Wind of Repression Fanning the Flames of Change

There is a fire burning in the forest of capitialism and it has plenty of fuel. When it's a well fueled fire burning in a real forest the firefighters work towards containment. They try to use up the available fuel so that when the winds blow the resulting embers will have no chance of kindling a new breakout. The Empire seems not to have learned from this example.

Instead of attempting to contain the worldwide anti-capitialist movement by removing the fuel of inequity that feeds it they've adopted violence and repression in response. Every day the wind fans the flames from a new direction. Today in the US it's the UC Davis pepper spray blowing, in Egypt it's Tahrir Square exploding, riots in Athen's and Rome, the winds of repression are stiff, the fire is spreading quickly. Tomorow more evictions in more cities will spread the flames of change further still.

Evicting the occupiers is doing the movement a huge favor, i'd personally like to thank them. Before the evictions their very name 'occupy' had them somewhat contained. The movement's flame is small when the bits of mud they camped on framed the discussion. Now it's the moral high ground they seek to occupy. The glowing embers set aloft by the evictions will hopefuly land in neighborhoods and back yards where new General Assemblies will convene, where the new horizontal awareness could lead to real communication among the, until now, divided 99%.

Until then, until the fire burns in every community, we can take heart in the new flames large and small quickly fanning out in all directions. The batman like beaming of slogans at the Brooklyn Bridge march was perfect. OWS has a great sense of theater, today they've organized a a 24-hour "Occupy Bloomberg's Mansion Drum Circle and Love-In Art Show" outside the mayor's townhouse at 17 East 79th Street. Free drum lessons!

Buy Nothing Day is a Tool of Individual Empowerment

During this morning's beach walk with the pack of dogs and their humans the topic of Buy Nothing Day came up. One fellow laughed. He, like me and millions of others living on the fringe, has as many buy nothing days as possible, this is truely a movement we at the fringe can embrace.

Buy Nothing Day (BND) is an international day of protest against consumerism. The first Buy Nothing Day was organized in Mexico in September 1992 as a day for society to examine the issue of over-consumption. This year BND is Nov 25 in North America. Nov 26: World Wide. More than 65 countries participate. As the UK group says, "Lock up your wallets and purses, cut up your credit cards and dump the love of your life - shopping."

Like Move Your Money Day last week BND is a tool, of individual empowerment. They are a lever poised to lift the veil of consumerism one x-zombie at a time. Adbusters has for years promoted BND and now the occopiers are coming on board. It's depressing to watch the hords lined up to stampede the malls on Black Friday in the US and during the consumer season generally. The newest video game or smartphone, the shiniest bobble, still draws the zombie hordes. The awakening is spreading, slowly.

The corporations, the 1%, live on the excesses-the wants not the needs-of the rest of us. Without the endless demands of consumers the veil would drop and the bonerack that seems, like the Wizard of Oz, so powerful would be exposed as the teetering lie it is. We are the consumers, we are opening our eyes, despite the hordes at the malls gobbling up needless crap-we are winning [i hope].

NYC Lightshow Manifesto Says 'We Are Winning'

A dazzling lightshow manifesto splashed across the Verizon building last night as thousands of Occupy Wall Streeters marched across the Brooklyn Bridge. Cars honked in solidarity, and projections appeared on the side of the the building across the street, including "Occupy Earth," "You are part of a global uprising," OWS's "99%" logo and "We are winning."

Yesterday thousands marched and held actions in solidarity with OWS around the world as well as across the US. Bloomberg's raids have succeeded in drawing ten times as many protesters into the streets. The same thing happened in Oakland last week. It seems the more violence the authorities use to repress the occupy movement the faster it grows.

In LA yesterday a small group of protestors took over a key intersection and quickly caused traffic snarlup that shut down parts of the freeways and ground streets. Occupy LA announced their intentions, the LAPD knew where and when it was coming, they responded immediately. Imagine the effect numerous small groups of independently oganized dancing and singing protestors could have at a few key intersections in any city at rush hour. The Yippies used this tactic back in the early 70's in Vancouver. Quick mini parties that today would be called flashmobs at major intersections. Many motorists would join the fun for a couple minutes. It was empowering, often inspiring, always musical and quick.

Locally, Occupy Vancouver is jumping into community as well as global issues again today with its March Against Open-Net Salmon Farming Practices, they know that open-net fish farms break natural laws and are unsustainable. Homelesness, poverty, hunger, and fish farming are all connected with the larger global issues. In a short two months this 'idea', this 99% meme, has changed the game. We are part of a global resistance movement, it's growing every day, We Are Winning.

Massive Turnout at #OWS Shows Movemnt Far From Dead

Tens of thousands have turned out in NYC in support of OWS. Many more thousands are demostrating their support around the world. The occupy movement is far from dead but it is about to change tactics. The original tactic of occupying small bits of mud was a vechile to propel the meme of inequity into the forfront of people's attention. It has succeeded wildly. But now the evil empire has countered with state violence and the mass media's attempt to turn the focus away from the large questions originally posed by the occupiers into local squabbles about red herrings like public safety, regulations and jurisdictions.

Today's turnout is a statement, a validation really, that the original message of the occupy movement is being heard loud and clear, but not it's not the new tactic. The next move will be to go small. Next we'll see small independent cells organize into flashmobs that can appear without warning anywhere, can be secure by being entirely made up of trusted friends, can disappear just as easily, can continue to serve the stratedgy of education as a stepping stone to change.

Not very encampment will be overpowered by local 'authorities', but most will. Those that survive will do so because they serve the needs of their local communities. Occupy Vancouver is one model that might survive. They are currently serving up to 1,800 meals a day to all comers and they are in talks with the city and provincial governments to establish housing for the endless stream of homeless who arrive at their site daily.

The police are puppets, once they recognize their position relative to the puppetmasters events will change. The downfall of every empire in history includes the pivotal moment when the army of the rich realizes their emporer wears no clothes. It will happen again hopefully sooner rather than later.

Meanwhile as today's communique from Culture Jammers HQ says: Now begins the second, visceral, canny, militant phase of our nonviolent march to real democracy. We regroup, lick our wounds and begin our counterattack as early as tomorrow. We will turn this winter into a training ground for precision disruptions – flashmobs, stink bombs, edgy theatrics – against the megacorps and the unrepentant 1%, a festival of resistance in the snow with, or without, an encampment that'll lay the tactical foundation for our Spring Offensive.

Occupy's Goals-Strategies-Tactics

The emerging cooperation among anti-capitialist movements showed its strenght as thousands of people in Berlin and Frankfurt took to the streets Saturday to protest the global financial crisis. The anger of the Occupy Wall Street and Indignants movements has spread to Germany. A similiar meeting of movements in Athens a few days ago reflect a global resistance movement coming together to face global problems.

The goals of these far flung protestors are identical. Goals are achieved by way of good strategies. Strategies are accomplished by different successful tactics. Here in Canada the occupations, the tent city tactic, are being cleared by local 'authorities' each day. IMO the tent city tactic can only work when they begin to serve the particular needs of their local communities. Occupy Vancouver's daily 'free food for all' run by volunteers and supplied by donations is a great example. So is their focus on homelessness shown by yesterday's march.

Just as each community's needs are different so will the strategies and tactics be different. If a small tent city occupation gets thrown out then, like in Halifax, the moral outrage shown locally can do as much or more to further the process of education central to your strategy. Maybe it is to cold in Regina to live in a tent all winter but Regina has local issues to build around.

The goal is of building the world you want is being grown around the world by people who are learning to organize themselves and resist in the course of providing for one another. Not learning from the successes and failures of the strategies and tactics would be stupid. The Argentines and, to a lesser degree, the Greeks have built grassroots community bases that serve the needs of the people not the elites. Nither had encampments, though the indignants of Spain did, encampments are a tactic to be used, or not, in the service of a strategy designed to accomplish a goal.

OWS Says 'Enough of This Bull...'

On Wend. a small group of Occupy Wall Street activists engaged in a near-successful corrida against the Wall Street Bull. The matador and the bull both survived to fight another day. Street theater, pictures worth thousands of words, a spark in the growing fire.

Another spark was the article on OWS joining an Assembly of Struggles in Athens. Those gathered in a basement in the neighborhood of Exarcheia talked about parks, public kitchens, and barter bazaars. They even seemed pretty hopeful.

A common theme, a common trajectory of events that echo Thomas Jeffereson's prediction of things to come. The Greeks are a bit ahead of we Norte Americanos on the revolution curve, the Argentinians are well ahead of us all. Today another technocrat was installed by the bankers in Italy. As Benito Mussolini once said, "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power."

That evening’s meeting in Athens is hopefully a sign of things to come: a global resistance movement coming together to face global problems. It’s being built right now around the particular needs of local communities, of people who are learning to organize themselves and resist in the course of providing for one another. Street theater in NYC, organizing in Athens and sad news from Burlington Vt. and Oakland where, like Vancouver, tragedy, wrought of our culture's woes, has landed on the occupiers door step.

"Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring" -- Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal, 1950



Global Resistance Up, Greed Markets Down and Other Good News

Don't cry for Greece let alone Argentina. The bankers have nearly completed their coup in Greece. But this lamestream economy is less revelant each day in Greece and beyond as a global resistance movement is being built around people who are learning to organize themselves and resist in the course of providing for one another. The bankers will squeeze Greece dry, the protests will only get bigger. Each day the center of power in Greece moves to the street. The Greeks will rise, the bankers will fall.

This spirit of building the world you want is gaining momentum here at Occupy Vancouver which has become a downtown eatery serving hundreds of meals a day dished up to all comers as donated food rolls in. Staffed totally by 20-30 rotating volunteers who are building a new world one meal at time. They say, "Come on down and Join Us'.

Then there's Occupy Oakland's 1 month old Birthday Party today and tonight in the Amphitheater of Oscar Grant Plaza. It'll be livestreamed, it'll be fun, it'll be another little spark in the global resistance's spreading flame.

In the video below musicians Graham Nash and David Crosby play an acoustic set for members of Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park on Nov. 8. It moved me to tears this morning.

Teach Your Children Well... And Feed Them on Your Dreams

The Occupier's Only Demand is: Join Us!

We are reclaiming public space to use as a forum for the people to come together, meet one another, listen to each other, and build power for ourselves. - Occupy Oakland

Somehow the Occupy Movement has managed to change the political monologue into a dialogue or a multilogue more accurately. There are, seemingly, as many different issues, strategies and tactics as their are occupiers. Somehow the occupiers have organized themselves into a horizontal-inclusive community despite the choas of daily events unfolding around them. Somehow they've managed to issue only one real demand: JOIN US!

Being an oldtimer, set in my oldtimer ways, i'd have tried to organized clear demands. The Robin Hood Tax...Mandatory Labeling of GMO Foods...The End of Corporate Personhood...etc. Trivial, misleading oldtimer type divisions that obscure the fact they are all part of the same issue.

Occupy's Statement To the Media: Our struggle won’t fit in a 15 second soundbite. This occupation is a beginning, and we have a long way to go. And while we have much in common, we believe the people are stronger united behind many banners, rather than a single one. says it perfectly.

The video below could be David Suzuki's finest hour. This should be watched by the whole world.

Occupy Vancouver and City Managers are Negotiating to Move Indoors

The most promising story line this afternoon isn't the impending showdown being hyped in the lamestream media it's the behind the scenes negotiations between city managers and Occupy Vancouver. Councillor Andrea Reimer confirmed negotiations have been going on since day one of the protest in an interview with The Independent, and that moving the camp indoors is currently on the table.

“We’ve been talking with people from the movement since day one, the deputy city manager has been the lead on it,” Reimer said. “[The Art Gallery grounds] is not an ideal space. If they had somewhere with concrete, that drained a little better, that would be a better space for such a thing. I know that that discussion has been going on. Facilitating the movement itself would probably best be done from an indoor space where they could have things like offices.” Reimer said.

Of course i have no idea if the occupiers would agree, that would require much horizontal discussion, twinkling and a vote. But it is a hopeful sign, perhaps Vancouver can be a vanguard for the co-operative model that yesterday's stories from Occupy Halifax and Olympia examplified. This could be a model for so many other occupied locations now heading into winter.

Imagine the difference in tone co-operation would bring over confrontation. Imagine the difference one successful co-operative solution could bring to what now seems like the kindling of a soon to be out of control fire. Vancouver's Adbusters called the people to this growing occupation movement, now, hopefully, Vancouver's occupiers will propel the movement foward.

Occupy Vancouver to Move Indoors - According to a key Occupy organizer, protesters are in negotiations with the city to move to a warehouse following the shut down order issued by Mayor Gregor Robertson.

A Combo-nation of Occupy Olympia and Occupy Halifax a Viable Model

Occupiers are stirring the pot, everyday now there are so many issues on so many fronts it resembles a candling forest fire in a strong wind. So many stories everyday that a person can go with those that are the best fit with their paradigm. Today's news cycle includes a number that fit mine. One is where the Washington troopers took to heart the radical notion of 'protect and serve' and helped set up tents at Occupy Olympia.

Another is from Halifax where Occupy Nova Scotia protesters camped outside Halifax City Hall put down their placards and bongos Sunday and picked up brooms, sponges and dishcloths instead. The demonstrators started a cleanup prior to a temporary relocation that will allow Remembrance Day ceremonies to go ahead at the city's main cenotaph.

Oakland, Atlanta, Vancouver, Chicago, San Diego, Bloomberg and others are watching hopefully. Their aren't two sides, everybody is in the 99% boat. First came Albany now Olympia and Halifax are visible models of co-operation but they are only a few we've heard of. There are thousands of ongoing occupations the vast majority are peaceful, community supported, protests.

Occupy Vancouver is under pressure right now. The occupiers sound determined to stay. Occupy Vancouver providing a number of valuable services to the homeless, their schedule of daily events shows a level of organization to be envied and, with any luck, cloned by occupiers everywhere.

Hundreds of millions of poor across the globe are going hungry to feed this mania for profit. The technical jargon, learned in business schools and on trading floors, effectively mask the reality of what is happening—murder. Those who resist—the doubters, outcasts, renegades, skeptics and rebels—rarely come from the elite. They ask different questions. They seek something else—a life of meaning. - Chris Hedges

Occupy Vancouver in Shock After Death.

Occupy Vancouver medic Chris Shaw was the first-responder on scene, and unsuccessfully attempted first aid on the deceased woman. Within hours, protestors began a candle-light vigil - with signs reading "We are all Ashley" - was held in front of the art gallery on Georgia Street.

It appears Ashley died of a drug overdose. Another occupier said the incident is reflective of Vancouver's drug addiction crisis, not Occupy Vancouver, a protest against the very economic and political system that creates the conditions for drug addictions. "This is a better, safer shelter than any other shelter in the city. That's why people are here -- shelter, education, free food. Nothing that happened here is a product of this movement." - said Occupy participant Blaine Komatic.

Their have been 120 deaths from drug overdose in downtown Vancouver during the past year. Not once did either Gregor Robertson or Sunan Anton call for the closing of the downtown slums because of 'safety'. This poor girl's death is being used as a red herring to divert attention, as all red herrings are supposed to do, away from the issues of homelessness, hopelessness, poverty, inequality and despair.

Occupy Vancouver is undoubtedly the safest place to survive as a street person in Vancouver. If there were no election run going on Gregor Robertson would be going all 'liberal' on this issue. If the Olympics had actually delivered on it's pre-spectacle hype there would have been far more facilities available for Ashley. Instead she and others have voted with their feet for the imperfect community growing in the 'occupied' bits of ground here and around the world.

What happened today does not merely affect Occupy, it affects all of Vancouver, Canada, and our world - touching us all. This event reinforces our very reasons for being onsite today and calls for collective grieving and solidarity. This is a time for love and healing. We need to stand together as a community in this moment. - Occupy Vancouver

Tragic death rocks Occupy Vancouver site  - A woman at the Occupy Vancouver camp died Saturday after being found in an "unresponsive" condition, police said. A Canadian protest organizer said it appeared to be the result of a drug overdose.

It's Move Your Money Day Today

If you're looking for something cool to do, Saturday is Move Your Money Day. Or Bank Transfer Day. Or Dump Your Bank Day, lottsa names. November 5 has been marked as the unofficial date for unhappy customers to take their dough outta the big banks and move it into smaller, more local co-ops and credit unions.

Moving your money is a bigger issue in the US and Europe than here in Canada. Canadian bankers have had their greed machine throttled back by regulations passed by Chretian and Martin years ago they couldn't avoid or bribe their way out of. Though muzzled some by regulations Canadian bankers still do their best to serve the interests of their wealthy shareholders. So do Credit Unions serve he interests of their shareholders. The difference is you and i, the members, are the shareholders.

In what could be the first practical request by the Occupy Movement yet, protesters are asking everyone to take part in the "Move Your Money Day" and divert their investments from big banks. Moving your money is a small act of individual enpowerment. It feels good to act, Move your money! i did. The local Credit Union people were pleasant and helpful.

Move Your Money Day: San Francisco Residents to Dump Their Banks

 

Move Your Money: 650,000 People Just Did

Greek Referendum Scrapped - Bankers Delight

The Greeks were never really going to be given an oppurtunity to vote on the bankers deals, it was all a ruse to give Papandreou an honorable way out. "The referendum was never an end in itself," George Papandreou earlier told the cabinet according to statements released by his office. Mr Papandreou also insisted he would never have put the question of whether Greece stays in the eurozone to a popular vote, as the leaders of France and Germany had suggested.

Of course not, even in the birthplace of democracy, the people can't be alllowed to vote, not an honest vote like a referendum could've been for sure. Today's mainstream media headlines about Greece all mention the 'market surge', another good day for the bankers another bad day for the working class Greeks.

Greece's economy is being sucked dry by the banks. The Greeks marching the streets know what's going on they would have soundly voted to get out. One day, IMO, they still will get out either by walking or via the boot.

It's interesting to follow Argentina's history in light of Greece today. Argentina defaulted amid huge moaning by the same banks that had continued to lend huge sums and watched successive military juntas buy weapons with some and steal the rest. Finally Argentina rolled over and played dead, their bonds-their debt-became worth 20 cents on the dollar but instead of collapsing since then they've prospered. Venezula bought Argentina's near worthless bonds, began bartering oil for food with Argentina, Argentina's industry was able to sell its output in devalued dollars, tourism cost half what it had before. Now Argentina was booming, their not so long ago junk bonds 'surged', Venezula sold theirs and doubled their money. No wonder the yanks hate Hugo Chavez eh!

Europe's Own Arms Dealers and Loan Peddlers Took Down Greece - Profit-hungry bankers, weapons makers pushed EU member over brink.
 
Greeks' Choice — and Ours: Democracy or Finance? - Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou decided in favor of democracy yesterday when he announced a national referendum on the draconian budget cuts Europe and the IMF are demanding from Greece in return for bailing it out.

Why the Cops and Some of the Occupiers Clashed in Oakland Last Night

What difference 12hrs can be. Went to bed, things were cosmic. Got up, flames and riot cops. Too bad. Both sides of the barricades have divisions. The occupiers, as they're signs kinda show, are a diverse bunch. The vast majority are trying to pull off a peaceful, horizontally organised, leaderless revolution. A few though, like it was in the first Vancouver Olympic protests and others, show up mostly to smash windows and light bonfires.

The Cops have got their own issues. Their Union issued an open letter: Open Letter to the Citizens of Oakland From the Oakland Police Officers Association; Interview w/ Union which says in part: "We represent the 645 police officers who work hard every day to protect the citizens of Oakland. We, too, are the 99% fighting for better working conditions, fair treatment and the ability to provide a living for our children and families. Then, after a peaceful historic day where they too were looking like heroes, over react. Each individual cop is caught in the middle, they've got jobs/careers to protect but are definately a part of the 99%."

#Occupy Oakland didn't riot, a small group did, but the relative morality of different tactics is on a gradient scale, some how the occupiers must horizontally deciede the way foward. Remembering, hopefully, the experience of the G20 in Toronto which suggests that the more likely scenario is that elites will plant distruptive police provacteures. Maybe it was spy vs. spy, cops vs. cops in the pictures last night.

The cops, OPD and beyond, hopefuly again, will be informed by the Nuremberg Trials where it was decieded each person has the duty to disobey an immoral order, to follow their conscience. Their oath says 'serve and protect', nothing about being the army of the 1%. Like the veterans who's oath includes to protect again enemies both foreign and domestic and who now are occupiers because they now see the corporate power as abdomestic enemy,, the police have to deciede who's interests they are serving and protecting and follow their conscience.




A group, estimated by local media outlets as large as 20,000, marched from Oakland's central intersection to the city's port and successfully shut down the Port of Oaklsand.





"#Occupy Oakland's only demand is an invitation - Join Us! - We are reclaiming public space to use as a forum for the people to come together, meet one another, listen to each other, and build power for ourselves. Our struggle won’t fit in a 15 second soundbite.This occupation is a beginning, and we have a long way to go. And while we have much in common, we believe the people are stronger united behind many banners, rather than a single one." - Occupy Oakland Blog

Police Move in on Oakland Occupiers - Shortly after 1:30 a.m. police were ready to move in on the Occupy Oakland camp at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza and announced that arrests would be made. At least 100 tents are housing hundreds of people there.

Dozens of arrests at Occupy Oakland 

The Revolution is Being Livestreamed

This very cool, it's noon and i'm watching the livestream from Oscar Grant Plaza in one browser screen and typing into the other. Another of life's contradictions. The General Strike couldn't be without the corporations that made the gear. Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc. take huge expensive servers that need specially built warehouses to run. Without all of them we'd be hearing about this two days later like we did in the 60's.

The live chat running beside the livestream is very neat too. People all over the world are watching/listening to this and other streams and youtube video from the streets. All kinds of different folks, kids, dogs, music, chanting...praises to #Occupy Oakland, these folks are carrying the ball for us all.


UPDATE 1:3O PM: "Huge, enthusiastic, crowds are swirling through downtown Oakland. Police are staying away. All downtown banks have shut down. Come on down, it’s beautiful"  - #Occupy Oakland

 

Angela Davis Addresses the General Strike Rally

UPDATE 9PM: Weary protestors are heading home on the Bay Area Rapid Transit [BART] after a fantastic day that was peaceful and raised the exhilaration level of the universe. The day climaxed when 15,000+ marchers closed the Port of Oakland when the longshoremen refused to cross their picket line. Some occupiers are also heading back downtown to the park and plaza and a well deserved good night's sleep in their tent city.. The General Strike was a huge success. Praises have rolled in all day on the chat line from thousands of livestream watchers from around the world. Who could ask for anything more.

March to the Port of Oakland

General Strike in Oakland Already Successful

Tomorrow's General Strike call by the Occupiers in Oakland has  lifted the spirits of millions everywhere around the world. My body can't be there tomorrow but my spirit will be.

 
"We mean nobody goes to work, nobody goes to school, we shut the city down. The only thing they seem to care about is money and they don't understand that it's our money they need. We don't need them, they need us." - Occupy Oakland
 
There's two words that the mainstream media won't utter, 'General Strike'. The corporate media will try to measure the success of the strikers with a number - a few thousand-tens of thousands-hundreds of thousands-a million[my hope]. Numbers miss the point. The fact is the internet is alive with hope today like i've never seen it before. "The whole world is watching Oakland". i'm hoping to see lots of brown and black faces, as well as white, of all genders [male/female/trans/etc], young and old, veterans, off duty cops, union and non-union, suits and hippies - the rainbow nation in full regalia.

Let November 2nd be a historic day. Let millions of my fellow Americans join the General Strike all across America and around the world. Let freedom ring from every town and city everywhere. Let the members of the Oakland PD remember that they too are brothers and sisters in the great 99%, that we are all in this together. Let them refuse to continue to act as the army of the rich. Let the 1% tremble. Let this be the day we've always waited for.

Tomorrow, a General Strike in Oakland  When you’re dying a slow death, after all, not taking risks can be the riskiest course of action. As one union member told the Occupy Oakland’s strike subcommittee, “Thousands of union members are looking for inspiration. And whether you like it or not, you occupiers are now the leaders we are looking to.”

Salmon Feedlots Breed Winners and Losers

"Loosing a virus as lethal and contagious as ISA into the North Pacific is a cataclysmic biological threat to life. The European strain of ISA virus can only have come from the Atlantic salmon farms. European strain ISA infected Chile via Atlantic salmon eggs in 2007.” - Alexandra Morton

There is no treatment for the deadly ISA virus. ISA has erupted in every country that farms salmon. Recently ISA destroyed Chile's once thriving wild salmon industry. Why would anyone think BC would be different? The answer, as usual, the 1% solution. Let's follow the money.

Bureaucrats are people too. They have mortages to pay, children to raise, career futures to be worried about. Fisheries bureaucrats know full well what the politicians they report to want to hear. The politicians want reports that conform to the needs of the big contributors to their party. These big contributors, be they Norwegian feedlot owners or whoever, almost never have much of their own money at risk in their speculative ventures. They go to the bank with their business plan for financing. If the bank figures that there's enough money to be made for their shareholders the loans roll out, the equipment is bought and the rich get richer.

For sure a small percentage of a bank's shareholders are little guys and/or their pension funds but the vast majority of every bank's 'profits' flow to the1% now so widely condemned by the #Occupy movement. The fish farming industry is no different from any other. In order to siphon enough money out of our collective pockets and keeping the flow going a wise capitialist knows that it's foolish to grease the palms of only one side in any political jurisdiction, so 'big or small, grease 'em all' is the capitialist slogan.

Salmon feedlots kill wild salmon. For years British Columbians have tried to persuade this Norwegian industry to respect our wild fish, even offering to fund their transition to closed tanks, but they just keep expanding. Salmon feedlots must GET OUT of our ocean.-Salmon Are Sacred

Baksheesh-mordida-bribery-etc., many names but the end product is one in the same, the1% rules-the 99% drools.

BC's Salmon Feedlots Need To Be Closed
Thanks to Alaskans for fighting against factory fish farming. Alaska is the last bastion of healthy wild salmon runs, but the forces against nature are closing in on all sides.

ISA virus is serious, so what's B.C. doing about it?
Salmon farms and wild fish are separated only by a net, many have noted. The crowded conditions of salmon farms are thought to abet the spread of the virus.

Biologists Know Only Intact Ecosystems Can Save Species

Real conservation requires first and foremost an acknowledgement that all life is immersed in one interconnected system. Since writing 'Let The Buffalo Roam' a few months ago i've finally found the time to read Richard Manning's 'Rewilding the West'. In it Manning recounts the history, since European settlement, of 3.5 million acres of grasslands in and around the Missouri Breaks that the American Prairie Foundation is attempting to buy up and 'rewild'.

About one quarter of the earth's land was once grasslands, today little remains intact. What hasn't been destroyed by the pastoralists plows has been by their cattle and sheep including the Missouri Breaks. Manning shows how our failures to tame the grasslands of N. America have been a blessing in some ways and how their 'rewilding' will happen one day in spite of our meager attempts to control it. One day the perennials will re-inhabit the area, one day the fence posts will rot, one day the rivers will run clear and clean, The American Prairie Foundation hopes to help hurry that day along.

Species, all species, co-evolve. The earth's grasslands co-evolved with the ungulates that grazed them, with the prairie dogs whose burrows brought nutrients to the surface, with the predators, with the soil and the climate. When droughts came, as they always do, the bison, elk and deer moved hundreds of miles to better pasture. The grasses themselves being perennials would seemingly vanish, as they appeared to do during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, only to regrow from the biomass in their deep and abundant root systems.

Wheat and corn are annual grasses, they must produce seed or not regenerate, so we dam every stream, plow under the original miracle, pile on the chemicals and wait for the Great Mother to laugh at our short term hubris again. i am a conservative, i believe that real conservation's only hope is intact ecosystems. Further i believe that the re-sequestration of greenhouse gases could be accomplished in large part if we stopped trying to control the earth's grasslands [and other ecosystems] for the benefit of the bankers and special interests but instead allowed The Great Mother to once again abide, as she will one day anyway, despite our short sighted plans.

Restoring the great American prairie

Moving North to a New Hideout in Powell River

Last time i changed communities was almost 35 years ago. We moved to Roberts Creek on the lower Sunshine Coast to look after a friend's little farm for a year while they and their kids went on a tour of Europe. We arrived in Roberts Creek in the late summer of '76 just in time for our little girl to start kindergarten. We all made friends, turned out we fit right in to the small rural outlaw community so we bought a little bit of paradise and stayed.

The years rolled by, the family evolved as many did back then. New partners, new loves, new jobs, new little farm. Lottsa good times and good people. But the old community evolved too, folks slowly moved on, or passed on and one day i realized Roberts Creek, the one i'd fallen in love with, wasn't really there anymore. Being only about an hour, including one ferry ride, away from Vancouver meant Roberts Creek and its environs faces steadily rising real estate prices and a steady influx of the city folks who could afford them.

We lived for 25 of those years on a small organic farm, couldn't see another human, could live the old life insulted from the gentrification slowly chocking that old lifestyle into submission. Roberts Creek is still a neat place, better than most for sure. Some oldtimers still live the outlaw life but not many anymore. Young families can't move in unless they are of the silver spoon variety. The newcomers drive shiny SUVs, ski at Whistler, and get a latte buzz.. The oldtimers drove beaters and raised kids, dogs, chickens, and pot at the end of long dirt driveways.

Haven't had much time for writing lately cause i'm movin north. Time for a change while i've still got a bitta time and energy left. The new paradise for me is Powell River South. The new hideout is about 3 hours including two ferry rides north of Vancouver. It's like stepping back in time, my old beater van fits right in, roosters crow at the break of dawn, dogs bark, and most thrilling of all kids go outside-unchaperoned-and play. The other day my youngest daughter and i hiked Palm Beach just down the road from the new hideout, it was glorious, it reminded me of the first time i visited Roberts Creek's beach all those years ago.

Goin north-it's the new west.

Go North, It's The New West

The corporate control of our governments is so complete that people should be banding together against Big Business. Instead the Empire rules and we the people remain hoodwinked, divided and conquered. Dylan said "When you got nothin, you got nothin to lose." Like those folks in Libya throwing stones at tanks. Big business, big oil in Libya's case, big money, big corruption, it's the same dark lord holding sway from Libya to Wisconsin.

In 'Another Road' Ed’s Apprentice says, "I’m driving away from empire, thought long and hard about saving the living world, but I decided otherwise. I just can’t. For starters, nobody wants to let go of the lie." Unfortunately Ed’s Apprentice, and most of us, see the lies and illusions of others clearly, our own not so much. Driving away from empire is a powerful thought. i wonder which way he's goin?

Personally, i'm heading north, it's the new west here in N. America. Go north old man, find a little town, settle down, your neck may get redder, but you'll feel a lot better. The only real way to have more is to want less. Empire's grip loosens with every bend in the road headin north. We're real lucky here on the coast of BC because we got something way more liberating of Empire's grip than any pothole or bend, the ferry. BC Ferries separates the wheat from the chaff daily up here.

According to the country song, "When the talking is over, it's time to get a gun."

We aren't witnessing species extinction, we are species extinction.

The Dodo became extinct during the mid-late seventeenth century after humans destroyed the forests where the birds made their homes and introduced mammals that ate their eggs. The Dodo is a perfect symbol for ignorance we humans have used to guide us in our short, but brutal, history. The Holocene is the name given to the last 10,000 years of the Earth's history, the time since the end of the last major glacial epoch, or ice age.

Since then, in general, the Holocene has been a relatively warm period in between ice ages. Ever increasing habitat destruction, pollution, and other factors are causing an ongoing mass extinction of plant and animal species called the Holocene extinction. Overall, the Holocene extinction is most significantly characterised by the presence of human-made driving factors, according to some projections, 20% of all plant and animal species on Earth will be extinct within the next 25 years.

Just as the advert for a satnav system says,"You are not stuck in traffic, you are traffic." So too, We are not witnessing species extinction, we are species extinction. We're playing Russian roulette, we're in the game, we're not spectators. As yesterday's post showed we have no idea how much we don't know about the intricate interconnected world we are immersed in. We have no idea which day we'll be the dodos, but just like pulling the trigger in the other Russian roulette, it's obvious one day we will be.

When man interferes with the Tao, the sky becomes filthy, the earth becomes depleted, the equilibrium crumbles, creatures become extinct. Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, ca. 550 BCE

Emergency warning! Pathogen New to Science Found in Roundup Ready GM Crops?

An open letter appeared on the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance website founded and run by Judith McGeary to save family farms in the US. The letter, written in February by Don Huber, professor emeritus at Purdue University, to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, warns of a pathogen “new to science” discovered by “a team of senior plant and animal scientists”. Huber says it should be treated as an “emergency’’, as it could result in “a collapse of US soy and corn export markets and significant disruption of domestic food and feed supplies.”

The Institute of Science in Society (ISIS) and Dr. Mae-Wan Ho warn, "This could be the worst problem yet to be seen with genetic engineering. Scientists have been warning for years about the unintended creation of new pathogens through assisted horizontal gene transfer and recombination. This new plant pathogen in Roundup Ready GM soybean and corn may be responsible for high rates of infertility and spontaneous abortions in livestock and a threat to human health."

Yikes, of course i hope this story turns out not to be true, but there are dozens of sites running similar versions of it. Its veracity follows logically from our human hubris even in the face of our obvious ignorance about the 'collateral' and downstream effects of our follies. Only money matters, any quackery or flim flam that can seemingly side step the laws of nature are used by the capitalists to inflate their quarterly profits.

In a sane and moral world the Precautionary Principle, which has been simply stated as: "When human activities may lead to morally unacceptable harm that is scientifically plausible but uncertain, actions shall be taken to avoid or diminish that harm" (UNESCO), would abolish GMO use. But not so much here on planet earth where the planet's plunder continues in the name of progress, where in the short term greed rules, but where in the long term nature bats last.

Boycott Koch Industry Products

Facebook's Boycott and Defeat Koch Industries page features a list of Koch Industry Products [see below]. It's a great idea, the Koch brothers dance for power and money, the only way to bite them back is through their wallet. They've got their dirty little feet in enough doors that it might be possible to slam a few of them on their toes.

A couple days ago Wisconsin's Gov. Walker got spoofed by an underground reporter's prank call. So today i went searching for the transcript to see what the uproar was about. Read it here. In it Walker says to the prankster claiming to be a Koch brother, 'This is Our Moment' in regards to union busting generally. Walker and his Republican ilk in Wisconsin are emblematic of the TEA Party's refusal to tax the rich who caused every one's financial woes, who instead are using, Shock Dotrine style, these dark days to spread fear and to eliminate any/all opposition to their tyranny.

Boycott Koch Industry Products! « The Fifth Column

Koch Industry Gasoline:
Chevron
Union
Union 76
Conoco

Koch Industry/Georgia-Pacific Products:
Angel Soft toilet paper
Brawny paper towels
Dixie plates, bowls, napkins and cups
Mardi Gras napkins and towels
Quilted Northern toilet paper
Soft ‘n Gentle toilet paper
Sparkle napkins
Vanity fair napkins
Zee napkins

Koch Industry/Invista Products:
COMFOREL® fiberfill
COOLMAX® fabric
CORDURA® fabric
DACRON® fiber
POLYSHIELD® resin
SOLARMAX® fabric
SOMERELLE® bedding products
STAINMASTER® carpet
SUPPLEX® fabric
TACTEL® fiber
TACTESSE® carpet fiber
TERATE® polyols
TERATHANE® polyether glycol
THERMOLITE® fabric
PHENREZ® resin
POLARGUARD® fiber and
LYCRA® fiber

Georgia Pacific Building products
Dense Armor Drywall and Decking
ToughArmor Gypsum board
Georgia pacific Plytanium Plywood
Flexrock
Densglass sheathing
G/P Industrial plasters (some products used by a lot of crafters)-
Agricultural Plaster
Arts & Crafts Plaster
Dental Plaster
General Purpose Plaster
Glass-reinforced Gypsum (GRG)
Industrial Tooling Plaster
Investment Casting Plaster
Medical Plaster
Metal Casting Plaster
Pottery Plaster
FibreStrong Rim board
G/P Lam board
Blue Ribbon OSB Rated Sheathing
Blue Ribbon Sub-floor
DryGuard Enhanced OSB
Nautilus Wall Sheathing
Thermostat OSB Radiant Barrier Sheathing
Broadspan Engineered Wood Products
XJ 85 I-Joists
FireDefender Banded Cores
FireDefender FS
FireDefender Mineral Core
Hardboard and Thin MDF including Auto Hardboard,
Perforated Hardboard and Thin MDF
Wood Fiberboard -
Commercial Roof Fiberboard
Hushboard Sound Deadening Board
Regular Fiberboard Sheathing
Structural Fiberboard Sheathing

World’s First Electric Powered Hemp Car to be Made in Canada

This morning's reading turned up The Kestrel. It's the world’s first production-ready hemp car. The electric car made of hemp is being developed by a group of Canadian companies in collaboration with an Alberta Crown corporation. The Kestrel cars will be built with the help of polytechnic schools in Alberta, Quebec and Toronto. The Kestrel will be selling for $25,000 CDN starting in 2012. "You can smoke it, you can wear it, you can eat it… and now, you can drive in it. Is there anything you can’t do with hemp?" - Jack Herer.com

The car's body will be made of an impact-resistant composite material produced from mats of hemp, a plant from the cannabis family. The material is being supplied by Alberta Innovates-Technology Futures, a provincial Crown corporation that provides technical services and funding to help commercialize new technologies. The hemp is being grown in Vegreville, Alta.

The Kestrel is one of five electric vehicles being developed by Project Eve, an automotive industry collaboration founded by Motive and Toronto Electric, an Ontario material handling and electric motor company, to boost the production of electric vehicles and electric vehicle components in Canada.

As a structural material, hemp is about the best as it has about twice the strength of other plant fibres. It doesn't require much water or pesticide use, and grows well in Canada, providing a high yield per hectare. Plus, it's illegal to grow hemp in the U.S., so it actually gives Canada a market advantage. The U.S. does allow the import of processed hemp. Cool eh!

So what happens when the Kestrel finally breaks down and is no longer drivable? Would it be environmentally friendly to invite a few friends over, order a pizza and watch it go up in smoke? - Autoguide

The Little Fish

This morning my best friend Pancho's barking woke me up very early. She smelled a bear outside the hideout and chased it off as soon as i opened the door for her. She came back in but i never could really get back to a sound sleep. Sometimes during this half sleep-half awake state i have very lucid dreams. This one could be based on a story i read once long ago to one of my daughters or maybe not. Either way, the little story keeps jumping out of my imagination, so...

It's a story about three creatures who meet at the edge of a river one day. There's a little fish who can't find his way out to the ocean. He's hanging near the shore, he's beat and wondering what to do. Next thing you know he bumps into the trunk of an elephant who's having a drink at the riverside. Also flitting about is the elephant's best friend a butterfly.

The lost little fish says "the river has been blocked by an irrigation dam" and asks for suggestions from the unlikely pair. Of course the elephant's advice was to bellow as loud as possible then charge, head lowered, full speed into the damn thing to bust it apart.

The butterfly kinda shook its tiny head is amusement realizing that of course the little fish didn't have the personality or the mass the elephant had, and that the elephant's advice was worthless to the little fish. So the butterfly flew down real near the surface and whispered to the little fish [so as not to hurt his friend elephant's feelings]. "Just flap your little wings real hard and let the breeze blow you over the dam".

Do Dogs go to Heaven?

 Apparently this actually happened.
These two churches face each other across a busy street.

 

Kinda makes me proud to have been indoctrinated by the Catholics

Global Grassroots Protests Focus on Class Struggle

The Facebook-Twitter-Web based protests of the Middle East have spread around the globe. Today's headline 'One World, One Pain': From Egypt to Wisconsin could well include Greece, France, Spain, anywhere in the US outside the gated communities, or the UK. One world, one pain, one enemy.

Well maybe a few. The bankers get bonuses, the corporations and banks get bailed out, the rest of us get austerity programs. Austerity means less spending on education [the rich have private schools anyway], health care, social services, etc. everything that non-rich type people need, especially in tough times. What austerity doesn't mean is higher taxes on the rich, the banks or the corporations.

One exploding grassroots internet movement is UK Uncut. They organize through Twitter what, in non-political terms, is called a flash mob. Right now they're shutting down 100's branches of Barclay's Bank daily. Their basic message is that all austerity programs, including the recent ones in the UK, are a choice. The governments choose to make the poor pay for the mess their rich greedy benefactors made and refuse to tax the rich they are totally owned and operated by.

Along with millions of others, mr. mud is pinning his hopes on a long shot. Hoping that the sheeple near and far will awaken, that the many will rise up against the few, that the flame of revolution will melt the divisions we've for so long allowed to stupefy us. The Internet Revolution is spawning internet revolutionaries especially among the global youth. One world, one pain, one enemy, one revolution.

UK Uncut: protests spread from Wales to Mississippi - Web and Twitter-driven campaign against tax avoidance gains foothold in America with 20 chapters across US

'One World, One Pain': From Egypt to Wisconsin - The great thing about solidarity is that it flows in all directions. You give it, you get it.

Reductionism only works well on dead stuff, and even then...

My earliest memory of environmental angst came when encountered the statement: 'We can only shit in our nest just so long before we're nesting in our shit.' An oldie, but a goodie slogan wise, projection wise too. The consumer culture hurtles along casting its crap and by-products, externalities, behind them for others to pay. But there's already so much 'by-product' lining our cultural freeway we're seeing the blow back here and now.

"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." - Aristotle. Reductionism was another huge pothole on my freeway. Reductionism, the logical basis of all the hard sciences, says that if you incinerate a duck and capture 100% of the gases, ashes and bits, this pile is the same as the duck. To which i answer 'QUACK'. The magic of life is in the quack not the ashes. "We milk the cow of the world, and as we do We whisper in her ear, 'You are not true.'" - Richard Wilbur

Holism understands that it is impossible to isolate and study one individual component in a living-interconnected-evolving system because its one variable dependent on other variables. Holism is an antidote to the illusion at the center of our worldview, the illusion that we are separate from our surroundings. This illusion of separateness allows us to further delude ourselves into clutching onto the delusion of dominion over creation.

The illusion that certain humans have a 'special' relationship with the divine. The illusion that all of creation was created as a resource for the true believers of some anthropogenic creed are at the heart of our abandonment the The Great Mother and the wanton destruction of, and shitting into, our nest. Reductionism only works well on dead stuff, and even then...

"The Goddess in all her manifestations was a symbol of the unity of all life in Nature. Her power was in water and stone, in tomb and cave, in animals and birds, snakes and fish, hill, trees, and flowers." - Marija Gimbutas

We Are All Egyptians

In Tunisia, Egypt, Iran, Bahrain, Libya, Jordan, Yemen, Syria and beyond the vast majority can barely cover their meager needs, while the elites live lives of excess and greed. In Cairo we saw the people come from the slums into Mahrir Square, we saw the powerful in their luxury apartments overlooking the square having cocktails and lavish dinner parties. The same is true throughout the Middle East, throughout Africa, Latin America...

Same's true for the protesters in Thailand, in Burma, and China too. There is only one war, class war, the faces change from country to country, region to region, but the paradigm doesn't. As Anatole France said, “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”

The Iranian hypocrites are getting the worst press. Iran's elites supported the Egyptian and Tunisian protests, calling them as an "Islamic awakening" inspired by Iran's Islamic Revolution, but immediately clamped down as soon as their young Internet savy protesters hit the streets to demand freedom from the same archaic ruling mullahs. In Bahrain protesters face the monarchy of King Hamad bin Isa, whose Bedouin family has ruled the country for more than two centuries, i wonder if they tweet?

How different yet how alike our lives here are compared to those of our cousins around the world. Different in that far fewer of us are homeless-yet, far fewer spend half our income on groceries, far more still have dreams for their children. Alike in that the tyranny of the many by the few still forces millions onto the streets and into tent cities. We are all Egyptians, we share a common destiny, either we learn to equitably redistribute the wealth generated by the subjugation of our common birthright or we perish, some sooner, some wrapped in diamonds trying to eat their money a bit later.

"People's expectations have been raised and their tolerance for the old ways diminished. The remaining Arab regimes must now ask not if change will happen but how...The people are saying to their rulers: our countries, our futures, don't belong to you any more. They belong to us." - A Sense of Common Destiny

Climate Change-Species Extinction-Ocean Acidity, All Symptoms of Same Disease

Materialism, conspicuous consumption, and the worship of 'more' are the disease. Climate change, species extinction, ocean acidity, polluted waterways, feedlots...on and on, are all symptoms of the disease and treating symptoms in most cases is worth less than zero because it just diverts one's attention away from the underlying disease's progression.

What to do? Of course speaking out against the outrageous destruction of our home is a beginning and an acknowledgement of one's understanding the cause of the problem. But doing is harder, doing requires changing and often being different. We live in a culture of fear, fear of the unknown, fear of body odor, fear of being different...fear. Freedom from fear, even for a moment, creates the space and time needed for individual action.

Action can start small and grow. The beginning of the path 'out' for me was the step into the cash economy. Buying local and spending cash is a small way to resist, is an empowering first step. For me it feels good to have less, to want less, to 'drop out' of the capitalist system that is consuming our mother earth, to read, to learn, to live freely through small acts of resistance.

Today Guy McPherson's site Nature Bats Last ran a great, but overly long, anarchist essay in favor of resistance to the machine. It concluded that, "Calculating people would not enter this fight, because we have so little hope of winning.We continue fighting, because we hate all authority, and love freedom, which cannot be given, but must be taken."

Disambiguity-Clearly Defining Terms-the Road to Reason at Climate Etc.

Today at Judith Curry's blog Climate Etc. i read a fantastic essay by Terry Oldberg titled 'The Principles of Reasoning. Part III: Logic and Climatology' It's about ambiguity in language and semantics, about clearly defining terms from the outset, about how and why we're logically stuck in the climate change mud. It's a great read, but not short.

Disambiguity, or clearly defining the words being used, is key to forming a logical argument. Terry Oldberg's essay focuses on one set of terms about climate models and the projections, but not, predictions they produce. The question of projections vs. predictions is often used to argue that the uncertainty is so huge in the climate change debate we should do nothing. This is a multi trillion dollar decision, any attempt to curb emissions or build alternatives will mean huge financial gains for some and losses for others.

Seems that the pressure to not act, to continue business as usual, is building, in part at least, because those skeptical of human caused climate change say the uncertainty of climate models makes predictions impossible. True enough, but humans can and do act on projections not just predictions. Earthquakes are an example. Here in the lower mainland of BC all buildings are built to withstand big earthquakes. That costs big bucks, we have no absolutely accurate earthquake models either, but we can build projections and we do build reinforcements.

From urban Public Health to rural crop rotation, we rely on projections to inform policy because in the real world, this world full of variables those value is derived from other variables, absolute predictions about the probabilities of naturally occurring events are impossible. The road to reasonable action runs through error bars, projections and uncertainty plus a buncha unknown-unknowns, all of which allow a clear shot by the skeptical bushwhackers. Science is better at making accurate predictions about dead things whereas living things, interconnected things, kinda baffle reductionism into settling for projections.

Following Judith Curry's blog Climate Etc. is often difficult, always interesting.