Clean Energy is an Oxymoron, the Only Green Solution to Over-Consumption is Conservation

Continuing on with the deceivers and believers thesis. A new poll released Thursday finds that more than three quarters of British Columbia residents want the province to shift away from producing, using and exporting fossil fuels and to embrace cleaner sources of energy. The online survey, conducted by Strategic Communications Inc., found that 78 per cent of British Columbians agree that B.C. should transition away from using fossil fuels to cleaner sources of energy to prevent climate change from worsening.

What are the undefined clean energy alternatives that Pembina's survey refers to? Solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, nuclear, hydro-electric power? As soon as a person researches the science underlying every 'green' solution they run into the same reality - there are no 'green' solutions to the environmental degradation being caused by human over-consumption.

The self-interested entrepreneurs and the bankers who finance the latest gizmo want profits. They understand the numbers, the science, the embedded energy involved. They are the deceivers. But they also understand the materialistic mentality of the believers who want to believe in a free lunch. The capitalists know that the government pigs will go along with anything and provide huge subsidies, to keep themselves in power and near the trough.

For sure, the promoters and advertisers can easily fool huge numbers of people who are looking for any reassuring pile of crap that will allow them to continue shopping. Most people want stuff, they feel entitled to it, They won't accept or even listen to a scenario whereby they must either voluntarily choose to immediately stop consuming anything beyond what's necessary for survival or the biosphere will collapse. The consumers will cherish and embrace any lie that tells them "Don't worry, keep shopping." The promoters and advertisers can use fear and desire to fool those yearning to believe, hell they may be believers themselves, but they can't fool physics, they can't hide all the energy embedded in their new gizmo. They can make money with slick slogans, but they can't fool the second law of thermodynamics. The only real solution to over-consumption is consuming less.

Ozzie Zehner's book 'Green Illusions: The Dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism', is an excellent source on the really inconvenient truth behind the 'clean energy' that folks want so desperately to believe will save their consumptive souls. It covers each of the illusions, but, for today, The Mud Report will look at the #1 fairy tale - solar energy. As Ozzie explains in this interview, each of these clean energy solutions is simply fossil fuel usage wrapped up differently. That they all offer no challenge to the powers that be is why they are allowed access to the mass media's microphone

Real conservation is a heresy that threatens the core beliefs of capitalism like endless growth. The capitalist doctrine, like all belief systems, fears heresy above all.

Andrew Nikiforuk's article 'Solar Dreams, Spanish Realities', focuses on Pedro Prieto, a 62-year-old engineer who has worked in Spain's photovoltaic industry since the 1970s as part of Spain's famous solar revolution. In it Prieto says, "Solar power in its current big industrial mindset is just another extension of fossil fuels." He goes on to explain that, "The sun is renewable but photovoltaics are not. Just to make the silicon used to trap the sun's rays on manufactured wafers requires the melting of silica rock at 3,000 Fahrenheit (1,649 Celsius). And the electricity of coal-fired plants or ultrapurified hydrogen obtained from fossil sources provide the heat to do that.

The making of solar photovoltaic cells requires rare elements such as gallium, tellurium, indium and selenium. Called "hitchhiker" metals, most are the byproduct of industrial copper, zinc or lead production. New thin-film solar sheets, for example, depend on indium. Moreover indium reserves are largely located in China and the U.S. Geological Survey predicts global supplies could be depleted within 10 years. It also takes a fantastic amount of oil to make concrete, glass and steel for solar modules." In the end Prieto offers this advice, "We need to deurbanize and localize as much as it is possible, and to return to the countryside, as much as it is possible, and to use more animal draft force."

Spain’s attempt to replace fossil fuels with Solar Photovoltaics was disastrous. It was built with huge government subsidies, money that was borrowed in the $billions from the IMF and other international bankers. Technologically the numbers used by the promoters were derived from controlled laboratory experiments that had little to do with the realities on the ground.

Prieto's project was the 2nd largest installation of PV on earth. It produced about 10% of the world’s PV power: 4,237 MW—equal to four large 1000 MW coal or nuclear power plants when it was running optimally which was almost never due to everything from dust [deserts are dusty, labs aren't], to rats chewing on wires. In 2009 Spain's plants generated 2.26% of Spain’s electricity, the largest percent of any nation in the world. To replace the energy of all of Spain's nuclear and fossil fuel plants [not transportation consumption] solar panels would have to cover 2,300 square miles and you’d also need the equivalent of 300 billion car batteries to store power for night-time consumers.

As Spain sunk further into the financial abyss following the Wall St. debacle of 2008 they were forced to cut subsidies 15 different times. When the solar electric industry had to stand anywhere near on it's own feet it went bankrupt. Tomorrow we'll look a bit at the other green illusions and see that in each case they are actually investment vehicles who only exist because deluded believers want them to be real and governments will subsidize them in order to keep themselves at the trough of corporate corruption.

There are No Deniers, only Self-Serving DECEIVERS and Fearful, Authority Accepting BELIEVERS

Deceivers and Believers, all sides of every issue has both of 'em. They often look alike at first glance but upon further inspection it becomes apparent the two groups have different motives. Currently the best example is the use of the name 'denier' by proponents of human caused global warming to describe its opponents. 'Denier' is divisive, derisive and offensive. It's used both as a team slogan by the proponents and as an elitist bullying tactic. The term 'Denier' is dismissive, belittling and a terrible foundation to build mutual respect upon. And it's incorrect because it lumps and two separate demographics together - deceivers and believers.

Words matter, when we use words incorrectly we paint a skewed picture. i'm talking about the word denial. Denial, according to Yahoo is: "refusal to acknowledge existence of something: a refusal to believe in something or admit that something exists". Here the crucial word is admit. A person can only admit what they believe to be true. The opponents of Global Warming Theory aren't 'denying' anything, they embrace their reality just as avidly as the proponents embrace theirs.

As DeSmog.ca says in their mission statement, "There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness."

As i see it, there are deceivers - those who know the truth and actively misinform others to advance their own financial or political positions. Then there are believers - those who, for whatever reason, including everything from self-interest to divinely granted dominion, honestly believe the deceiver's message.

This isn't trivial, the fact is all people reject those truths that inconveniently don't mesh well with their worldview. It's often referred to as the theory of cognitive dissonance. As Goethe once put it, “the world is not logical; it is psycho-logical.”  The post 'Believing is Seeing' explains how our view of events is always experienced through the veil of our individual beliefs. That veil is of our own making, we start construction of it from our first breath. Throughout life there are just too many inputs to deal with as they arrive from our senses seeking our attention, we use our veils defensively.

Medicine has the placebo effect and the white coat effect. Both are aspects of the 'psycho-logical' nature of our judgement of what's 'true'. These two, like all the others, are based on accepted authority. When a person is told by a doctor that the pills work they often do regardless of their real effects. When a person in a white coat takes your blood pressure it always jumps. In the old days when a fast talking well dressed salesman rode into town he was usually granted authority by the townspeople because of his bearing and worldliness. When he told them his 'snake oil' worked it often did.

When a person goes to church, synagogue, mosque or whatever they are confronted with garb and jargon, with culturally accepted authority and, like in medicine, a basic fear factor. Nothing works better than fear of the unknown to hobble an inquisitive mind before the throne of authority. Politics, economics, religion, medicine, global warming, whatever it is, when there are unknowns to be feared there are snake oil salesman ready to use their authoritative voice to advance their own self-interests - Deceivers

When will the Believers finally wake up? As Eric Hoffer explained in his book 'The True Believer', the horrible and terribly dangerous answer is never. For instance, using the global warming rift again, we see one group who believes that the scientists are peddling doom to serve their own interests and another who sees the fossil fuel industry purposefully mis-informing the debate in service of their interests. True Believers from either camp find justification for their worldview and support from those they consider authorities everywhere. The article 'The Climate Change Debate, One Side Denies the Science, the Other Denies the Cost of Change' tries to use this insight to build a bridge between the human caused global warming encampments

As Naomi Klein in her article 'Capitalism vs. the Climate', says, "The [climate science] deniers did not decide that climate change is a left-wing conspiracy by uncovering some covert socialist plot. They arrived at this analysis by taking a hard look at what it would take to lower global emissions as drastically and as rapidly as climate science demands." and, "...if we are not on a radically different energy path by the end of this decade, we are in for a world of pain. But when it comes to the real-world consequences of those scientific findings, specifically the kind of deep changes required not just to our energy consumption but to the underlying logic of our economic system the crowd gathered at the Marriott Hotel [for the Heartland Institute Convention] may be in considerably less denial than a lot of professional environmentalists."

More tomorrow on how the veil of our beliefs, as comforting as they may be, actually blind us and how easily manipulated we are by the deceivers who use our fears and existing worldview combined with the authority we voluntarily grant them to do it.

Ever Wonder Why People Who Live with Huge Debts Don't Rise Up or Even Protest?

The new American and Canadian way of life is lifelong indebtedness. Almost all N. Americans have very little savings and are deeply in debt. They are free to work at whatever job they can find at whatever wage it pays to pay taxes or pay off car loans, mortgages, credit cards, charge accounts etc. but is that really freedom? Do you think all these millions of folks decided back in high school that their dream was to become first voluntary debt addicts, then transmogrify into debt slaves and finally debt zombies?

How did it happen? How did the dreams of so many turn into a nightmare of clogged freeway commutes while dressed high heels and ties and praying that the next equity loan on the house gets approved before the repo men, collection agents and bankruptcy lawyers appear. The young dreamers first wrong turn on the highway to happiness came when they took out their first student loan. Debt never sleeps, it's the ultimate four letter word.

Over-consumption and consumer debt are addictions. Debt addicts follow the same behavioral sequence as all addicts. Neither the junkie nor the bankrupted consumer became an addict the first time he/she tried drugs or takes the first loan. But they both got what they thought was a Free Lunch and, just like the fish, they took the worm but refused to look at what it was tied to. Out of the freedom of the river and into the frying pan but unlike the fish who still fights for his freedom consumers are so brainwashed, so myopically materialist, so fearful of the flame they won't attempt to jump from the frying pan in the hope of recapturing their freedom.

Debt is insidious. Debt steals our freedom as well as our tranquility. The more stuff a person collects the more enslaved they are by that stuff. The more a person has, whether it's on credit or not, the more that person believes s/he has to lose and the easier s/he becomes to push around. Those cultured beliefs and fears are a noose just as much as the debts are. They form a veil that blocks out the bright light of self-determination. "A veil that," as Tom Robbins says, "if even briefly parted, reveals a glare to bright for many."

Despite the fact that since 2008  there have been 7 million foreclosures in the U.S. there are still 9 million homeowners seriously underwater on their mortgages who continue to swim like a stone while clinging to the belief they'll somehow escape the clutches of interest. To get some idea of what interest is and how the evil genius of the private banking system created an economy where 35-45 cents of every dollar spent goes to cumulative interest i suggest you read Ellen Brown's Web of Debt. For an excellent historical lesson i suggest David Graeber’s 'Debt:The First 5,000 Years' [free book or pdf download here].

Then there's that outspoken thorn in the side of the Empire Max Keiser, who, along with the incredibly intelligent Stacey Herbert, produce The Keiser Report three times a week on Russian Television and free circulation on YouTube. Today's episode [embedded below] discusses how with a university education leaves most students today so heavily in debt that combined with the tumbling starting salaries in all fields they, like all folks who live debt slavery lives, don't protest like earlier generations did and they don't rise up. Max and Stacey conclude it's much more convenient for the Empire that way.

Why An Independent Ukraine Would Have No Obligation to Comply With or Repay the IMF Loans

President of Equador, Rapfael Correa's message to the IMF-World Bank

Every morning my Inbox has an array of interesting ideas. Today's most thought provoking was from a reader who sent me an op-ed from RT that he/she said sounded almost exactly like something The Mud Report said yesterday. the piece by Charlie McGrath, founder of  Wide Awake News is titled, 'Ukraine must solve crisis itself to avoid bloodshed, IMF debt slavery' sure sounds like something i'd say. "Mediation won’t resolve the crisis in Ukraine, as all international players have their own interests there." Charlie told RT, adding, “I just don’t think that this is going to end any way other than the people of Ukraine taking control of their own land and electing their own government.”

"What Washington really wants is to implement austerity on Ukraine, as it keeps dangling this carrot of foreign aid before the coup-imposed authorities in Kiev." Charlie said. "If financial support from the IMF arrives in Ukraine, it will only help the banks - turning the population into nothing more than debt slaves, like we’ve seen in other nations throughout Europe.”

There it was again - debt slavery' the term kept rolling over in the space between my ears. Some time ago i wrote that 'Calling Over-Consumers Debt Slaves is an Insult to Slaves - They're Addicts and Need Medical Intervention', which argues that over-consumption and uncontrollable consumer debt are addictions in that they follow the same behavioral sequence as any other addictions.

But that was about individual consumers not about populations ruled by the self-interested and corrupt. Individual consumers have free will, they can 'just say no' to whatever endorphin boosting bling that the debt dealers are dangling in front of their noses. Individuals in powerful government positions are just as prone to the carrot dangling as any other except that the debt they agree to must be paid off by the pain and sweat of others.

Ukraine, like Greece, Spain, Italy etc., accepted the first carrots because they wanted a free lunch, they knew that sustainable development is a slow process that offers very little bling. The IMF carrot gives the governments cash but inevitably a large portion turns into pocket money for the leaders who like Yanukovych quickly learned to love the accrued 'benefits' of his position. One loan leads to another as the twin tolls of interest and corruption take their bite each time the economy turns over.

Who pays? The people pay of course. Once the debt dealers don't get paid their due on the the first loan they require certain conditions be met before the next and the next are granted. Those conditions always bite the ass of the people, never the ass of the plutocrats who've signed the papers.

Debt is the worst four letter word, but there are different kinds of debt. There's the kind you, as the debt addict, are responsible for yourself, consumer debt. Then there's the kind that imposed on you by the corrupt international government and banking system under which you become a indentured servant, a debt slave.

With this type, the involuntary debt slave type, individuals or credible governments have no obligation to repay. Rapfael Correa's message to the IMF-World Bank [picture at top] graphically illustrates that he, as an Phd. in Economics, understands that Equador's people have been screwed by the banksters and corrupt politicians. Correa has chosen the middle finger path, as a consequence he's been denounced by the vampire capitalists but not by the Equadorians who love him.

If Ukraine's current unelected rightwing rulers installed by the Empire do the dirty work of agreeing to the IMF noose the people of Ukraine have zero obligation to repay loans or comply with the IMF conditions. The Yats regime in Keiv has no credibility inside of Ukraine let alone outside of it. Neither does the governments of Greece, Spain, Italy or any other who've taken the IMF's dangled carrots. In time all of indebted slaves of corrupt shock doctery will find a way to take back control of their governments and their futures. When they do, their credible leaders will join Rapfael Correa and tell the US-EU-IMF criminals "Go Fuck Yourselves!" too. And what a wonderful world that will be.

Corporate MSM's Hollow Propaganda Shows that Western Capitalism Fears the Russian Bear

As Robert Parry's excellent article, 'Ukraine, Through the US Looking Glass', says, "In my four-plus decades in journalism, I have never seen a more thoroughly biased and misleading performance by the major U.S. news media. But there is something utterly Orwellian in the current coverage of the Ukraine crisis, including accusing others of  'propaganda' when their accounts - though surely not perfect - are much more honest and more accurate than what the U.S. press corps has been producing." The same is true up here in Canuckistan and across the capitalist dominated world.

Parry goes on to say, "The neo-Nazis themselves have pretty much disappeared from Official Washington’s narrative, which now usually recounts the coup as simply a case of months of protests followed by Yanukovych’s decision to flee. Only occasionally, often inserted deep in news articles with the context removed, can you find admissions of how the neo-Nazis spearheaded the coup."

Counter-culture and alternative news sources paint a far different picture than the MSM in the west. Whether it's Ukraine, or Venezuela, GMOs or stock markets, socialists under the bed or the 'security' state, opponents of the corporate culture are labeled 'terrorists', And, we all know what happens to 'terrorists'.

The jihadists have either lost their luster or the whole issue has become to damned confusing. After all it's almost impossible to know where to hang the white hats or the black hats anymore. These days the terrorist title has been awarded by the western MSM propaganda machine to that old favorite the black hat wearing Russian Bear.

Today's article by Parry, 'Prepping for a Ukrainian Massacre', is about how the propaganda machine is now setting the stage for what could be a massacre of Ukrainian civilians who have risen up against the putschists, spearheaded by neo-Nazi militias, who seized control of Ukraine in a coup that overthrew Yanukovych.

The propaganda machine here everyday trumpets how the evil-doers have illegally occupied dozens on government buildings in Eastern Ukraine but never remember to mention that neo-Nazis who seized government buildings in February still hold some of them. Our MSM runs images everyday of armed, masked pro-Russian demonstrators but never shows the equally well armed and masked ultra-nationalists who remain behind the Maiden barricades to this day. Parry adds, "If the slaughter of the eastern Ukrainian protesters does come, you can expect Official Washington to be supportive."

The reason that the corporate owned MSM sings such as monotone tune is that their owners know that Russia is in possession of a financial bomb that will burst the U.S. capital and monetary hegemonic bubble whenever he and his BRICS allies drop it. That bomb - the abandonment of the petrodollar - will crater the global capitalist runway. That's why the capitalist scum whose vassal state economies from Ottawa to London, from Wall St. to Brussels are taking anti-diarrhea pills these days.

Of course, none of the vassals has more to lose than Canada and no western leader is more of a hollow ass-kissing corporate whore than Heir Harpo. When the petro-dollar falls and the U.S.'s demand for needless crap dries up Canada's economy will stumble then crumble because where Canada once had a viable internal industrial economy that produced goods and jobs for its citizens it now has an economy totally dominated by the export of raw materials. Canada's export markets will do a domino theory dive as first the American juggernaut stops spending, then the Asians and Europeans follow suit.

The good news is that the entire environmental catastrophe the living planet faces is driven by petrodollar politics through its tentacles of oil dependent consumer driven extractive capitalism and the subservient corporate owned and operated mainstream media who's drumbeat of propaganda in support of this bankrupt economic system that now threatens the future of our descendant's will slow to a more modest sustainable level very quickly in the post petro-dollar future and a new era of mild deflationary economics will, hopefully, turn every day into Earth Day.

The Successful Future of Ukraine is in the Hands of All Ukrainians, Not the IMF's Vampire Bankers

The U.S. is the International Monetary Fund's [IMF's] largest shareholder. The U.S. alone has veto power over all IMF decisions and policies including conditionality and its noose like structural adjustment programs. IMF conditionality is a set of policies or conditions that the IMF requires in exchange for financial resources. The IMF does not require collateral from countries for loans but rather requires the government seeking assistance to correct its macroeconomic imbalances in the form of policy reform. The details of the 'conditionality' differ from loan to loan and country to country, but one condition, structural adjustment - the cutting expenditures known as austerity - is part of them all.

The recent report by international researchers at Eurodad, 'Conditionally yours  An analysis of the policy conditions attached to IMF loans', includes examples of the most common conditions that include: restructuring of tax codes, cutting spending, freezing or cutting public sector wages, shrinking public welfare programs— including pensions, reducing minimum wage levels, sales taxes, privatizing public resources, reducing trade union rights, restructuring and privatizing public enterprises, and reduced minimum wage levels. Notice that all of them harm the poor and none of them target the rich.

Eurodad’s research found that despite the IMF's publicly stated goals to ‘streamline’ their conditionality the number of policy conditions per loan has risen in recent years and that the biggest IMF loans have the heaviest conditionality. Including an exceptionally high numbers of conditions in Cyprus, Greece and Jamaica, which average of 35 structural conditions per programme. The report concludes "If countries are genuinely facing protracted and serious debt problems, then IMF lending only makes the situation worse." And that, "Almost all the countries were repeat borrowers from the IMF, suggesting that the IMF is propping up governments with unsustainable debt levels, not lending for temporary balance of payments problems – its true mandate."

For example, just as The Shock Doctrine predicts, four years after the launch of the EU-IMF loan program, Greece faces 27.5 percent unemployment, with 57 percent of people between 15 and 24 out of work. Wages and pensions have been slashed, public services gutted, while inequality and poverty continue to climb."

Another new study, 'The Impact of Fiscal Austerity on Suicide: On the Empirics of a Modern Greek Tragedy', finds direct link between Greek austerity cuts and increase in male suicides. The study was published in April by University of Portsmouth researchers in the journal Social Science and Medicine. Researchers found that every one percent cut in public spending corresponded with a 0.43 percent increase in suicides among men in Greece and that men between the ages of 45 and 89 are at the highest risk of austerity-caused suicide. Their conclusion: The cause of the huge jump in suicides in Greece is IMF imposed austerity.

That the International Mother Fuckers wield a financial noose designed to force the privatization of publicly owned common assets has long been cursed by critics. The fact that in Ukraine for instance the Empire's goal is to eliminate their public banking system, put their water, electricity, public transportation, vast agricultural lands and other public infrastructure on the block is as odious as it is obvious. But worst of all the criminals at the IMF are murderers.

Yet another recent study shows that even the staff at the IMF hate what the institution is doing. The results of this study conducted by Beatrice Edwards, executive director of the Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower organization which has represented employees at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, were not pretty, acknowledging that the employees said they feared retaliation for speaking out at a time when the bank institution faces intensifying criticism that its projects often do more harm than good. Beatrice said, “You’d have to be in a very strange frame of mind to be on a one-year contract and report something over your supervisor’s head that implicates him.”

It's little wonder that the 'many' living in either Eastern or Western Ukraine, or anywhere else where the Empire's vampires decided to suck the life blood out of, are rising up against the tyranny by the EU-US-IMF of the 'few'. The people of Ukraine still have an opportunity, in part because Russia and Putin did before and will again offer them a much better deal, to avoid the noose if they can realize that they are being divided and manipulated by the vampire capitalists. Ukrainians, like all of us, can resist the Empire if we recognized we are all in this battle together. The future of Ukraine is in the hands and hearts of the people there, the 'many', just as yours is wherever you live.

Ukraine's Fault Line Exploded When the Costs of US-EU-IMF 'Conditionality' Became Apparent

 Our man Yats telling Ukrainians that IMF 'conditionality' is the 'Price of Independence'

The fault line in Ukraine that the MSM in North America wants the conversation to remain focused on is between languages, cultural history, religion, agricultural vs. industrial economies, even who was on what side in WWII. All of them exist but the explosive issue that can not be spoken of in the western media is the costs of the IMF package that the U.S. and it vassals' hand picked puppet Yats was put in place to accept.

Language is a fault line but since Russian and Ukrainian are so similar they are mutually understandable by almost all the population, it's more of  mosquito bite than a snake bite. Culturally, Ukraine in its current form is something of an anomaly, its eastern borders drawn in the early Soviet period, and the western ones during and after World War II. Religiously the west is predominately Catholic the east Russian Orthodox, but this divide, with much intermingling and intermarriage, has existed for centuries so is hardly the wedge issue it might appear. Even the WWII German supporting west vs. the east supporting Russian split with it's attendant Fascist/Communist name calling had been mostly overcome by time and generational change until this recent firestorm. Taken together they do create an environment of antipathy, but one that was diminishing.

Both sides struggled to articulate any specific distinguishing values before a couple of months ago except the mainly agricultural vs. mainly industrial economic divide. In fact, down through history the boundaries between the empires of the Eastern and Central European territories have shifted so often that, other than the Mongol invaders, even genetically, they are all one people.

The recent overthrow of what was widely agreed by both east-west as a totally corrupt regime during the Maiden Revolution had participants from both east-west early on. It was only the usurping of the mostly peaceful protests by the U.S. funded ultra-rightwing nationalists from western Ukraine that threw a monkey wrench into what had been a broad coalition against the corrupt Viktor Yanukovich presidency.

Then, as the news spread of the leaked Victoria Nuland phone call and the implications of it became clear the situation changed and the old divisions resurfaced. In that call Nuland made it clear that Yats was the puppet the U.S.-IMF wanted put in place because he'd play ball with the IMF and agree to the austerity package that entailed.

The IMF is dominated by the U.S. who, as the main stockholder, has veto power over its actions. The IMF is a tool of the Empire generally and of U.S. foreign policy particularly. Ukraine has a public banking system and before the Orange Revolution in 2004 had little foreign debt. From that point on, exactly as the Shock Doctrine strategy predicts, the IMF gladly lent money to Ukraine, knowing that at some point they'd need more loans which would be only granted if Ukraine accepted the terms of 'conditionality', the IMF noose that has bankrupted countries around the world for decades.

In Kiev now Yats is busy telling Ukrainians that gutting pensions, doubling gas prices and the rest of the crushing IMF austerity package they must agree to is the 'Price of Independence'. As these conditions inevitably cause Ukraine to become another Greece where 27.5 percent are unemployed, with 57 percent of people between 15 and 24 out of work, where wages and pensions have been slashed, public services gutted, and inequality and poverty continue to climb, the debt will be used to put their water, electricity, public transportation, vast agricultural lands and other public infrastructure on the block.

As the international study 'Conditionally yours  An analysis of the policy conditions attached to IMF loans' states, "If countries are genuinely facing protracted and serious debt problems, then IMF lending only makes the situation worse." Examples given in the report of the crippling austerity measures Ukraine will face include restructuring of tax codes, cutting spending, freezing or cutting public sector wages, shrinking public welfare programs - including pensions - reducing minimum wage levels. sales taxes and privatizing public resources.

All Ukrainians will lose under the U.S.-EU-IMF deal. The difference, the east-west fault line difference, is that the vast majority of the loses will fall upon Eastern Ukraine because of it's predominately industrial economic base. The easterners jobs will disappear as the previously Russian subsidized gas prices skyrocket and their exports become to expensive. The easterners pensions, earned from lifelong work in those profit earning, tax paying, factories and mines will evaporate. The fault line in Ukraine exploded when the U.S.-EU-IMF 'loans' and the repercussions of 'conditionality' became apparent. All Ukrainians will lose if Yats is allowed to push through the IMF deal. All Ukrainians know this. IMO Yats can't possibly win in the upcoming May elections but as it stands right now only the Eastern Ukrainians are in a position to stop him and the Empire.

Collapse and Rebirth, the Easter Message That Can Save the Environment From Industrial Capitalism

The link between industrial capitalism and the environmental crisis is inescapable. Today, Easter Sunday, seems like the perfect day to look at why and how industrial capitalism is the primary cause of the civilization-ending eco-collapse we humans are facing: The last few Mud Reports have focused on the impending demise of the petro-dollar because the U.S. financial system is at the root of the crisis of over-consumption.

The collapse of the petro-dollar would cause a retreat of the financial 'markets' that would in turn lead to an at least mildly deflationary cycle throughout the western economies. This type of deflationary cycle would cause an immediate drop in demand by first western, then domino like, by all consumers resulting in an oversupply of goods already in the pipeline and a big cutback in the extractive industrial capitalism that is causing the myriad types of ecological crisis, including global warming. Industrial capitalism not only feeds off of crisis 'Shock Doctrine' style, demand driven industrial capitalism is the cause of that crisis.

“We have to be willing to tell the truth about the dangers," says anarchist anthropologist David Graeber, “probably the most pressing need is to shut down the engines of productivity." These two problems - the economic and ecological collapse - may appear unrelated but, as Graeber says, “ultimately they are the same." Adding. "That’s because debt is nothing if not 'the promise of future productivity'. Therefore, human beings are promising each other to produce an even greater volume of goods and services in the future than they are creating now. But even current levels are clearly unsustainable. They are precisely what’s destroying the planet, at an ever-increasing pace.”

Today the message of collapse and rebirth, the Easter message, is more important than any time in our species' history regardless of one's theism.

So, i write about, work for and support the collapse of industrial capitalism on behalf of the flora, fauna, microbes, minerals, forces and faeries. Industrial capitalism is polluting every aspect of the living planet, and though almost everyone i know agrees with that statement, i know almost nobody willing to make the sacrifices necessary stop the runaway train voluntarily. Consequently, i’ve given up on humans being capable of voluntarily making changes of anywhere near the scope necessary to effect meaningful change.

The only other route i see to there being a living planet capable of supporting the lives of my grandchildren and theirs is the non-voluntary collapse of extractive capitalism that can be brought about by only two avenues IMO. One is through a long-term financial collapse caused by a deflationary cycle like the one that the impending petro-dollar implosion could cause. The other is an environmental catastrophe so severe that a huge percentage, hopefully not all, of the global human population is exterminated.

Goodbye Petro-Dollar, Hello Petro-Yuan, the New Gold Trade Note of the Eurasian Trade Zone

Goodbye Petro-Dollar, Hello Petro-Yuan

The U.S. is over $17 trillion dollars in debt, a sum every expert agrees can never be repaid. In addition they go further into debt by about $1 trillion more each year. If interest rates were to rise even by a tiny amount or any of their major foreign creditors, like China, Russia or Japan, decided to sell the Treasury Bills they've purchased on the bond market, the U.S.'s bankruptcy could no longer be hidden and lied about as it is now.

No politician or political party dares tell the truth - the U.S. is bankrupt. The entire western [EU, US, IMF] financial system is bankrupt. They all stay afloat by printing money and using that money to buy up their banks worthless Mortgage Backed Securities because if they didn't those banks would go bankrupt and the over $100 trillion in credit default swaps and other derivatives would be called resulting in a cascade of collapsing banks, stock markets and governments across the western world that would make the Great Depression look like an Easter Parade.

Instead of lying or hoodwinking or bullshit, the U.S. calls their charade Quantitative Easing [QE]. As Stanford's study jargon laden by Stroebel and Taylor  'Estimated Impact of the Federal Reserve’s Mortgage-Backed Securities Purchase Program' shows the privately owned Federal Reserve ran out of options, now almost six years later, the Fed’s QE driven liquidity has disproportionately benefited the wealthy while dispossessing the middle-class and poor, reflating bubbles in stocks, housing and assets while the rest of America has been increasingly forced to subsist on falling incomes, government assistance and what little trickles down from the top 1-0.1%.

The purpose of the Federal Reserve's QE program is not full employment or market stability. The real purpose of QE is to keep the U.S. from sinking into the muck of it's own impossible to repay debt by bailing out the bankers’ that promoted the immoral indebting of the western world and turned its citizens into debt slaves of the few.

As Ellen Brown explains on her blog, "The stock market keeps going up despite a falling dollar, a subprime mortgage crisis, a credit crisis, and economic conditions that many people have already characterized as a recession because central banks around the world are inflating the money supply at double-digit rates. The money has to go somewhere. Real estate is no longer a good investment, and interest rates on government bonds are too low to be very appealing. Yet the stock market keeps going up. The stock market is a giant casino, where investors are just betting they can sell the stock for more than they paid for it."

Today's stock market is nothing more than a speculative bubble. The speculators borrow money to 'leverage' their position because... because, like pirates, they can. This bubble like all bubbles is based not on real value but on the falling value of the currency because each month the Fed prints and pumps in $64 billion more [$42 billion of which buys worthless mortgage backed securities to keep the banks liquid]. It's all created out of thin air, by fiat. Every time the west's central banks print more currency they devalue the existing amount. Consequently the stock market numbers rise, but the value of those stocks don't. Borrowing to buy stocks works only as long as the stock market is going up. The moment the west's central banks stop printing and passing out worthless fiat notes, the bubble bursts, the carnival collapses.

The only reason the carnival can stay open is the unreal demand for petrodollar. When the U.S. dollar gets dumped as the world's reserve currency the game is over. As economist Peter Koenig, a former staff member of the World Bank, warned last week Russia is in the process of abandoning the 'petro-dollar' as the trading unit for its oil and gas transactions.

Next month [May 2014] the Eurasian Trade Zone will be born. Soon after, Russia and China will announce their 'Holy Grail' energy deal which will not be conducted in U.S. dollars but in a new Gold Trade Note tied to the Chinese Yuan, the soon to be Petro-Yuan. This attack on the petrodollar will trigger a global stock market retreat and the economic collapse of the west's bogus financial house of cards amid a global loss of confidence in the dollar caused by the Federal Reserve’s continuing QE policy of buying billions of dollars monthly in U.S. Treasury debt and buying up the U.S. bank's worthless Mortgage Backed Securities. It will ring in a new era of international exchange. All of the BRICS countries {Brazil, Russia, China, India and S. Africa] along with Iran, Saudia Arabia and Japan will soon follow suit as the U.S.'s currency value plummets.

The U.S. and Western Empire's Financial System is Collapsing, Its Last Shaky Pillar is the Petrodollar

My favorite picture from the Occupy movement era.

Every empire in every era has ruthlessly defended its privileged position, it's myopic sense exceptionalism, the U.S. and its western allies are no different. Throughout history empires have dominated only as long as they could continue to suck the resources and attendant wealth of the subjected regions they dominated into the center of power. Then as now, any means, no matter how unjust or violent were acceptable in defense of the empire's privileges. As Samuel P. Huntington said, "The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."

Historically food was the principle power of domination, in our era it's energy, power and wealth are are now determined by who buys and sells it on the market and it's about the currency used to buy sell that energy. The U.S. dollar [USD] is the de facto world currency because almost all oil sales throughout the world are denominated in U.S. dollars. The USD is known globally as the petrodollar because most countries rely on oil imports and they are forced to maintain large stockpiles of dollars in order to continue imports. This creates a consistent demand for USDs and ostensibly supports the USD's value, regardless of economic conditions in the United States. As a result, the U.S. government can run higher budget deficits than most other countries can and that the unrealistic USD value means that goods imported into the United States are relatively cheap.

Consequently the U.S. foreign policy has, since the Bretton Woods agreement following the end of WWII, been one of perpetual petrodollar warfare. The US's military as well as its 'security' establishment and those of its vassal states have one principle objective - preserving by whatever means necessary, including force, the status of the USD as the world's dominant reserve currency and as the currency in which oil is priced.

As the Guardian article today says, "From the overthrow of the elected Mossadegh government in Iran in the 1950s, when the CIA and MI6 paid anti-government demonstrators, the US and its allies have led the field: sponsoring "colour revolutions", funding client NGOs and training student activists, fuelling social media protest and denouncing – or ignoring – violent police crackdowns as it suits them." Be it Iraq or Libya or Iran or, more recently, Venezuela and Ukraine, the reason behind the west's actions is the preservation of the petrodollar.

The fact is that when the fiat U.S. petrodollar fails the western empire's domination will too. The U.S. is bankrupt, they borrow at least a trillion dollars every year that they can never pay back [much of it to cover the interest on debt they've accrued]. They sell worthless junk bonds that their banks buy with newly printed imaginary fiat dollars handed to them by the Federal Reserve. The Empire's financial system is collapsing, its last shaky pillar is the petrodollar.

BRICS leaders Brazil's Dilma Rousseff, India's Manmohan Singh, Russia's Vladimir Putin, China's Xi Jinping and South Africa's Jacob Zuma

It's well known by investors that the BRICS countries [Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa] are planning their escape route from the petrodollar's noose. Last month's 'Petrodollar Alert: Putin Prepares To Announce "Holy Grail" Gas Deal With China' said we should expect that the 'Holy Grail' deal will announce that Russia will be accepting another currency to deal with Russian gas and oil, be it the Euro or Yen or Yuan or Gold or ? This is why Russia is the new bête noire of the Empire. This why Ukraine's stability has been put into jeopardy.

The US dollar faces collapse as the World Reserve Currency. The more countries that opt out of the Economic sphere that is the EU, the IMF and the USA , the less countries there are that will need US dollars. For that very same reason the USA needs the world to be addicted to fossil fuels. Sunlight and wind can not be sold for US dollars, in fact the entire environmental catastrophe Gaia faces is driven by petrodollar politics through its tentacles of oil dependent consumer driven extractive capitalism and the subservient corporate owned and operated mainstream media who's drumbeat of propaganda in support of this bankrupt economic system now threatens the future of our descendant's.

Please watch the Jim Sinclair video below, he does a far better job than i can of explaining the repercussions of a petrodollar collapse on the economies of the U.S. and its vassal states.

La Via Campesina Leads the Global Fight to Defend Traditional Peasant Seeds, Our Seeds, Our Future

This year La Via Campesina has dedicated today, the 17th of April, as the international day of peasant struggles in the defense of seeds. "Seeds are an essential basis for achieving food sovereignty because almost everything in agriculture depends on them: What we can plant and how it is grown; the quality and nutrition of our food, our ability to account for different tastes and cultural preferences; and also the wellbeing of our communities, our ecosystems and the planet." - La Via Campesina

Their declaration concludes by saying, "However, along with millions of allies all over the world, we know that this is not the case. More and more people in the countryside and in the cities refuse the privatization of something as essential to the life of people and of the entire planet as seeds. We know that with peasant seeds we can feed everyone according to the real needs of our communities, rather than of corporations. We know that we can rely on peasant seeds to stop wasting energy by depending on fossil fuels and to produce without agrochemicals. We know that with peasant seeds’ capacity to adapt to new conditions in the fields we have the best chance of confronting climate change."

"We will continue to defend our own seeds in our fields, on the streets, by raising our voices in institutional spaces, and within our own organizations. We will not recognize laws that privatize and destroy them. We will continue to struggle against ‘Monsanto laws’ and also against GMOs. In order to attain food sovereignty, seeds must remain in the hands of men and women peasant farmers all over the world."

La Via Campesina continues to lead the 'People's Agricultural Movement' by industrial agriculture around the globe. The global peasant movement has complied many of the details, information and background about this all important struggle against the corporate greed machine that is devouring the earth in a publication called Our Seeds, Our Future.

Another very interesting report on their work, 'Combating Monsanto Grassroots resistance to  the corporate power of agribusiness in the era of the green economy and a changing climate', jointly produced by La Via Campesina, Friends of the Earth International and Combat Monsanto - available in English, French and Spanish - provides snapshots of front-line struggles against Monsanto and other agrochemical corporations pushing genetically modified (GM) crops onto farmers and into the environment.

The movement to ban or at least label all GMO products is gaining momentum despite the lawsuits and deceptive advertising tricks that the rich corporations have attempted to use. For instance in the U.S. the 'Nation's Boldest GMO Label Law Nears Passage in Vermont'.

And this announcement from Moscow, "Russia will not import GMO products", the country's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said, adding that. "The nation has enough space and resources to produce organic food. Moscow has no reason to encourage the production of genetically modified products or import them into the country." Medvedev told a congress of deputies from rural settlements on Saturday. "If the Americans like to eat GMO products, let them eat it then. We don't need to do that; we have enough space and opportunities to produce organic food," he said. "That's because the government of Russia actually cares about its citizens."

Having been a small organic farmer and avid seed saver for over 40 years, i know the hard work it takes and the emotional rewards earned. i know from first hand experience that the single greatest service each of us can provide to our planet, our families and ourselves is to grow our own organic food from non-hybrid seeds. To save our own seed in turn, and in so doing be part of the future solution to the present day destruction being sown by GMO's, agri-business and the bio-technology giants.

Want to Save the Planet? It's Easy, Stop Consuming Needless Crap and Just Slow Down

Mr. Peabody's coaltrain hauling our future away.

IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) says greenhouse gases emissions grew twice as fast in the first decade of the 21st century as they did during the previous three decades. The reports says at least 50% of that increase is caused by coal used to generate electricity to power factories in China, India and other rising economies that produce goods for US, Canadian, European and other 1st world consumers. "A growing share of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion in developing countries is released in the production of goods and services exported to high-income countries," the report says.

Meanwhile we in the west who are both the consumers of the needless crap and, especially in the U.S. Canada, and Austrailia's cases, the providers of the coal, gloat about our emissions and sneer at those of China and others. We, the gloaters, the outsourcers are the problem. The outsourcing of emissions has skewed efforts to account for all global emissions, which typically was conducted on a national basis. Those accounting efforts are no longer accurate, according to analysts. The skewed analysis is one of the biggest reasons why the IPCC's politically based consensus reports are meaningless.

First world consumers buying the needless crap, in addition to putting their neighbors out of work from what was once a decent paying domestic manufacturing job are also breathing the polluted air coming back across the Pacific, and eventually around the globe, from Asia's 'low cost' production facilities in addition to the all the other nightmares engulfing fair Gaia that economists call externalities. Our coal follies smell like deceitful crap because they are. It's karma, writ large

As The Dogwood Initiative's article 'Coal, B.C.'s Dirty Secret' says, "Canada's justification that this coal is being burned elsewhere is disingenuous, the accounting rules veil which jurisdictions are truly responsible for producing and exporting toxic products that warm the planet and threaten the future of our children and grandchildren. It’s similar to Colombian cocaine cartels or Asian heroin growers claiming they have no responsibility, because most of their addictive products are consumed in other countries. Imagine if they said, "We don’t use it, we just sell it."

Up here in Canuckistan our fossil fuel industries pollute our groundwater and our air in order to export as much cheap energy as fast as possible to Asians who use it to manufacture the goods that consumers go into debt slavery to buy. Most of our kids work at low wage service jobs or not at all while the gluttonous rich get richer as the corrupted government regulations serve up their future to the corporations.

To quote Adam Brandt, an energy expert at Stanford University, "So long as the demand is there, energy producers are going to search for new supplies of fossil fuel. Can environmental groups expect to win a series of fights for decades to come, when the economic forces are aligned very strongly against them in each round? The answer is obvious: no. The emphasis should be on demand, not supply".

As the Mud Report has written ad nauseum 'Demand Drives Every Market, the Solution to Pollution is to Stop Consuming Needless Crap'. Every market exchange can, according to the dismal science, can be reduced to supply and demand. Demand is the driver, supply grows and slows to meet it. To conclude, folks need to stop driving to the mall, stop consuming needless crap and just slow down.

The IPCC's Consensus Solutions to Global Warming Serve Special Interests, Conservation Serves Gaia

Yesterday the IPCC released its "Summary for Policymakers" of the solutions to fight global warming. As usual, by the time the delegates from the 194 countries that met in Berlin had watered down the document with their political agendas it became another meaningless pile of crap at best. In reality the crap at the bottom of the barrel that they can all agree to is worth less than nothing because the capitalist owned MSM is now busy pumping out those casper milktoast compromises as meaningful.

The IPCC is a political institution, not a scientific one, just like every U.N. institution. The IPCC's process demands that every report must reach a consensus which means every stakeholder - be they governmental, business, scientific or environmentalist -must agree to each recommendation. Consider how many things j your family members could agree about let alone all the special interests above.

For instance, according to the Guardian, "Objections from rich nations saw the complete removal of a section that recommended that hundred of billions of dollars a year would have to be paid by developed countries to developing countries, to ensure they grow their cities and economies in a non-polluting way." And the Associated Press reports another dispute erupted over whether to include charts that showed emissions from large developing countries, such as China and India, are rising the fastest as they expand their economies. The charts were removed from the summary but remain in the report, which will be published later this week. Then there's the objections from major fossil fuel producing nations including Saudi Arabia which led to the weakening of statements that ending the huge subsidies paid for oil, gas and coal would help reduce emissions.

Solutions wise, what the various special interest groups could agree with to avoid widespread catastrophe included a huge increase in solar and wind power without a word about all the fossil fuels embedded in their production making them profitable but not 'green'. They agreed to include other controversial sources such nuclear energy and bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration (BECCS) which Dr. Rachel Smolker, co-director of Biofuelwatch, slammed as "largely untested" and "very risky" technologies that are likely to "exacerbate" climate change, agricultural problems, water scarcity, soil erosion and energy challenges, "rather than improving them."

The IPCC also recommended divestment from fossil fuels without mentioning that any re-investment of those funds in any aspect of capitalism was just a self esteem bromide because every aspect of consumer driven extractive capitalism is just fossil fuel consumption in slightly different disguises. The IPCC consistently refuses to acknowledge that we can't consume our way out of over-consumption, that there are no green solutions technological solutions, only green illusions.

The only truly green solution is CONSERVATION, a word and concept that can't be allowed to appear in any race to the bottom capitalist growth driven 'consensus'. Real conservation is a heresy that threatens the core beliefs of consumer capitalism. Those heretical ideas - wanting less, consuming less - are the only ones that can save us from the imaginary neo-liberal 'free market' belief system that is consuming the earth and our descendants future. Any effective conservation effort wouldn't slow 'growth', it'd squash demand driven extractive capitalism.

Of course we must stop our headlong gallop toward environmental collapse immediately. But even if our bling addicted consumer culture could change course, the current crud in our air would continue to ramp up its effects for decades at least. That's why in addition to de-growth we must have a 'viable' strategy for removing our current GHG build up even if it takes many years. That's why de-growth, individual and collective, in conjunction with re-sequestration of GHGs through organic agriculture, re-establishment of perennial grasses, world-wide hemp utilization and re-forestation [real forests not industrial tree farms] are the only real solutions.

As Jorge Majfud says, "Trying to reduce environmental pollution without reducing consumerism is like combating drug trafficking without reducing the drug addiction." It's important to notice that Majfud referred to the broader issue of "environmental pollution" not just to global warming. The long list of insults and injuries to fair Gaia caused by our over-consumption of needless crap go far beyond what the IPCC's consensus allows to be spoken of.

Like Lao Tzu said in a different context 5,000 tears ago, "The way that can be spoken of is not the way". The way is CONSERVATION. Please check out the articles below for more information on the real solution, the real way, that no IPCC report is allowed speak of:

'Climate Change and Agriculture' by Vandana Shiva
Biodiverse organic farms produce more food and higher incomes than industrial monocultures. Mitigating climate change, conserving biodiversity and increasing food security can thus go hand in hand.

'World Soils and the Carbon Cycle in Relation to Climate Change and Food Security', by Rattan Lal

'Organic Farming Sequesters Atmospheric Carbon and Nutrients in Soils', by The Rodale Institute

'Putting carbon back into the ground – the way nature does it', by Adam D. Sacks

The Haisla Nation Dances, Kitimat Votes No to Enbridge's Northern Gateway, Joy in Mudville

The Haisla Nation celebrated after they learned that the people of Kitimat, B.C. had voted no in Northern Gateway oil pipeline plebiscite. The Haisla Spirit of Kitlope Dancers led the celebration with drumming, singing and dancing. Many non-aboriginal Kitimat residents joined the party. Gerald Amos, an environmentalist and former member of the Haisla Nation Council, said, "The town of Kitimat has rejected a project that is not good for our economy. It endangers everything we worked for as a people here in Kitimat for the last ten thousand years."

Most Haisla Nation members weren't included in the vote because their territory lies outside the municipal boundaries. The margin victory in this environmental David vs. corporate Goliath vote 58.4 per cent to 41.6 per cent despite the company of taking advantage of the lack of any rules on spending limits for municipal plebiscites and referendums. Enbridge posted pro-pipeline signs around the community, waged an aggressive media advertising campaign including multi page ads in every newspaper edition, and had a dozen employees in the community making presentations and going door-to-door.

The company’s main opponent was Douglas Channel Watch, a tiny group headed by postal worker Murray Minchin that began its campaign with $200 and relied on handmade and recycled posters. The local environmental group maintains the risk from either a tanker accident or a pipeline breach is too high. The people of Kitimat understand that pipeline jobs are temporary, but oil spills are forever.

The Haisla Nation has taken a firm stand against the Enbridge project. The Haisla are members of the The Coastal First Nations organization - an alliance of aboriginal communities on British Columbia’s North and Central Coast and Haida Gwaii — is promising legal action, as well as protests to “stop the bull dozers” if the pipeline is approved by the Harper government. As Haisla Nation Chief Ellis Ross wrote in an open letter recently: “Deciding to hold a referendum at this late date is a slap in the face to all the work done by the Haisla Nation on this project."

The Coastal First Nations stand side by side with The Yinka Dene Alliance who presented their official rejection of the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline to federal officials in B.C. Friday [April 11th, 2014]. The Yinka Dene Alliance is a coalition of First Nations opposed to the Enbridge pipeline whose ancestral territories comprise approximately 25% of the proposed pipeline route. The Yinka Dene territories are found in the headwaters of the Fraser, Skeena and Mackenzie/Arctic watersheds. Their people have relied on salmon for countless generations, and the Enbridge project poses a direct threat to their already threatened salmon populations and habitat, with approximately 500 salmon bearing rivers and streams potentially impacted by the dual oil and condensate pipelines.

Today there's joy in Mudville, for a moment at least the flora, fauna, microbes, minerals, forces and faeries can celebrate. We all owe the First Nations our thanks for standing up to the corporate Goliath and the corrupt Harper regime that serves them.

Colorado's Recreational Pot is Creating a Boom Now, Soon It'll be Their Hemp Leading the Way

Colorado is booming. As Reuters reported yesterday 'Colorado Will Bring In More Than $100 Million In Marijuana Tax Revenues This Year'. Remember these figures are only accounting the revenue directly generated from marijuana sales not the other huge tax revenues that are created by the spin-off industries and the income and other taxes, both state and national, that are being generated through the increased employment or the reduction is the costs associated with unemployment.

The recreational pot industry itself is of course hiring, but there's also the all the banks and their investors who are making big money from the loans to start businesses and buy equipment to service the booming pot-tourism etc. None of these revenues or savings to the Colorado government balance sheet will show up immediately or even ever be directly attributed to pot legalization. In the coming years Colorado's government coffers will swell allowing them to finance increased public services, like improved schools and roads, like housing the homeless, like...well the public weal enjoyed by the jobs and feelings of self-worth they engender.

Colorado's economy is enjoying a huge boost across all sectors generally. Motels are full in what is usually an off season, new tour bus companies can't find enough qualified drivers, restaurants have lineups, gas stations too. Imagine how much Domino's, Frito Lay and others are raking in from the America's munchie crazed tourists flocking to Colorado. Despite the low snowfall, even the ski resorts are booming. All across America state governments are drooling. New pot-legalization referendums are in various stages of planning in almost every state across the country.

Colorado is and has been a swing state for decades because the population there is almost exactly 50/50 Republican/Democrat. As my friends tell me, it's 50/50 in a lotta ways in addition to the conservative/progressive divide. Culturally the difference between say Boulder and Grand Junction are far greater than the mileage.

Interestingly before last year's referendum the majority of right-wing voters were dead set against legalization [though the large libertarian minority among them favored it] and the majority of left-wing voters were in favor [though a minority of them didn't]. Basically the libertarians and the most progressive lefties united on this issue and Colorado's booming economy resulted. Hopefully this trend will continue to expand into other geographic areas and seemingly divided political arenas locally, regionally and nationally.

On an ironic note, now that the typically conservative voters are seeing the huge uptick in economic activity, jobs, and tax revenues their opinions are quickly changing. Recent polls are showing that conservative voters are stampeding onto legalization bandwagon. The typically progressive voters, many of whom have been pot smokers for years if not decades, have decidedly mixed feelings. In the run-up to the referendum the pothead demographic only saw the benefits of no longer being bust-able and easy access and discounted the downsides. Right now, in these early, heady, days of legalization, with the tourist's buying up weed willy-nilly and the local supply unable to meet both local and tourist demands, prices are skyrocketing and the once enthusiastic potheads are far less happy. This imbalance too shall pass because all Coloradians are now legally able to grow the weed in their gardens and by this fall and early winter there ill be so much weed on the market in Colorado that prices will plummet.

Finally, IMO, the most important aspect of Colorado's new law isn't being focused on by the sensationalism driven MSM headlines - the fact that farmers in Colorado can now register to grow hemp for commercial as well as R&D purposes. Already hemp has come out of the shadows with country's first legally sanctioned hemp grows holding information fairs across the state. Recreational pot will be legal almost everywhere in a few years. Prices will go up up and down, so will govt. revenues from it because, like Nevada learned once their gambling monopoly ended, pot tourism will dwindle. Hemp will be way more important than the smoking herb. This is big industry, hemp is a game changer in everything. As Jack Herer's 1985 book 'The Emperor Wears No Clothes' showed us, from renewable alternative energy to fabrics that eliminate our chemical laden cotton industry, to logging to...almost every sphere of our out of balance world, hemp is the solution waiting for us to recognize it...maybe it's not to late.

Koko is Conscious and Knows She's a Prisoner, When she signs, "Koko Free Gorilla Animal", i Cry

Koko, Ron and Penny share a laugh

When Dr. Penny Patterson, a young graduate student in psychology at Stanford, first saw a tiny, undernourished baby gorilla named Hanabi-Ko at the San Francisco Zoo, she had little inkling that the sickly ape would become her constant companion - and the subject of the longest continuous experiment ever undertaken to teach language to another species. Penny Patterson has devoted her entire adult life to Koko and this project. The pictures on her fridge are of Koko and her former mate, Michael.

Penny hates the fact that humans hold animals as prisoners in zoos. So do i. Koko was born in a zoo, not captured in the wild like Micheal. Penny and other researchers believe Micheal's parents were both killed by poachers in Cameroon, and that Michael was able to tell them this by signing: “Squash meat gorilla. Mouth tooth. Cry sharp-noise loud. Cut/neck.” Like all of us Koko, Micheal, Kanzi and Washoe all used complex combinations of signs to communicate concepts they had never learned a sign for.

Koko, if you’re not familiar, was taught American sign language when she was about a year old. Now 40, she apparently has a working vocabulary of more than 1,000 signs and understands around 2,000 words of spoken English. Forty years on, the Gorilla Foundation’s Koko project has become the longest continuous inter-species communications programme of its kind anywhere in the world. Every cent raised by the Gorilla Foundation goes into upkeep. All other proceeds go to habitat restoration and wildlife education in native gorilla locales.

Koko describes herself as a ‘fine person gorilla’. Everyone who interacts with her acknowledges that Koko is conscious. Millions have read the award-winning classic 'Koko's Kitten' which recounts the real life experience of Koko, her love for a tailless tabby she named "All-Ball" and her grief when the kitten died. Koko still gets sad when she sees a picture of a tailless kitten.

Koko is only too aware of man’s occasionally horrific interactions with wild gorillas. Dr. Patterson recounts, “It happened by accident — someone sent a DVD about primates and I didn’t really look at it,” she says. “But it was playing and when I looked I saw Koko watching a graphic bushmeat scene. I hadn’t previewed it like I should have. The next day we were in with Koko and I was going through some mail. Koko picked up an insert from a newspaper and it was a supermarket ad. She held up a section full of pictures of meat and signed: “shame there”. Shame everywhere Koko.

Dr. Penny Paterson and Dr. Ron Cohn, Co-Founder of the Foundation and the numerous volunteers at the Gorilla Foundation are admirable people. Penny Patterson's love for Koko and every living thing is remarkable and they are helping wild gorillas to some extent even as their numbers drop as their habitat decreases. The foundation has produced many touching videos designed to be moving and to help them raise funds for the gorilla project. Here's a few recent videos:  Koko's 42nd birthday - A conversation with Koko - Koko's kitten visitors.

My daughter and i used to watch Koko videos when she was. younger but i had to stop watching them a many years back because they are all both moving and very sad. i used to have dreams about Koko, nightmares sorta.

Koko is conscious, she knows she's a prisoner. Koko is nice to the Penny and the others in part because she wants/needs companionship. Sometimes she gets mad at her situation and says with her sign language ,then starts  trying to destroy her enclosure in an attempt to escape.

Every seed is awakened and so is all animal life. It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being and we therefore yield to our animal neighbours the same right as ourselves, to inhabit this land." -Sitting Bull

All animals are conscious, every thing is our cousin. When Koko signs, "Koko Free Gorilla Animal", i cry.