic to the vagaries of U.S. intervention. Since the Obama surge of 2010, a trillion more dollars have been devoted to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and other countries in the vast shatter zone that is central Asia, without measurable returns; nothing, that is, except the prolongation of America's Great Recession, now entering its tenth year without a sustained recovery in sight.Disillusioned veterans are unable to find decent jobs in a crumbling economy. Scarred by the physical and psychological violence of war, fed up with the happy talk of duplicitous politicians who only speak of shared sacrifices, they begin to organize. Their motto: take America back.
Meanwhile, a lame duck presidency, choking on foreign policy failures, finds itself attacked even for its putative successes. Health-care reform is now seen to have combined the inefficiency and inconsistency of government with the naked greed and exploitative talents of corporations. Medical rationing is a fact of life confronting anyone on the high side of 50. Presidential rhetoric that offered hope and change has lost all resonance. Mainstream media outlets are discredited and disintegrating, resulting in new levels of information anarchy.
Protest, whether electronic or in the streets, has become more common -- and the protestors in those streets increasingly carry guns, though as yet armed violence is minimal. A panicked administration responds with overlapping executive orders and legislation that is widely perceived as an attack on basic freedoms.
Tapping the frustration of protesters -- including a renascent and mainstreamed "tea bag" movement -- the former captains and sergeants, the ex-CIA operatives and out-of-work private mercenaries of the War on Terror take action. Conflict and confrontation they seek; laws and orders they increasingly ignore. As riot police are deployed in the streets, they face a grim choice: where to point their guns? Not at veterans, they decide, not at America's erstwhile heroes.
A dwindling middle-class, still waving the flag and determined to keep its sliver-sized portion of the American dream, throws its support to the agitators. Wages shrinking, savings exhausted, bills rising, the sober middle can no longer hold. It vents its fear and rage by calling for a decisive leader and the overthrow of a can't-do Congress.
Savvy members of traditional Washington elites are only too happy to oblige. They too crave order and can-do decisiveness -- on their terms. Where better to find that than in the ranks of America's most respected institution: the military?
A retired senior officer who led America's heroes in central Asia is anointed. His creed: end public disorder, fight the War on Terror to a victorious finish, put America back on top. The United States, he says, is the land of winners, and winners accept no substitute for victory. Nominated on September 11, 2016, Patriot Day, he marches to an overwhelming victory that November, embraced in the streets by an American version of the post-World War I German Freikorps and the police who refuse to suppress them. A concerned minority is left to wonder (and tremble) at the de facto military coup that occurred so quickly, and yet so silently, in their midst.
It Can Happen Here, Unless We Act
Yes, it can happen here. In some ways, it's already happening. But the key question is: at this late date, how can it be stopped? Here are some vectors for a change in course, and in mindset as well, if we are to avoid our own stealth coup:
1. Somehow, we need to begin to reverse the ongoing militarization of this country, especially our ever-rising "defense" budgets. The most recent of these, we've just learned, is a staggering $708 billion for fiscal year 2011 -- and that doesn't even include the $33 billion President Obama has requested for his latest surge in Afghanistan. We also need to get rid of the idea that anyone who suggests even minor cuts in defense spending is either hopelessly naïve or a terrorist sympathizer. It's time as well to call a halt to the privatization of military activity and so halt the rise of security contractors like Xe (formerly Blackwater), thereby weakening the corporate profit motive that supports and underpins the American version of perpetual war. It's time to begin feeling chastened, not proud, that we're by far the number one country in the world in arms manufacturing and the global arms trade.
2. Let's downsize our global mission rather than endlessly expanding our military footprint. It's time to have a military capable of defending this country, not fighting endless wars in distant lands while garrisoning the globe.
3. Let's stop paying attention to major TV and cable networks that rely on retired senior military officers, most of whom have ties both to the Pentagon and military contractors, for "unbiased" commentary on our wars. If we insist on fighting our perpetual "frontier" wars, let's start insisting as well that they be covered in all their bitter reality: the death, the mayhem, the waste, the prisons, and the torture. Why is our war coverage invariably sanitized to "PG" or even "G," when we can go to the movies anytime and see "R" rated, pornographically violent films? And by the way, it's time to be more critical of the government's and the media's use of language and propaganda. Mindlessly parroting the Patriot Act doesn't make you patriotic.
4. It's time to elect a president who doesn't surround himself with senior "civilian" advisors and ambassadors who are actually retired military generals and admirals, one who won't accept a Nobel Peace Prize by defending war in theory and escalating it in practice.
5. Let's toughen up. Let's stop deferring to authority figures who promise to "protect" us while abridging our rights. Let's stop bowing down before men and women in uniform, before they start thinking that it's their right to be worshipped and act accordingly.
6. Let's act now to relieve the sort of desperation bred by joblessness and hopelessness that could lead many -- notably male workers suffering from the "He-Cession" -- to see a militarized solution in "the homeland" as a credible last resort. It's the economy, stupid, but with Main Street's health, not Wall Street's, in our focus.
7. Let's take Sarah Palin and her followers seriously. They're tapping into anger that's real and spreading. Don't let them become the voices of the angry working (and increasingly unemployed) classes.
8. Recognize that we face real enemies in our world, the most powerful of which aren't in distant Afghanistan or Yemen but here at home. The essence of our struggle to sustain our faltering democracy should not be against "terrorists," with their shoe and crotch bombs, but against various powerful, perfectly legal groups here whose interests lie in a Pentagon that only grows ever stronger.
9. Stop thinking the U.S. is uniquely privileged. Don't take it on faith that God is on our side. Forget about God blessing America. If you believe in God, get out there and start trying to earn His blessing through deeds.
10. And, most important of all, remember that fear is the mind-killer that makes militarism possible. Ramping up "terror" is an amazingly effective way of shredding our Constitution. Putting our "safety" above all else is asking for trouble. The only way we'll be completely safe from the big bad terrorists, after all, is when we're all living in a maximum security state. Think of walking down the street while always being subject to a "full-body scan."
That's my top 10 things we need to do. It's a daunting list and I'm sure you have a few ideas of your own. But have faith. Ultimately, it all boils down to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's words to a nation suffering through the Great Depression: the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. These words came to mind recently as I read the following missive from a friend and World War II veteran who's seen tough times:
"It's very hard for me to accept how soft the American people have become. In 1941, with the western world under assault by powerful and deadly forces, and a large armada of ships and planes attacking us directly, I never heard a word of fear as we faced three powerful nations as enemies. Sixteen million of us went into the military with the very real possibility of death and I never once heard of fear, except from those exposed to danger. Now, our people let [their leaders] terrify them into accepting the destruction of our economy, our image in the world, and our democracy... All this over a small group of religious fanatics [mostly] from Saudi Arabia whom we kowtow to so we can drive 8-cylinder SUV's. Pathetic!
"How many times have I stood in ‘security lines' at airports and when I complained of the indignity of taking off shoes and not having water and the manhandling of passengers, have well educated people smugly said to me, ‘Well, they're just keeping us safe.' I look at the airport bullshit as a training ground to turn Americans into docile sheep in a totalitarian state."
A public conditioned to act like sheep, to "support our troops" no matter what, to cower before the idea of terrorism, is a public ready to be herded. A military that's being used to fight unwinnable wars is a military prone to return home disaffected and with scores to settle.
Angry and desperate veterans and mercenaries already conditioned to violence, merging with "tea baggers" and other alienated groups, could one day form our own Freikorps units, rioting for violent solutions to national decline. Recall that the Nazi movement ultimately succeeded in the early 1930s because so many middle-class Germans were scared as they saw their wealth, standard of living, and status all threatened by the Great Depression.
If our Great Recession continues, if decent jobs remain scarce, if the mainstream media continue to foster fear and hatred, if returning troops are disaffected and their leaders blame politicians for "not being tough enough," if one or two more terrorist attacks succeed on U.S. soil, wouldn't this country be well primed for a coup by any other name?
Don't expect a "Seven Days in May" scenario. No American Caesar will return to Washington with his legions to decapitate governmental authority. Why not? Because he won't have to.
As long as we continue to live in perpetual fear in an increasingly militarized state, we establish the preconditions under which Americans will be nailed to, and crucified on, a cross of iron.
Welcome to the United Corporations of America - Sieg Heil!
"Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property.
Corporate personhood is the legal fiction that property is a person."
Bill Meyers
Corporate personhood is the legal fiction that property is a person."
Bill Meyers
Published on Thursday, January 21, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
Today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission shreds the fabric of our already weakened democracy by allowing corporations to more completely dominate our corrupted electoral process. It is outrageous that corporations already attempt to influence or bribe our political candidates through their political action committees (PACs), which solicit employees and shareholders for donations. With this decision, corporations can now also draw on their corporate treasuries and pour vast amounts of corporate money, through independent expenditures, into the electoral swamp already flooded with corporate campaign PAC contribution dollars.Corporate Personhood Should Be Banned, Once and For All
Outrageous SCOTUS Decision Should Reignite Most Necessary of Debates
This corporatist, anti-voter decision is so extreme that it should galvanize a grassroots effort to enact a Constitutional Amendment to once and for all end corporate personhood and curtail the corrosive impact of big money on politics. It is indeed time for a Constitutional amendment to prevent corporate campaign contributions from commercializing our elections and drowning out the civic and political voices and values of citizens and voters. It is way overdue to overthrow “King Corporation” and restore the sovereignty of “We the People”!
Last Shred of Democracy Died Today
Supreme Court Rolls Back Campaign Finance Restrictions
By a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court on Thursday rolled back restrictions on corporate spending on federal campaigns. The decision could unleash a torrent of corporate spending on attack ads in upcoming campaigns, though several Democratic lawmakers have already signaled plans for a legislative response to limit the impact of the decision.
"Because speech is an essential mechanism of democracy -- it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people -- political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it by design or inadvertence," wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the majority.
In his dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens accused the majority of judicial activism and attacked the use of corporate personhood in the case: "The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is not only inaccurate but also inadequate to justify the Court's disposition of this case."
Progressive good-government groups and Democratic politicians reacted to the decision with universal despair. Republicans offered measured praise.
Democracy 21's Fred Wertheimer, for years a leading advocate of campaign finance reform, called the decision a "disaster for the American people and a dark day for the Supreme Court."
"The Supreme Court majority has acted recklessly to free up corporations to use their immense, aggregate corporate wealth to flood federal elections and buy government influence. The Fortune 100 companies alone had combined revenues of $13 trillion and profits of $605 billion during the last election cycle," Wertheimer wrote.
"Under today's decision, insurance companies, banks, drug companies, energy companies and the like will be free to each spend $5 million, $10 million or more of corporate funds to elect or defeat a federal candidate -- and thereby to buy influence over the candidate's positions on issues of economic importance to the companies."
By a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court on Thursday rolled back restrictions on corporate spending on federal campaigns. The decision could unleash a torrent of corporate spending on attack ads in upcoming campaigns, though several Democratic lawmakers have already signaled plans for a legislative response to limit the impact of the decision.
"Because speech is an essential mechanism of democracy -- it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people -- political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it by design or inadvertence," wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the majority.
In his dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens accused the majority of judicial activism and attacked the use of corporate personhood in the case: "The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is not only inaccurate but also inadequate to justify the Court's disposition of this case."
Progressive good-government groups and Democratic politicians reacted to the decision with universal despair. Republicans offered measured praise.
Democracy 21's Fred Wertheimer, for years a leading advocate of campaign finance reform, called the decision a "disaster for the American people and a dark day for the Supreme Court."
"The Supreme Court majority has acted recklessly to free up corporations to use their immense, aggregate corporate wealth to flood federal elections and buy government influence. The Fortune 100 companies alone had combined revenues of $13 trillion and profits of $605 billion during the last election cycle," Wertheimer wrote.
"Under today's decision, insurance companies, banks, drug companies, energy companies and the like will be free to each spend $5 million, $10 million or more of corporate funds to elect or defeat a federal candidate -- and thereby to buy influence over the candidate's positions on issues of economic importance to the companies."
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
It's so Cold, there can't be Global Warming
We've heard a lot of talk lately from deniers that cold temperatures are proof that there is no such thing as global waming.
It looks like it will be an annual event to remind people that winter still follows summer. Since deniers seem to want to believe the warming thing is all a lie, perhaps a little review is in order.
It looks like it will be an annual event to remind people that winter still follows summer. Since deniers seem to want to believe the warming thing is all a lie, perhaps a little review is in order.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Orlov's Predictions for 2010
Predictions
by Dmitry Orlov
Around this time of year, some brave souls venture to put their reputations at risk by attempting to predict what the next year will bring. Some do so with uncanny accuracy, others — not so much. Being a serious author who hardly ever makes jokes, I generally sit out this annual bout of frivolity, but, noting that a new decade is about to burst upon us, I thought it reasonably safe to paint a picture of how I see the next decade. (In the unlikely case that my predictions turn out to be completely wrong, I would think that they will have been very thoroughly forgotten by the time 2020 rolls around.) And so, without further ado, here are my predictions for what it will be like in The United States of America during the second decade of the XXI century.The decade will be marked by many instances of autophagy, in business, government, and in the higher echelons of society, as players at all levels find that they are unable to control their appetites or alter their behavior in any meaningful way, even in the face of radically altered circumstances, and are thus compelled to consume themselves into oblivion, as so many disemboweled yet still ravenous sharks endlessly gorging themselves on their own billowing entrails.
Governments will find that they are unable to restrain themselves from printing ever more money in an endless wave of uncontrolled emission. At the same time, rising taxes, commodity prices, and costs of all kinds, coupled with a rising overall level of uncertainty and disruption, will curtail economic activity to a point where little of that money will still circulate. Inflationists and deflationists will endlessly debate whether this should be called inflation or deflation, unconsciously emulating the big-endians and little-endians of Jonathan Swifts Gulliver's Travels, who endlessly debated the proper end from which to eat a soft-boiled egg. The citizenry, their nest egg boiled down to the size of a dried pea, will not be particularly vexed by the question of exactly how they should try to eat it, and will regard the question as academic, if not idiotic.
Distressed municipalities throughout the country will resort to charging exorbitant fees for such things as dog licenses. Many will experiment with imprisoning those unable to pay these fees in state and county jails, only to release them again as the jails continuously overflow and resources run low. The citizenry will come to regard jails as conveniently combining the features of a soup kitchen and a homeless shelter. Some towns will abandon the idea of having a fire department and decide that it is more cost-effective to just let house fires run their course, to save on demolitions. In an effort to plug up ever larger holes in their budgets, states will raise taxes, driving ever more economic activity underground. In particular, state liquor tax revenues will drop for the first time in many decades as more and more Americans find that they can no longer afford beer and switch to cheap and plentiful Afghan heroin and other illegal but very affordable drugs. Marijuana smoke will edge out car exhaust as America's most prevalent smell.
Several countries around the world will be forced to declare sovereign default and join the swelling ranks of defunct nations. There will be a mad shuffle to find safe havens for hot money, but none will be found. Investors around the world will finally be forced to realize that the best way to avoid losses is to not have any money to start with. Despite their best efforts to diversify their holdings, investors will find that they are all long paper, be it stocks, bonds, deeds, promissory notes, or incomprehensible derivative contracts. They will also find that, in the new business climate, none of these instruments make particularly formidable weapons: as the friendly game of rock-paper-scissors turns hostile, they will discover that rocks stave in skulls, that scissors puncture vital organs, but that the paper, even when wielded expertly, just causes paper cuts. Those formerly well-heeled persons who tend to believe that "possession is nine-tenths of the law" will find many extralegal exorcists eager to liberate their demons. In particular, organized crime rings will start using data mining software to identify lightly guarded cabins and compounds in Montana and other remote locations that are well-stocked with canned food, weapons and gold and silver bullion, and start harvesting them by softening the target with mortars, rockets and aerial bombardment, then sending in commando teams with grenades and machine guns. Once the harvest is in, they will expatriate the proceeds using the diplomatic pouches of defunct nations held in their sway.
While the bullion is expatriated, the Pentagon will attempt to repatriate troops from Iraq, Afghanistan and the numerous US military bases around the world, soon finding that they lack the wherewithal to do so, stranding the troops wherever they are, and forcing them to resupply themselves. Military families will be invited to donate food, uniforms, clean underwear and toiletries for their loved ones overseas. American weaponry will flood the black market, driving down prices. Some servicemen will decide that returning to the US is a bad idea in any case, and go native, marrying local women and adopting local religions, customs and garb. Although national leaders will continue to prattle on about national security whenever there is a microphone pointed at them, their own personal security will become their overarching concern. Officials at all levels will attempt to assemble ever larger retinues of bodyguards and security consultants. Members of Congress will become ever more reticent and will avoid encountering their constituents as much as possible, preferring to hide in Washington's hermetically sealed high-rises, walled compounds and gated communities. Meanwhile, outside the official security perimeter, a new neighborliness will take root, as squatting becomes known as "settling in," trespassing as "beating a new path," and fences, walls and locks are everywhere replaced by watchful eyes, attentive ears and helping hands.
The following review is from Amazon.
In the waning days of the American empire, we find ourselves mired in political crisis, with our foreign policy coming under sharp criticism and our economy in steep decline. These trends mirror the experience of the Soviet Union in the early 1980s. Reinventing Collapse examines the circumstances of the demise of the Soviet superpower and offers clear insights into how we might prepare for coming events.Rather than focusing on doom and gloom, Reinventing Collapse
suggests that there is room for optimism if we focus our efforts on personal and cultural transformation. With characteristic dry humor, Dmitry Orlov identifies three progressive stages of response to the looming crisis:- Mitigation—alleviating the impact of the coming upheaval
- Adaptation—adjusting to the reality of changed conditions
- Opportunity—flourishing after the collapse
The Corporation - Watch for FREE.!
If you missed this video when it first came out you NEED to watch it! You can view the full movie here.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Geoengineering with Aerosols
For reasons you will understand as you read this I can not divulge my identity.I am an aircraft mechanic for a major airline. I work at one of our maintenance bases located at a large airport. I have discovered some information that I think you will find important.
First, I should tell you something about the "pecking order" among mechanics. It is
important to my story and to the cause to which you have dedicated yourself.
Mechanics want to work on three things. The avionics, the engines, or the flight controls. The mechanics that work on these systems are considered at the top of the "pecking order".
Next come the mechanics that work on the hydraulics and air conditioning systems. Then come the ones who work on the galley and other non-essential systems. But at the very bottom of the list are the mechanics that work on the waste disposal systems.
No mechanic wants to work on the pumps, tanks, and pipes that are used to store the waste from the lavatories. But at every airport where I have worked there are always 2 or 3 mechanics that volunteer to work on the lavatory systems. The other mechanics are happy to let them do it. Because of this you will have only 2 or 3 mechanics that work on these systems at any one airport. No one pays much attention to these guys and no mechanic socializes with another mechanic who only works on the waste systems.
Fact is, I had never even thought much about this situation until last month. Like most airlines we have reciprocal agreements with the other airlines that fly into this airport. If they have a problem with a plane one of our mechanics will take care of it. Likewise, if one of our planes has a problem at an airport where the other airline has a maintenance base, they will fix our plane.
One day last month I was called out from our base to work on a plane for another airline. When I got the call the dispatcher did not know what the problem was. When I got to the plane I found out that the problem was in waste disposal system. There was nothing for me to do but to crawl in and fix the problem. When I got into the bay I realized that something was not right. There were more tanks, pumps, and pipes then should have been there. At first I assumed that the waste disposal system had been changed. It had been about 10 years since I had worked on this particular model of aircraft.
As I tried to find the problem I quickly realized the extra piping and tanks were not connected to the waste disposal system, at all. I had just discovered this when another mechanic from my company showed up. It was one of the mechanics who usually works on this particular type of plane, and I happily turned the job over to him. As I was leaving I asked him about the extra equipment. He told me to "worry about my end of the plane and let him worry about his end!"
The next day I was on the company computer to look up a wiring schematic. While I was there I decided to look up the extra equipment I had found. To my amazement the manuals did not show any of the extra equipment I had seen with my own eyes the day before. I even tied in to the manufacturer files and still found nothing. Now I was really determined to find out what that equipment did.
The next week we had three of our planes in our main hanger for periodic inspection. There are mechanics crawling all over a plane during these inspections. I had just finished my shift and I decided to have a look at the waste system on one of our planes. With all the mechanics around I figured that no one would notice an extra one on the plane.
Sure enough, the plane I choose had the extra equipment! I began to trace the system of pipes, pumps, and tanks. I found what appeared to be the control unit for the system. It was a standard looking avionics control box but it had no markings of any kind. I could trace the control wires from the box to the pumps and valves but there were no control circuits coming into the unit. The only wires coming into the unit was a power connection to the aircraft's main power bus. The system had 1 large tank and 2 smaller tanks. It was hard to tell in the cramped compartment, but it looked like the large tank could hold about 50 gallons. The tanks were connected to a fill and drain valve that passed through the fuselage just behind the drain valve for the waste system.
When I had a chance to look for this connection under the plane I found it cunningly hidden behind a panel under the panel used to access the waste drain. I began to trace the piping from the pumps. These pipes lead to a network of small pipes that ended in the trailing edges of the wings and horizontal stabilizers. If you look closely at the wings of a large airplane you will see a set of wires, about the size of your finger, extending from the trailing edge of the wing surfaces. These are the static discharge wicks. They are used to dissipate the static electric charge
that builds up on a plane in flight.
I discovered that the pipes from this mystery system lead to every 1 out of 3 of these static discharge wicks. These wicks had been "hollowed out" to allow whatever flows through these pipes to be discharged through the fake wicks. It was while I was on the wing that one of the managers spotted me. He ordered me out of the hanger telling me that my shift was over and I had not been authorized any overtime.
The next couple of days were very busy and I had no time to continue my investigation. Late one afternoon, two days after my discovery, I was called to replace an engine temperature sensor on a plane due to take off in two hours. I finished the job and turned in the paperwork.
About 30 minutes later I was paged to see the General Manager. When I went in his office I found that our union rep and two others who I did not know were waiting on me. He told me that a serious problem had been discovered. He said that I was being written up and suspended for turning in false paperwork.
He handed me a disciplinary form stating that I had turned in false paperwork on the engine temperature sensor I had installed a few hours before. I was floored and began to protest. I told them that this was ridiculous and that I had done this work. The union rep spoke up at this point and recommended that we take a look at the plane to see if we could straighten it all out. I then asked who the other two men were. The GM told me that they were airline safety inspectors but would not give me their names.
We proceeded to the plane, which should have been in the air but was parked on our maintenance ramp. We opened the engine cowling and the union rep pulled the sensor. He checked the serial number and told everyone that it was the old instrument. We then went to the parts bay and went back into the racks. The union rep checked my report and pulled from the rack a sealed box. He opened the box and pulled out the engine temperature sensor with the serial number of the one I had installed. I was told that I was suspended for a week without pay and to leave immediately.
I sat at home the first day of my suspension wondering what the hell had happened to me. That evening I received a phone call. The voice told me "Now you know what happens to mechanics who poke around in things they shouldn't. The next time you start working on systems that are no concern of yours you will lose your job! As it is, I'm feeling generous, I believe that you'll be able to go back to work soon." CLICK.
Again, I had to pick myself from off the floor. As my mind raced, it was at this moment that I made the connection that what had happened to me must have been directly connected to my tracing the "mysterious" piping.
The next morning the General Manager called me. He said that due to my past excellent employment record that the suspension had been reduced to one day and that I should report back to work immediately. The only thing I could think of was "what are they trying to hide" and "who are 'THEY'"!
That day at work went by as if nothing had happened. None of the other mechanics mentioned the suspension and my union rep told me not to talk about it. That night I logged onto the Internet to try to find some answers. I don't remember now how I got there but I came across a site that talked about chemically-laced contrails.
That's when it all came together. But the next morning at work I found a note inside my locked locker. It said, "Curiosity killed the cat. Don't be looking at Internet sites that are no concern of yours."
Well that's it. Now I know 'THEY' are watching me.
While I don't know what THEY are spraying, I can tell you how they are doing it. I figure they are using the "honey trucks". These are the trucks that empty the waste from the lavatory waste tanks. The airports usually contract out this job and nobody goes near these trucks. Who wants to stand next a truck full of sh--. While these guys are emptying the waste tanks, it makes sense that they could easily be filling the tanks of the spray system.
They know the planes flight path so they probably program the control unit to start spraying some amount of time after the plane reaches a certain altitude. The spray nozzles in the fake static wicks are so small that no one in the plane would see a thing.
God help us all.
-- A concerned citizen
Haiti - America's Shame
The Right Testicle of Hell: History of a Haitian Holocaust
Blackwater before drinking water
by Greg Palast
for The Huffington Post
Sunday 17 January 2010
1. Bless the President for having rescue teams in the air almost immediately. That was President Olafur Grimsson of Iceland. On Wednesday, the AP reported that the President of the United States promised, "The initial contingent of 2,000 Marines could be deployed to the quake-ravaged country within the next few days." "In a few days," Mr. Obama?
2. There's no such thing as a 'natural' disaster. 200,000 Haitians have been slaughtered by slum housing and IMF "austerity" plans.
3. A friend of mine called. Do I know a journalist who could get medicine to her father? And she added, trying to hold her voice together, "My sister, she's under the rubble. Is anyone going who can help, anyone?" Should I tell her, "Obama will have Marines there in 'a few days'"?
4. China deployed rescuers with sniffer dogs within 48 hours. China, Mr. President. China: 8,000 miles distant. Miami: 700 miles close. US bases in Puerto Rico: right there.
5. Obama's Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, "I don't know how this government could have responded faster or more comprehensively than it has." We know Gates doesn't know.
6. From my own work in the field, I know that FEMA has access to ready-to-go potable water, generators, mobile medical equipment and more for hurricane relief on the Gulf Coast. It's all still there. Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, who served as the task force commander for emergency response after Hurricane Katrina, told the Christian Science Monitor, "I thought we had learned that from Katrina, take food and water and start evacuating people." Maybe we learned but, apparently, Gates and the Defense Department missed school that day.
7. Send in the Marines. That's America's response. That's what we're good at. The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson finally showed up after three days. With what? It was dramatically deployed — without any emergency relief supplies. It has sidewinder missiles and 19 helicopters.
8. But don't worry, the International Search and Rescue Team, fully equipped and self-sufficient for up to seven days in the field, deployed immediately with ten metric tons of tools and equipment, three tons of water, tents, advanced communication equipment and water purifying capability. They're from Iceland.
9. Gates wouldn't send in food and water because, he said, there was no "structure ... to provide security." For Gates, appointed by Bush and allowed to hang around by Obama, it's security first. That was his lesson from Hurricane Katrina. Blackwater before drinking water.
10. Previous US presidents have acted far more swiftly in getting troops on the ground on that island. Haiti is the right half of the island of Hispaniola. It's treated like the right testicle of Hell. The Dominican Republic the left. In 1965, when Dominicans demanded the return of Juan Bosch, their elected President, deposed by a junta, Lyndon Johnson reacted to this crisis rapidly, landing 45,000 US Marines on the beaches to prevent the return of the elected president.
11. How did Haiti end up so economically weakened, with infrastructure, from hospitals to water systems, busted or non-existent - there are two fire stations in the entire nation - and infrastructure so frail that the nation was simply waiting for "nature" to finish it off?
Don't blame Mother Nature for all this death and destruction. That dishonor goes to Papa Doc and Baby Doc, the Duvalier dictatorship, which looted the nation for 28 years. Papa and his Baby put an estimated 80% of world aid into their own pockets - with the complicity of the US government happy to have the Duvaliers and their voodoo militia, Tonton Macoutes, as allies in the Cold War. (The war was easily won: the Duvaliers' death squads murdered as many as 60,000 opponents of the regime.)
12. What Papa and Baby didn't run off with, the IMF finished off through its "austerity" plans. An austerity plan is a form of voodoo orchestrated by economists zomby-fied by an irrational belief that cutting government services will somehow help a nation prosper.
13. In 1991, five years after the murderous Baby fled, Haitians elected a priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who resisted the IMF's austerity diktats. Within months, the military, to the applause of Papa George HW Bush, deposed him. History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. The farce was George W. Bush. In 2004, after the priest Aristide was re-elected President, he was kidnapped and removed again, to the applause of Baby Bush.
14. Haiti was once a wealthy nation, the wealthiest in the hemisphere, worth more, wrote Voltaire in the 18th century, than that rocky, cold colony known as New England. Haiti's wealth was in black gold: slaves. But then the slaves rebelled - and have been paying for it ever since.
From 1825 to 1947, France forced Haiti to pay an annual fee to reimburse the profits lost by French slaveholders caused by their slaves' successful uprising. Rather than enslave individual Haitians, France thought it more efficient to simply enslave the entire nation.
15. Secretary Gates tells us, "There are just some certain facts of life that affect how quickly you can do some of these things." The Navy's hospital boat will be there in, oh, a week or so. Heckuva job, Brownie!
16. Note just received from my friend. Her sister was found, dead; and her other sister had to bury her. Her father needs his anti-seizure medicines. That's a fact of life too, Mr. President.
Blackwater before drinking water
by Greg Palast
for The Huffington Post Sunday 17 January 2010
1. Bless the President for having rescue teams in the air almost immediately. That was President Olafur Grimsson of Iceland. On Wednesday, the AP reported that the President of the United States promised, "The initial contingent of 2,000 Marines could be deployed to the quake-ravaged country within the next few days." "In a few days," Mr. Obama?
2. There's no such thing as a 'natural' disaster. 200,000 Haitians have been slaughtered by slum housing and IMF "austerity" plans.
3. A friend of mine called. Do I know a journalist who could get medicine to her father? And she added, trying to hold her voice together, "My sister, she's under the rubble. Is anyone going who can help, anyone?" Should I tell her, "Obama will have Marines there in 'a few days'"?
4. China deployed rescuers with sniffer dogs within 48 hours. China, Mr. President. China: 8,000 miles distant. Miami: 700 miles close. US bases in Puerto Rico: right there.
5. Obama's Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, "I don't know how this government could have responded faster or more comprehensively than it has." We know Gates doesn't know.
6. From my own work in the field, I know that FEMA has access to ready-to-go potable water, generators, mobile medical equipment and more for hurricane relief on the Gulf Coast. It's all still there. Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, who served as the task force commander for emergency response after Hurricane Katrina, told the Christian Science Monitor, "I thought we had learned that from Katrina, take food and water and start evacuating people." Maybe we learned but, apparently, Gates and the Defense Department missed school that day.
7. Send in the Marines. That's America's response. That's what we're good at. The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson finally showed up after three days. With what? It was dramatically deployed — without any emergency relief supplies. It has sidewinder missiles and 19 helicopters.
8. But don't worry, the International Search and Rescue Team, fully equipped and self-sufficient for up to seven days in the field, deployed immediately with ten metric tons of tools and equipment, three tons of water, tents, advanced communication equipment and water purifying capability. They're from Iceland.
9. Gates wouldn't send in food and water because, he said, there was no "structure ... to provide security." For Gates, appointed by Bush and allowed to hang around by Obama, it's security first. That was his lesson from Hurricane Katrina. Blackwater before drinking water.
10. Previous US presidents have acted far more swiftly in getting troops on the ground on that island. Haiti is the right half of the island of Hispaniola. It's treated like the right testicle of Hell. The Dominican Republic the left. In 1965, when Dominicans demanded the return of Juan Bosch, their elected President, deposed by a junta, Lyndon Johnson reacted to this crisis rapidly, landing 45,000 US Marines on the beaches to prevent the return of the elected president.
11. How did Haiti end up so economically weakened, with infrastructure, from hospitals to water systems, busted or non-existent - there are two fire stations in the entire nation - and infrastructure so frail that the nation was simply waiting for "nature" to finish it off?
Don't blame Mother Nature for all this death and destruction. That dishonor goes to Papa Doc and Baby Doc, the Duvalier dictatorship, which looted the nation for 28 years. Papa and his Baby put an estimated 80% of world aid into their own pockets - with the complicity of the US government happy to have the Duvaliers and their voodoo militia, Tonton Macoutes, as allies in the Cold War. (The war was easily won: the Duvaliers' death squads murdered as many as 60,000 opponents of the regime.)
12. What Papa and Baby didn't run off with, the IMF finished off through its "austerity" plans. An austerity plan is a form of voodoo orchestrated by economists zomby-fied by an irrational belief that cutting government services will somehow help a nation prosper.
13. In 1991, five years after the murderous Baby fled, Haitians elected a priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who resisted the IMF's austerity diktats. Within months, the military, to the applause of Papa George HW Bush, deposed him. History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. The farce was George W. Bush. In 2004, after the priest Aristide was re-elected President, he was kidnapped and removed again, to the applause of Baby Bush.
14. Haiti was once a wealthy nation, the wealthiest in the hemisphere, worth more, wrote Voltaire in the 18th century, than that rocky, cold colony known as New England. Haiti's wealth was in black gold: slaves. But then the slaves rebelled - and have been paying for it ever since.
From 1825 to 1947, France forced Haiti to pay an annual fee to reimburse the profits lost by French slaveholders caused by their slaves' successful uprising. Rather than enslave individual Haitians, France thought it more efficient to simply enslave the entire nation.
15. Secretary Gates tells us, "There are just some certain facts of life that affect how quickly you can do some of these things." The Navy's hospital boat will be there in, oh, a week or so. Heckuva job, Brownie!
16. Note just received from my friend. Her sister was found, dead; and her other sister had to bury her. Her father needs his anti-seizure medicines. That's a fact of life too, Mr. President.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Future Farming: The Call for a 50-Year Perspective on Agriculture
An Interview with Wes Jackson by Robert Jensen
[Excerpt] As everyone scrambles for a solution to the crises in the nation’s economy, Wes Jackson suggests we look to nature’s economy for some of the answers. With everyone focused on a stimulus package in the short term, he counsels that we pay more attention to the soil over the long haul.
“We live off of what comes out of the soil, not what’s in the bank,” said Jackson, president of The Land Institute. “If we squander the ecological capital of the soil, the capital on paper won’t much matter.”
Jackson doesn’t minimize the threat of the current financial problems but argues that the new administration should consider a “50-year farm bill,” which he and the writer/farmer Wendell Berry proposed in a New York Times op/ed earlier this month.
Central to such a bill would be soil. A plan for sustainable agriculture capable of producing healthful food has to come to solve the twin problems of soil erosion and contamination, said Jackson, who co-founded the research center in 1976 after leaving his job as an environmental studies professor at California State University-Sacramento.
Jackson believes that a key part of the solution is in approaches to growing food that mimic nature instead of trying to subdue it. While Jackson and his fellow researchers at The Land Institute continue their work on Natural Systems Agriculture, he also ponders how to turn the possibilities into policy. He spoke with me from his office in Salina, Kansas.
Robert Jensen: This is a short-term culture, and federal policies typically are aimed at short-term results. Why call for a farm bill that looks so far ahead, especially in tough economic times?
Wes Jackson: For the past 50 or 60 years, we have followed industrialized agricultural policies that have increased the rate of destruction of productive farmland. For those 50 or 60 years, we have let ourselves believe the absurd notion that as long as we have money we will have food. If we continue our offenses against the land and the labor by which we are fed, the food supply will decline, and we will have a problem far more complex than the failure of our paper economy.
Read full article
[Excerpt] As everyone scrambles for a solution to the crises in the nation’s economy, Wes Jackson suggests we look to nature’s economy for some of the answers. With everyone focused on a stimulus package in the short term, he counsels that we pay more attention to the soil over the long haul.
“We live off of what comes out of the soil, not what’s in the bank,” said Jackson, president of The Land Institute. “If we squander the ecological capital of the soil, the capital on paper won’t much matter.”
Jackson doesn’t minimize the threat of the current financial problems but argues that the new administration should consider a “50-year farm bill,” which he and the writer/farmer Wendell Berry proposed in a New York Times op/ed earlier this month.
Central to such a bill would be soil. A plan for sustainable agriculture capable of producing healthful food has to come to solve the twin problems of soil erosion and contamination, said Jackson, who co-founded the research center in 1976 after leaving his job as an environmental studies professor at California State University-Sacramento.
Jackson believes that a key part of the solution is in approaches to growing food that mimic nature instead of trying to subdue it. While Jackson and his fellow researchers at The Land Institute continue their work on Natural Systems Agriculture, he also ponders how to turn the possibilities into policy. He spoke with me from his office in Salina, Kansas.
Robert Jensen: This is a short-term culture, and federal policies typically are aimed at short-term results. Why call for a farm bill that looks so far ahead, especially in tough economic times?
Wes Jackson: For the past 50 or 60 years, we have followed industrialized agricultural policies that have increased the rate of destruction of productive farmland. For those 50 or 60 years, we have let ourselves believe the absurd notion that as long as we have money we will have food. If we continue our offenses against the land and the labor by which we are fed, the food supply will decline, and we will have a problem far more complex than the failure of our paper economy.
Read full article
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Alcohol Fuel for Sustainable Living
This is a 2.5 hr, not to be missed, video. Stay tuned. We will be bringing Dave Blume to Bloomington in 2010 for a two-day Alcohol Can Be a Gas training. Download the outline for the workshop. Date to be announced here.
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