Mentat Musings

2009-03-22T12:14:00.004-04:00

On a Roll

Well I just happened to read a disturbing article by Robert Fisk about the actions of the former Shah of Iran's intelligence (torture) agents SAVAK. He was musing on the 30th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution and the causes of this revolution.

I'll never forget how, a few years ago, western governments worshiped the infallible president of Uzbekistan. A strong ally and fighter of terrorists. I don't care to remember his name. The one thing I'll never forget though was his agents' favourite torture method: boiling victims alive. Can you imagine that one?

Well for a taste of one of the Shah's torture chambers, here's Robert Fisk interviewing a fellow reporter:

“There was a fishpond outside,” he told me. “There were vases of flowers in the front hall. But downstairs there were cells. In each of them was a steel bed with straps and beneath it two domestic cookers. There were lowering devices on the bedframes so the people strapped to them could be brought down on the flames. In another cell, I found a machine with a contraption which held a human arm beneath a knife and next to it was a metal sheath into which a human hand could be fitted. At one end was a bacon slicer. They had been shaving off hands.”

2009-03-22T12:01:00.002-04:00

Dear Prime Minister

Oh what to do with this blog. I kind of want to retire it. Not that there aren't a million things to blog about every day but well it just doesn't feel natural like it used to.

Perhaps I'll just post letters that I write to the Prime Minister. I probably write a few times a month. I know that he loves to hear from me. Unfortunately when shit goes down CSIS or the RCMP will probably pay me a visit and that will be that. But for now I might as well enjoy my democratic right to challenge the government.

Not that they listen.

--

Dear Prime Minister Harper,

I'm writing today about the apparent banning from Canada of an elected and sitting British Member of Parliament from Canada. George Galloway, MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, I'm shocked to hear is considered by your government a threat to national security. Based on my reading of Section 34(1) of Canada's immigration act, I can see no grounds to ban him.

He is not coming to Canada to encourage violence. He is not being invited to tour the Ministry of Defense nor the headquarters of CSIS, so our state secrets are secure. Why therefore is his visit a threat to national security?

The answer is pathetically simple for all to see: he opposes the war in Afghanistan and plans to spell out his opposition to those Canadians who care to listen to him. Your government disagrees with him so he is labeled a threat to national security.

Prime Minister Harper I'm so terribly disappointed in your childish behaviour in regards to MP Galloway and especially that of Minister Kenney. The funny thing is that if you would have just let him in his publicity would have been minimal. Now more Canadians are exposed to these proceedings and, like me, are seeing the erosion of our democracy.

The United Kingdom like Canada is a democracy and I find it strange that Canada, that has inherited its democratic traditions from the Westminster model, should stoop to such transparent and pathetic actions. The banning of dissenting voices is hardly democratic behaviour and you should know better.

You're going to lose this one. Let him in.

(And last but not least, check out this article from CanWest which lays in to George Galloway and is very partisan but then again who isn't. I just don't think he compares to far-right politicians like Jean Marie Le Pen. And it's not like he was delivering guns to Hamas when he went to Gaza earlier this year. Giving food and blankets to terrorists makes you a terrorist apparently.)

2009-02-23T17:24:00.004-05:00

Damn Dirty Ape!

So I have to weigh in on this one. Some time ago, the NY Post printed a cartoon. Like most political cartoons it addressed what was happening in politics at the time. Makes sense. But this one has caused a lot of outrage and while I also am ashamed of this ad, it's for a much different reason. For starters here's the cartoon.

I am kind of confused by this cartoon. I guess it's trying to say that an ape wrote the US's current "economic stimulus" (have we had enough of these words) bill. That's a pretty wealthy ape or at least a very powerful ape.

I say good for him or her. Writing a complicated bill like that would be a chore for any of us. Why not give the job to an ape? Take affirmative action to a new level.

Maybe it's one of those super intelligent apes from NASA. Did you ever think of that?

But to add to my confusion I wondered: why would police or security guards shoot an ape for writing a stimulus bill on a street in broad daylight with lots of witnesses driving by? Was the bill that bad? Doesn't it stimulate you enough? Do the editors of the NY Post want people to go to the zoo and shoot apes? Maybe they should shoot the greedy (suicide?) or economists instead since they are the real problem.

But back to the uproar. People think this dead ape is a stand-in for Barack Obama. This is a bit of a stretch. First of all Barack Obama is a homo (wait for it) sapien. But apparently people of African descent are considered apes or monkeys by silly racist people.

(As a side note, in Europe if you have black football players on your national team almost every country will make monkey calls at them. Hey fat, lazy, drunk white guys! Those footballers could probably kick your balls out of the stadium! Get a life.)

And do people actually think Barack Obama wrote the bill himself? Clearly not. I think this is a case of reading into things too much. I'm sure the NY Post has apologized for any offense by now.

The funny thing is that his predecessor was often portrayed as an ape himself. I read the Guardian on occasion and have greatly enjoyed political cartoons by Steve Bell. Bell's Bush is terribly simian and funny. How is portraying Bush in this way acceptable and just drawing a picture of an ape, far from having Obama swinging from tree to tree on the White House lawn, racist?

Even if you don't believe in evolution like our friend Bush, we're all still descended from apes in Africa.

And that's the real problem. It's not that this is another example of racism (I'm not disputing that by the way), it's that apes are demeaned by this cartoon and our culture more generally. Apes are apes and humans are humans, trees are trees and bacteria are bacteria. There isn't a hierarchy of intelligence or feeling or any of that shit we've been taught since we were kids. If God told you that, then God is wrong. We are all equal, all creation, all species on this earth and we all have a right to be here.

Apes, far from stupid, are too smart to waste their time developing a global economy and huge, bloated governments let alone writing an economic stimulus bill. Life is straightforward for them. Eat, fuck, shit, die, repeat.

Homo sapiens like the editor of the NY Post, Barack Obama and the racist football fan could learn a lot from them and pretty much every single other being on this earth.

2009-02-11T21:28:00.003-05:00

Magic Money

Isn't this all a bit surreal? Now the American government has passed another $800 billion stimulus package, great! Next the tax-dodging Treasury Secretary wants to spend $2.5 trillion on more stimulus by buying up all the bad debt that's out there. Where is this money coming from? From heaven? Is it from the God that watches over their country? How can their currency be worth anything anymore? Surely you can't just print money whenever you feel like it?

And if all this money could have been printed at any time why the fuck didn't they use it to support the millions of Americans who live in Doritos-Coca-Cola-Walmart-poverty. Hell, with all that money you could have built each and every one of them and the rest of the middle classes a mansion and given them a car with enough money left over for a healthy green salad.

Think about that figure again: $800 billion + $2.5 trillion = $3.3 trillion dollars.

And that doesn't include the $700 billion Bush dropped into the hands of the rich before he left office (unless, as I think, Obama's stimulus just replaces that one but with this corporate media it's impossible to know what's going on).

And I keep waiting for Americans to finally have enough. Enough of cancer, enough of being dominated by by a crooked and violent elite, enough of being told only what they are allowed to hear, enough of sending their sons and daughters to die in mad wars, enough of pretending there's a future for their children. But there's no action yet. Probably because everyone is working 70 hour weeks, but thankfully that dismal truth is about to change. When you're unemployed (or retired) you have a lot of time to think. And thinking makes you mad, when you realize that you're being fucked over. Then you start to hit the streets and wouldn't that Capitol building look a lot better as a smoking rubble? C'mon guys you're almost there. But really we don't get angry when enough of us are comfortable so we've got some way to go.

This system isn't working anymore. It's got to go. Happily we aren't going to have the choice. It's just going. Farewell!

--

But in other news, I'm quite amazed that Obama is proposing talking to Iran unlike the dismal performance of his predecessor. Well it's about time Americans elected a thoughtful person to their highest office. Imagine that: working out your differences by discussion and compromise. Wow!

And best of all and you might not have heard much about this, Obama is talking to Russia about scaling back their nuclear weapons stockpiles and those on hair-trigger alert. Unbelievable.

I still can see of target on his back with every progressive move he makes. But you've got to give him credit. At the end of the world, the last thing you want is anyone holding on to nuclear weapons. I'll take the stone-age, just keep the radiation away.

2009-02-01T23:09:00.004-05:00

The Journey

There wasn't any sunblock for the journey. Not that I worried much about sunblock anymore. When I was a child, we were always reminded to slather on that white, wet cream by parents, at school, at church if we ever went outside. Ever. I heard that at the worst of times, people drank their sunblock. Hard to believe. But then when your mouth is always dry, anything will quench your thirst.

You don't want to know what I've drunk on this trip. What I've eaten.

Did you ever see any of the Crocodile Dundee movies in the 1980s? People really loved those films. Seems a long time ago now. People loved Australia then. They loved the crocs, loved the koalas, the kangaroos. They wanted to come to our lonely beaches. To see the vastness of the oceans. Surf. The tourists stopped coming well into the drought, when bottled water seemed a ridiculous idea. Now even the animals are gone. It's too hot for most of them. No more eucalyptus leaves for the koalas; the leaves can't even take the heat. I guess the crocs might have gone out to sea since there's no more water on land. No rain, no water. They understood it pretty quickly. Took us a bit longer.

I used to live in Darwin, before the voyage. I'm pretty lucky I wasn't from Adelaide or Perth. Too far to travel. Not enough fuel. But Darwin is close enough to water. I'm not talking about the sea of course. All of Australia's cities are close to the sea. I'm talking about fresh water. The kind that falls from the sky and gives forests that smell. You know it, the smell of dampness. It's there waiting for me just across the ocean.

In survival guides that I read after university, I learned that you can go without food for weeks, but if you don't have fresh water you won't last more than a day or two. And in this heat, good luck. So I had to go.

When the power plant in Darwin stopped running, the air conditioners were already a distant memory. We were on rations and most of the power went to the desalinization plants and to pump that liquid salvation to all our homes. My parents had an orange tree which they managed to keep alive by giving it some of their water ration. Man cannot live on water alone, my father had joked.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that we in Darwin had it worse than in other parts of the country. In the centre of Australia, people just left or died. We were all on the coast by the end. And it still rained on occasion in Darwin. We're tropical. But when it rained it poured. We had no rain for weeks and then floods. But I'd rather have that than the slow burn of South Australia or New South Wales. At least then you can save water. When the power failed, God only knows what happened to those poor bastards.

I managed to save enough water for the journey. Filled up all my plastic bottles. Memories of better times. Squandered times. I set out by myself. I didn't have any brothers or sisters and my parents were dead along with their orange tree. They wouldn't have enjoyed the journey but I guess if they had wanted to survive they would have left with me. Maybe they wouldn't have been able to leave. Old habits die hard. But I had nothing to lose.

I could have stayed, I suppose, near Darwin. Played uncivilized. Gathered food, ate insects, learned to find water in the parched land. But that's not for me. I belong in a city with buzzing electrical wires and lights that shine day and night. Where you can get everything but have nothing. I can't live in a cave like bin Laden.

So to Indonesia. A generation ago it was a backyard Muslim country with nothing to offer us Australians but beaches and hashish. And we bullied them and got our way like spoiled children. We abused them and they were happy for our Australian dollars. It was an ideal relationship. Master and servant. White and brown.

Now it is my destination. Once they wanted to come here. For our human rights, for our economy, for our superiority. I bet the asylum seekers that made it and settled in Sydney and Melbourne regret it now. But white or brown, we all need water. Before the power went out, I heard about Indonesians being targeted in Sydney. Lots of blame to go around and few mirrors.

The journey was long and I'm not there yet. After trading water for a voyage by boat across the strait between Australia and Indonesia our boat was intercepted by the Indonesian Coast Guard. I didn't think they had one. Lots of extra soldiers on board. They must have been expecting us.

They were pretty harsh with all of us. Many of us were too weak from dehydration. We didn't put up much of a fight. They had fun with some of us. The exceptionally weak were pushed overboard. Lots of sharks to clean up the evidence. Not that the UN is going to order an investigation. They never did when we boarded Indonesian vessels enroute to Australia. Besides the UN has bigger problems. Some of us got off lucky with a few bruises or concussions. Some of the women were raped. No news there.

I lost a few teeth but managed to pick them up. Maybe if I make it to Indonesia, a dentist will put them back in. I heard that if you knock out a tooth you should keep your it on ice and see a dentist. The soldiers didn't understand my laughter and they just hit me harder.

But I'm still alive.

Human rights don't mean much anymore. They never really did unless you had the power. Australia used to have power. But we messed it up. Thought we were in charge of the climate. Thought we could save ourselves with an election and a few voluntary actions.

I think ever since the first prisoners were dumped on a beach that our fates were sealed. Australia was never meant for me or my family. I'm as white as a ghost. Does that sound like a good defense against the sun and heat? I guess my white skin reflects sunlight like polar ice. Until I turn pink. We were a people of sunblock. Without it, we were gone.

Now the soldiers are deciding what to do with the rest of us. All of a sudden one of them is pointing to something on the horizon and shouting. I don't dare look up over the rail. Maybe it's Bali. I've always wanted to see Bali. Mangoes, durian, rivers, waterfalls, beer. I can taste them all in my dry mouth, on my sandpaper tongue. A dream.

What are they looking at? What's coming? I wish I could stand up and see for myself.

2009-01-14T13:03:00.003-05:00

Logs and Splinters

So I've been thinking that I should put myself in the place of the Israeli public and its leadership (as if we need leaders to tell us what to do). But clearly they are upset and upset enough to bomb and support bombing refugee camps when they know that there is no way to avoid civilian casualties; 1,000 Palestinians are now dead in the world's largest open air prison.

So what are they thinking? Well they want to stop rocket attacks against their country, at least that's what they say. You wouldn't really want to be going about your day and have a rocket land on your kids school or on your precious car. That would make you really afraid. Imagine that this might happen to your children and I'm sure you'd agree that something needs to be done. Really anything when it comes to safety.

The point I guess is that Israelis and their "leaders" view themselves as equal to the Palestinians much like an well-paid, educated, professional justifies his or her position in society as equal to the lowest, darkest (skin colour matters) person. You got their because you worked harder than other people and deserve it. So the Palestinians have the same life and goals as Israelis, it's just that they are trying to kill your children; some might even magnanimously suggest that only "extremists" are trying to kill their children. These people have no reason or rationality behind their murder, they are just evil.

This is clearly delusion. Gaza is nothing like Israel. Palestinians suffer immensely there, where Israelis', much like Canadians, great worries are car and mortgage payments. Clearly they are in a different league. Palestinians have clear goals: autonomy, democracy, rights including the right of return to their homes inside Israel and the ability to control their own destiny. Sound fair?

You might also want to compare the "armies" of Palestine and Israel. Israel has the strongest military in the Middle East with the most advanced technology including nuclear weapons and burning phosphorus bombs. Sure Hamas has rockets but they are crude compared to what Israel can launch into Gaza buildings.

But if you listen to Israelis and their politicians, you'd think that Hamas and Gaza contained a sophisticated, well-equipped military that threatens to wipe out the Israeli state and all Jews everywhere. Israel claims it is fighting a well-matched rival. Poppycock!

Fear is the only area that Hamas matches Israel. Hamas rockets inspire fear in Israelis much like Bin Laden's hijacked planes do in the US. But how much of this fear is whipped up by politicians to justify their costly and violent wars? Rockets kill very few people in the end. Fear is just fear. You're not likely going to be hijacked or have a rocket hit your house, but we all think we might so we'll authorize any action.

These realities inspired my last post promoting justice over peace. I have very little time for peace these days, which usually means a halt in hostilities and acceptance that one group has power over another group. Shut up and accept your fate. So in Canada, when First Nations people retire to their dismal reserves and don't ask tough questions or block rail lines and highways to push their occupiers, this is peace. There is no justice, just quiet while one group dominates another and the weaker group slowly fades into history--if they are recorded at all.

We need to talk about power and address it openly. There are never two equal sides in a conflict whether it's Israel and Palestine or the divorce of a well-paid husband and stay-at-home wife. Power matters and should be central to coming up with a just solution.

So in Palestine and Israel, Israel, the powerful party, should be expected to offer concessions to the weaker party in any negotiation. Currently, it's expected, by all of us including our "leaders", that the weaker party, the Palestinians should offer concessions first since their violence is overt and beamed around the world into our living rooms. That's the definition of injustice.

--

Also have you noticed that the UN agency that serves Palestine and Palestinians neglects to even mention their identity or their country's name in its . It's called the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). This is actually really important. Names matter. If the Palestinians don't exist on paper then they don't exist. They are just Arabs and should go back to Jordan or Egypt where they came from. Then the genocide will be complete.

2008-12-31T17:10:00.002-05:00

New Year's Resolution

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Israel is again bombarding Gaza. Hundreds have been killed. Four Israelis have been killed. Looks like the death equation which I've mentioned before is alive and well. Much like the currency exchange with its ups and downs, Israeli lives are much more valuable at the end of 2008. Currently it's looking like an exchange rate of 100 Palestinian lives for 1 Israeli life.

Wow! Let's all invest in Israel and their measured response. You get a great return. Except if you're Palestinian, then you never get to return.

The White House, sensing that logical and compassionate people the world over are recognizing this secret equation exists, made this dismal statement: “We want Israel to avoid civilian casualties. But let’s be careful about some of the numbers we’re seeing coming out of Gaza. But also, you know, what about the three people, I believe, I saw reported today that were killed in Israel by rockets? I’m not going to compare numbers between the two locations.”

But you just did, stupid fuck!

Israeli politicians continue to demand that their citizens in the south of their country be left in peace. However such stupid comments betray a disregard for a long and bloody history full of displacement and sadness. What of the Palestinians who used to live in the land these "settlers" now occupy? What of their lives in the world's biggest refugee camp? What will happen when Hamas wins elections again in the New Year?

Forget peace, we need justice in this world. Peace has had its day.

2008-12-25T12:11:00.000-05:00

Evil Christmas Greetings

The full translation of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Christmas message that will be broadcast on Channel 4 tonight:

"In the Name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful.

"Upon the anniversary of the birth of Jesus, Son of Mary, the Word of God, the Messenger of mercy, I would like to congratulate the followers of Abrahamic faiths, especially the followers of Jesus Christ, and the people of Britain.

"The Almighty created the universe for human beings and human beings for Himself.

"He created every human being with the ability to reach the heights of perfection. He called on man to make every effort to live a good life in this world and to work to achieve his everlasting life.

"On this difficult and challenging journey of man from dust to the divine, He did not leave humanity to its own devices. He chose from those He created the most excellent as His Prophets to guide humanity.

"All Prophets called for the worship of God, for love and brotherhood, for the establishment of justice and for love in human society. Jesus, the Son of Mary, is the standard-bearer of justice, of love for our fellow human beings, of the fight against tyranny, discrimination and injustice.

"All the problems that have bedevilled humanity throughout the ages came about because humanity followed an evil path and disregarded the message of the Prophets.

"Now as human society faces a myriad of problems and a succession of complex crises, the root causes can be found in humanity's rejection of that message, in particular the indifference of some governments and powers towards the teachings of the divine Prophets, especially those of Jesus Christ.

"The crises in society, the family, morality, politics, security and the economy which have made life hard for humanity and continue to put great pressure on all nations have come about because the Prophets have been forgotten, the Almighty has been forgotten and some leaders are estranged from God.

"If Christ were on earth today, undoubtedly He would stand with the people in opposition to bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers.

"If Christ were on earth today, undoubtedly He would hoist the banner of justice and love for humanity to oppose warmongers, occupiers, terrorists and bullies the world over.

"If Christ were on earth today, undoubtedly He would fight against the tyrannical policies of prevailing global economic and political systems, as He did in His lifetime.

"The solution to today's problems is a return to the call of the divine Prophets. The solution to these crises is to follow the Prophets - they were sent by the Almighty for the good of humanity.

"Today, the general will of nations is calling for fundamental change. This is now taking place. Demands for change, demands for transformation, demands for a return to human values are fast becoming the foremost demands of the nations of the world.

"The response to these demands must be real and true. The prerequisite to this change is a change in goals, intentions and directions. If tyrannical goals are repackaged in an attractive and deceptive package and imposed on nations again, the people, awakened, will stand up against them.

"Fortunately, today, as crises and despair multiply, a wave of hope is gathering momentum. Hope for a brighter future and hope for the establishment of justice, hope for real peace, hope for finding virtuous and pious rulers who love the people and want to serve them – and this is what the Almighty has promised.

"We believe Jesus Christ will return, together with one of the children of the revered Messenger of Islam and will lead the world to love, brotherhood and justice.

"The responsibility of all followers of Christ and Abrahamic faiths is to prepare the way for the fulfilment of this divine promise and the arrival of that joyful, shining and wonderful age.

"I hope that the collective will of nations will unite in the not too distant future and with the grace of the Almighty Lord, that shining age will come to rule the earth.

"Once again, I congratulate one and all on the anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ. I pray for the New Year to be a year of happiness, prosperity, peace and brotherhood for humanity. I wish you every success and happiness."

2008-12-15T19:28:00.002-05:00

Post-Race?

Despite the claims that we are entering a post-race period of history with the election of Barack Obama to the White House, racism in Canada, at least, is alive and well. Sometimes racism is subtle like when you get asked where you're really from. Sometimes it's not so subtle like when you have your teeth smashed in because of the colour of your skin. In both cases you have to expose it.

The recent conviction of JSR, the African-Canadian youth charged with the murder of Jane Creba on Boxing Day 2005, was so clearly motivated by racism that it defies belief. There was no physical evidence linking JSR to Creba's murder. The bullet that killed her did not come from his gun nor did his hands show evidence of having fired a shot that day. How then could he be charged with second degree murder?

Surely JSR was a party to a gunfight and therefore guilty of a dangerous crime. But second degree murder is too harsh given the facts. He is clearly guilty of participating in a shootout and therefore is guilty of a serious crime but the colour of his skin played a major role in his conviction and public demonization. Would there have been the same level of outrage and judicial pursuit had the victim been a young black man or the shooter been a white male?

For many days in December, I have endured gruesome report after gruesome report about the torture and murder of Phoenix Sinclair on CBC Radio One. Beaten, imprisoned, frozen, and forced to eat her own vomit: these words are seared into my memory and the memories of tens of thousands of other listeners. Clearly this is a hideous crime carried out by the girl's own parents and no excuse can be made for their crimes but a greater worry may be the vision of First Nations peoples promoted by these endless reports.

Each day the association of “aboriginal” and “reserve” with these hideous crimes conditioned listeners. From what I heard, I felt that this reporting reinforced the paternalistic attitudes toward First Nations common amongst the Canadian middle classes.

There is terrible lack of complexity in this reporting and the result is clearly dangerous. The legacy of residential schools is still with us. It would be dangerous to paint all First Nations people with the same brush due to a single miserable case of child abuse. Obviously the reporters at CBC Radio One missed this one.

And last and certainly least according to Stephen Harper, there's Omar Khadr, the Canadian apprehended for fighting with the Taliban and allegedly killing a US soldier in Afghanistan in 2001. Setting aside that he was captured as a 15 year old and was clearly forced to aid the Taliban and Al Qaeda by his father his treatment is telling when compared with two other high profile captives of the “war on terror”.

Does anyone remember John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban? Though he, like Khadr, fought with the Taliban against the American invasion of Afghanistan, he was able have his day in court. He is now serving a 20 year sentence. Though this is a harsh sentence to be sure, he avoided the death penalty and a military tribunal something that could not be said about the child soldier, Omar Khadr.

Or how about David Hicks, the Australian who fought for the Taliban and was captured in Afghanistan. He is now back living in Australia having been released by his American captors. Again, no different from Khadr, except in one key way, Hicks was an adult making adult decisions and aware of the consequences of his actions. If anything, like Khadr, he should be in Guantanamo Bay, waterboarded, subjected to the frequent flyer program and prevented from seeing the evidence against him.

It seems there is justice and then there is justice. You can find out where you stand on a colour chart. Khadr has darker skin than these other two men. Case closed. So where these men go home or at least get their days in court, Khadr waits for his day before a military tribunal that has already drawn its own conclusions. Much like the conviction of JSR and the reporters covering Phoenix Sinclair, everyone already knows that blacks are violent and “Indians” are bad parents. Simple enough for you?

It seems we've still got a long way to go before we get to that proposed post-race world.

2008-12-09T18:28:00.002-05:00

The New White House

So George W. Bush will be leaving the White House on January 20, 2009. Apparently he's going to miss the place so he's decided to try his best to live in another white house.

Just missed it by eight years Georgie Boy! Don't worry though, rules like this are going to be coming back, you're just planning ahead.

And so are we.

From Democracy Now!

"And President Bush has bought a new home in an exclusive section of Dallas. Up until 2000, the gated community had a neighborhood association covenant that allowed only whites to own property. The document said the area’s land “shall be used and occupied by white persons only except these covenants shall not prevent occupancy by domestic servants of a different race or nationality in the employ of a tenant.”"

2008-12-09T17:52:00.003-05:00

Comment is Stupid

Though I'm trying not to focus on the negative news about climate change, it's kind of hard to miss. We're doomed. Hopefully some of us will still be able to get by as the North Koreans manage to do. They are examples to us all. Hope you're ready for grass soup, if we're lucky enough to have grass. I'm confident we will. Unfortunately we might not have much else, especially since we are throwing away our precious heirloom seeds at an unprecedented rate.

And that's the problem. We know we're in trouble but we don't know how bad. How about an average global temperature increase of 4 degrees Celsius? That's bad. Read the linked article for details about how we have to go much further than we ever thought with cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

But what has started as another rant about climate change (how can you not when you're future dreams are over!), was meant to be about new media. Have you noticed now that every news story in any online publication gives the reader the ability to post comments? Have you also noticed that almost every single comment is repulsive? And in most cases the comments attack previous commentators instead of dealing with the issues rationally.

I'm tempted to go conspiracy and claim that the devil is enlisting unemployed Republicans, Conservatives and other crackpots around the world to post comments on whatever they feel. Seriously, all the comments generally seem to support traditionally right-wing perspectives. I thought liberals and environmentalists were the ones into technology?

In the recent travesty of justice that was the "trial" of JSR in the murder of Jane Creba, I read comments following a lame story suggesting the death penalty for this young man, a minor at the time of the murder. I'm all for mob justice but at least give the guy a fair trial before you hang him (does this remind you of Mississipi Burning). His lawyer rightly balked at the verdict given that the evidence showed that a gun in his posession was not the gun that killed her. How could he then be the murderer? An accomplice perhaps but second degree murder? Fuck that.

I should say that this trial demonstrates that in the absence of evidence and actual suspects, the legal system will target a person of colour for killing a sweet, little white girl. It might as well still be the 1950s in the South (minus the hanging, lest the commentators have their way). I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, and I do regret her death, a tragedy caused by a stupid group of thugs, but this is not a just result. But of course this young man is going to disappear into the prison system which means we'll likely hear from him again.

And lastly, back to climate change. George Monbiot again is masterful describing the insanity surrounding the end of civilization. The insanity we targets this time is rightly all those crazy commentators calling climate change a hoax and a tax grab and "proving" that sunspots are behind the whole thing.

Sure, burning all that coal and at the same time, cutting down trees, is completely normal. Where are these people coming from? Who is paying them to surf and comment as if they knew what they were talking about? Must be all the middle managers and bureaucrats who have nothing better to do as their empires collapse around them and their retirement funds go up in flames.

If you can stomach it read his article and better still the comments. I can barely read two before I shut off and seek the sanity of Democracy Now.

2008-12-02T12:03:00.003-05:00

Coalition

Well these certainly are interesting times. This should probably have happened a long time ago but finally the Liberals have decided to work with the NDP directly. The majority of Canadians, without question, would support this progressive team.

Some Liberals will hate it because they won't be able to go as far to the right as they would like to appease their corporate masters. But they'll look really good thanks to the NDP which will mean they'll win a majority in the next election and then behave like Conservatives.

But for now hopefully we'll get some progressive legislation on climate change which should be all that really matters. Climate change is actually caused by the economy so by supporting the economy you actually fuel climate change. The recession is the best thing that could have happened since greenhouse gas emissions with decline. You won't hear that on TV.

But the coalition seems good to go. Now we'll have to see if the elites decide to let them take power. I can already hear those elites worrying about the "socialists", as if the NDP could claim that title. And Harper and his crew keep banging on about the "separatists" as if the Bloc is something other than a regional party.

I can't wait to see Steve Harper as the leader of the Official Opposition probably in January. But I'm not counting him out yet. The Conservatives aren't going to give up without a fight. The longer this goes on and the longer the economy rots the better to my mind. Let's learn to take care of ourselves and we won't need this stupid global economy/death machine anymore. It's not as scary as we might think.

And remember, you can't spell coalition without coal. I'm sure there's a stimulus package for coal mining somewhere out there.

2008-12-02T11:55:00.002-05:00

Stimulated

Economic stimulus. It's like stroking a gun. But that's all you hear. We need more money for forestry: clear cut all you want. We need money for mining: dump your effluent in as many lakes as you like. Manufacturing needs help: air quality, forget it!

Listening to the news, it's almost like the economy is a person. Or more likely a god who needs all our prayers to survive. All things come from the economy. We must do anything to protect and ensure it thrives.

Just ignore all the shit that the economy, the global economy we should be clear, produces. All that cancer, all those gasping children. It's all part of the package. Bow down and doom the world.

2008-11-24T15:37:00.002-05:00

Corn Express

I've thought about writing a fictional short story about this news but I'm not feeling up to it right now. Apparently rich countries and corporations are "investing" in developing countries around the world.

Nothing new there right? Well this time they are buying up farmland in an effort to profit from the ongoing (yes, it didn't go away) global food crisis or secure their own supply of food in future. So really these culprits aren't actually planning to do anything useful to work to address the inequalities in global food production. They are already working on a contingency plan to keep business flowing as usual.

Here's a highlight from the Guardian: "South Korean firm Daewoo Logistics announced plans to buy a 99-year lease on a million hectares in Madagascar. Its aim is to grow 5m tonnes of corn a year by 2023, and produce palm oil from a further lease of 120,000 hectares (296,000 acres), relying on a largely South African workforce. Production would be mainly earmarked for South Korea, which wants to lessen dependence on imports."

Didn't they make electronics? I guess they can tell which way the wind is blowing. And you can bet that all that corn is going to be genetically modified. Heaven forbid that we have a discussion about the fact that Korea will not be able to feed it's population so should ponder family planning policies.

I just hope that their corn supertankers go close to the coast of Somalia. Then we might have a measure of justice. You're not going to get it through the UN or multilateralism as this news demonstrates.

2008-10-30T12:41:00.003-04:00

Recommended Reading

What a lovely thing a trip to the library is. I fear that many of us have forgotten the pleasure of sharing books with one another. On my last trip I discovered, in my wanderings around Central, a short novel by Wendell Berry called Andy Catlett: Early Travels. Here is an excerpt that I particularly liked:

"For many years now that way of living has been scorned and over the last forty or fifty years it has nearly disappeared. Even so, there was nothing wrong with it. It was an economy directly founded on the land, on the power of the sun, on thrift and skill, and on the people's competence to take care of themselves. They had become dependent, to some extent, on manufactured goods, but as long as they stayed on their farms and made use of the great knowledge that they possessed, they could have survived foreseeable calamities that their less resourceful descendants could not survive. Now that we have come to the end of the era of cheap petroleum, which fostered so great a forgetfulness, I see that we could have continued that thrifty old life fairly comfortably--could even have improved it. Now we will have to return to it, or to a life necessarily as careful, and we will do so only uncomfortably and with much distress.

"Increasingly over the last maybe forty years, the thought has come to me that the old world in which our people lived by the work of their hands, close to weather and earth, plants and animals, was the true world; and that the new world of cheap energy and ever cheaper money, honoured greed, and dreams of liberation from every restraint, is mostly theatre. This new world seems a jumble of scenery and props never quite believable, an economy of fantasies and moods, in which it is hard to remember either the timely world of nature or the eternal world of the prophets and poets. And I fear, I believe I know, that the doom of the older world I knew as a boy will finally afflict the new one that replaced it.

"The world I knew as a boy was flawed, surely, but it was substantial and authentic. The households of my grandparents seemed to breathe forth a sense of the real cost and worth of things. Whatever came, came by somebody's work."

2008-10-26T09:55:00.004-04:00

Use it or lose it

I'm continually amazed at the ways humans give their power away. Whether it is purchasing a new item of technology to remove a "burden" from our lives, or obeying a man in uniform, or making a piece of paper to send someone to make decisions on our behalf, even in small ways, it represents a rejection of our ability to provide for ourselves. It's almost as if history never happened.

Take for example our cars. Obviously they make us reliant on fossil fuels to move around and permit us to live far away from the places that we are required to frequent (work, school, family).

One observation I've made twice in the past week is that a new "innovation" is again making us less powerful. I'm sure you've seen or have purchased a GPS travel adviser for your car. These things can be programmed with an origin and destination and tell you where to turn and when using maps of the world. On the surface these are positive devices as they help us to reach our destinations by avoiding us fumbling with maps and getting lost.

But you have to ask the questions: what did people do before such GPS systems? Were we always lost? Was it more dangerous on the roads?

Of course people had, and continue to have, the capacity to look after themselves. If they had to go somewhere they could easily plan a route and execute it. I like to make lists which I can quickly glance at to make sure that I'm on the right track. Often we're not traveling alone on unfamiliar routes so a passenger can read a map safely.

Why are we paying to lose our abilities to navigate?

Now you probably think that this is unimportant but much like children who are driven to school I wonder if this new technology will affect our ability to conceptualize space. It's a fact that children who walk or take the bus to school versus those who are driven to school can conceptualize an internal map of their neighbourhoods and solve problems more readily than their powerless peers.

Imagine, you are born, go to school in a vehicle driven by your parents. When you are old enough your parents buy you a car, outfitted with a GPS system. Then you go to university and get a job after graduation that requires you to work 75 km away from your home using a GPS system. Naturally you would have done some walking to your destinations throughout your life but overall you would not have much experience on the ground learning routes and patterns.

Humans are mobile animals. We move around to different places and learn things by observation. Driving zombie-like along a hypnotic highway listening to orders from a small machine is not a fitting pinnacle of human achievement. We can definitely do better and take our power back.

And let's not forget that the GPS system is a product of the US military. I wonder if a portion of the proceed of the purchases of these devices goes to the US military?

2008-10-17T01:33:00.000-04:00

Valhalla Towers

When I was younger, I left my name behind. Some cops beat it out of me. I was powerless and alone and they knew it. So they ripped it out of me like only cops can do.

Fucking pigs. They left me alone on a cell floor, gasping, flat on my face. I couldn’t even see their faces, just the gang, one after another taking their turn. That’s all they are, an official gang. Like the mafia.

Here’s a lesson the cops taught me that day: if you want to pound the fuck out of someone, use a phone book. The pain is the same but your lawyer won’t be able to make a case out of it; you’ll be lucky if your lawyer even believes you. Lawyers don’t get the phone book. They’re not even listed. Protection from guys like me I suppose.

Now my name’s Odin. The legendary all-father, though I doubt if I have any kids. I always took precautions. No attachments that’s the most important thing. No one to rely on and no one to rely on me. It’s the safest choice in an insane world. Only a fool gives the state something to hold over his head. Kids are like that, partners are like that, families are like that—weaknesses.

I’ve managed to remove anyone who might remember my old name from my life. My family was a disappointment though I know they think that I’m the real disappointment. Funny that, can we both be right?

But it’s sad in a way. My parents are probably dead by now. I never saw them at the end like estranged children do in movies. Never had our chance to say goodbye.

My brother is probably some successful retiree with a great pension and a white smile. This bastard who used to get me into trouble and beat the hell out of me is a probably a big shot now. He was always into stocks and shit like that, trying to pick the winners. I bet he’s spending his summers at the cottage in Muskoka and his winters down in Florida or the Cayman Islands. Or maybe he got fucked by the crash of 2008, maybe he blew his brains out when he realized they would take his yacht .

But Odin, an immortal name, is infinitely mortal. Though when I took the name, I thought I would live forever. Time passes. I’m an old man now. But when Odin was young, he rode the rails. Stole what he needed. Became a self-declared herald for anarchism. A living example of how one can live outside the fucked up system. No job, no pension, no home, no family, no email, no phone number, no bank account: all those things that make you a real person. I guess Odin was a fitting name.

I had some great loves. Women like me, travellers. All so beautiful. Freedom is beautiful. If you don’t know that yet, I feel sorry for you. But now they are all gone. Let go of the life I suppose, found homes, needed something more. I wish them only the best.

Last year, my life caught up with me. I smashed my left knee jumping off a moving train in Winnipeg. It was obliterated on a section of track. It was dark, I’d done it a million times, but just once is all it takes. They found me the next morning. It was too late to do anything.

Against my will, Winnipeg is now my home.

Social services paid me a visit in the hospital. They told me that I was now disabled. I was entitled to a monthly pension, housing and access to food banks. All those traps the state lays out for its deviants. All they needed was my social insurance number and a piece of photo identification to start the process.

I laughed in their warm, smiling faces. Do-gooder fucks!

In the end, they got their way but they never got those numbers out of me let alone my name. That’s my secret. Something they’ll never take. Cops or social workers, it’s all the same to me.

So here I am: standard apartment in an indistinct building, scooter with annoying horn (I spray painted an anarchist A on the back of my chair), bars on the wall to help me in the bathroom. They made me get a phone and I managed to get them to pay the bill. They want to check up on me: Prisoner 887 904 114 in room 1902. Prison guards are unnecessary in this jail. Disability ensures compliance.

But I’m saving up for a train trip, maybe back to Hamilton. Not like the old days but I miss the rails, I miss the speed. Miss the wind on my face on warm summer nights under the stars. Miss freedom, real freedom.

I never asked to live forever. I never asked for anything from anyone. I don’t need anything.

Least of all you reading my story. Now piss off and get back to your cell.

2008-10-14T12:46:00.002-04:00

Never Again

I sincerely hope that I'll never hear the words "Main Street" or "Kitchen Table" again. What with the global economy collapsing and the Canadian election plodding on, it's almost all you can hear. "It's going to spread from Wall Street to Main Street". "Canadians are tired of hearing about the boardroom table, they want to see what their government will do for them, at the kitchen table". Yuck! Makes me want to puke.

So I wonder what to think about the economic collapse that swings wildly up and down like a yo-yo. First it's doom and gloom. Then a market rebound. Then a market dive. Then back up. What a roller coaster. I wonder if this is the long anticipated recession that never ends. After all how can you have infinite growth on a finite planet? At some point you can't grow anymore. That's a fact.

Something though, keeps telling me that this is not the end. That the global economy has much more destruction to wreak before it fizzles out. We certainly don't want to leave a habitable world behind for future generations. Don't we?

2008-10-05T16:12:00.005-04:00

Election Made Easy

So in my last post I offered a mentat lesson on strategic voting. It was pretty long-winded but also straightforward and a way for you to look at your riding and find a way to make your vote prevent the Conservatives from winning another election.

Then today a friend forwarded me a link to voteforenvironment.ca which makes strategic voting really simple. The site recognizes that the Conservatives have no real plan for climate change and for reducing our greenhouse gas emissions while the other parties have much more progressive policies. I've embedded their video below this post.

Essentially they are targeting certain ridings which the Conservatives only won marginally or have a chance to steal in the next election. Your riding might very well be on the list.

Hotly contested ridings (with links to their recommended voting):

The best hope is for a Liberal minority government supported by the NDP. The corporations will have less power (and the Liberals definitely love corporations) and they will have to give in to NDP demands like mandatory labeling of genetically modified food. The most important thing is that the NDP will hold them on their climate change promises. Climate change is the only thing that matters: fuck the economy! What good is an economy on a climate crazy planet?

Here is how the vote would break down if environmentally-conscious Canadians vote smart for the environment:

Conservative
Liberal
NDP
Green
Bloc
IND

97
109
46
1
53
2

As dirty as it feels to vote Liberal you should probably do it if it means keeping a Conservative out of power. Please spread the word to anyone you know (especially those Canadians in the hotly contested ridings).

2008-09-25T21:01:00.004-04:00

How to be Strategic

So perhaps you want to avoid electing the Conservative Party of Canada to a majority or even a minority government on October 14. But every stupid news source is telling you that you should just vote Liberal or vote strategically. What to do?

First take a deep breath. This isn't as hard as it might seem.

Then direct your web browser to the Elections Canada 39th General Election results page. Then click on "Poll-by-poll results Electoral districts" on the left hand side. That will open up a list of Canada's provinces and territories.

Now find your riding. Hopefully you know your home riding; if you don't, visit Elections Canada's Voter Information Service and input your postal code to find out.

Now go back to the results page and select the results of the last general election in your riding. Elections Canada has a pretty crappy setup for results so you have to check each column to see how each party and candidate did. But with a little persistence you'll see who won and by how much.

That will give you an idea of how to vote if you want to be strategic.

Here's how. Most ridings are a contest between two parties. Usually this is either between the Conservatives and the Liberals or the Liberals and the NDP. Rarely the NDP takes on the Conservatives but this can happen in some strange places like Central Nova (where Peter MacKay may take a mighty fall on October 14--this will make sense when you consider that the Liberals aren't running a candidate). Sometimes you get all three major parties (Liberals, NDP, and Conservatives) being competitive with one another.

The result numbers from the last election will tell you how to vote (this assumes that people won't vote very differently this time around or that a saviour doesn't arrive*). If it's a contest between the Liberals and the Conservatives and the NDP aren't anywhere close then you might want to vote Liberal to prevent a Conservative win in the riding. If it's between the Liberals and the NDP and the Conservatives don't figure then you can vote for either with a clean conscience. If the Conservatives are close then you should probably vote for the highest vote getter in the last election to be safe. Voting Green is fine but only if you know that the seat is safely in the hands of a party you approve of; unfortunately the Green Party is unlikely to ever win a seat in Parliament.

*One caveat: sometimes the candidate actually matters (amazing isn't it, the people you are electing aren't just robots?). A popular candidate can make all the difference as was the case with the election of NDP candidate Thomas Mulclair in Quebec in a recent by-election.

**The Conservatives are going to probably get a few more and the Liberals a few less votes because of Dion's dismal English and because the Conservatives are currently in power and that always helps because people are stupid. The extra votes can only come at the expense of the Liberals as the next party along the spectrum; an NDP voter might vote Liberal but will doubtfully switch to the Conservatives for instance). So try and factor the Conservatives getting a few more votes in your strategic choice to vote.

Let's use Hamilton East-Stoney Creek as an example. In 2006, the NDP won the seat with 17,599 votes. The Liberals took 16,662 votes and the Conservatives took 11,572. So this was a close race. This time around the Liberals have a star candidate in former Hamilton mayor Larry Di Ianni but he's also seen to be extremely corrupt and in bed with developers. So this one is hard to call but it's safe to vote NDP if you so desire because even if they don't get in the Conservatives aren't likely to get in.

Oakville provides another useful example of the importance of strategic voting. In this riding the Liberals won by a few hundred votes over the Conservatives in 2006. The NDP didn't even come close. So in Oakville this time around, vote Liberal to keep the Conservatives from getting the seat.

But in the end do what you want. If you want to vote for the Green Party, then go for it. If you like the Marijuana Party choose them. If the NDP is your cup of tea give them your vote. Just don't be disappointed when Harper wins his majority.

I should also remind everyone that all the parties don't actually give a fuck about the planet (yes even the Green Party) so we're kind of doomed anyway. With this in mind you might want to vote Conservative because at least they will destroy civilization faster and we can get on with the job of picking up the radioactive and plastic pieces.

As much as I want to speed this up, I just don't want to hear Harper gloat about winning a majority. I can hear him now: "We're humbled to be the choice of the Canadian people. We are going to stand up for Canada. Canada is officially open for business. If you want to cut down a forest, it's yours. We are going to double investment in the tar sands. We are going to cut transit and boost car ownership in our cities. And now, women no longer have a choice. Our first bill will outlaw any abortions in Canada. Get your coat hangers ready ladies, Steve's back!"

2008-09-23T10:43:00.004-04:00

Blackmail

I've had this thought for some time now. The Bush Administration is warning that if Congress tries to add or subtract from their $700 billion bailout plan it's likely to damage efforts to rescue the economy (a question no one asks is: why do that?). The kinds of things they might like to add are oversight of the massive fund and possibly some supports for families who might be on the verge of losing their homes. The message is clear: do what we say and things won't go bad. By meddling you ensure they will go bad.

Given that the wealthy dominate North America, they have the power to ensure that people suffer. They can move their money around the world as easily as striking a few keys on their laptops. Because we have given them all the power through concepts like trickle-down economics they can bring down the temple. It's therefore a simple matter to punish a government that doesn't agree with them or won't give them what they want.

So even if a progressive government was elected somewhere, they won't last very long. The people will lose their jobs and their (small) comfort and turf them out and all will return to normal. So what happens is that you have parties who realize that being progressive will never work (partly because the wealthy control the media and the chumps don't think critically) so they sell out (see New Labour in the UK or even the 1993 Liberal Party in Canada and Bill Clinton and now likely Barack Obama).

It's hard to address this imbalance of power. I assume that the Democrats are going to cave and make even more handouts to the wealthy. Then again, if you're foolish enough to believe that the state has your small interests in mind then you probably don't fret about such matters.

But how do you address this blackmail? You ultimately have to get people to realize that they are going to suffer to make the world a better place, whether that's within the state system or ideally without. Overturning the old order will entail suffering as new systems are built and it kind of has to happen everywhere because other states will likely not want this poison to spread and will fight back. We've been told that we can have anything we want at any time (thank you WalMart) without working for it. So I don't have much faith in people to accept this degree of inconvenience even if it's in their interest.

But it would be better than the stressed earth doing it for us. That's really going to hurt.

2008-09-21T22:34:00.002-04:00

Extraordinary Rendition

I just watched this film on TVO and thought I would share it with you. Unlike North American films, thankfully the British still (sometimes) just put it all out there. I hope you can imagine yourself in this man's place. If only some of the fuckers that pound on him had this ability. But civilization has bred it out of them and here we are at the end of history.

2008-09-21T20:25:00.001-04:00

Here's Your Cure!

2008-09-17T14:37:00.002-04:00

Get On With It

So apparently a few intrepid people occupied part of a national park in Wales and set up their own ecovillage. They didn't wait for government permission, they just did it. And they have lived there, some without anyone knowing, until very recently. Happily they were not evicted and their homes bulldozed and recently won the right to stay in their homes, where they live without disrupting the park.

They looked to the past for inspiration and built a number of Celtic roundhouses that used to dot the landscape of Wales. Another good lesson there. Humans were more ingenious hundreds of years ago than we are today. They fit in while we are attempting to dominate.

I don't know a lot about this group which seems to include some who live more in the system than others but what they are doing should most definitely be replicated by those who are fearless enough to do so.

Good luck!

2008-09-17T00:09:00.004-04:00

Even the Deepest Pockets Have Holes

Unbelievable! So much for the end of big government. This pre-crash stock market madness just makes me realize that money is completely worthless and a creation of the state. How else can the US government just throw $85 billion at AIG and take over Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac? Who's next? These are serious amounts. And they are just giving them to the rich. You might as well call it a tax cut.

Of course the internet and television are full of advice for the average investor (what you're not investing the markets; what about your retirement?). What are we to do with our portfolios? Jump into GICs, pull out while the going's good, ride it out?

No one talks about just fucking right off. Get some land, learn to provide the basics for yourself, get out of the systenm, don't sell your labour. Really cushion yourself against the crashes that are coming. Why kill yourself with a two hour commute and do a job for things you don't need? If you don't fall for the advertising and you can ignore the weight of peer pressure, then you're halfway there.

There's some Mentat advice for your portfolio: burn it.

2008-09-10T19:14:00.004-04:00

Are you Serious?

This article by Jonathan Freedland is worth a look for election obsessed North Americans. Ugh, I can't shake the hype. I need to get off the computer and go into the woods for a while.

Essentially it makes the point that the the majority of the world wants Barack Obama elected president. No one outside America wants another four years of Republican delusion. That's a lot of hope in one man. Hard to live up to but he would be light years better than McCain, doubtless.

This passage sits heavily on me:

"For America to make a decision as grave as this one [electing McCain] - while the planet boils and with the US fighting two wars - on the trivial basis that a hockey mom is likable and seems down to earth, would be to convey a lack of seriousness, a fleeing from reality, that does indeed suggest a nation in, to quote Weisberg, 'historical decline'. Let's not forget, McCain's campaign manager boasts that this election is 'not about the issues.'"

--

In other news, the Green Party has arrived. Well done Elizabeth May! Now if we only had proportional representation.

2008-09-10T18:15:00.002-04:00

Tipping Point

This video does a good job explaining the concept of the tipping point and positive feedback loops. However I don't think it gives enough credit to the earth's capacity to rebalance itself. For instance, as ice melts in Greenland fresh water floods into the North Atlantic. This freshwater is likely to shut down the Gulf Stream leading to a cooling trend in Europe specifically. Forget about crops in Scandinavia then. But of course what do I know, this may not happen at all.

I personally don't think that climate change will lead us to Venus-like conditions since I have faith in our wonderful earth but we, humans, are most definitely fucked. But as long as there is microscopic life around volcanic vents under the ocean I will die moderately happy. Human civilization has definitely failed and is irredeemable, the only tragedy would be if we took the magic of life on earth with us.

Wake Up, Freak Out - then Get a Grip
by lmmesq

2008-09-06T08:39:00.005-04:00

Palin Pain

I have a problem. I have to admit that I'm reading everything I find on this stupid election. I'm falling for all the celebrity hype and for every spec of analysis on Barack Obama and John McCain and their running mates. I know that it really doesn't matter and that ultimately a Democrat President will only differ from a Republican President in the speed with which they destroy the planet. Still the hype and hope have dug their talons into my skull.

Last year I predicted that John McCain would be the next president of the United States. I'm, sadly, now more sure of it than ever. And the venomous Sarah Palin will be the Vice President (can you believe what she said about community organizers?).

It's becoming clear to me that McCain is ripe for the picking leaving Palin president. And she's the perfect president, even better than Bush: close to big oil, ready to blow up mountains for coal and happy to let the polar bears drown. She'll do great murdering all life on earth. And her message is: Guns, Babies and Jesus.

I'm sure Jesus would approve.

From an article I just read: "I love the woman," the pilot on our flight shouts over the noise of the engine, "especially what she wants to do with oil, we just have to drill more, there is no alternative. What's the point of leaving it all in the ground?"

What's the point of leaving it all in the ground? This is the attitude of our live-now, fuck-tomorrow civilization. I've said this before but why do people who cling to this motto bother to have children. You might as well throw your newborn baby in a stagnant septic tank and watch it struggle as it sinks into darkness. Doing so might be a blessing compared with the potential horrors of climate change.

That's the reason why we have to leave it in the ground, fucker. So that morons like you can breed and your spawn can actually have a chance because they certainly won't have oil and a big screen television.

It's over. You're just too stupid to notice.

2008-09-04T22:29:00.005-04:00

What You're Not Seeing

"If you cross this line you'll be under arrest--so don't do it". Thanks for the advice fucker!

Not that we should expect much when only a small handful of corporations control the national media (and therefore people's minds) but the lack of coverage of the protests at the Democratic and Republican conventions has been shocking.

Isn't that the whole point of protesting? That you get noticed for a few seconds and then you can go back to your everyday life without actually having changed anything. Perhaps that was a bit too cynical but really, if they are taking away people's rights to protest then perhaps it's time we brought down our governments? Sounds fair to me.

Anyway one of the few credible news organizations left in the US is Democracy Now! run by the amazing Amy Goodman. Goodman was just arrested for covering the protests outside the Republican convention in Minneapolis and for standing up for a Democracy Now! reporter who was arrested despite her clear press credentials.

In other news, a family who travel around the US in a vehicle called the Permibus had their home impounded this week. They teach permaculture principles and demonstrate that humans can actually live in line with natural limits and not push themselves over the edge. You have to wonder what kind of threat this bus actually posed?

Forget protesting, permaculture might just save the world if enough people could just rip themselves away from the television.

Question: how many celebrity shows do we actually need?
Answer: Enough to make us forget that we're killing the planet.

2008-08-29T14:32:00.003-04:00

Rage Building

Contribution from a reader:

Curious to hear your reaction to all this election ridiculousness north and south of the border. Stupid democrats picking an old white guy running mate to counter American racism. Stupid republicans patronizingly picking a woman to try and steal votes, not because she has any significant policy credentials other than Alaskan oil and anti-abortion interests. What a doomed country.

Back home, redneck Harper salivating to call an election and cowardly convictionless liberals avoiding his phonecalls.

... Feeling angry that these are the political choices people have given themselves.

--

Thanks for writing Mentat Mulq (nice ring to it?). Yeah I share your rage on a lot of this. I think it's exceedingly cynical that McCain picked this new Thatcher as his running mate. I know nothing about this woman really (pro-life but somehow will back the war I'm sure) but it just seems to be a way of grabbing some Clinton voters who obviously (if they fall for it) are unable to read or make decisions for themselves. They deserve what they get if they are sore losers. I hope that McCain gets hammered for this choice but I still think that he's going to be the next President of the United States.

By the way, are you noticing the insane degree to which this election is being covered? It feels like if you watch TV long enough or search the Internet enough you'll find info on how Barack Obama's tie selection is him reaching out to Coors Light drinkers (the new demographic that matters this year). It feels like every move means something and that there are plans within plans within plans. I'm just pretty blown away by the degree of analysis. It's like we have nothing better to do at the end of the world.

And as for the Canadian election, it's a case of deja vu. If it happens this fall, Harper will win a minority government and then in a couple of years (and another 100 soldiers killed in Afghanistan) claim that the House of Commons isn't working and will win another minority and so on until people wake up and go out and burn down Parliament.

My thought is just that we need to take control of as much as we can and stop thinking that these leaders are going do be our saviours.

Oh Jesus (and the humans that exploit you) what have you done to us? Your cross has taken all our power away and institutionalized it just when we need it the most.

2008-08-21T18:36:00.002-04:00

Harper Visits

Yesterday (or was it, time stops mattering when you're online) Prime Minister Harper visited Hamilton to announce some coin for healthcare in the province. He's getting generous because we've got an election on the way. So he chose to come to Hamilton, that bastion of un-Progressive (did you notice how quickly they dropped Progressive?) Conservative blue.

Wait! Hamilton never votes conservative and likely never will, until perhaps the economy and state are failing them and they decide that the Conservative's latest scapegoat (Jews, Arabs, homosexuals, criminals) is a lot better than freezing in the dark. Hamilton votes NDP and occasionally, on the mountain, Liberal. So what gives?

Harper was trying to ensure that the Liberals fail to take seats in Hamilton. He wants to suck votes away from the Liberals to the Conservatives and ensure that the NDP comes up on top. Many voters flop between Liberal and Conservative (I know what's wrong with them?) but NDP voters never flop to the Conservatives, they would be more likely to embrace delusion and choose the Liberals instead. The Liberals will lose votes from people who go where the money goes and the NDP is likely to prevail helping Harper to get an edge on seats in parliament once the next government is formed. He's a pretty smart guy, his visit to Hamilton was planned with the election in mind.

But of course all this election drivel, and I'm as guilty as any of us, keeps us from talking about the real issues like climate change and the problem of civilization. That'll suit Harper just fine.

2008-08-20T11:18:00.004-04:00

Farm Thoughts 3

Don't push your luck. You have to be realistic about what you can achieve. Never take on too much because you'll end up doing everything a little less well. Unless you have a large enough community that is but even then you have to accept that there are limits.

Last night the three sheep got out as we were trying to corral them back to their home pen for the night. It was sunset, probably too late to start. The sun was a magical orange, the colour you get when you mix orange juice and cranberry juice. Stunning, but they all are once you learn to look. We had done this over a dozen times before but these sheep are skittish and you never know what they're going to do. They rounded the corner and saw us, in our usual places. That was enough. They quickly turned away and broke out into a field.

By this point, another pair of farm inhabitants, our horses turned up to check out what these crazy humans were up to. The sheep proceeded to cut into the horses' fenced in field; fenced for horses not for small sheep.

An almost-tragically comical scene developed. Both horses reared up and were hot on the sheep's heels. Did they mean to kill these small, black intruders? Were they just playing? It seemed real enough to us. The earth shook under their mighty hoofs. I have to admit that I laughed as the scene worsened.

Happily for the sheep, they escaped the horses. Trapped against a fence they blazed a trail straight for me and my trusty dog, Buck. Scared from their ordeal they broke through our line. Buck just watched them pass while I was almost bowled over. My moment, missed.

The sun was dipping ever lower and the shadows grew longer and longer. The sheep made it up the road to the neighbour's house. They led us on a bicycle chase there, no luck. Then they disappeared as we herded them back to the house. Searching for black sheep by flashlight proved fruitless and we retired to our beds.

These sheep were scared and never much cared for us anyway (the feeling is mutual). We thought we might never see them again as the coyotes hunt in darkness. But after a four hour morning search we found them with the help of a dozen smiling neighbours. Eventually they became trapped in a fenced in swimming pool and we lassoed them and bundled them into a truck for the journey home.

A monumental waste of time. Hours gone from our brief lives. I wish the sheep nothing but ill but really how can I blame them? And they did make me laugh, when they met the horses. What would life be without a few chases now and then?

Still my lesson in this is not to overextend oneself. To realize that there comes a moment when you have too many animals, or things or tools or clothes. We do not always need to grow and spread like a cancer. Perhaps there is a wider lesson in all this.

2008-08-12T22:16:00.003-04:00

Hallelujah!

But will it be enough and fast enough?

It's clear that civilized humans don't really give a shit about the planet. It's not really our fault, we aren't advanced enough and we believe in instant gratification at all costs. We'd much rather jet off to the sunny south and fuck the consequences. Of course we still want the best for our children which doesn't really make sense when we are guaranteeing them a miserable future. I really can't understand people on this one. I guess they have too much faith in technology and I have none.

But today I read how air travel costs are going through the roof. And not just in Europe or Canada but the US--that bastion of subsidizing destruction (well we love killing the planet just as much don't we--think tar sands).

Our last hope, considering that we are not going to take any meaningful action, is that we are going to hit natural limits which will prevent us destroying the planet. Oil will just become too expensive, uranium will just be too costly to extract, we just won't be able to clearcut all the trees because our chainsaws will be out of fuel.

But we gave it a good shot didn't we? Was it worth it?

2008-08-10T16:04:00.003-04:00

Redefine Poverty

We desperately need a new conception of poverty. We need it to prevent the destruction of our planet, our one and only home. We need it more than we need solar power, more than we need organic food, more than we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To embrace this new conception of poverty would be to embrace these important moves and more. It would be truly revolutionary.

Currently civilized humans view poverty as our greatest enemy, a thing that must be banished from the earth. Mention poverty and most people think of the filthy family, often with dark skin, thin from undernourishment, in the small run-down shack with no rooms and worse, no appliances or television, cooking over a fire and eating mostly vegetables. People shudder that they should end up in such a situation. They will climb over anyone, invest their money anywhere, do anything to prevent themselves dropping into poverty. It is one of the scariest fates in the world.

Or so we are told.

What we need is more poverty. Poverty is sustainable, our current lifestyle is not. One definition of poverty is telling: the state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions. In our culture poverty is about not having stuff. You're not actually suffering when you can't buy that new computer, no matter what the advertisements say.

If every person on earth lived like the average North American we would need several earths to provide for these people's appetites: private vehicle, meat-based diet, extremely large home, energy to heat during cold months and cool during warm months, countless and continuous possessions. We don't have several earths, we only have one home and we share it with many other beings. We can no longer deny that our lifestyle is destructive and must be abandoned.

I know a man who grows most of his own food and rarely earns a wage. He barters for what he needs and recognizes, as I do, that humans need three simple things: food, shelter and community. Beyond that is excess. He would be considered in poverty if you asked the state. He likely makes somewhere around the $2 a day that is the World Bank's criteria for being in poverty. But he is healthy, well fed, self-sufficient with a roof over his head. If more people would live like him, climate change might not even be a concern and more people would actually be healthy instead of self-destructive as this culture teaches.

So I'd like to propose a new conception of poverty. You are in poverty if you do not eat healthy nutritious food that you mostly produced yourself. You are in poverty if you do not have a humble and clean space to call your own, a place that keeps you warm during the cold months. You are in poverty if you pollute your body with chemicals and eat animals that were ill-treated during their lives. You are in poverty if you do not live in a supportive and respectful community of humans, people who understand and respect reciprocity. You are in poverty if you don't realize that you are already beautiful. You are in poverty if you don't see the link between your survival and that of the land. You are in poverty if your goal in life is to gather small pieces of paper that have no value beyond what people with guns tell us they have. You are more in poverty with the more things that you acquire.

2008-08-08T00:01:00.003-04:00

Look/Lock Down

The Olympics are an interesting metaphor for the world. Here we have the most opulent, most expensive and most secure event the world has ever seen. In fact these games might be the last to reach such dizzying heights. Perhaps this is the peak from which the only way is down, back to sanity, back to reality.

In the end, a relatively small portion of the earth's human population will witness and take part in this (we're told) highest sporting event demonstrating the best of humanity. Lay down your arms and pick up your Nike shoes and your dryfit clothing. In Beijing will gather the strongest, the fastest, the most accurate and the most daring humans who have ever lived. They do their jobs so well. And we all need a job, a purpose, don't we?

And all the while the ominous smog hangs above the city like a noose. This is the dark heart of human civilization. While things seem so good, it's becoming increasingly difficult to ignore that we are paying a heavy price for the heights we have reached (if heights they may be called, perhaps depths would be more appropriate). China's rapid "growth" has made it a toxic soup. Algae blooms and clogs the shoreline of the mighty city. Rotten air obscures the skyscrapers. All this has happened before and all this will happen again. North American cities were the first to poison themselves. Now we share this pleasure with the rest of the world. Ain't globalization grand?

The Beijing games will help us to forget climate change, economic meltdowns around the world and rising global food costs. Much like a news story on Britney Spears, the last thing that must happen is for people to concern themselves with the future. Carry on with your lives. The authorities have everything under control.

But the wolf is at the door.

Who will be the first athlete to fall victim to a heart attack at the Beijing games? All that particulate matter on clean, efficient, pink, virgin lungs doesn't always lead to the podium. Wouldn't it be better to run through a forest and leave behind the gold, silver and bronze?

How fast will the protectors of civilization, the armed guardians, smash in their first skull? Will we all rejoice together even through this violence? Why do we even need policing? Are we incapable of living together? Why should someone tell us how to behave under the threat of violence? Oh yeah, there are far too many of us and we are taught not to share. So police are a fact of life.

In the end do you even remember one event from an Olympics past? Was it a defining moment for you? Did it touch you? No, I can't say I ever bought the advertising and I think you didn't either. Will this year be any different? Who cares about all these fools running and jumping for my entertainment? We should be running. We should be jumping. We should be raging.

The Olympics blind us with bright lights. If you're always looking up you can't see the murky pools around the base of our enterprise. Look down.

2008-08-04T23:50:00.002-04:00

Obama's Middle East

Robert Fisk is really a good read. He really offers an "unusual" perspective on the Middle East (why did they stop capitalizing it anyway, have you noticed?). And he's old enough that he doesn't care what people think anyway. Here he is on Obama and what his arrival heralds for the Middle East. Stay tuned!

2008-07-19T23:36:00.003-04:00

Lessons from Nigeria

Canada has a problem. We are never going to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions if we allow the Alberta tar sands to continue to be "developed". A lot of us are trying hard to stop them. We are attending meetings, holding discussion groups, talking to ordinary people and lobbying our politicians. We know the problem is serious and needs action now.

And we're getting nowhere. Every few weeks a new contract is handed out and the tar sands expand and Canada gets further away from any meaningful action on climate change.

We have to stop this death machine called the economy. We have to stop it now. It's a daunting task for sure one that many of us aren't ready for.

Of all people Nigerians can teach us a lot about bringing down an unjust and destructive economy. Like Alberta, Nigeria is swimming in oil. To "extract" it many thousands of foreigners come to the country to facilitate the drilling and polluting of oil production. Perfect situation right? Rich Europeans get to keep driving and they get jobs in their colony, oops, I mean partner economy. The best part is all the pollution and toxic waste gets left behind. Everyone should be happy right?

It turns out that many of the Nigerians impacted by these "developments" actually have a deep understanding of power, class and race. You have to be pretty stupid to not tell when you're being taken; only North Americans could be so stupid. So many of them are taking up arms against the industry. They aren't going to meetings, they aren't calling their politicians, they're pulling the trigger.

Granted, many of these gangs don't actually want to stop the oil from flowing. They just want a piece of the pie. So they kidnap foreign workers, bomb pipelines and do anything to make a buck. They've learned well from Europeans. Despite their mercenary nature, the result is ideal, oil goes up in price as "instability" grows. Oil is going up anyway but their violence is pushing it higher. The higher oil goes, the more likely the economy is going to crash and the less likely people are to drive or go on that weekend trip to Las Vegas.

As unsavoury as their methods are to the civilized (who like to keep their violence at arm's length), Canadians concerned about the tar sands could learn a lot from them.

2008-07-19T23:27:00.002-04:00

Two Weeks, Young Man

Outrageously, the ruling five nuclear powers today gave Iran two weeks to come clean about its nuclear program. Do as I say, not as I do. These countries (US, Russia, China, UK, France) have thousands of nuclear warheads at their disposal and no one, repeat no one, can demand one scrap of information about their nuclear programs. Why do we allow this hypocrisy to continue?

Yet no one asks these questions. Not the media, not politicians, not pundits, not religious leaders, not CEOs, nobody with power. Can you hear all the sheep braying along with the chorus line. To war!

I shouldn't even be wasting these key strokes. What can you do with an insane system?

For once, Iran has the moral high ground and I think they hold all the cards. The powerful always fall. We just have to make sure that there are no other powers rising from the ashes after they come tumbling down.

2008-07-07T20:49:00.006-04:00

In the News . . .

Two articles stood out for me today.

For a great overview of the excess of the G8 menu check out "Over caviar and sea urchin, G8 leaders mull food crisis." This is a beautiful example of elites ignoring the suffering of the lowest on the hierarchy at their peril. If you can't face the truth and want to rub the poor's face in your excess then your civilization is probably doomed. But you deserve it at least, it's too bad for the rest of us.

And George Monbiot does a great job exposing what protesting fisherman (and women?) are actually demanding through their actions. By demanding subsidies and fuel price drops, they are actually saying they don't want a future for their children. Amazing! Keep up the insane work boys!

2008-07-06T22:10:00.005-04:00

Tennis Anyone?

It's perhaps strange but I'm going to try and tie a tennis match to what's going on in the world. Today Rafael Nadal beat the most amazing tennis player I've had the pleasure of watching at Wimbledon. And I've been watching for as long as I can remember, my father being a tennis nut of sorts. I can still recall a friend at probably age twelve complaining that all my dad and I did was watch tennis. If only I'd been playing all that time.

Anyway for the past few years Roger Federer has won it all. He was unstoppable. He was a machine. Serve, volley, backhand, forehand. He never broke a sweat but you can believe all his opponents did. He cruised. I went to see him in Toronto once, such was his legend. We had to see him in the flesh if from the upper decks.

But now there's a new champion, another machine. Federer has been displaced. Nadal is even better it seems, though I haven't seen as many of his matches to judge.

So what's happening? Obviously it seems that Federer has peaked. He has lost to one or two other players before today at Wimbledon. So there is a temptation to view this as the end of his reign. But he's only 26. What has happened, I surmise, is that another player of even more complexity than Federer has come along. Up and up the level of complexity in men's tennis rises.

And it's the same for the world. We become more and more complex every day and with every new degree and qualification and technology to do the smallest task. Each of us accepts a role in society that makes complete sense and contributes to the whole. However we have boxed ourselves into a corner. With increasing complexity comes a decline in resiliency.

Resiliency is essential to the survival of all beings. As humans, we cannot expect that complexity will continue to grow infinitely. Eventually complex systems, both natural and human (which are arguably natural as well) collapse thanks to their complexity. They are unable to cope when the status quo changes. Humans, above all animals, have both the potential to mitigate this threat but also to reach staggering heights of complexity.

Do we have the strength to increase our own resiliency against the powerful desire to increase complexity?

2008-07-02T17:08:00.004-04:00

Mine Your Own Business

The Government of Canada is designating 16 lakes across the country to be tailing ponds for mining operations. These lakes will be poisoned forever but it makes perfect sense to the government and corporations such as Vale Inco and Imperial Metals. According to the law invoked the lakes will become "tailings impoundment areas."

According to Elizabeth Gardiner, vice-president for technical affairs for the Mining Association of Canada: “In some cases, particularly in Canada, with this kind of topography and this number of natural lakes and depressions and ponds … in the end it's really the safest option for human health and for the environment."

Further evidence of the insanity of civilized humans.

2008-07-02T15:25:00.003-04:00

Stone Age Anarchism

A friend of mine once remarked: "We're either going to walk to the Stone Age or be catapulted to the Stone Age".

Most of us would view a return to the Stone Age with suspicious eyes. No television, no McDonald's some might lament. Others, more wisely, would look to vaccinations, stable food supplies and, to quote George W. Bush, "living in caves" when questioning a return to the Stone Age.

The Stone Age was a tough life with lots of suffering but strong people using sharp minds survived and thrived in an abundant world. In their observation and study of the natural world they inhabited, they were our intellectual equals. In Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond lauds a hunter-gatherer friend in Papua New Guinea as being just as intelligent as himself, a Western academic. It's just a different kind of intelligence based on different life ways. Don't be quick to judge people as not as intelligent as you just because they don't have a high IQ; after all if you invented the test you're going to do well at it.

At the start of the 21st century, many of us think humans have never been higher, never been more developed. Thanks to oil, we barely have to use our muscles anymore. We can eat what we want because if we make ourselves sick our doctors will have a cure or at least a long-term remedy. We all get cancer and other environmental diseases and consider it normal. We stare at screens all day and all night. Does putting a person on the moon make these truths moot?

Life is beautiful but it is also sad and full of suffering wherever you live. This has never changed. Even the very rich, hiding away from the world, are victims. Every time they squeeze that trigger on the Febreeze bottle, they can't escape cancer and the chemical soup soon to flow through their veins. Why me, I can hear them cry.

But the worst part about today is that we are taking down the rest of the species of the world with us. A third of amphibians are endangered and many are going extinct. The polar bear is about to join them. If you listen carefully you can hear rainforests felled in Africa, South America and Southeast Asia. How many more species that we never knew (and never should have known) are silently departing at our hands. And very worst, we are pushing the earth's climate to levels unseen for millions of years. All because our greed is never satiated. All because the only way we know is up. Many voices warn against this ecocide but they are ignored unless they say we can buy our way out of climate change and mass extinctions.

Now realistically few people are going to choose the Stone Age over this rampant civilization. The advertising is just too good, think about all those car ads versus public transit; public transit always loses. It's too scary to actually have to take control of our lives. So we hand our power over to governments and corporations who are extremely happy to have it. They'll tell you that you can be sustainable and responsible as long as you pick up this new miracle product.

But more and more people are rejecting these false dreams and are taking their power back. They are turning away and powering themselves down. They are building communities and using the fading power of civilization to prepare for the low energy world to come. They are rejecting the state and only using their own two hands and their sharp minds to create what they need to create to survive. This means no destructive mines sucking minerals out of the earth to be sent to a factory in China to make a product that to purchase you must sell your labour and become a slave.

Humans can make homes without civilization. They can make tools without civilization. They can hunt and grow food without civilization. They can most definitely be healthy without civilization. Most importantly they can live in balance with the rest of the natural world and not threaten all life and leave their children and other beings with a diminished world.

These are the lessons of the Stone Age.

Civilization will never be sustainable not with 7 billion grasping hands and hungry mouths crying out for more, more. There is no plan. Civilized humans have no goal, no finish line. We have nothing to live for. If we are here for our children then why do we threaten their future? If we are here to "fix" nature then we have it coming and deserve our fate. Is it to know everything in the universe, to become gods? The only thing that makes sense, to me, is that we are here for ourselves, for this moment and we don't care about the future.

Turning away is finally a meaningful goal. Living as just another creature on this earth is a happy choice and one that I, and my friend and many more people are starting to make. Maybe the Stone Age is too far for you. Turning away is a start. The lights are much too bright the way we are all currently headed.

2008-06-16T13:29:00.003-04:00

Next Crisis Please

Pile another log on the fire. Today Gordon Brown, the gutless British Prime Minister (just when you thought no one would be worse than Tony Blair) warned that soaring oil prices represented: "the most worrying situation in the world". They are just touching $140 a barrel.

Ha! What about the food crisis or is that too last week? What about climate change? Hail just destroyed much of the greens on the organic farm I'm working on over the weekend, not to mention all the flooding on the Prairies. What about the resurgent Taliban breaking out their comrades from an Afghan jail? Aren't terrorists the biggest threat we face?

Unfortunately our "leaders" and states can't handle complexity. They like neat little packages and one dimensional issues. News flash, nothing is one dimensional about human society or the earth. And you can bet your bottom dollar that out leaders and their bureaucrats aren't going to learn how to handle these threats any time soon.

And really what is there to handle and control? This is all our fault. We being civilized humans. We thought we were being so smart. Didn't we realize that oil was not an infinite resource? And didn't we realize that burning all that fuel would fuck up the planet and mess up climates from pole to pole? Were we not paying attention to the fact that industrial agriculture uses more calories to grow food than you get out (not the case with small, non-industrial farms by the way)? And surely we must all recognize that we ignore injustice and starvation around the world while our waistlines expand ever outward. And we think there's no justification for "terrorists" and make ridiculous statements like "they can't stand freedom".

You reap what you sow.

We are entering a very dangerous time. Civilization is about to go down hard because it's been built on such dodgy and shortsighted foundations. The only salvation is to learn as much as you can so you're actually a useful person and would be indispensable in a future small community. No one will care pretty soon whether you can type fast, cook with saffron or research a species of tree frog in the Congo. Be useful at any cost (love, employment, family) dear reader; surely you can see the writing on the walls as clearly as anyone else? If others can't listen what else can you do but walk away?

Yet just this morning I heard a man arranging for an education fund for his young child. Hate to ruin your day but . . .

2008-06-02T14:49:00.004-04:00

All are Sacred

A bear must die. This weekend a black bear apparently killed a 70 year old Quebecoise. For that it must die.

Why? Because it challenged the hierarchy of beings. Humans and on top and the bears are definitely below us. So if a shark or a bear or worst an insect, kills a human, regardless of age or ability, that "animal" is dead. Every human in the area will pick up his or her guns, sharpened sticks and rocks and smash its skull in and spit on its bloodied fur and broken corpse. That is "justice".

The story reported about the woman: "The mother of five and grandmother of 11 had extensive hunting and fishing experience in the area."

All I can think is how this could just as easily be a description of the bear. If it was a mother bear then certainly it had young children. If it was an older bear it certainly had grandchildren if not great grandchildren. And if you were a mother wouldn't you do anything to protect your children; likely this was the reason for the attack.

Its life is sacred; just as much as the woman who was killed. There is no quantifying our lives and experiences to justify the value of one being over another. We are all important to this earth and all have our part to play.

This bear should not die because if we kill her we kill her cubs and all the cubs to come. That is wrong. This is a tragedy. Don't expand it.

2008-05-30T14:44:00.003-04:00

Farm Thoughts 2 - Distant

The global economy is frustrating, violent, unjust and just plain weird. Unfortunately most farms participate fully in the global economy. They grow corn and soy for animal feed so some can eat meat while others go hungry. They also grow corn for ethanol and rely on massive chemical inputs to do so. And in the end, they hope to sell their farms so they can pass something on to their children.

The weirdest part for me is how far most food travels including our locally grown food. Canada can grow almost anything apart from rice and coconuts. Yet still we grow food and send it around the world to be sold instead of being consumed locally. For instance, Canada grows apples and sends them to Australia and New Zealand for instance. At the same time those countries grow apples and send them back to us.

Surely you've seen a New Zealand apple in a grocery store?

A more local example that I saw firsthand the other day were ginseng farms. Southern Ontario grows massive amounts of ginseng to be sold to China. How can it possibly be profitable for China to buy ginseng from us? Wouldn't it make more sense for China to grow its own ginseng to save on all kinds of cost? Then fields used here for ginseng could grow food to be consumed locally instead of buying say apples or wheat from China.

It's almost as if the fuel used to transport the food around the world doesn't exist, much like the associated greenhouse gas emissions. And the funniest part is that no one finds this weird in any way. It's normal. I thought capitalism was all about efficiency but in the end it seems waste is the lifeblood of the global economy.

2008-05-28T23:36:00.003-04:00

New Law

Just read a story on Al-Jazeera regarding the legal proceedings arising from a protest against Guantanamo Bay that happened back in January. Naturally we don't hear about such things on the news which is run by the corporations that get rich off war and fear. But Al-Jazeera will sometimes cover it (rich Middle Eastern kings apparently will still get rich even if they annoy the American state).

Anyway the point is what these protesters (totally nonviolent and therefore largely ineffective) are being charged with. All they did was walk up and sit on the steps of the Supreme Court. That's it. Al-Jazeera reports that they are to be charged with "unlawful free speech". In case you didn't get that I'll write it again more clearly:

UNLAWFUL FREE SPEECH

Yes there's a law against that despite the fact that it's a total oxymoron. Free speech by definition can't be unlawful.

Good luck to all of us as laws like these spread like so many sweatshops around the world. I guess it makes sense to have such laws in a time of endless, growing scarcity. People have been used to so much and now will have to do with less, forever. But thankfully everyone will still obey the law, even though it has nothing to do with justice.

2008-05-26T23:06:00.002-04:00

Waking Up

So this evening, I was putting together our order for bulk food from the Ontario Natural Food Coop. We had an old catalogue from November 2007 and put together our order based on it. Tonight I had to check the prices from then against the April 2008 catalogue.

What a difference six months makes!

The cost of a large bag of flour had gone up from $25 to $35 (still a steal really). Everything in fact was significantly more from rice to beans to cereal to tempeh. Usually food prices go up due to inflation but these increases are something else and should most definitely give us pause.

In addition few weeks ago, a friend informed me that he had visited the local supermarket and found the rice aisle totally empty. No rice. The story becomes even more scary.

Food comes from the grocery store doesn't it? If we can't rely on a large corporation what will we do? Do any of us remember how to grow food or to slaughter an animal?

This is serious. We have been eating oil for so long but now that is over. The world is changing. Are you ready?

2008-05-21T15:16:00.002-04:00

Farm Thoughts 1 - Order and Chaos

There is something of a generation gap in farming as exemplified by concepts of order and chaos. As a farmhand on an organic farm, I, and my fellow farmers, are constantly told that our farm is not proper enough, that it is cluttered and disorderly. A true farm, therefore, must contain no clutter, all straight lines, perfectly cut grass and branches and monocultures.

For instance, we are told that branches trimmed from apple trees must be burned immediately so that the clutter is removed from sight; heaven forbid they become home to insects or small mammals, thereby improving the farm ecosystem (if there is such a thing anymore).

The most common complaint is that the grass is too high and unruly. Farmers in our area spend ridiculous amounts of time mowing their lawns in order to conform to this norm. Not just a small lawn either, sometimes upwards of two acres or more. What harm is there in tall grass? And the drudgery of the mowing; it's not for nothing that teenagers hate mowing the grass. And good luck if you have dandelions or clover interspersed with your Kentucky bluegrass.

In addition, all trees must be planted in perfectly straight lines (in violation of all natural laws) and mixed crops are discouraged (why not a ten acres of only corn or soy). Chemical inputs are necessary to maintain these unnatural systems regardless of the cost as is heavy, oil dependent machinery.

These ideas of order also cross into personal appearance. The farmer of the older generation must never show dirt or dust on his or her clothes. They must be pristine at all times, especially if one is traveling into "town". I can understand the desire to be clean but surely this is a denial of our lives in the dirt. Also likely this desire for personal cleanliness is tied into concepts of class, whereby farmers were once (and likely still are) treated as menial professions, not the foundation of our communities that they should be.

Having said all that, the new generation of farmer, I've come to understand, is also concerned with order and chaos. Chaos is paramount, especially in appearance. The farmer must look the part: dirt under nails, dusty, torn, patched clothes, rough and tanned skin. If you don't present a number of these attributes you are not "farmer enough". Admittedly, these thoughts arise only in consideration of organic farming but it definitely presents a marked contrast with the ideas of the older generation.

2008-05-14T14:41:00.003-04:00

My Life is Cancer

"You have cancer."

Today 1 in 2 people are diagnosed with cancer; how soon before it's 1 in 1? What will happen when you get told those words by a man in a white overcoat? Will you shudder a little bit inside, the way that no one sees? Will you scream at him, curse him? Will you burst into tears? Will you accept it immediately? Will you demand a cure?

You'll probably do all these things and more. Cancer is scary surely. An almost death sentence that seems to come out of nowhere. Why me, you might ask? What did I do to deserve this? Our culture teaches us that we do nothing wrong, that nature hates us that that's why cancers afflict us unexpectedly. We did nothing to bring this on.

But of course we do plenty to provide cancer with fertile soil. Our lives are cancer. From all the chemicals that should never have existed to the microwaves flying through the air, from polluted air and water to all the plastic floating on the sea; cancer covers our food and we apply it to our skin. For the civilized, cancer is our birthright.

A little boy has cancer. For some time he's undergone "treatment" which involves pumping chemicals (yes ironically the same ones that cause cancer) into his veins. This makes him terribly sick, worse than you can imagine, unless you've gone through it yourself. He doesn't want it to go on, he and his parents want to stop, try a new nonviolent treatment and enjoy their remaining time together.

Doctors, those priests of humanity, say without their "treatment" he has six months to live. To decline "treatment" would challenge the sacrosanctness of human life and this is unacceptable. Human life must go on at all costs, regardless of quality of life. No one says this overtly but this is the message in all such cases. How can you ignore it?

So the state says he has to undergo treatment.

The child is removed from his family. His parents are arrested for their protests. The child lays alone on a bright white bed under fluorescent lights and a tray of half-eaten, nutritionally void food rests on his table. Experts in clean white who know better than him, ignore him, avoid his gaze and plug him into machines designed to squeeze out every last breath of life, however hollow it might be. He is more scared of them and their "treatment" as the cancer. He wants to go home.

Sometimes people have to die. It's their time. What's the use of hanging on? If we fail to accept this, we reject life. Then all we have left is the cancer our civilization breeds.

2008-05-05T07:42:00.003-04:00

Wright or Wrong?

I met with my dad the other morning and like usual fell to talking of American politics and specifically the presidential election. My dad supports Barack Obama. He thinks that he's the only candidate able to actually change the country's destructive course.

I, of course, beg to differ. One person isn't going to change over 500 years of violent history, power and domination. Obama isn't the messiah people think he is. If he was president he would approve air strikes around the world, he would deny climate change (though not to the degree of his predecessor) and he would maintain the marginalization and everyday violence visited on the poor and visible minorities in his country. The United States would cease to exist without these core truths.

If he was revolutionary and tried to actually change this system he would be dead on his second day in office. That's a fact.

My dad knows all this but he still recognizes that Obama would be the best of the three choices offered Americans (remember voters don't choose, they just confirm). The biggest threat to Obama is that white voters will be scared away by his skin colour. This seems to be happening today with the media scandal around Obama's reverend's "fiery" sermons.

Reverend Wright has lambasted American foreign policy and injustice at home. He has spoken out against the deliberate systematic destruction of black Americans' communities. He has challenged the religion of capitalism. He has recognized that 9/11 was just blowback from American crimes abroad.

In short, Wright tells the truth.

My dad thinks he'll ruin Barack Obama's chance to be president. He knows he's speaking the truth but doesn't want to hear it and wants Wright to shut up. Are those of us that agree with him in this belief merely deluding ourselves? Are we ready to challenge the hidden, rotten foundations of our lives? Or do we have faith that the same system that sows death and injustice will somehow transform through the election of one man?

Either way if Fox News (and the rest of the gang) is calling you un-American you know you're doing something right!

2008-04-28T10:27:00.002-04:00

I Told You So

Some people have told me that it's mean spirited and not constructive to gloat. But to hell with that. I was right and they were wrong. If they'd listened to me then we wouldn't be in such a mess.

Today the UN's Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food stated: "Burning food today, so as to serve the mobility of the rich countries, is a crime against humanity."

Can't say it much more clearly than that. I was right all along as were thousands of other thoughtful people who saw through the bullshit promise of misguided and evil technology.

The saddest thing is that nothing is likely going to change because, in North America, we've built a society based on the automobile and ignoring our record of crimes around the world. But at least someone else is starting to speak the truth and joining our chorus.

Unfortunately talk is cheap.

2008-04-27T00:22:00.002-04:00

Read Me

I just finished reading Ursula K. LeGuin's The Dispossessed. It's an amazing novel that has refined my thinking around how to live in balance with the earth and in nonviolent, communitarian communities. I urge you to take it out of your local library. I'm confident that when you've finished reading it you'll likely do so again or possibly, like myself, purchase a copy.

Here is a passage from the book:

"My world, my Earth, is a ruin. A planet spoiled by the human species. We multiplied and gobbled and fought until there was nothing left, and then we died. We controlled neither appetite nor violence; we did not adapt. We destroyed ourselves. But we destroyed the world first. There are no forests left on my Earth. The air is grey, the sky is grey, it is always hot. It is habitable, it is still habitable, but not as this world is. This is a living world, a harmony. Mine is a discord. You Odonians chose a desert; we Terrans made a desert . . . . We survive there, as you do. People are tough! There are nearly a half billion of us now. Once there were nine billion. You can see the old cities still everywhere. The bones and bricks go to dust, but the little pieces of plastic never do--they never adapt either. We failed as a species, as a social species."

2008-04-25T21:44:00.002-04:00

G.I. MacKay?

2008-04-25T00:08:00.003-04:00

Retirement

What do you need to live?

It's a question that we don't often take the time to ask ourselves. There's so much pressure to buy things that we essentially give up our freedom. We have to work because every few years we want to buy a new car. We have to sell our labour to someone else so that we can pay off our mortgage after 25 years. We see our children as an expense not a treasure. We stop fighting for a better world because we are too tired after a 9-5 workday and weekends are full with trips to the mall. In our lives, we just do one thing over and over again and never explore the range of talents and skills that all of us have within us. I surmise that we aren't truly alive as consumer-slaves.

What's freedom?

That's another good question. Our leaders tell us that freedom is having lots of things and doing lots of things. Ski trips, road trips, holidays in the sun, Ipods, computers. This is freedom. Taking it a little further freedom involves the illusion that you have some choice in selecting who rules over you. Hidden dictators are better than overt ones.

What if freedom meant that you wouldn't have to sell your labour? You'd still have to live but it would be on your own terms. What if true freedom came from making your own things instead of picking them out of an online catalogue? What if freedom meant being responsible for yourself and your community?

We are taught from an early age that everyone is out to get us, to take advantage of us. But that's because the world we were born into works that way. One person benefits while a bunch of people do not.

It doesn't have to be this way. There are some communities and individuals that appreciate hard work, smiles and trust. You can seek them out. They are waiting for you and they'll help you to break your chains.

I've been a slave for a long time and my slavery hangs heavily on me. I thought that it was what I wanted: prestige, money, influence, the chance to make a difference. Then I realized that the people I respected were their own people, had their own thoughts, knew how to live in a radical way. They were different from everyone else and didn't give a fuck what the slaves thought about them. They were free.

I've come to realize that I need three things to be complete and live fully: community, food and shelter.

What do you need?

2008-04-14T23:00:00.002-04:00

Small Things Matter

There is one type of comedy that I can't stand: laughs at someone's expense. I hate being the victim of this comedy, much as you yourself likely hate it. It often comes when one makes a mistake and someone jumps on it.

Look at the fool, he's so stupid. He's said the wrong thing. He's done the wrong thing. There is no empathy, no sympathy. Do we not all make mistakes on occasion? Must we be belittled on these occasions?

The worst though is when the whole room gets behind it. All those smiling faces giggling at your expense. All of them looking at you. Not letting up, the jabs increase exponentially. It goes on and on. The goal is to break you, teach you your place. This is a fucking hierarchy you bitch, there is no equality, no solidarity. Just you you weakling.

How do you respond in this case? To lash out is meaningless and just calls for more ridicule. You can try and walk out but then you are weak. We are not all witty either. And to explain that one is hurt definitely means more laughs; poor baby, can't take a joke. The only hope is to defer the ridicule to someone else. That sucker is more pathetic that me. Let's pick on him and forget what I did or said. Phew.

I've been through a lot of these as has anyone who attended a formal school. I hated it then as much as I hate it now. My choice has always been to respect everyone and try and challenge or at least divert these attacks. Comedy is not funny when it's hurtful. Please bear this in mind dear reader.

I'm sure you remember a time when this type of attack has happened to you or you witnessed it happening to someone else, perhaps even someone you care about. Never forget it--especially if you reject violence and hierarchy and group-think. Stand up and be counted and do the just thing.

2008-04-13T01:02:00.003-04:00

More Evidence

After a few years stalling, the UK Government was forced to reveal that it ignored internal reviews expressing concern for a species of whale at risk from investing in oil and gas in Russia's far east.

We didn't need those whales anyway, driving is way more important.

Not much else to say really is there?

2008-04-12T21:41:00.005-04:00

Nasty, Brutish and Short

I had a good conversation with a few friends last week. We definitely don't see eye to eye on a lot of things but it's so good that we're still talking. Unfortunately while we're talking the human juggernaut is continuing on its path of destruction and is taking everything with it.

The conversation was all encompassing but partly focused on our differing views of the natural world.

For me, nature is perfect. When I refer to nature I mean ecosystems, the climate, the predator-prey relationship, the biosphere, the hydrological cycle. When you take the time to look at it from this macro, systemic level it works so wonderfully, all the parts in perfect balance; I sometimes wonder if humans are jealous that they could never create anything so perfect and that's why they ruin wonderful places.

But it's also perfect for me at the micro or individual level. For the past few days I've seen a female squirrel from my window eating the buds on a tree. She needs to survive for a few more weeks before the bounty of spring and summer. The tree suffers a little but really it just pushes the tree to grow taller, bud more and favours the high buds which she can't reach as easily. And I think about the story I once learned about a species of tree whose fruit must pass through the intestinal tract of a specific bat species for it to germinate. Imagine how many more of these intricate relationships we don't know about? And bluntly, my wonder doesn't require that I know everything.

My friends though were fixated on what they perceived as the dark side of nature. To them it's nasty, brutish and short. Nothing to be celebrated but to be avoided at all costs. I don't think that they view all of the natural world through this lens but it's prominent for them; I know that a rainforest would take their breath away for instance.

Still they had seen many examples of what they viewed as the mass suffering of the natural world. Polar bears too exhausted from swimming to kill their prey, killer whales hunting for sport and little else. These specific examples portrayed on television eclipsed any notion that nature was perfect and balanced and wonderful.

While I share their sadness and empathy with these creatures, I'm not ready to condemn a proven system based on a few specific examples. And even if I did condemn nature for its occasional misery, doing so would be ridiculous. Humans are part of nature. This is our one and only home. We are not separate from these realities. We either obey natural laws or we go extinct. And currently we are getting busy going extinct. Unfortunately we're taking every other being with us.

What does viewing nature as nasty, brutish and short, in the words of Thomas Hobbes, mean for our relationships with other beings and ecosystems? Does it mean that we must do everything to live apart from this terrible life, to insulate human civilization from the natural world? Does it mean that we can do what we please and damn the consequences? Does it mean we can treat animals and other beings as our slaves? If we know deep down that we belong back where we were formed and nurtured, do we hate ourselves?

Yet it's an illusion to imagine that human civilization is somehow better than nature, which I feel my friends did. The civilized world is much more violent and destructive than nature both at an individual level and certainly at a systemic level.

At the micro level, think of a mine and the pollution of waterways and the destruction of the local ecosystem. Think of a dam and the end of salmon runs that have lasted for thousands of years. Think of mousetraps and broken necks. Think of building expressways through forests. Think of birdsong outside your window that disappears with each passing year and new subdivision and skyscraper.

Then take it to the macro level and the damage of civilization. Think of billions of tons of carbon dioxide that should never have been entering the atmosphere and the warming of the planet. Think of billions of poor, brown people whose only crime was being born into what could only be called slavery. Think of continents of plastic that will never decay unless the earth provides a solution. Think of giant war machines and pillars of smoke. Think of rising cancer rates and obesity and mood disorders.

I accept that some beings suffer in the natural world. But on balance, civilization is guilty of far worse crimes. Without civilized humans, nature would have lasted forever. Forever. Until the sun burned its last atom and every being saw nothing but light, felt nothing but burning heat. And then we were all gone, together. Like we always were.

2008-04-07T14:01:00.002-04:00

Palestine and Israel Insights

Good old Al Jazeera and Avi Lewis. Check out this interesting report into the power of the Israel and Palestine lobbies in Washington and their impacts on the US presidential election. One more reason, it seems, that Barack Obama can never be president.

Part 1

Part 2

2008-04-05T00:21:00.004-04:00

Down

So this evening I read two different pieces of news. One from CATCH here in Hamilton explains that the City of Hamilton has just advertised a public information centre for Monday (it's Friday). The purpose is to get/ignore public input on the proposed aerotropolis project. For those of you not in the know, Hamilton is banking on a future built around air travel. Insane? You guessed it. But the best part is they don't want to be reminded of it hence the poor advertising and likely, limited response and green light to do what they want anyway.

Secondly, I read in the Guardian today that Ban Ki-Moon, the UN Secretary-General responded to the global food crisis. He said: "We need to be concerned about the possibility of taking land or replacing arable land because of these biofuels. While I am very much conscious and aware of these problems, at the same time you need to constantly look at having creative sources of energy, including biofuels. Therefore, at this time, just criticizing biofuel may not be a good solution. I would urge we need to address these issues in a comprehensive manner."

In other words: "I know it's a problem but I really don't want to risk my six-figure salary. Fuck all those people who are going to starve, the rich need to drive. Fuck all those animals and plants that will be displaced as more land goes into fuel cultivation. Fuck planet earth." This is message, essentially, of both news pieces.

So sitting here, staring at a screen, I'm sad. I'm so close to saying I'm done with this bullshit world. There's nothing good left besides my community. Democracy is a sham--what else is new? We're destroying everything special about the world for nothing but short term gratification. And no one really cares if it means they do with less which they most certainly must.

I just want to disappear and live out my days as the world rots from this human infection. I'm so tired of fighting and speaking the truth. No one is listening. I'm often wrong but I'm right on this one. I know what we need to do to survive. It won't be fun but it's our only choice if we want to survive. But we're not there yet and I doubt we ever will.

Glass half empty. You bet.

2008-04-03T19:15:00.003-04:00

Uranium Country

I attended an amazing lecture last night on Canada's role in the global nuclear industry. Jim Harding, the author of Canada’s Deadly Secret: Saskatchewan Uranium and the Global Nuclear System, was in Hamilton to speak on the subject of The Nuclear Church of Canada.

There's no other way to describe it. There's no rational reason to back nuclear power so proponents have to point to faith. It has been repackaged and repackaged over the years but it's still the same creature: a white elephant. First it was for peaceful abundant energy in the 1950s. Then it was the energy solution in response to the oil shocks of the 1970s. Now it's the climate change solution. Yet nuclear for so many reasons has never caught on.

Nuclear energy certainly isn't safe since it poisons the earth (both mining and spent fuel including depleted uranium munitions) and leads to nuclear weapons proliferation. Nuclear energy and weapons are one and the same as I've repeated countless times here. Nor is it economically viable without massive subsidies and full life cycle costs show that nuclear energy is not the carbon saviour it's portrayed to be.

What Canadians don't recognize, or assume technology will fix, is that uranium mining destroys ecosystems and kills all beings. This is at the level of the individual or community. Port Hope, Ontario a place I'd never heard of, has some of the most dangerous air, due to free isotopes, in Ontario. It houses a uranium refinery. The best part is, the Government of Canada knows it's leading to higher cancer rates and other deformities yet Health Canada has never conducted a rigorous health study. Ever.

They can't. Much like the Alberta tar sands, industrial civilization is in denial that all our "progress" has only benefits--such as they are. The government and corporations are complicit in this pure violence.

The best part of the evening was when I stood up and called this behaviour (mining, refining, building, dumping, ignoring, censorship, denial) what it is: insanity. A nuclear clergyman behind me blurted out in response: "You have to live". This man of the cloth was so screwed up that he didn't know what living actually is. Cancer is not living. Breathing in isotopes is not living. Poisoning ecosystems is not living. Very little that civilized humans do has anything to do with life.

We must reject this false religion and its scores of acolytes. We must erase the churches in our minds that ignore the truth that we are rubbishing the entire planet one plot at a time. And then become part of the community of life again. It's always been the only way.

2008-04-02T17:35:00.002-04:00

Evil Askew

So it seems that his reign of terror is over. No, not George W. Bush, not yet, but Robert Mugabe. You should have seen the negative press he got in the UK in 2003 and very likely to this day. He was evil incarnate, kicking white people off their productive private land and impoverishing his nation. Then I knew many people of colour who saw him as a hero though they kept their voices down. But in Britain there were even calls to cancel cricket matches in Zimbabwe and impose sanctions and support the opposition. Sounds familiar.

But now he seems to have been unseated. A coup perhaps? An invasion from several neighbouring armies you might be thinking. Maybe he was assassinated by a British agent? Surely no democratic process would have unseated this tyrant, this least of democrats.

Again this is yet another example of an "evil" regime actually following the rules. There was an election. No cheating no stuffed ballot boxes. He lost, fair and square. And not just a meaningless loss either but Mugabe may not be president in a few days time. How the mighty have fallen.

Now this election demonstrates to me that the previous elections were also free and fair (for the most part because which state actually holds free and fair elections). Therefore the majority must have been behind him. Obviously he ran out of steam which is hardly unexpected given he has been in power for so long and had done many terrible things.

It also makes me think of Hamas, the rightful government of Palestine. They obeyed the rules but learned that if you're labeled "evil" you might as well not play the game. But Palestinians voted for them in droves. They were their democratic choice for better or worse.

Hopefully we'll see some similar tyrants unseated. Let's start with Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. Oh wait, he's a friend. Don't expect any calls for him to step down or for him to hold free and fair elections from the "good" governments of the world.

Anyway farewell Mugabe. I'm sure there's a bullet or hangman's noose waiting for you. Now I wonder how quickly international financial institutions will be on Zimbabwe like crows on a corpse. "We'll save you", I can already hear them saying. "Just sign here and we'll give you all the money you need".

2008-03-28T11:26:00.003-04:00

Signs of the Times

Collapse. It's a concept that a lot more people are pondering these days. And with good reason. Higher energy prices, higher food prices, higher resource prices, less to go around. These trends all portend an end to the "good times". Yet are we paying attention?

Only the most thoughtful and resilient human societies avoid collapse. They either take the steps necessary to power down their societies, going through small pains now to avoid larger ones later or they embrace the maxim: business as usual. If they go with the latter, collapse is assured. If they go with the former, collapse might still happen but at least you have a better chance.

Every human society stands on the foundation of all its members. We all rely on one another; this is ecological thinking. In human societies, some members are higher and have more power, though, than others. So it's easy for the powerful to ignore the warning signs rotting the foundation of their enterprises. When the poor and marginal suffer you either stare it in the eyes or you gaze rapt into the neon lights of your warm, protective bubble.

This disconnect between members is I think the strongest guarantee of human collapse. We've done such a good job building walls and fences that I think we won't be able to see the warning signs before it is too late.

As an aware individual there's only two things you can do: open your eyes to what's happening and build your resiliency. At a system level, collapse is actually creative. It removes, or at least reduces, unsuccessful species and behaviours and leads to new spaces for new, more thoughtful members.

Better late than never.

2008-03-24T11:55:00.002-04:00

Lottery

How many times a day do you win the lottery?

I know I won the lottery when I was born. And I win it every day with a fridge full of healthy organic food. I win it everyday with universal health care (which I really don't need due to healthy food and exercise). I win it everyday with choice and a life (relatively) free of fear.

But as with all lotteries for all the winners there are many losers.

This obviously includes many, many humans living today but also the other essential inhabitants of this earth. Most importantly all the beings not yet born, those who will live with our legacy.

The choices we make today matter. I propose that we smash the lottery and give up on these false dreams, abandon the concept of winners and losers altogether, see ourselves as parts of the whole.

Yet there are numerous forces arrayed against this vision and who can't let go of lottery thinking. The state has benefited mightily from fear and conflict. The CBC estimates that the Canadian Government has spent an additional $24 billion on Canada's "security" infrastructure since 2001.

What else could we do with $24 billion? Comments appreciated.

2008-03-24T11:33:00.003-04:00

Easter Blessings

A copy of Richard Heinberg's new book, Peak Everything has arrived on our coffee table. To summarize: the 20th century was the century of abundance and the 21st will be the century of declines. And not just oil but food, human population, uranium and potable water. And not a moment too soon for this out of control death culture. It's just too bad that we aren't more responsible tenants of this earth.

We'll also hit peak greenhouse gas emissions which thereafter will decline. Hopefully we'll have avoided transforming Earth into Venus as the climate rebalances itself; technology can't do it, only time.

Since my eyes were opened, I've always dreaded climate change and the rising temperatures and crazy weather that will accompany it. Most people stupidly only see warmer temperatures in places like Canada as a positive thing. I guess I thought that somehow humans would remain unchanged by climate change, being able to resist it, and that other living things would slowly disappear being both murdered by humans and displaced by changing climates.

But climate change is like a fever to reject an unwanted illness.

Heinberg helped me to see that climate change is the earth attempting to remove or force change on a disobedient child. Change or die humans. Inshallah, there will always be life on this earth whether next to volcanic vents on the deep ocean floor or shivering in the dark winters of Antarctica. Civilized humans won't be able to resist forever and one day even after hundreds of thousands of years the earth will restore itself.

And wonderfully I managed to tie this entry to Easter. Hope you've had a good one. Remember spring is coming!

2008-03-11T13:16:00.003-04:00

All the Stops

With extreme vanity, bordering on madness, China is pumping every spare resource into Beijing. Water, oil, food, concrete. The goal: to produce the world's most impressive Olympics this summer.

The future does not exist. There is no life outside the city. No people, no animals, no rocks, no air, no soil, only faceless resources. The city and its magnificent construction is all there is. There is only now, flashing lights, clean concrete, green, manicured grass. There is only instant gratification, a hollow thin layer, seconds of eternity.

Beijing is everywhere. And everywhere darkness creeps closer to the fluorescent lights that only shine inward. Can you see it?

The real light is leaving this world, the light of children's imaginations and growing things and wildness. Can you see them go?

2008-03-08T20:04:00.005-05:00

Council of All Beings

They began gathering at dusk. From the north, south, east and west. From under the rich dark soil and the deep blue waves and from above, amongst the clouds and mountains. They all came. Representatives of all the many living beings that call this planet home. The summons was urgent, so urgent that the Earth had called a Council of All Beings.

Their destination was a secret place, the most secret and precious place on earth. Though few now remembered it, this was the place that life began. At the edge of the sea, in a small pool under a grey sky, the first fragile life form was born. It was so small that an antelope or a sharp-eyed seagull would never notice. Yet in this place was born the First and the space was sacred, to be protected at all costs.

This was Eden as some humans call it. Trees of all shapes and sizes grew tall and shaded the sand at the edge of the sea. That first special pool was gone, naturally. Now soft white sand blanketed the shoreline. The sun and moon greeted this place every day and night. And when the moon was absent, as she often is, the stars stood guard. Can you imagine seeing the stars at the centre of the world?

There was enough room for the many representatives that would attend. There were high places in the trees for the many birds and bats of the world. Large rocks for amphibians and reptiles to warm themselves on. Soft sand for land mammals to sit comfortably. The sea was tranquil for the coral, plankton fish and sea mammals to hear the deliberation at the council. None were excluded and had their place. The Earth assured this.

So who was selected to represent their species you might be asking? The Earth was wise and called the worthy. That did not mean the strong. Nor did it mean the fast, nor the oldest. The Earth selected representatives with open minds, who could hear and act. These beings could speak for their peoples and carry messages back afterwards.

Everything changed after a Council of All Beings.

Throughout the night, the numbers swelled as more and more answered the call. Despite what you might think, it was a happy meeting. Families were reunited. Beings who shared a common heritage with others met for the first time. All life has a language and it was in this language that they greeted one another. Thus polar bears chatted with black bears and panda bears and connected after hundreds of thousands of years apart. I wonder what stories they told?

There was no prey in this place. The sharks were not tempted by plump seals nor the lion the fleet zebra. Amazing nuts fell from one of the trees and rolled onto the sand and into the surf to nourish all those beings in attendance. The climate also magically met the needs of all creatures from the arctic fox to the jungle leopard. This was paradise.

After many meetings, the called drifted into sleep under the half moon and stars. The council would start at dawn and all had to be well rested.

As the sun rose, the special beings all took their places quietly and greeted the dawn. There was utter silence, even the water and wind seemed to obey the call. All was one as it was in the beginning. Then the wind picked up in the trees and a clear voice rang out.

"Since the First, I have called on all life to make me beautiful. And you have responded so well my children. Chaos! Wildness! These are your birthrights. Embrace these and all life grows richer. All of you are but parts in a wonderful whole. Look around, see your comrades. Without them you would be nothing. Only a fool forgets himself.

"I have called you all, my special children, to this most special place for an urgent gathering. Too long have I watched the unbalancing of my creation. I protect this hallowed place but many places in this world are fading. Things that should never have been are being forged, despoiling the world. The spark of life is fading.

"All your legends warn against uniformity, against taking too much and not giving back to the whole. Against time marching to a glorious end. The humans have a saying: 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' The legends of the tuna also share this sentiment as do those of the ants. Yet you continue to allow harm to befall all those on whom you rely. Something is terribly wrong and this Council of All Beings must act to defend life before it is too late."

There was silence as the wind faded and the leaves slowly went still. At that point, a wise and all-seeing owl shook his wings in a tall tree. "Dear mother, each being I see represented here today. Yet I see that you have invited two members of one specific family; there are two humans here today. While I accept my degree of responsibility for carrying us to this dismal time, these humans bear the most responsibility for cutting down the trees in which me and my children and my grandchildren live."

"Yes," squeaked a dolphin. "My people too have seen our homes fill with unnatural waste and poisonous chemicals because of these humans. We are very angry with them."

For several hours, the beings in attendance all laid out their grievances against the one of their circle that was responsible for the unbalancing of the world. It was a damning verdict against humanity. Almost every being in attendance reported how humans had wronged them by wronging their life systems.

The wind rolled through the trees in judgment. "I can remove these humans from creation my children. They are powerful yet they are not that powerful if I choose to act and I am very close. I fear though that the world would be a sadder place without them. As the wise owl has seen there are two humans here today. I wanted to remind you, oh my children, that you once ran wild with humans when today's world was young and truly alive. Bison, do you not remember the chase on great plains? Kangaroo, were humans not a worthy foe?

"I hope they can be redeemed. Let us hear from them."

A man stood up at that moment. He wore dark, shiny clothes and black sunglasses. To the other animals he was terribly strange. He gazed into the mass of creatures before him.

"Friends, while I have heard all that you have said I utterly reject your judgment. We have brought culture and civilization to this wild world. Are you not in awe of our mighty buildings that tower above you like mountains? Can you imagine what we will do next? We have left this world to sail amongst the stars. And we have brought many of you along with us. The cow, the chicken, the pig, the dog; where are these beings? Why are they not here? They would explain how humanity has made the world safer for them.

"You have warned that we are despoiling the world and have outlined how we have wronged many of you. I accept that we have made bad choices but we are moving in the right direction. Always forward to greatness. This is my people's destiny. You should all come along with us. It will be glorious. We are building a new world. You will all have a place in our economy. Don't think of the past, think to the future. Who will join me?"

The man started to walk away from the sacred place at the edge of the sea. He reached the edge of the trees and turned to face the sea of wild faces. Nothing but sadness was reflected there. A brother had been lost and the family was grieved. Unable to accept the sadness, he looked away and passed into the forest.

"This man does not speak for us all." The second human had not followed. She stood there meeting the gaze of all the saddened beings. In her eyes was some comfort.

"Though there are few of us anymore many humans, on discovering this place, would never leave it willingly. I hope you will not judge all my people on this poor example. This man should have been able to hear. Yet his ears are filled with metal and darkness. Too many of my people share this affliction. It is not really their fault. They have never known wildness and are afraid of truth. We are guilty of violence against creation, there is no denying it. I ask for mercy and thank you for allowing me to speak."

The Council of All Beings quickly consented to a punishment for humanity. Earth would carry it out quickly for her but dreadfully slowly for such a young species. The other beings would suffer alongside the humans, there was no avoiding it given that they were all one community.

In time, after the madness had passed, the world would begin to renew itself. Not even the mad humans could damage the system beyond repair. Or at least so they hoped.

The gathering was over. All wept to see each other leave this wondrous place. Time stopped in paradise and though few recognized it, many days had passed. Each being whether bee, snake, eagle, human, trout and gorilla then traveled home. Each would find their homes a little smaller and a little more fragile.

Yet they took heart that their judgment would come to pass. Soon the world would be right again though many of them would fall before that happy day.

2008-03-06T16:23:00.004-05:00

Gaza Nights

This evening in Jerusalem someone entered a Jewish religious school and shot dead a number of students. The Guardian declared of the seven deaths: "The attack represents a dramatic escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

Huh? Did these authors forget the 112 Palestinians that have been killed since Israel re-invaded the Gaza Strip over the past number of days? Surely the escalation was the killing of 112 human lives, including dozens of children, there. In contrast to the whole, seven deaths seems pretty inconsequential.

But really it isn't.

You see Palestinian lives are worth less than Israeli lives. For every one Israeli killed 10 Palestinians must be killed for justice to be had. We all accept this fact every day, not just Israelis and Palestinians but Canadians and Chinese. Over the past week since the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) invaded Gaza we are witnessing this miserable statistic in practice. Approximately 10 Israeli soldiers and civilians have been killed to 112 Palestinians, some soldiers, many children.

Unfortunately the calls for revenge (the religious school trains many of the fanatical settlers occupying the West Bank) mean that the death toll will continue to rise. Since seven died today, the IDF will liquidate at least 70 Palestinians; this is justice. Then the Palestinians will try and kill 10% of the total assassinated. Eventually they'll give up and take a breath but the 10-1 rule will never change.

Violence only flows down the hierarchy of the races. Never forget that.

2008-03-04T21:49:00.003-05:00

Death Wish

Have you seen the VISA commercial? You know the one. The middle aged couple looks down at the Great Wall of China and the voice over claims, "crossing number six off your life's to do list: priceless".

But there is a price to all these dreams. It's just paid by future generations and other beings. And everywhere in former farmer's fields, the concrete airports spring up like weeds.

Just now I saw another reminder of this mentality: Ten Places You Must Visit Before You Die.

What's on your list?

Secretly we all have one, even if we know traveling is wrong and would never admit it. For me it's the far south of Chile. Don't ask me why. I think I remember seeing a television show when I was younger that explained that there it's so dry that you can see the whole sky full of stars anytime and that it's probably the most brilliant place to stargaze on earth. I could go there at the drop of the hat, but I don't. I would love to really see the stars but I can do that anywhere, can't I? I guess it'll never be as brilliant as south Chile is in my mind.

Imagination is the key. We've all but killed it off by a combination of instant gratification, shiny screens and credit cards. But keeping these destinations mere dreams lets you imagine how wonderful it would be, even if it never could be as great if you actually were there.

So make your lists and let your minds soar above the clouds and amongst the stars!

2008-02-26T18:56:00.004-05:00

Bad News

All around the world (though it hasn't reached Canada yet for the most part), food prices are going up. The UN World Food Program doesn't have enough funding to keep up with the rising prices. As such malnutrition and starvation rates are expected to rise.

From an article in the Guardian: "The impact has been felt around the world. Food riots have broken out in Morocco, Yemen, Mexico, Guinea, Mauritania, Senegal and Uzbekistan. Pakistan has reintroduced rationing for the first time in two decades. Russia has frozen the price of milk, bread, eggs and cooking oil for six months. Thailand is also planning a freeze on food staples. After protests around Indonesia, Jakarta has increased public food subsidies. India has banned the export of rice except the high-quality basmati variety."

Since we are essentially eating oil due to the fact that all industrial farming needs oil, unfortunately there's nothing we can do about this inevitable rise. We have built such a population that it requires oil to maintain itself. Still there's a lot that could be done (though don't hold your breath):

Divest from ethanol and move toward public transit. If you keep driving people are going to die though you're unlikely to ever see them starve.
Don't waste food. How much food is thrown out by the grocery stores in your neighbourhood every day? It's a lot and most of it is perfectly good.
Start a Food Not Bombs and save some of this food that would otherwise be going to waste.
Grow your own food, support community gardens, buy local and organic food.

2008-02-19T23:10:00.003-05:00

Mentat Financial Planning

You see it on commercials. You hear it from the credit union. Your parents remind you about it and offer their two cents.

I’m talking about saving for your retirement of course. This is RRSP season and we should all be thinking about our futures. You may only be 25 years old but you have to get started now. Put away a little bit every month. Every penny counts. Don’t expect the government to be there for you.

What’s your dream (or better, what dream have you bought)? Is it sitting on a beach sipping margaritas at 55? Maybe you want a cottage on the Canadian shield with bottles of California wine? It can all be yours, you’re told, if you just start now.

I’d like to offer some retirement advice of my own because I’m always thinking about the future (and a lot of people are starting to hate me for it). Call it Mentat Financial Planning (I’m still waiting on the trademark).

1) Do you really think there’ll be a retirement?

Planning for a sunny future seems pretty unrealistic if you are paying attention to what’s going on in the world. Peak oil, mass extinctions, rampant cancer rates and most importantly climate change mean that in 40 years or so, when you’re due for that golden handshake, the world will be a lot different.

If you’re lucky enough to make it to 60 you’re likely to be toiling in some field growing food or chopping firewood (hopefully all the trees haven’t been felled by then). This will be in line with how all the other animals and a shrinking number of humans live on this world—‘til the bitter end.

2) Where is your money going?

Even if you can (like most people and politicians) ignore climate change and all the other human-caused crises that circle the earth like buzzards, you can’t ignore that your retirement savings (and mine, we’re all in this together) are hastening the downfall of the planet.

When we invest, we have no idea what activities our funds are supporting or what products are created. You might be supporting genetically modified foods, or nuclear power, or the military-industrial complex. You might not agree with these things so why oppose them by writing letters and marching when your capital is doing quite the opposite?

Even with ethical investment, you still prop up a system that exists to grow endlessly on a finite planet. This kind of thinking is madness and follows the logic of a cancer cell.

3) Why wait until you’re 65?

What kind of madness has gripped Canadians that we think we have to suffer now in our youth to profit later when we are racked with arthritis and suffer from high blood pressure (likely caused by our suffering in the first place)?

We can choose to live now. Just because the world tells you how to behave, doesn’t mean you have to listen. I’d much rather have adventures and freedom now than pretend I’ll enjoy traveling around with a diaper or a dialysis machine when I’m an old man (again if I last that long).

4) Cycles of Social Assistance

Even if the world doesn’t somehow collapse and all the mountains of evidence are wrong, I believe that life follows cyclical paths. We are currently living in a time of increasing income disparity between the rich and the poor. This is indisputable. This has happened before and will happen again (sadly). Most of us are barely getting by while others are just breaking in to that new ivory backscratcher.

Ultimately ordinary people are going to demand a stop to this selfish behaviour and their piece of the pie. This will mean the return of the welfare state with respect for the elderly, the poor and the disadvantaged. So by the time we get close to retirement age, the cycle will be complete and we’ll have a comfortable retirement all laid out for us.

I must stress that I have almost no faith in this final bit of advice from Mentat Financial Planning.

I’m sure dear reader, that at this point you’d like to remind me that we have to work to get food, shelter and all those shiny goods from China that make life worth living. You’d probably also want to say that if you want to raise a family you need a lot of money. I beg to differ; if you want only the basics then you’re set. Quell your desires and you can live quite frugally (a brilliant word by the way) and happily.

So what are you doing friend? Live now!

2008-02-12T09:38:00.002-05:00

His Lonely Wooden Tower

It was tall. It stretched away to the sky in defiance of gravity and wind. Concrete, steel, glass. It was always there, our home amongst the clouds. It was invincible. It was all we knew.

I spent my whole life there. My parents brought me back from the concrete hospital into the cold, protective arms of that place. When I was younger, I rode the elevator in play with the other children or we swam in the underground pool, full of cleansing chlorine. We barely felt the sun, the balconies were off-limits and the outside was dangerous. It was full of predators for the young and foolish. Only occasionally did my parents permit it and with a strict chaperon. The whole of my world existed in that lonely tower. Friends, lessons, sports, music all took place on different floors. Yet the structure was always the same, reliable, impenetrable.

Food was magical and mysterious. It came from somewhere. We never really knew where, it was always just there. I gobbled it up quickly, eager to get back to a screen or a friend. I barely recognized the taste. Maybe there wasn't one. It was just energy to keep me going, keep me growing so I could take my place in this great tower we'd build. Food wasn't important to my parents, or so it seemed. The truth was they couldn't cook not that it mattered there. You could buy anything as long as you could afford it.

Real things didn't matter anymore. In that way it was more than a child's fantasy world. Goods, materials, resources we called them, just came in and our waste went out. It didn't matter where from, just that they were there. They were always there.

I grew up there. Learned that world and had in pounded into the inside of my skull. If you could somehow turn me inside out you would see the complex lines of code I wrote, the empty essays I produced, the disappointing pictures I drew. All there, drilled into the hard yet supple skull, like a concussion.

Then one day, we were forced to leave the place we had built.

It happened so fast, or at least it seemed to happen so fast. I was in my home, watching a screen, learning masked as entertainment. It was a show about birds. Birds sometime flew into tall buildings like my home. Scientists were working on a way to install a chip in each bird so that it could be warned that a building was coming up. It was sensational work. I often dreamed of helping animals in this way, animals that were outside the tower, not locked in cages within. Imagine how many birds I could save? What a career that would be.

Then all of a sudden, instantly, an alarm sounded within the walls. It was deafening so I put my hands to my ears in pain. Over the alarm I could hear the booming mechanical voice. "Warning, fire. Please calmly proceed to the safe room in your unit. Help is on the way".

My mother was home with me. She was in another room. She whisked into action on command. She swooped down and pushed me to the special room off her bedroom. The place that we would be safe, that no fire would reach.

There were supplies there. Enough for a few days. We sat and waited for orders. We didn't speak much. She handed me a granola bar and a bottle of water. We waited.

There was a small speaker in the room. Occasionally in crackled and my mother perked up, ready for her parental orders. Yet, no words came. We slept on the hard floor. We had neglected blankets in our rush. We assumed it would be a short stay before receiving the standard communique that all was well and back to normal. A mere blip. They often happened this way. Even this place had the occasional hiccup.

Several days past. I was eager to wander outside and sore from the floor; she didn't complain. Surely the fire had burned itself out, I pleaded with her. It's dangerous, was her standard reply. We have to wait.

The food and water were depleting. We didn't talk much. A terrible realization was dawning on both of us. Though my mother most of all. She had known only this world. This protection from fear, from doubt. Now doubts were creeping in.

One morning I woke up but she didn't. I don't know what happened to her. Maybe she realized that we would have to push open the solid, steel door and she was scared what was on the other side. I wept beside her holding her hand, a hand that had moulded me as much as this dark, tall place I called home. Parents are gods but even they have masters.

I stayed with her for most of that day. She became cool to the touch. But my eyes were always fixed on the door, the unknown. I knew I was alone. My father had likely joined her; she was always stronger. I pretended that they would be together.

I stood up. Walked to the door and put my hand on it. It was as cold as my mother's fading skin. A fire might rage outside, or nothing. Either way, no one was coming to help me, authority had failed. I was the only one who could save myself. It required courage. I stood there for quite some time, fearful. But really I only had one choice. I turned the handle and pushed with all my growing strength. This was my time and my challenge.

What I saw on the other side of that door was both wondrous and terrifying. And for once, I was alive.

2008-02-04T21:49:00.000-05:00

I Am Compost

Yes, unbelievably humans are actually part of the natural world. We are not a special species and we do not have a special destiny at the end of history. Just in case you needed a reminder you might want to make one of these shirts.

In the end, my friend, you are worm food just like every other plant and animal that came before (well, before there were worms). And that's fine, it's the way the world works.

I just hope the worms can handle all the toxic chemicals in our systems.

2008-02-04T21:38:00.000-05:00

One Child Policy

There's no other country like Canada. We consume more resources per capita than any other nation on earth (yes even the US). Yet we think it's enough to go to international conferences and pledge to do things that we have no intention of doing; greenhouse gas reductions, that would harm the sacred economy stupid and we're not doing that.

Let's get Canadians to take a lead and show the rest of the world where we need to go. Let's force our dear leaders to enact a one child policy for all Canadians. Sure there's a lot of room in Canada but given that we are such gluttons we really should set an example for the rest of the world. If we enacted a global one child policy we would get the earth's human population back down to around one billion by 2100.

Don't hold your breath. A one child policy would be the easy way to sustainability but humans clearly like to do things the hard and painful way.

2008-02-04T21:22:00.000-05:00

Ethanol = Poverty

Leave it to the politicians to embrace the dream that we can grow our fuel.

This one is pretty simple really. If you grow fuel instead of food that means that somewhere, someone is going without food. Pretty soon they are starving.

Our ballooning population depends on massive, industrial agriculture. In a finite system, you can't feed all those people forever but humans never think about the future. And you especially can't feed them if you decide one day that you should fill up your gas tank with corn. Ethanol will prove to be one of the most tremendous crimes against the poor in history.

The age of the automobile is over. Period. Get over it or get blood all over your hands. Fuck ethanol!

2008-02-04T21:10:00.000-05:00

Stop at Two

Concerned about overpopulation? Not ready for human extinction just yet? Well how about the message that couples should stop breeding after two little ones. According to the Optimum Population Trust, "stopping at two children is probably the most effective action people can take to halt climate change".

If you think about it, it makes sense. We are resource pigs. Our kids must, repeat must (under this economic system) consume more than their parents. Therefore we have to halt the number of grasping little hands out there; unless you're willing to raise them differently. Though that's kind of hard when mom and dad have been brainwashed by capitalism.

2008-02-04T21:03:00.000-05:00

Vote for Human Extinction

There are far too many humans. Period. We are well beyond the earth's carrying capacity for such a capricious species. Though this is a drastic and absurdist solution to our problems, you have to ask for the world to get an inch. So have fun with it!

2008-02-04T20:43:00.000-05:00

Self-Hating Human

Have you heard what they call a Jew who is critical of Israel? A self-hating Jew, of course. Apparently if you're Jewish and a critic of Israel you must hate yourself. In case you're keeping track, other non-Jewish critics are anti-Semitic. Legitimate criticism is a crime.

What if you are critical of human beings and their rampant destruction of the planet? It's only a matter of time before people like us are called self-hating humans. Evidence doesn't matter and you'd have to be blind not to see the level of destruction caused by industrial civilization. Let's claim the word before the banks and corporations destroying the planet use it against us.

2008-02-04T20:38:00.001-05:00

Peak Oilers

Worried about the future of the refrigerated Stanley Cup Finals in June? Perhaps you're concerned that pond hockey will be a thing of the past thanks to our addiction to oil? Then this is the shirt for you.

2008-02-03T15:00:00.000-05:00

Everyone in Green

Who's left in the US presidential race? Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain. Have you figured out who's going to win? My money's on John McCain of course. And I made this prediction over a month ago and I do have a witness so there!

How's McCain going to do it? Everyone loves him in the Republican Party--except for those pesky evangelicals. One wonders why the hell they care about an election at all, isn't the rapture coming. Oh wait, it's been 2,000 years and it still hasn't happened. And the vast amount of people in the middle also love him. He's an old white man, enough said. Personally, I hope that the fact he's been tortured will help him to realize that it's a terrible and counterproductive practice; if only Bush and Cheney had similar experiences.

But most importantly, like everyone else, he's green. Which means of course that he cares about the planet. He's jumping on the bandwagon that the Governator started in California (just forget that he drives a hummer). McCain has read about climate change and he's serious about doing something.

Alas his plan likely follows the Bush model of more ethanol and weird contraptions like space mirrors. White elephants anyone? None of the candidates, including McCain, are going to even consider that the endless economic growth prescribed by capitalism might actually be the real cause of all the ecological misery afflicting the world today. We have to choose between capitalism and a habitable planet but it's a choice leaders can never make.

It's important that we continue to remind everyone about this fact and continue to reject the "shop to fight terrorism/climate change/recession" impulse of our dear leaders.

2008-01-24T17:21:00.000-05:00

Buy, Bye

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty took a page out of George W. Bush's book yesterday. Did he endorse a troop surge in Iraq? How about tax cuts for the top ten percent? What about secretly spying on Ontarians? Endless detention for Muslims?

No. It was shopping.

In response to the economic downturn gripping the world McGuinty was heard to exclaim: "If you want to be helpful to the economy, then go ahead buy that fridge, buy that new house, buy that car. That's good for our economy and good for our jobs."

But maybe not so good for the planet. Hate to break it to you Dalton but you can't shop your way out of the dreadful destination we're all heading. There's only one way out of this and that's to dramatically power down things and get our population under control.

--

The US has similar plans. Let's send out some money to keep the death machine afloat. Put off the collapse a little longer, I want to get rich . . . and have kids.

2008-01-24T16:19:00.001-05:00

Rows or Columns

I appreciate that this gentleman didn't do what most people do and claim that technology will save us from the menace of human-induced climate change. Remember, it won't and it's likely to get us into more trouble. But still this is a worthwhile video.

2008-01-23T10:44:00.000-05:00

Got it Wrong

Today the two senior UN climate change officials warned the World Economic Forum that the pending recession may harm humanity's efforts to slow climate change. They claimed that politicians will focus on the immediate (job creation, tax cuts etc) and ignore the more long term (climate change). Obviously compared to the threat of climate change, jobs seem pretty measly considerations.

Unfortunately these two esteemed gentlemen got it wrong. A recession, and a protracted one at that, is exactly what we need.

Every time the economy grows, our carbon emissions go up. What else is the economy but the consumption of energy and other resources? It's an (un)natural law. Right now most of civilized human beings' energy consumption is from fossil fuels like gas, oil and coal. Economic growth is tied to emissions.

The idea that economic growth can somehow fight climate change is a joke. I presume that these UN officials are also bowing to that hallowed god of technology. They'll have you believe that when humans are consuming a lot and buying a lot and have lots of imaginary money flying around that they are in a position to come up with innovative solutions to problems like climate change.

Is anyone else tired of hearing how technology is going to save us?

Recession is a dirty word. We are told to fear it from the day we turn on our first bright television to the day we die. Never once do we question this view. But in truth, growth is our problem. Engineered or natural recessions are the proper reaction given the situation we now face (climate change, peak oil, resource depletion, displacement and extinction of other species, overpopulation). Once we get to an ideal point (population, lifestyle etc) we should then aim for neither growth nor recession but balance.

Endless growth, our god, is the definition of cancer.

I can live without an Ipod, without a computer, without a car, without DVDs. I can't live without my landbase, my family and friends, shelter and healthy, nutritious food. Let's figure out what we really need and ditch the false dreams of the death economy.

2008-01-14T23:25:00.001-05:00

The Energy of the Future?

On his recent trip to the Middle East, French President Sarkozy exclaimed: "In 40 years from now there will be no oil left and in 100 years no more gas, nuclear power will replace those energy sources . . . It is the energy of the future."

Nuclear is certainly the fuel of the future. For one thing, the waste produced in reactors is going to be around for tens of thousands of years. That's a hell of a lot of future. Do you think that humans are really going to keep an eye on this most hideous of wastes during those long years? Or, as we usually do, are we going to forget about it and then have it come back to bite us in the ass? Only an idiot wouldn't bet on the latter.

While it's nice to hear a president speaking so candidly about the end of oil, the dream of nuclear is a nightmare for more than the waste reason outlined above. First of all, we must be pretty thick to pin all our hopes on a fuel that, much like oil, will peak and decline as well. There is only so much uranium on the earth. Once it's gone it's gone.

So essentially we are just buying a few years before we are forced to live like every other being on this earth: simply. The only true infinite (and even then . . .) source of energy is the sun which grows crops (and therefore animals like us) which provide everything humans need (food, fuel, paper, meat, clothing--sorry no computers or plastic).

If only we could learn this and change course now instead of going through the pain of climate change and then the threat of nuclear waste to end up where we should have been going in the first place. But humans are pretty stupid and shortsighted so what do you expect?

2008-01-09T12:42:00.000-05:00

Stubborn Stains

There's a hidden message in the media's hailing of Barack Obama as the "First Black President of the United States" (FBPOTUS). Most people wouldn't catch it so I don't blame you if you haven't spotted it yet. If he is elected, he will most certainly not be the "First Black President of the United States".

If he's elected, he should be known as the first mixed race (though isn't that a terrible and problematic set of words) President of the United States (FMRPOTUS). Obama's mother is a white American and his father is from Kenya. He's not black, in fact he looks quite brown to me. Blackness means that as far back as you can tell, you're family was descended from Africans (slaves, mind you, not Kenyans--there was no such thing as Kenya until relatively recently). The same thing for whiteness (though what does that mean? There are white people from western Europe to the Caucasus and now beyond).

Though I admit few personal details on these pages, I'm the child of a mixed race (ugh again!) couple. My dad is Indian (no, not First Nations) and my mother is white. But much like Obama's blackness, I'll never be more than an Indian. Very few people would ever consider the complexity of my background in defining me. The only thing they see is the stain of my birth: colour.

Here's an example of the usual, everyday conversations I have to endure:

(Suspicious) "You're not Canadian. Where are you really from?"
(Suppressing rage) "Well my mum is from England and my father is from India and--"
(Interrupts smiling) "Oh you're Indian. I love curries."

Whiteness is sacred. It doesn't matter if your parents came from Russia and the Orkney Islands or Finland and Croatia. You're not a complex person, you're white, you're special, you're at the top of the pile.

But the second a white person has a child with a person of colour, the child is forever stained, quite literally, with that terrible act. Even if you never spend a second with your coloured parent and have only white kids as friends and listen to country music, you're coloured. You're not a kid with brown skin who plays hockey with his white friends, eats burgers and fries and listens to country music.

So I encourage you, dear reader, to avoid falling into the trap of referring to people of mixed backgrounds by their stain alone. In fact perhaps you should disengage from believing in the rarely discussed concept of stain altogether; though that's hard since we all believe it utterly and completely like the fact that the sun will rise in the morning.

Despite all this people of mixed backgrounds are just as complex as any other human being or any other living being on this planet.

2008-01-08T18:33:00.000-05:00

The Politics of Failure

I love all this US election crap/coverage that's just everywhere. Just 11 more months of hell everyone! Then we get a kinder, gentler Bush who will abandon Iraq and bomb Iran, waffle on Palestine and just maybe sign up to the Bali Declaration despite the lack of any meaningful targets. Phew, then we can all relax and get back to the mall.

The "development" of the tar sands and all those greenhouse gases already mean that Canada is automatically out of any future agreement.

Anyway in the spirit of the election season I encourage you to rent The Simpsons Little Treehouse of Horror VII and watch Citizen Kang. Watch out for great lines like:

"My fellow Americans. As a young boy, I dreamed of being a baseball, but tonight I say, we must move forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom."

--

"Abortions for all." [crowd boos]
"Very well, no abortions for anyone." [crowd boos]
"Hmm... Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others." [crowd cheers and waves miniature flags]

--

"The politics of failure have failed. We need to make them work again. Tomorrow, when you are sealed in the voting cubicle, vote for me, Senator Ka... Bob Dole."

Or insert Senators Obama, Clinton or McCain; Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee or (shudder due to his dweebishness) Rudy Guiliani.

Perhaps we'd be better off with aliens or apes as our masters. Either way, I'm learning that putting your power in other people's hands is a bad idea. Electing one person isn't going to save the world (despite all our hopes) given the nature of the system that exists based on endless growth on a finite planet. We need to take steps on our own.

2008-01-04T00:09:00.000-05:00

Visionary Species?

My desk is littered with thoughts on tiny scraps of paper. Some of them make it to this space and some end up on the floor or in the recycling and are forgotten. It's quite sad really because in the moment that one records them thoughts seem to be genius, major breakthroughs. But when you get around to doing something about them it's almost too late.

And maybe that's okay.

A recent thought dealt with the constant theme of this blog of late: the place of humans in the natural world. Undoubtedly humans are currently on an unsustainable and destructive collision course with the natural world. We have forgotten ourselves in the flashes of neon and plastic that assail us like IEDs. It's like over stimulation has caused a sort of madness to take hold, one making us blind to the facts.

We are too many therefore we are squeezing out other species,
We wholly believe in the doctrine of instant gratification, living in the moment,
We consume too much, far too much of the earth's resources pretending these are needs,
We are violent to other beings, not out of necessity but out of greed,
We are dooming other species and our descendants to miserable lives, if any at all, on a planet that would sustain all life indefinitely.

My thought was about the place we currently occupy. We are caught in the dark void between animal and something else which I'll refer to as visionary species. Animals live in balance with other species as parts of vibrant and ever changing ecosystems. Sometimes they vanish being unsuited but the system continues through cycles. One member of this system doesn't need to give it much thought, just provide for the basics and ensure you pass on your genes to the next generation.

A visionary species on the other hand would be able to think long term and be willing to make tough choices to ensure the survival and thriving of the species. A visionary species, I surmise, would never risk extinction, being possessed of foresight. The visionary species would recognize that it is part of the world's many ecosystems but that its special place requires treading softly and mindfully at all times. In order to achieve maximum happiness and material security, populations of these species would be small but vibrant enough to ensure a stable and healthy gene pool. A visionary species would make lasting goods as much as possible and never, ever take too much ensuring that future generations could live as comfortably and happily as the one that came before.

While I recognize that dichotomies are usually false, I beg, for the purposes of this argument, that you bear with me. By failing to either embrace our animal natures (which might be impossible given our devious/genius brains) or our potential to be a visionary species we are threatening all life on earth. We are an out of control animal that overcomes natural controls to our ultimate detriment. The longer you put off the fire, the hotter it will burn. In our madness we think the party will go on for ever.

To start down the path of being a visionary species (and we need to move fast) humans need to challenge everything they believe. I mean everything from retirement to travel to food to ownership. Currently all our collective cures to our own excesses remain within the frame of our destructiveness; so we consume more to cure our consumption for instance. The strongest barrier to challenging these "truths" is our lives which have become so burdened and mindless that we can't sit quietly and truly find the path to visionary species and we certainly can't do so together.

So we are always alone writing little notes to ourselves.

There you have it. Do humans have the potential to become a truly visionary species? Is this just more human arrogance and denial of our true nature? Or, as I often believe, are we simply not worth it? If only we could go without taking the system down with us, that would be truly visionary.

2007-12-30T18:56:00.001-05:00

Forget Pakistan

There's something amazing happening in North America. The Lakota Sioux have formally withdrawn from all their treaties with the United States. They have made this bold decision in line with international law and due to over a century of broken promises and violence from the Americans.

A delegation from the nation formally served notice to the State Department (don't forget that First Nations peoples aren't Canadians or Americans, they are their own nation) and several other South American states. The Bolivian government sent a representative to their press conference.

As usual, the media is not covering this news apart from sarcastic editorials in dismal mid-western newspapers blaming the Lakota for the many problems on their reservations and stating that this move is counterproductive (don't you know that you should work within the system, even if the system is designed to kill or assimilate you). No one apparently is interested in pondering who benefits from keeping First Nations peoples addicted to civilization. How much coal is under their land; how much ethanol can you grow on their land?

To learn more about this developing story visit: http://www.republicoflakota.com/index.htm

Don't expect to hear about this on the six o'clock news. You have to learn about this one on your own.

2007-12-29T11:43:00.000-05:00

Bhutto-matically

This is one of those assassinations where we're constantly told that we're supposed to feel bad. Now why should we feel bad for Benazir Bhutto?

Seems to me the primary reason is that she's dead and she died violently which isn't much fun. But then poor people have been dying violently in Pakistan and across the border in Afghanistan since the British first arrived and the Americans followed (and earlier when Aryans from Central Asia arrived and then Muslims). Perhaps it's only just that a member of the elite, usually insulated from violence, has died on her own sword.

The truth is that elites have a monopoly on violence and that that violence flows only one way, down. So perhaps I'll withhold my tears for now.

The other argument I've heard for why we need to mourn her is that she's a woman. Yes it's true (and perhaps unbelievable) that there could be a woman head of state in Pakistan. I bet the Saudis would sweat if she ever visited on official business. For that reason it's a tragedy. Women should of course be able to participate in public life without threat. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that Bhutto was interested in supporting other women or building systems to have them elected etc. She was an exception and unless some other man's daughter aspires to greatness I don't think we'll ever see another woman head of state in Pakistan.

So perhaps some tears here but then again how much do we really need leaders to take our power away?

But I think it's important to remember that she's a super elite. Did you ever hear her speak? I guarantee that she (like all South Asian super elites) was educated in Britain. She has more in common with the Oxbridge elite than almost anyone in Pakistan. Another example of an out of touch leader (the Bush family are stinking rich, Paul Martin runs Canada Steamship Lines, South Korea's new leader used to run Hyundai, for instance). Bhutto never went without her whole life while millions in Pakistan barely survive because of the system that elites like her have created. Also it's important to remember that she's been booted out of power twice for being corrupt (a common ailment in Pakistan--ask Nawaz Sharif).

So I feel that Madame Bhutto is not necessarily someone to mourn. Just another elite leader blown to bits. When you live (and profit) by the sword, you die by the sword. Yet I somehow doubt that this latest "martyr" will convince her fellow elites to change direction.

2007-12-29T11:42:00.002-05:00

2007-12-10T11:51:00.000-05:00

Declaration of War

Today the states and individuals of the Climate Alliance formally declare war on the United States of America and Canada. Though we did not choose it, a state of war now exists between our two opposing visions of the future. We reject death and pain and choose the path of coexistence and respect with our one, indivisible and perfect home. For that we will pay any price.

Whereas the Government of the United States of America, the Corporations of the United States of America and the Government of Canada and the Corporations of Canada have unilaterally declared war on the planet, non-human beings and future generations.

Whereas the above mentioned belligerents have actively rejected any essential multilateral solutions to the urgent problem of climate change and have actively worked to derail the workings of the International Panel on Climate Change.

Whereas the above mentioned belligerents contribute over and above any other state's production of greenhouse gases while housing a mere fraction of the globe's human population.

Whereas the climate criminals continue to make intricate and violent plans to increase their production of deadly greenhouse gases.

Whereas these aggressive bodies are pressing for a hypocritical double standard on states that only seek to match these rich states' material development.

Be it resolved that the Climate Alliance will not end the persecution of this war until the United States of America and Canada are broken and dissolved and their evil leaders are tried and punished for Crimes Against Nature. Your smoke stacks will fall, your vehicles will stop, your clearcuts will be reborn, you will choke on your own cancerous poisons. This is justice. You have chosen the path of pain and suffering by your indifference and we condemn you.

We call on partisans in these two states and two corporations to take up arms in the service of the planet. Our war is for you and your children and for the future of life on earth. Don't fail them now. The wheel is poised to spin.

Approved December 10, 2007 - 8:48pm EST.

2007-12-09T22:35:00.001-05:00

Choices

The expansion of the tar sands oil extraction in northern Alberta is one of the most under discussed issues in Canada today. It has been called the "biggest environmental crime in history". Canada is never going to reach our Kyoto obligations if the tar sands project goes ahead. Our greenhouse gas production is going to go through the roof with the energy intensive tar sands processes.

Not only that but the "project" is destroying the landscape making it look more like the moon than a vibrant healthy mix of ecosystems; that means that animals and plants won't be able to live there, try as they might. Yes, believe it or not, humans aren't the only beings on this planet and we don't have the right to displace others.

It's also poisoning the people that live there with certain First Nations communities suffering dramatic health problems by living downstream; these include cancers that rarely occur in the general population. Incidentally to those of you who might think that the government will step in when health is at risk learn about the story of Dr. John O'Connor who was sanctioned by Health Canada and Alberta Health for speaking out against the health impacts of the tar sands "development". The government isn't going to do anything to protect these communities no matter the evidence.

The tar sands also consume tons of fresh water which is contaminated during the process and has to be left in special ponds for potentially thousands of years (if they don't breach their banks and flow to the sea first). It takes five barrels of oil to produce one barrel of oil and then those barrels of oil are contaminated.

To read more about this important issue, I suggest you pick up a copy of the Dominion Paper or check it out online here.

I read these facts and I can't accept that this project has to happen. There's no reason for it and, even if there was, it's wrong. With all the evidence against it, it has to be stopped. It's like driving; all the evidence against driving means we have to ban cars forever. But as in either case, no one else sees it this way, so I guess I'm crazy.

Does this mean I have to go out and talk to people and hold their hands and try and get them to see that I'm right and that fucking Bambi has a right to live on this land? Remind them that the First Nations people in northern Alberta don't want cancer and death? Fuck that. People don't give a shit and I have to rub their faces in it so they care. Your economic development is killing everything.

So I'm faced with a choice. I can try and continue to live with a decreasing ecological footprint while the rest of the world continues to go the other direction and set an example for people as to how humans could live, with a lot less, but a future. Or I can head to Alberta and disrupt this terrible industrial death machine. One things for certain, I'm not going to continue sleepwalking and winning nothing, as I have been for the past two years. Something is going to happen.

For one special reader, I'm thinking about it. For the rest of you what are you going to do? It might be northern Alberta, or China, or Bangladesh, the Sydney tar ponds, Bhopal but eventually the death machine will make its way to you. Are you just going to stick your heads under the sand? It's so easy to do so but that doesn't mean it's right. Good luck to us all and our non-human companions on this earth.

2007-12-09T20:50:00.000-05:00

Road Rage

Just watched a film called The Road to Guantanamo. Apparently you can watch the whole thing online here (not sure how long this link will last).

It's the story of four young men who travel to Pakistan to celebrate their friend's wedding in 2001 just after 9/11. Getting caught up in the emotion of the moment, they travel to Afghanistan to do what they can to help refugees and the people of Afghanistan. They don't really explain their motivations well but being young and idealistic that's probably reason enough; didn't you do stupid things as a 20 year old? They spend weeks just waiting with nothing to do then try to get back to Pakistan. They end up at a battle and are captured with other foreigners and Taliban. Then the film outlines their treatment first in Afghanistan and then on to Guantanamo Bay and Camp X-Ray.

It's pretty traumatic viewing. I am so angry at the Americans and their treatment of these three young men (one disappeared in Afghanistan and was probably mass graved). I wept with rage at their treatment and at my own growing hatred. There wasn't a moment of goodness say with a guard smiling at a prisoner, nothing. The Americans tried to control every aspect of their lives; in Guantanamo, they couldn't even stand up and got five minutes of exercise a week. They were tortured and mistreated, beaten all for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Can you imagine someone pointing a gun at you or holding a ferocious dog just far enough from you? Can you imagine them screaming at you all the time, telling you what to do and when to do it? Can you imagine solitary confinement? Can you imagine being punched for telling the truth when asked a question?

One question that kept popping into my head was: If the Americans hate these people so much and don't much care for the truth, why not just kill them? It would be a whole lot better than years of trauma and torture.

Check out the film and maybe you'll gain respect for these young men and what they had to endure. They got out but hundreds more are still there. Still being beaten, still being mistreated and lied to, still waiting for justice that never comes.

2007-11-29T09:46:00.000-05:00

Lost Myself

Derrick Jensen reminds us that we are all insane. He says we hate life, hate ourselves, hate women, hate other species. Otherwise how could we be in the process of destroying the world and annihilating other species, just as important as ourselves?

I just had another thought. What if we don't hate all those beings and systems (a lot anyway) but we just want to destroy these human made structures that make life meaningless. My life often feels meaningless. I have to get up in the morning from my warm, soft bed. Food is provided for my breakfast. I get on a bus that carries me to a place where I sit in front of a computer all day in relatively warmth and comfort and have the occasional meaningless conversation. Then I come home via the same bus. More food appears (for most it's all ready to heat in a few minutes) and I watch some television, see a movie, have a few drinks (alone is often better sadly). Then it's off to bed and repeat.

Am I waiting to die? Am I waiting for anything? Am I even alive?

At what point does a comfortable life make an animal (and humans are most certainly animals), for tens of thousands of years used to foraging, hunting, starving, freezing, being scared of predators, go mad from all the comfort and security? It's surely in our cells. Watchfulness, catching scents on the wind, running for our lives, rejoicing in another day. You can't destroy these truths with all the ipods, pepsi, cars in the world.

But have we become like cattle. Slaves inside fences protected from everything even bacteria. No purpose, no fear. The eyes lose their sharpness, their focus. When humans are gone, so go these slaves.

So we act, unconsciously, to destroy this human-constructed prison. Some pick up guns, some spray paint cans, others march, others merely maintain the trajectory of doom, taking more than they should each and every day. The end will be the same: a return to the realities of life for our children and our grandchildren and beyond. Struggle, suffering, joy in the smallest things, wonder at the stars. Despite us the perfect, clean, pristine pre-slave world will return in time, a lot of time.

However the longer we civilized persist, the farther the fall will be. So pick up a gun, spray paint, march or speed up your overconsumption. We all have the same liberating goal. Let's get there.

(These thoughts came to me shortly after waking up this morning. Maybe now it's only in dreams that our minds reach their full capacity).

2007-11-27T16:36:00.001-05:00

2007-11-26T22:05:00.000-05:00

Why Do I Care?

You know that today was my day off and I wasn't feeling well yet I still attended a four hour long council meeting hoping against hope that the "wise" councillors in attendance would vote against a proposed fare increase. In the end of course they did pass the fare increase because staff and proponents bundled it all together with some meagre service enhancements, a ridiculous plan to provide a handful of low-income Hamiltonians with discount passes and also kept the meeting under wraps until the last minute.

I know that peak oil is coming if it already isn't here. I know that our city's air is poison and that many of us are obese. I also know that climate change most definitely is here and we are just making the problem worse by sitting on our hands and debating what we should do. In terms of transportation, it's simple. No driving, no airplanes; more transit, more walking, more cycling. It's easy.

But the councillors don't get it. They can't see the big picture. This system doesn't work. It should be overthrown, broken into so many pieces that it can't be rebuilt and a good number of people must be lined up against a wall.

Realizing this, I'm thinking that I need to just prepare for the crash and build my own resiliency. And I suppose that I should do my best to throw a monkey wrench into the whole damned thing and speed its collapse. No more wage slaving for me . . . well maybe a couple more months.

2007-11-24T09:42:00.000-05:00

Farewell

Another of Bush's gang has fallen. Let's ponder what's next for Mr Howard, the former Prime Minister of Australia:

Perhaps a well paying seat on the board of directors of Halliburton, the Carlyle Group, Exxon-Mobil or News Corporation
Consulting is always an option; I expect Howard could charge well over $500 an hour to inform elites how to be more elite
Like Bill Clinton, Howard could attend high level gatherings and act as a keynote speaker; amazingly, like Clinton, he could have a change of heart and lament the lack of action from "developed" countries on poverty, disease and, yes, even climate change
Perhaps like Mr Blair, Howard will take on the peacemaker's role, perhaps in Indonesia where Australians are well respected

In the end, this defeat is meaningless. Howard achieved record profits for corporations, dried out his country by ignoring climate change and further militarized Australia. (New) Labour would have done the same and I expect they will; perhaps with a few more smiles and some bones for the poor to gnaw on. Signing up to the Kyoto Protocol, seemingly the only difference between the parties, is at this point fairly weak gesture worthy of the Liberal Party of Canada.

Good luck to you John Howard and also to the land down under (perhaps to have a more telling meaning with global warming causing rising sea levels).

2007-11-19T21:16:00.000-05:00

Straight Talk

Thank you George Monbiot. Finally some honesty about the Middle East though don't expect anyone to notice. Israel has nuclear weapons but that's somehow okay while Iran holding these deadliest of weapons is an impossible option. Nuclear-free Middle East now!

2007-11-19T20:01:00.000-05:00

Upside?

I just finished a really good book about the coming collapse. I recommend that you check it out. And for those of you who question my reading lists of late you'll be happy to hear that the author is the Director of the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto. The book is The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilization by Thomas Homer-Dixon.

Homer-Dixon touches on the numerous ways that our modern industrial civilization is under threat. There's climate change of course, the coming energy scarcity, asymmetric warfare, overpopulation, and the growing gap between the rich and poor in states and between states. All these "tectonic stresses" threaten the highly complex yet fragile global civilization that we have created. There is little resiliency in the structures we have created and maintained.

Collapse is natural. It happens all the time in systems. It leads to innovation and change. For instance a forest fire (which humans stupidly prevent thereby making conditions ripe for a monster fire which nothing can stop) allows for new seeds and species to take over newly cleared niches thereby restarting and slowly increasing the complexity of the forest ecosystem which will then experience another creative collapse; do we need more convincing that linearity is unnatural? We've been putting off collapse for so long and pretending that we can continue to take and take forever (insanity?) that we're due for a monumental rebalancing. The longer we wait the more painful it will be; the forest fire will burn so hot it will kill all the seeds.

He is also very critical of the hollowness of modern industrial civilization with its focus on consumption: "Our economic role in this culture of consumerism is to be little more than walking appetites that serve the function of maintaining our economy's throughput. Our psychological state is comparable to that of drug addicts needing a fix: buying things doesn't really make us happy, except perhaps for a moment after the purchase. But we do it over and over anyway"(197).

Homer-Dixon ultimately believes that collapse is unavoidable. Sooner or later it's coming down. What we need, he suggests, is to be ready to rebuild lest the forces of intolerance and violence take over. While he offers a lot of potential scenarios he explains that we must be guided by new values (that are already becoming visible): "Our values must be compatible with the exigencies of the natural world we live in and depend on. They must implicitly recognize the laws of thermodynamics, energy's role in our survival, the dangers of certain kinds of connectivity, and the nonlinear behaviour of natural systems like the climate. The endless material growth of our economies is fundamentally inconsistent with these physical facts of life. Period. End of story. And a value system that makes endless growth the primary source of our social stability and spiritual well-being will destroy us"(305).

What I liked most about this book was that it wasn't offering crazy solutions to our problems and pretending to be positive about the ingenuity of humans to subdue nature. It recognized that civilization is on a deadly and unsustainable path in its current form (can it ever be sustainable?) and has to collapse for the good of all life, including humans. It was also very accessible to those of us not familiar with panarchy for instance. It was also just plain interesting with examples from Homer-Dixon's Gore-like world traveling (are you part of the problem?).

There are so many books outlining that humanity is headed for disaster (Power Down, Collapse, Endgame, The Long Emergency, The World Without Us) but dear reader, if you want to start to learn the truth, start with The Upside of Down and then move on to Derrick Jensen.

And please if anyone tells you that humans will cope with the breakdown of the natural world at their hands tell them to go fuck themselves. We're fucked but that's a good thing.

2007-11-19T19:56:00.001-05:00

Check out what I just made. If you want a t-shirt I'm going to start on them soon.

2007-11-18T17:20:00.000-05:00

A Thousand Words

These pictures speak so much to the strange times in which we live. How quickly will nature replace us when we are gone? What arrogance makes us think to rebuild when the clock is ticking? Why can't we see that we're the problem?