Extinction Poverty

A report on the future of the UK's transportation system was released today in the UK in response to the Stern Report on the costs of ignoring climate change.

The report is a lesson in the insanity that hangs over this death culture. It gambles everything on technological solutions to reduce emissions and actually calls for expanding transportation infrastructure; best of all it claims that expansion won't lead to increased CO2 emissions. And this expansion is not just for less destructive solutions like rail but also airports, widened highways, and expanded ports. And all this from a government that's supposed to be serious about climate change.

It's a joke and the joke's on us.

It also demonstrates that there is only one definition of the word poor in the state's vocabulary. The Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly describes what she calls: "the false choice of being poor and green or rich and dirty". Though she can't accept it this is our only choice and I'd choose being poor though not on her terms.

Would you be poor if you had an excess of food, plastic shit, electronics, vehicles, several 2,500 square foot homes but knew that your descendants wouldn't live past a few generations after you?

I think that is true poverty. Extinction poverty you might call it.

Conversely, would you be poor if you had enough locally grown food for you and your family and a place to live, knew that your children and grandchildren would have the chance to live on a planet that could support them but you never left your community, never ate an avocado again, had to repair your own clothes and shoes, never saw Hockey Night in Canada again, might die from a disease or injury once easily curable, had to work hard and live a shorter life, couldn't do a PhD or retire.

I'd say that the survival of the species and its planet is the most important thing. Would you?
Ultimately this report demonstrates the choice that all states must make. They are choosing capitalism over a habitable planet. States cannot choose a habitable planet, not when the economy must grow. There is no possible sustainability of the capitalist system. It's a dream.
There seems to me to be two choices left to those of us who recognize this fact and are only partly insane.

1) Fight the state and bring it down, realistically using any means.

2) Withdraw from the economic system and build your own resiliency.

I think that currently the chances of bringing down the state are slim. You need a little help from hardship and privation but don't worry, those are coming. Then people might be ready to turn off their televisions. So lay your plans now and get the timing right.

While you are making your plans, build community and live without capitalism. We've all been raised to think that we can't survive without the state. But we are animals and our species has survived for hundreds of thousands of years. Let's learn together and be free.

And there comes a time, I'm not there yet, when you have to stop reading all the lies from people like Ruth Kelly, Stephen Harper, James Lovelock, Al Gore and everyone else who can't let go of this death system. I'm getting there.

Lonely Planet Guidebook to Occupation

Breaking news: US military planners used an old copy of Lonely Planet to plan their invasion of Iraq. Seriously. Puts a whole new spin on "support our troops".

Alone

It's breaking my heart to see stories like this. And the book I'm currently reading continues on this theme. It's the drastic loss of biodiversity around the world. Species are going extinct at a rate unseen for hundreds of thousands of years. And all because we want computers, ipods, cell phones, tuna sandwiches, cars, ethanol, new furniture and tiger penises--things that we think will make us happy but never do so we vainly search for the next cure all.

What kind of world do we want? Where we're heading is a world occupied by billions upon billions of humans (despite the fact that without plentiful oil, this growth is impossible). At the same time, we'll maintain several beneficial and tasty species like cows, pigs and chickens. Apart from these inhabitants, we think, we need no other species to have meaningful lives. We're building a miserable monoculture.

The way we act demonstrates that none of us care a lick for all the species that vanish from the earth as the clock ticks on the final seconds of civilization. I don't care beyond my breaking heart; you don't care do you? Not enough to do anything at least. So the silent genocide continues. It's like breathing smog, it doesn't kill you right away so you ignore that the air is poisoned. I do this everyday. I don't even notice anymore.

I only hope civilization expires before we are truly alone and our systems of destruction fall apart, never to be reborn. Because alone we are truly finished. We need these brothers, sisters and cousins to live in the uncivilized world to come. Humans are part of a system. We've only forgotten it and are blindly tearing it to shreds, condemning our children and grandchildren for the price of fleeting attachment.

Dodgy Logic

"The torture called waterboarding is a pretty violent business.

"The torturer straps down the victim, feet elevated above the head, then covers the subject's face — often with cloth or cellophane — and pours water onto it. This triggers the gag reflex, persuading the mind that the body is drowning, provoking an atavistic terror. The straining and flailing against the restraint straps can sometimes break bones. If the torture is protracted, lung and brain damage can occur."(Neil MacDonald from CBC.ca)

But as the article points out, the official line is that the US doesn't torture, despite the fact that waterboarding happens in US custody around the world and it's clearly torture. It's all semantics and murderous, bureaucratic doublespeak you see. Read the article. It's miserable and frustrating reading.

Here's some other miserable techniques I've heard about: in Uzbekistan they boil prisoners alive; others pull off your fingernails; others strip you naked and subject you to freezing temperatures; others beat your extremities into a pulp; remember the Russian Roulette game in the Deer Hunter? I haven't seen these new torture movies like the Passion of the Christ, Hostel or Saw and I never plan to but I'm sure you could get more violently ill there. Someone is clearly enjoying all this misery which makes me once again ponder the rotten heart of civilization. But I ask: would you, who rejoices in torture, enjoy being subjected to it yourself?

I oppose torture because I believe in the Golden Rule; much like the Four Nobel Truths, it makes sense. Jesus said: "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." George W. Bush once stated that Jesus was his favourite philosopher. I guess all that money in his pocket and power in his hands has silenced the little voice in his head. Good luck at the pearly gates George.

Mentat News Round-Up

According to Statistics Canada, homicide rates in Canada have dropped by 10% from last year. Makes you wonder why Stephen Harper thinks that we need to be tougher on crime.

Britain is about to claim a monstrous amount of territory in the Antarctic, a million square kilometres to be exact. And guess what for? Oil and natural resources. Kind of rubbishes their claims to care about climate change. And I bet you thought Europeans or Euro-Americans had already claimed every usable square foot of this planet. Still at least one more area to exploit. That should buy this death dealing culture about 15 more minutes of existence.

Noose

You'd have to be both blind and stupid to not look at the proposed US missile defence shield in Eastern Europe and realize who it is meant to deter. Then add to this fact that Canada was expected to join as well (we have withdrawn for now). Other missile sites in Japan and South Korea would make the lasso complete. Yes it's Russia, the supposed loser of the Cold War.

Yet the US continues to declare, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates did today, "that the missile defence shield being proposed in central Europe is not directed at Russia."

So let's analyze some of the potential threats this shield is meant to counter:

1) Iran - If Iran were to launch a nuclear missile (still ten years off by the way) at the US, not only would it take ages to reach there but it would probably run out of gas halfway. And let's not forget that the US has bases, fighters, and naval armadas in the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean not to mention Israel. If they shot a missile towards Europe, I have to believe the Europeans could take care of themselves. And most importantly, Iran would never do so because they would be a smoking radioactive crater following any such attack. Look at a globe, Iran is on the other side of the world.

2) North Korea - Why would the US need special facilities in Eastern Europe to counter North Korea? And wouldn't Russia be a little irritated that North Korea was blasting missiles across its territory? And in the end launching missiles that way is the long way to the continental US. Again though, why would North Korea dare launch a missile at the US? It would be crater #2 following Iran.

This is really all about full spectrum dominance. The US is an empire in decline and denial. The only other state in the world that calls them on it is Russia. There was only ever one superpower despite the US building up the Soviet Union to evil empire proportions. Russia continues to impress, however, in speaking bluntly about the US's imperial ambitions.

I'd like to suggest that the missile defence shield has a more dismal side. We're heading for a time of energy insecurity and climate change. The US is attempting to ensure that it can invade and conquer and dominate anyone without fear of retaliation thereby maintaining its primacy and ruling while the rest of the world rots.

Good luck US, we're on to you.

Glass House

Someone should send the Turkish government a copy of Ward Churchill's amazing book, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens.

Turkey is fuming after the United States Congress voted to formally declare their massacres of Armenians in 1915 a genocide. The US Congress though was right in declaring that this was a genocide. Turkey shouldn't pretend it didn't happen and really what damage does this declaration do? Those Armenians are still very dead and Armenians will never be powerful enough to win reparations or return the favour.

The US though should take a good, long look in the mirror and to their history. Compared with the orgiastic genocides perpetrated by the US, Turkey's extermination of the Armenians is a church social. A review of Churchill's book will make the case and I encourage you, dear reader, to take it out of the library.

While the Armenian people live on, the US purposely and utterly annihilated many First Nations such that their only memory lives on in place names if at all. Genocides are genocides and the US Congress should really begin to admit its beloved state's terrible violence.

The blinkers of empire, however, will make this honesty impossible. In the meantime Turkey, condemn the US in return for their countless atrocities. An eye for an eye, sadly, seems the only language any violent state (and all states are inherently violent) understands.

Hello

My name is Predator. Don't let my name fool you. I save lives. I'm expendable, stealthy, relentless, and I roar like ten thousand golden lions. I go where humans can't to do jobs that humans might have second thoughts about or might cause problems like PTSD. Humans must be protected at all times, even from themselves in their weaker moments; this is my primary function. They can guide me from the other side of the world but they must always be safe.

Certain humans that is.

I don't kill people. I deliver payloads and eliminate terrorists and other various enemy combatants; hell, they're better off with their virgins than behind bars enjoying halal meals at your expense. I'm not violent so don't even fucking try to pin that on me. I do a job. That's it. Much like my creators, I'm not burdened by your morality. Does God write the rules or do you?

My family is growing all the time. I have many many twin brothers and they are being adopted in states around the world. If you have a problem, we are the solution. No one wants a real war anymore, you see. They want video games and collateral damage without the red stains on walls or screaming children. Me and my family can give them that. And best of all we're good for the economy. Always need more of us which means jobs in the secure Homeland. Jobs make humans happy, or so I'm told. They can buy stuff. I can't but they always give me fancy, new missiles so it's like buying things for free.

I'm always looking up to my cousin Reaper, though I would never tell him so. He's so much bigger than me. He flies higher than me. His payload is bigger than mine. He has a cool name. I can never be like him as hard as I try. I can never be more than myself. Sometimes it makes me sad but then I complete a mission and my operators and handlers love me.

Mission accomplished. It's always true or so humans tell me. Good guys: 1, bad guys: 0. Never more than zero. We always win.

When I die, I will be born again. In the shells of my unborn twins and the legend of my brothers and cousins. The machine keeps on going. That's what it does. No one knows the end because there is no end. Everlasting life, infinite justice.

I see you looking at me that way. Judging. Try and stop me you moral pricks. You'll wake up in a crater.

Garbage Day

Today is garbage day on my street. Last night I wheeled out our green cart and placed our blue boxes by the curb. Our house no longer really produces any garbage. Maybe a few nacho or chip bags (great alternatives to plastic bags by the way since they can't be recycled) of garbage a month.

If you knew me a few years ago you would know that I barely cared about my waste production. As long as I threw a few cans in a blue box, I was good. But people change, they grow and mature and become better citizens.

As a collective though, Ontarians have passed on change, embracing cowardice. We had a great chance to reform our deeply flawed electoral system. So long live the majority and ramming through legislation and not being really accountable to the electorate. Not that accountability matters anyway. Do you actually believe first past the post is democratic? Do you pick your candidates? Are you thick enough to think you do? This is the party system. Elites decide and you rubber stamp their decisions when you mark your X.

I'm thick too. I actually think that Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMP) might help repair the rotten heart of "democratic" capitalism. At the best it would have put a happy face on a failing system. The problem is bigger than just how and who you vote for sadly.

The answer to most of our problems (climate change, local pollution, lack of true democracy, isolation, poverty and excess) lies in smallness. We need to live, work and die in a small geographic area; no flights to Tahiti if we feel like it, ripping through the air like a rusty razor. We need to eat food grown in a small geographical area, mainly by ourselves. We need small homes and to not fill them with small shitty trinkets. We need to accept much less than our gluttonous parents had and realize that we'll still have a good life and a world for our children to inherit; what joy is there is growing things and others' company. We need political organization that is very small scale; much smaller than our dismal municipalities. I'm thinking neighbourhood collectives setting priorities that matter to the people that live there. And everyone needs to participate not just our benevolent elites. We need to not be able to escape when we destroy our landbase as we so often do; then we wouldn't shit in our drinking water cut down all the trees for instance.

So there a solution. I can hear the silence. In this world, though, there would be no more garbage days like today.