The Avoided Costs, Externalities, That Capitalism Hides are Really Robbing from the Future

Yesterday's article at Adbusters 'Can America go "Forward' on Climate"?' agrees with, and even uses the same type of terminology, as many of my raps on climate change. It takes on "the root of our climatic, environmental problem: the exploitative economic paradigm we operate, the political stagnation that goes with that, the social inequalities we are forced to endure, the cult of hyper-consumption that defines American culture – it is this systemic destructiveness that endorses ravenous fossil fuel use in the first place." Concluding that, "Until Obama, and the activists putting pressure on him, stop confounding the symptoms with the disease, there will be a stark limit to how effective, enduring and powerful a revolutionary movement can be." Right on!

Climate change doesn't stand alone in a vacuum, it's part of the matrix of consumer capitalism. As long as people demand stuff beyond their needs capitalists will find a scheme that allows them to externalize the actual costs involved in producing whatever crap the humans are demanding. The externality of CO2 pollution is actually robbery from the future well being of every living thing to secure undeserved 'profit' in the present for a few greedy bastards and is a symptom of the disease of consumption. None of the symptoms can be cured unless the underlying disease is.

CO2 pollution is just one of many externalities that capitalism uses to dodge the full costs of production. The excellent book by Raj Patel titled 'The Value Of Nothing' offers a book full of explanations about how capitalism's reliance on hidden unpaid costs is really the basis of all 'profit'. He cites the unpaid cost of producing a workforce to be exploited in the first place. How around the globe the unpaid work of rearing children, maintaining a household and civic engagement  -often called 'women's work' - would, if accounted for, actually cost the economy nearly $20 trillion, or about half of the world's total GDP.

Another example we can all relate to immediately is what the real cost of a BigMac would be if the actual carbon footprint of the 550 million of them sold in the US every year were included. Things like the cost of cleaning up the 2.66 billion tons of CO2 emitted, the cost of environmental impact on soil and water and the costs of diet related illnesses like obesity, diabetes and heart disease. McDonald's avoids these costs [and a lotta others] that's why a BigMac costs $4 at the drive through instead of $200.

Another is the rare earth metals in every cell phone. Cell phones are often 'free' if you sign up for a long term plan. But are they really 'free'? Of course not. Just like McDonalds, the corporations may not be paying the costs of environmental degradation in Africa where they are mined or the social costs of the wider ecological destruction of what not so long ago was a sustainable agricultural lifestyle among the people there who now toil in the mines, but someone must pay those externalized costs someday.

The externalities that capitalism hides so it can declare a quarterly profit for its shareholders [the only thing that matters to capitalists] is actually robbery from the future. Here's a great 3 minute video about another of the disgusting externalities of capitalism. This video should be seen by the entire world.

Killing Bill C-30 is Meaningless, Canada and the US Have Long Been in 'Security' Lock Step

Two days ago Canada's Justice Minister Rob Nicholson announced that the Conservative Government was killing Bill C-30, its controversial online surveillance bill. But Canadians should take the time look carefully at the wording of the regulations that replaces it, like, "Emergency Wire Tap", for "Imminent harm, such as a kidnapping or bomb threat". In addition 'security' authorities "can listen without a warrant if they feel like harm may come from or to one of the parties involved. They are obligated to tell you at 90 days from when this starts.... unless they choose to extend it to 3 years before they notify you." Yikes.

Next look into the information already publicly available about the U.S.-Canada deals on 'Perimeter Security'.  There's 'The Integrated Cross Border Law Enforcement Operations Act', embedded in Bill C-38, which has been passed. It's part of 'The Beyond The Border initiative' which is "intended to foster the sharing of intelligence and, among other measures, the deal aims to address threats at the earliest possible opportunity as well as build on cross-border law enforcement programs and enhance emergency and cyber infrastructure." Yikes x 2

Then there's the US's 'Cyber-Intelligence Sharing & Protection Act' (CISPA), which commits [Bill C-12] Canada to “real-time information sharing” between cyber-security operations on both sides of the border. Every Canadian who thinks for a second that every thing they type, every call they make, isn't being recorded some place by one of the vast US 'security' operations is being naive. Yikes x 3

When it comes to 'security' the US and Canada are lock step and have been for a long time. It was common practice for one ally, like Canada for instance, to collect info from another country, like the US, then 'advise' the other of dangerous information however it was obtained. The US will continue to do it for Canada just as they had for years before documents obtained by FOI requests in the US forced the hand of that government to pass laws codifying these arrangements.

Never could understand why the Harperites opened themselves up to public criticism by introducing Bill C-30, other than as a sop to their ultra-conservative base, because they already had all legislation in place that they needed to legally farm out their domestic Internet spying and warrant-less wiretapping. The Canadian 'security' agencies - CSIS and the RCMP - can and will continue to take whatever information they are given and use it anyway they want, just like information taken through torture.

International War Crimes and Other Stuff Kemosabe Obama, the Drone Ranger, Didn't Mention Last Night

The best critique of last night's speech by the Drone Warrior in Chief that i read today is by Norman Solomon and titled 'What Obama Said (and What He Meant) About Climate Change, War and Civil Liberties'. It covers many of the platitudes the silver tongued horse's ass spun last night, it's not overly long and well worth reading. One point he didn't touch on was very well critiqued by The Christian Science Monitor in their article about the liar's claim that Obamacare has slowed the rise of health costs when the facts clearly show that the key provisions don't kick in until 2014 and that slower spending is related to a weak economy. Also an informative read.

The prize for the most accurate and concise description goes to the comment at Common Dreams, "Obama takes center stage, mouths a script of meaningless platitudes, the Congress and Senate applaud like the Corporate-paid trained seals they are, and Corporate-owned media pundits on Fox and MSNBC spend the next week waxing rhapsodic and dissecting the meaning of nothing."

Of course, the horse's ass didn't mention the UN's investigation of the US's drone warfare program and other forms of targeted killing conducted in counter-terrorism operations of individuals and groups [including US citizens] anywhere in the world which it says is indefensible. A United Nations investigator has recently said. "The US policy of using aerial drones to carry out targeted killings presents a major challenge to the system of international law that has endured since the second world war"

The content of Bill Moyers and Michael Winship's article for the Huffington Post last week was good, but the title, 'Barack Obama, Drone Ranger' has inspired hundreds of us to use the Drone Ranger moniker for the Obomber. The Mud Report, having done at least a six-pack of further research has decided that the use of Kemosabe is a totally appropriate first name for at least two reasons:

1:) Tonto certainly is Spanish for "stupid" or "fool." And Tonto, who was not so tonto, responded by calling the Lone Ranger "qui no sabe" (with an Indian accent), which roughly translates from Spanish as "he who knows nothing" or "clueless."

2:) Gary Larsen immortalized the genre of kemosabe jokes with a Far Side cartoon in which Kemosabe turns out to be "an Apache expression for a horse's rear end."

Ah, Kemosabe.

'State of the Union' - A Fearful and Gullible Many are Ruled by A Rich and Greedy Few

This Vietnam veteran knows the truth about the 'State of the Union'

We were all taught as kids that 'actions speak louder than words'. Tonight the Liar Obama will be telling his fearful and gullible countrymen exactly what his spin doctor advisers tell him will sound the best. Being an impressive speaker well trained in the art of platitudes it'll undoubtedly be another set of thinly disguised jingoistic lies. Ever notice how much lawyer and liar sound alike? They come from the same linguistic root. Obama is a Harvard lawyer well trained in advocating for either side of any issue. Here's a sad list of the things he's advocated for in his past 'State of the Union' addresses and what he's actually done in each case.

A person would get far a more accurate picture of what Obama intends to do by simply flipping every statement he makes. Probably the best anyone could hope for in this address is that their favorite issue isn't mentioned at all. There used to be a time when i wouldn't watch W's speeches because it was obvious he'd do what he was saying. Now don't watch Obama's because it's obvious he won't.

Some things you won't hear the liar in chief speaking about tonight are torture, drone warfare, indefinite detainment, warrant less wiretapping of citizens, secret black prisons, secret military units or unconstitutional secret powers the government says it needs to protect your 'freedom'. He won't talk about corporate person hood, taxpayer funded banker bonuses, homeless veterans or home foreclosures either. But you will hear about gun violence and some empty promises about changing gun laws. You'll hear that some of the troops will be coming home from Afghanistan but nothing about how 11 years of useless war there will end with lottsa dead but little real change. Blah-Blah-Blah

As Jack Nicholson said in the movie 'A Few Good Men', Americans don't want the truth because they "can't handle the truth". The truth is The State of the Union is desperate. The truth is in America today the fearful and gullible many are ruled by a rich and greedy few. What American author Sinclair Lewis wrote about in his satirical 1935 novel 'It Can't Happen Here' is exactly what is happening in America today. It'll be happening before your eyes on TV tonight.

Why 80% of Americans Distrust Government and Why They're Lined Up to Buy More Guns and Ammo

The most recent poll by the Pew Research Center found 80% of Americans don't trust the government. Their conclusions and those of The Atlantic focused on traditional economic and political stuff including a deep recession, high unemployment and polarized Congress. All very 'liberal', very non-controversial, very shallow. None mentioned torture, drone warfare, indefinite detainment, warrant less wiretapping of citizens, secret black' prisons, lying to declare war, secret military units or the many other unconstitutional secret powers the government says it needs to protect our 'freedom'.

The current situation didn't start with the recent acceleration of tyranny. Everybody my age - 65 - remembers the Gulf of Tonkin lies used by Johnson, remembers Watergate, remembers Clinton's cigar, remembers Colin Powell's lies about WMD in Iraq [informed by Egyptian torture victims] and probably has read all about the Pearl Harbor Conspiracy that convinced our parents to fight in WW2. Consequently many, if not most, Americans my age at least question the government's story about 9/11 too.

None in the lamestream media are willing to talk about the escalating un-authorized state surveillance. Most Americans understand that the reason for state authoritarianism is to preserve the worker-exploiting, planet destroying, corporate profit-making system. Things would be a lot easier for the state 'security' organizations if people would just hurry up and agree to mandatory RFID chip implants. But for now the FBI probably isn't monitoring you totally without permission. Remember the Terms and Conditions for that major website that you accepted without reading? Smile for the camera.

Here's a few links to some recent examples of why my fellow Americans distrust the government and why they're lined up to buy more guns and more ammo:

The NDAA and the Death of the Democratic State by Chris Hedges - Hedges and others are in court fighting Barack Obama's National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Section 1021(b)(2), which permits the military to detain anyone, including U.S. citizens, can be imprisoned indefinitely by the military and denied due process until 'the end of hostilities.” In an age of permanent war this is probably a lifetime. Anyone detained under the NDAA can be sent, according to Section (c)(4), to any “foreign country or entity.” This is, in essence, extraordinary rendition of U.S. citizens.

Google Report Shows 'Disturbing Growth in Government Surveillance' - Most recent Transparency Report from web giant reveals 136% increase in user data requests from US since 2009  Right now it's legal for the US government to access almost anything that you have online without a warrant and at anytime.

What the FBI Doesn't Want You To Know About Its "Secret" Surveillance Techniques

Obama Granted Sweeping Power in 'Secret' Cyber-Wars - U.S. President Barack Obama has been granted sweeping powers to order preemptive cyber-strikes on any given country, anonymous officials involved in a "secret legal review" of U.S. cyber warfare rules, told the New York Times. Obama now 'proverbial judge, jury and executioner’ of cyber-strikes.

Only the Whistleblower Goes to Prison - Former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou was sentenced to 30 months in prison for revealing in 2007 interviews that that Abu Zubaydah and other terrorism suspects were being waterboarded, making him the first CIA insider to confirm reports of torture during interrogation. He later spoke out forcefully against what he had witnessed: "There are things we should not do...One of them, I now firmly believe, is torture." Kiriakou, who did not take part in any torture, thus becomes the only former U.S. official to go to jail for torture.

More tomorrow on Kemosabe Obama, The Drone Ranger [Gary Larsen translation of Kemosabe - "an Apache expression for a horse's rear end."]

The Thrill of the Hill, Making the Curve and Flying Down Glenn St. Back in the 50s

One of the two most highly prized possessions of a boy growing up in Adams Mass. in the 50's was his sled.

Went to bed last night thinking about the blizzard hitting the Northeast US and remembering how often snowstorms past had led to some of the greatest times we all had as kids growing up in Adams, Massachusetts back in the 1950s. First among those memories is the hundreds of days spent out on the hills near my neighborhood with my friends and our sleds.

Next was that any good sized snow storm meant the schools would be closed for a day or two. Snow storms were more mysterious to us back then before satellites, before lottsa stuff. The local radio station usually told us when one was coming but exactly when and how big was left more to the imagination. And we all had imaginations. We all were able to go to sleep, like i did last night, dreaming of snow instead of worrying about school work undone or tests unprepared for. Manys the time an unprepared scoundrel like me was saved from disgrace, and maybe a beating with the ruler, by a foot of snow.

A boy growing up back then in Adams had two prized possessions - a bike and a sled. When i was about to turn 8 my grandfather renovated an old Flexible Flyer down in his basement workshop and presented it to me at Christmas. It was the best sled i'd ever seen. Unlike now, back then the quality of a thing was judged by how well it worked not by its shiny newness. Back then everybody of every age knew a great sled. Everybody knew great sleds didn't come from stores. Great sleds were flexible not only in name but in function, great sleds were long, strong and easy to steer. New sleds had colorful paint, but they were stiff and made of lighter gauge steel.

The sled and its rider, combined with the hill, provided the thrill. Adams, has some great hills but the hill we of the Crandell St. gang rode on big snow days started at the end of the long twisting dirt driveway up to Daniel's place. We'd hike up the snow covered road and careen back down to the Crandell/Glenn St. corner. On big snow days like this the town didn't plow Glenn St. because it was to steep for even the plow so we'd try to make the corner and continue down the hill toward the hwy. to Cheshire. The thrill was that you had to be going fast enough to make it across the flat part at the turn but going a bit to fast landed you in the ravine on the far side of the corner.

Sometimes you'd make it, sometimes not [not usually meant a bit of blood and bruises], but either way, after each rider had come down we'd all turn and head back for another ride. Each time we walked the hill we'd pack the run with our boots. Each ride down would further pack the trail of our rails. By late day we'd all be flying on our Flyers, having to drag our feet in places to keep from flying off into the woods. What great days those were. What great memories they are. Sure hope the kids are still flying down that hill today.

The Guardian of the Malaspina Abides

Pancho and the reclining Guardian of the Malaspina

Like history, most of our days don't repeat themselves but they do rhyme. Most days after reading, researching and writing a rant my best friend and i go for a long walk to the beach or forest nearby. Lately we've been going to Palm Beach down beyond Lang Bay and explore its 1/2 mile of ever evolving beach along the Malaspina Strait.

Many days this time of year Palm Beach is totally human-less, some days a few other folks and their best friends are there enjoying the same meditative and leisurely walk. Every day the wind, tides and waves have re-sculpted the beach anew. Every day the birds and the bees, the flowers and the trees are different, so are we. Every day though rain or shine, windy or calm, high tide or low, its calming effect allows me to remember that the wind and water connects us all.

At the far end of Palm Beach the Eagle River ends its run down from Lois Lake at its estuary and joins the sometimes pacific Malaspina Strait. At all but the highest tides uncountable birds make their living around the estuary. Different species of ducks in the different seasons, resident and itinerant Canadian geese, bald eagles, blue heron, tiny sandpipers, hawks, ravens, crows, hundreds of seagulls and the occasional group of vultures when the shore has salmon caresses or a dead seal washed up make every visit there unique. Many days the roar of the sea lions out at their favorite rocky outcropping past the Stillwater Bluffs is louder than the seagulls or the waves. Occasionally further out in the strait a pod of orcas might be seen enjoying a tasty meal of seal or salmon. Clams of all sorts inhabit the sandy sections, oysters and starfish the rocky bits.

The Malaspina is a small wonderful living part of the greater miracle we are immersed in. The local First Nations call the reclining lady in the picture above The Guardian of the Malaspina. Her silhouette only comes into view down by the estuary. As usual, in the picture she's adorned with seagulls and though it looks like my best friend Pancho is looking out at her in reality it's she who's watching out over us. Some days the seagull poop runs down her cheek just so and she appears to be crying, but every day she abides.

Organic Agriculture and Perennial Grasses Would Save Lake Winnipeg, the Planet... and Us

As today's article by Baden-Mayer and Cummins says, "We have the technology to save the planet".  We've had it for thousands of years, it's called organic farming. By abolishing factory farms, GMO crop cultivation, and making the transition back organic farming, we could sequester 100 percent of our other greenhouse gas emissions. In addition farm and ranch land can become a significant sink for the sequestration of existing greenhouse gasses, literally sucking excess greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and sequestering them safely in the soil, where they belong.

The opponents are, as always, those who are making money from the current poisonous system. But they're full of it, as Vandana Shiva says, "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." An acre of land, farmed using organic methods that include composting and cover crops, can naturally sequester up to 7,000 pounds of CO2 per year.

Forests are another huge potential sink and recycler of CO2. But instead, we burn those forests, releasing huge amounts of previously locked up carbon, to make way for biofuel production and to plant genetically modified crops fed with chemical fertilizers resulting in more CO2 emissions. Our current short sighted, profit driven, decisions may fuel agribusiness profits and financed banker's bonuses but they, our decisions-our choices, also have long term consequences for the survival of our descendants as well as short-term consequences for us now.

An excellent example is Lake Winnipeg which was named last week by the Global Nature Fund as its 'threatened lake of the year' for 2013, saying it is under threat from agricultural run-off and sewage discharges which stimulate large amounts of blue-green algae. Scientists have warned that we needed to decrease the nutrients causing the toxic blue-green algae blooms since 1969. As Alex Salki, chair of the LWF Science Advisory Council says, "Perhaps more than we recognize, Lake Winnipeg has a strong global connection because of its home in Canada’s [and the US's] vast prairie region known as the World’s Breadbasket".

The agricultural runoff and sewage coming from North and South Dakota, Minnesota and Manitoba dumps more than 40,000 pounds of phosphorus into Lake Winnipeg each day via the Red River and its watershed. There is a solution, the Perennial Solution. Perennials are thrifty. The long roots of  perennial grasses hold on to soil, water, and re-sequester carbon from the atmosphere. Research has proven that if the world's 8.3 billion acres of pasture and rangelands were transitioned to perennial grasses they would be able to sequester thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide per acre per year and create zero deadly runoffs into the world's rivers, lakes and oceans.

Sounds like an win-win solution, but instead we poison ourselves and our planet by falling for the capitalist-banker lies about the wonders of a better world through chemistry. Don't believe it or them, eat organic, save your compost, start a little garden in your yard or on your balcony. Become part of the solution instead of part of the problem.

The Environmental Debate Has Been Re-Framed as Economics. What about the Web-of-Life?

What was the 'value' of an oil soaked sea otter after Exxon Valdez spill?

Yesterday's report in Ottawa by Scott Vaughan, Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, was clear, the Harper government’s disaster planning has not kept pace with the rapid expansion in the energy sectors. Vaughan said, “some serious questions exist about the federal capacity to safeguard Canada’s environment.” Then went of to say, "...it raised questions about how the dramatic Fisheries Act changes passed last year will affect the 'financial liability of corporations' that are in a position to damage fish habitat." Why is the Commissioner of the Environment not focused on the environment, on the underlying web of life that sustains us all, including the accountants?

In addition to the liability exposure of corporations, Vaughan's report touched on how 'compensation plans' needed to repair habitat damage "...needed to be re-evaluated to figure out if they have the right capacity, in the rare event there may be a tanker accident.” Later he talked about hydraulic fracking saying, "...there is a need for the industry to tell Ottawa what chemicals are being used, so federal authorities can determine whether they pose a human health risk." What about the effects on the rest of the environment? You know, how all of life needs clean water, not just humans. ? Or how when the underlying web of life we are immersed in, and call the environment, is poisoned we are too?

The whole focus of the environmental equation has been re-framed as an economic issue. It isn't. The economy is an unreal human intellectual construct whose purpose is to function as a tool we use to help enhance quality of life. The environment is real, it is life. We've allowed the debate to be hijacked by the accountants and economists. Where once upon a time The Wall st. Journal would have narrowly focused, 'idiot sevant' style, on every issue in relation to its corporate profit potential, now every type of media has joined the idiot's parade. Last night, on CBC's 'The National', Amanda Lang pronounced that there is a difficult choice between environmental protection and growth in the Canadian economy, then showed Harper in Parliament responding to Vaughan's report by saying,  "The federal government  is reviewing the liability requirements."

The CBC, like every mass media outlet, is in the business of selling advertising space. They know that their viewers are pre-brainwashed into allowing, even demanding, the accountant's framing to reign. All of them give the people what they want and Canadians want to know how their damned RRSPs, mutual funds and pensions will be affected in the short term not if there will be a livable planet to hand down to future generations.

As the MarineBio Conservation Society article on Marine Wildlife and Pollution spells out, "The long-term effects of oil spills are far more subtle and difficult to assess than the short-term effects. The presence of persistent toxic chemicals on the beaches, in the water, and in the food web may result in a variety of impacts on wildlife, including impaired reproduction, decreased resistance to disease, anemia, eventual development of cancerous tissue growth (particularly in fish), neurological damage, and birth defects in offspring. The extent to which such effects occur in the years after an oil spill is largely unknown."

Guess they didn't get the memo about telling 'em what they want to hear eh!

'Gimme It Now' Has Replaced Planning, Saving THEN Buying the Things You Need

Canadian consumers 'Idle Lots More' in their unpaid-for wheels at the Peace Arch Border Crossing 

Canadian consumers continue to pile up debt, especially auto loans and installment loan borrower debt [loans for big-ticket consumer items]. All forms of consumer debt - defined as all personal debt except mortgages - were up in total over 6% in the last 3 months of 2012. Alberta and BC leads the parade of fools each with over $37,000 per person - including children. Even though Albert Einstein warned us that,  "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.", Canadians are determined to keep trying convinced that soon retail therapy will come to their rescue.

Canadian consumers act like 2 year olds, gimme, gimme it and gimme it now. Plastic money enables consumer debt addiction but it's still the addicts themselves doing the over-consuming and racking up the debt. They've got to stop blaming everyone else, look in the mirror, and ask themselves:.What happened to planning, saving and then buying whatever you need? When did my wants become needs? When exactly did i become a pawn of the finance industry?

All addicts have a narrow field of vision, they see only what gets them their next fix, never the bigger picture. Global capitalism is powered by addicted and debt ridden consumers. Worse than Pavlov's dogs they line up to get their next fix of plastic Chinese crap, another big screen TV, a 'smart' phone or more designer bling at the malls and at the borders to get to even better malls. And for what? Addicts never remember that their last fix didn't fill the emotional hole, but remain convinced the next one will.

Meanwhile, the boats full of manufactured dreams float into port from China and the boats full of Canadian resources float back to pay for them. Debt addicts, extractors, bankers, pollution, climate change, species extinction, starvation and billionaires all connected in the vast matrix of global consumer capitalism. Turn on, tune in, drop out - Timothy Leary's sage advice, delivered in the psychedelic 60's - is still good advice today.

Public Pension Plans Should Divest from Corporations Logging Old Growth Forests and Exporting Raw Logs

The logging company being blockaded from logging old growth trees on Cortes Island - Island Timberlands [IT] - is owned directly and indirectly by what have become some of the largest players in the in the investment world, public pension plans and investment boards. Who are the fat cats that own Island Timberlands? Turns out the fat cats are us as Craig McInnes's article in the Vancouver Sun recently explained.

Turns out BC's public servant' pension plans are managed by the B.C. Investment Management Board [bcIMC] who have $92 billion invested on their behalf including a 25% stake in Island Timberlands. Another 25% of IT is owned by the Canada Pension Plan [CPP]. The other 50% is owned by Brookfield, an Bermuda based Corporation not subject to Canadian laws or taxes, of which the CPP and bcIMC are also major owners. So anyone who stands to benefit from the CPP or bcIMC is in effect a part owner of the company trying to log on Cortes Island, cool eh.

David Vipond, Director of Collective Agreements with the BC Government Employees Union, said recently, "The only companies we have ever divested stock from was weapons and antipersonnel mine manufacturers because it was illegal. If people want to challenge the company’s practice, they can propose their own shareholder resolution at the company’s AGM.” Sounds like a great suggestion David. Sounds like if public pensioners organized themselves they could use their ownership in Island Timberlands to leverage change IT's behaviour and, by either divesting in IT or threatening to, stop IT from future logging of old growth forests and stop IT from its current practice of exporting of them as raw logs to US sawmills.

Sounds like Doug Pearce, CEO of bcIMC, would love to hear what BC's public service pensioners think of bcIMC's ethics. Certainly he'd like to hear about how Cortes Islands residents have launched a campaign aimed at the mills which buy SFI-certified raw logs and the retailers which sell the lumber: Home Depot, Lowe’s and ProBuild amongst others.

This is an excellent example of how divestment can be used as an effective tactic within a broader strategy against the corporate extractors plundering our planet. Divestment in this type of ill-gotten gains could cost the divestors, in this case the public pensioners, a small amount in the short term but in the long term their kids and grand kids might still have a live-able planet and be thankful to them for it.

Fosil Fuel Industry Divestment - an Effective Tactic or a Risk Free Road to Self-Esteem?

Divestment isn't a new idea. The recent adoption of the tactic by some unions, student groups and others involved the protest movement against the fossil fuel industries isn't the best use of it though IMO. The divestment tactic was very effective in pressuring the racist apartheid regime in South Africa into negotiations that led to the dismantling of the apartheid system. The tactic  started being used in 60's but had very little effect until the US government  instituted regulations mandating it in the 80's.

Moving their money, was the key concept then as now. But until the percentage of investor ownership in the corporations under pressure became large enough the effect was minimal. Scale is really the key to the strategic success of the divestment tactic.. Investors will always refuse to alter their portfolios at the risk of diminished returns. Investors back then had many other options to move their investments into so moving involved very little risk to their bottom line. The same is true today. An analysis of the risk for the 234 college endowment funds across the country who have divestment campaigns undertaken by their students released on Tuesday by the Aperio Group found that when all fossil-fuel companies were excluded the additional risk increased by about 0.01 percent.

The big difference is that the fossil fuel industry is a wide ranging, highly 'profitable' multi-trillion dollar industry and all the university endowments and union pension plans put together only hold a tiny fraction of those stocks. Every dime divested by them is simply an investment for a different buyer, nothing actually changes, except the self-esteem of those who now feel they are making an effort. The pension and endowment funds would just use the money from the sales to buy other investments in a slightly different sector of the matrix that underlies corporate capitalism. Divestment would have to target the whole matrix underlying global capitalism which is far beyond their reach.

The fossil fuel divestment campaign might become a tool that helps to re-focus the conversation about energy, but in reality it's not going to make a damn bit of difference. As long as consumers remain convinced they are entitled to consume, global capitalists will have no trouble raising the capital they need to fulfill those demands.. It would be far more effective, IMO, for all those folks to live simply and consumed less.

But, there are areas where the divestment tactic can an effective weapon in the Green Dragon's overall strategy against the matrix supporting the unfolding ecological disaster. Divestment was successful against South Africa because the investors had little to lose but the corporations had a lot to lose in public relations, good will and stock value because the volume of divestment was potentially so large it was driving down market prices.

Every mineral extracted, every economic exchange, every dime invested in corporate capitalism, happens because of the demand of consumers. The fossil fuel divestment movement may be help symbolically to advance the awareness of individual consumers as to their backdoor involvement in the dastardly businesses and it could allow participants to temporarily feel better about themselves, but otherwise, it's meaningless.

There are though some excellent examples of where the holdings by union pension plans, and others, of certain individual corporations are so large that the even the threat of divestment would cause those corporations to change their behavior. More on that manana.

The Climate Change Debate, One Side Denies the Science, the Other Denies the Cost of Change

One of the problems in the climate change debate is that many environmentalists liberally apply the denier label to the climate science skeptics while they themselves deny that the economics of actually living a 'sustainable' lifestyle would mean ending the entitled lives they now enjoy. Many environmentalists have no trouble using the ostrich approach while driving their Prius to the mall to buy a designer composter.

Naomi Klein said the same thing in her article 'Capitalism vs. the Climate'. In it Klein 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."

The inconvenient truth is that all the recycling, buying of green products and markets in pollution trading won't make a dent in the ecological crisis our over-consumption has already created. For all us in the 1st world to truly live within a sustainable footprint we'd have to live 3rd world lifestyles. When Heartlanders or evangelical Christian philosophers call environmentalists 'evil', when they see environmental groups as "one of the greatest threats to society and the church today", it’s not because they're stupid or paranoid, it’s because they're paying attention.

A book published by the evangelical Alliance Church called 'Resisting the Green Dragon: Dominion not Death' even portrays environmental groups as "one of the greatest threats to society and the church today." One passage reads that, "The Green Dragon must die... [There] is no excuse to become befuddled by the noxious Green odors and doctrines emanating from the foul beast..God is sovereign over creation and therefore humans can do no permanent damage..."

The inconvenient truth is that this crisis is caused by over-consumption and can't be solved by improving the efficiency of capitalism but by reducing the amount of material stuff we produce and consume. The evangelicals' use of the 'Green Dragon' is an apt metaphor because, like other dragons, the 'green' one is an imaginary concoction built on a combination of the force of our fears and the lies we tell ourselves to justify our self-interests.

Climate Change is a Symptom, Human Induced Environmental Degradation is the Disease

Pogo's message for the original Earth Day, April 22, 1970

By designating CO2 induced climate change as public enemy #1 we've fallen into the trap mistaking a symptom for the disease. All types of environmental degradation are caused by human intervention in natural processes. The real enemy, as Pogo clearly saw way back on the first Earth Day in 1970, is humanity itself. Confusing symptoms with causes has allowed the entire environmental movement to be hijacked by one controversial debate - the role of human CO2 production in today's observed climate change.

Please don't misunderstand my point. Though there are some notable scientists who have made statements that conflict with the mainstream scientific understanding of global warming they are a small minority. In fact most climate scientists argue that mainstream estimates are far to conservative and that they err on the side of least drama in order to avoid being labeled as alarmist.

My point is that science is by definition never able to produce indisputable conclusions when those conclusions are based on models. The sciences that rely on simplified models of actual reality do so either because there are to many variables or because there is no way to have a 'control' to judge their results against - environmentally speaking have only one Earth. So the precautionary principle has to apply.

Once upon a time, however, mainstream scientists agreed that the earth was flat, that leeches were the best medical intervention and that DDT was a miracle.  DDT first synthesized in 1874, its insecticidal properties were discovered in 1939 and in 1948 Swiss chemist Paul Hermann Müller was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his for his work with DDT as a poison for troublesome insects. As far back as the early 1940's a small minority of scientists questioned the safety of DDT but they were mostly ignored until the bestseller Silent Spring was published in 1962. It argued that DDT was poisoning wildlife, the environment and endangering human health. The public's reaction to Racheal Carson's classic launched the modern environmental movement. So keeping an open mind about the conclusions of 'experts' is always a good idea.

The modern environmental movement was/is about the disease our human over-consumption of the planet's limited resources was/is causing, not about any one particular symptom, including either pesticide pollution or CO2 pollution. Now, half a century after Slient Spring's publication, the necessary widespread environmental disease debate has been hijacked by the narrow human induced climate change topic. mr. mud wonders why?

Is it because it's simple? It isn't. Is it because it and Al Gore are sexy? Hum... Or that obscuring the real issue of our over-consumption allows the wheels of capitalist commerce to keep churning? Or is it that there's lottsa money to be made by pedaling panic? Remember it was Ken Lay of Enron who originally argued for a cap-and-trade scheme and Goldman Sachs has had by far the highest profits from the carbon trading bubble.

The environmental movement must be about the disease of capitalism with its impossible demands for endless growth when we have only one Earth with limited resources. That larger topic is what is being obscured by allowing ourselves to be trapped by the narrow debate around climate change.

The Tla'amin Nation and INM's Powell River Allies Dance, Drum and Sing in Common Cause

Yesterday afternoon the Tla'amin Nation and many other residents of the Powell River area turned out for another uplifting experience. We all owe our thanks to the grassroots members of the Tla'amin people for both organizing this event and creating for us all a space in which we could share our 'common causes'. We, the proud allies of Idle No More, support human rights, the protection of the environment and the notion that our elected government should act honestly and honourably in carrying out its obligations to all its people.

We also owe our thanks to Courtney Harrop, a local independent photojournalist and blogger, who has been tireless in her efforts to document the local Idle No More movement as well as others near and far. Her full video of yesterday's rally is available here. There are also many wonderful pictures taken by her and others available at the Idle No More Powell River Facebook Page.

The Tla'amin songs and drumming, the Round Dance, the spirit of the moment was very moving. Hopefully you too went out yesterday to join in the Global Day of Action wherever you were, but if you didn't, i encourage you to come out for the next and the next and the next in your community. The drumming and dancing was reminiscent of other times long ago at YIPPIE rallies that were also more a demonstration of the inner spirits than the intellectual arguments of the participants.

Across Canada many other communities of First Nations and others marched, danced, sang and drummed their hope that by acting together we can build a better more just society within a healthy environment. The Powell River area has a small population, but comparatively speaking, it has had one of the largest turnouts for these Idle No More rallies anywhere. This is due, in part, to character of it 'left coast' residents and to the justness of the common cause, but also to the energy of the Tla'amin Nation's grassroots organizers.

Drew Kespaul, teaching us the traditional Tla'Amin Love song to greet the visitors from the ferry to traditional Coast Salish Territories, Powell River, BC. January 28th, 2013

We Share 'Common Causes', We All Need Clean Water and Air, We All Must Be 'Idle No More'

Thousands are turning out all across Canada today to show their solidarity with Idle No More's Global Day of Action. The movement has grown to include many Canadian social justice groups under a banner of “Common Causes” as part of what organizers are calling an "unprecedented movement" to push back against the Harper government's erosion of environmental protections, workers' rights, and the general social welfare.

Common Causes spokesperson Maude Barlow said yesterday, "Common Causes is an assembly of progressive forces acting together to build a better society to defend democracy, social justice, the environment and human rights in the face of an all-out assault by the Harper government. Democracy is being savaged." Barlow said, "The future of our country and our society is at stake. We will unite our Common Causes to defeat this agenda and work for a just and sustainable future."

Support is growing for Idle No More all around the globe. As Mashu White Feather, a First Nations Elder from Rivers Inlet wrote yesterday about last week's vote at the UN General Assembly, "The United Nations voted in favor of placing sanctions against the Canadian government for the treatment of their Indigenous peoples and have moved to protect their Indigenous rights. There were 104 votes. 100 votes in favor and 4 against the motion. The countries against the sanctions were Canada, United States, Australia and New Zealand."

Locally, The Tla'amin Nation and residents of the Powell River area will be gathering at the Westview Ferry Terminal, Spirit Square, at 4pm. All of the usual suspects will undoubtedly be there and, as with each of the past gatherings, a few new faces too. Come out and join us here, there and everywhere. We all need clean water, we all need clean air, we all need to live in free country, we all share these common causes, we are all in this together, we must all be Idle No More!

Will the Tyranny of the Exponential Debt Curve Lead to WW!!!?

The tyranny of the exponential curve – when applied to debt – is that the overall levels of indebtedness double in shorter and shorter time periods making the two images [above and below-left] both correct. The real time US Debt Clock says that right now the US National Debt is north of 16.4 trillion dollars and is growing at over 155 million dollars per/hour, mind boggling eh.

Meanwhile the Republican thugs blame out-of-control spending on 'entitlements' while the Democratic thugs blame the Bush Tax cuts for the problem. As the graph shows the problem didn't start 4 years ago or 8 or 12. The problem is that the US government refuses to live within its means. Like your household or mine, the US government's budget can only be tamed by either increasing revenue or cutting spending. These basic math issues were why the 'automatic budget sequestration' was enacted in 2011. But of course, just like in your household, it's not easy to earn more or spend less. Someone is bound to get upset because they have to work longer hours and continue driving their beater around.

With the military and other undisclosed 'security' spending at over 60% of discretionary spending it's obvious who should get a trim. That's where the whole budget balancing game falls apart, that's why neither side can allow the automatic budget sequestration to kick in, that's why Congress quietly kicked the impending Debt Ceiling crisis down the road a few months just like they did for sequestration.

Here's The Mud Report's way to look at the Debt Ceiling: Let's say, You come home from work and find there has been a sewer backup in your neighborhood....and your home has sewage all the way up to your ceilings. What do you think you should do ......
Raise the ceilings, or remove the shit?

There was only one politician in the Presidential race willing to propose the necessary type of massive cuts to the Pentagon's bloated budget - Ron Paul - and he was ignored at times, ridiculed at others. Now, after Paul's retirement and Dennis Kucinich's gerrymandered demise there's only the lonely sound of Vermont's Bernie Sanders' voice in Washington's beltway wilderness. Last time the Wall Street gurus and military industrial complex ran the US into this kinda trouble FDR and WW!! came along...wonder who and what war will happen this time.

BREAKING NEWS: FBI to Declare the Rev. Billy and His 'Church of Stop Shopping' a Terrorist Network

Air-pocalypse hits Beijing this morning with record levels of pollution 25 times higher than considered safe.

Here's a story of international intrigue that makes The Great Game look like tiddlywinks. It started decades ago when certain western 'intelligence' agencies realized that the capitalism's Free Trade boondoggle would eventually result in countries like China and India having all the marbles. So they, the combined western world's 'intelligence' experts came up with a plan as insidious as it is effective. If you don't believe it, check out the picture above looking out over Beijing this morning.

The plan they adopted needed a number of events to occur and it appears they have. The first, and perhaps the most important, was to keep the western consumers mindlessly consuming despite the fact that they were losing their well paid manufacturing jobs willy-nilly to the lowest wage countries around the globe. That was accomplished by a combination of easing consumer credit and increased advertising creating a spike in demand for useless crap that continues to grow unabated.

Realizing that this race to the bottom would be an economic disaster for all but the richest capitalists who could quickly shift their capital from country to country the 'intelligence' agencies knew they had limited time because sooner rather than later even the most brainwashed shopaholic would run outta credit cards. World demographics showed that China would be where the big shit hit the big fan. China has billions of willing workers and a state-run economy that would be only to willing to increase production of the needless crap being demanded by mindless westerners. And we did and they did, exactly that.

Next came the embedded energy obfuscation. Everything, be it food or useless consumer crap, has a hidden energy cost. It takes energy to extract the raw materials, to build the factories, to power the factories, to feed and house the slaves [oops workers], to transport the raw materials to the factories then to transport the useless crap to the malls for consumption. Using all that energy has its own downstream costs like breathing air filled with toxic exhausts.

So, the combined 'intelligence' community concluded that if western consumers could be persuaded to buy enough crap form China fast enough so that before the Chinese [or Indians] realized what had happened to them they'd be dropping like flies from a combination of polluted air and insane transport traffic through near zero visibility conditions on the ground [again see picture above] that the west would 'win'. All of this meanwhile would make the west's capitalist bankers and oligarchs more difgustingly rich by both collecting interest on the consumer's self-destructive consumption and the sale of the dirtiest possible energy - King Coal - to the Asians.

Here's where the story returns to today's FBI declaration that the Rev. Billy and his 'Church of Stop Shopping' are being designated a terrorist network. The 'intelligence' community had no other choice really. Organizations like the 'Church of Stop Shopping' and Adbusters have already led to dangerous paradigm shifting movements like Occupy last year and now Idle No More that if allowed to continue growing might lead to mindless consumers becoming mindful, to needless stuff not being demanded, to extractors not extracting, to coal generators shutting down, to the air becoming less chunky. And the world as we know it coming to an end.

Thank you Rev. Billy, you could be our best hope.

Calling Over-Consumers Debt Slaves is an Insult to Slaves - They're Addicts and Need Medical Intervention

Over-consumption and uncontrollable consumer debt are addictions. They follow the same behavioral sequence as any other addictions. Neither the junkie nor the bankrupted consumer became an addict the first time he/she tried drugs or whipped out a credit card. But they both got a huge endorphin boost, especially the first time, which made the decision to do it again easier. Each time, each boost gets a bit smaller, but the craving for those endorphins doesn't. Of course, riding the endorphin highway long enough inevitably leads downhill.

Recently per-capita consumer debt has risen to such nose-bleeding heights that hundreds of articles from 'experts' have been published. Many incorrectly use the term debt slave  to describe the millions of folks worldwide who are really debt addicts. Calling them slaves is both a cop-out by and for the over-consumers and an insult to real slaves, past and present, who have been bought, sold, tortured, chained and forced into bondage. Debt addicts, like all addicts have a choice. The choice gets more difficult with every pull on the crack pipe or every new big screen TV, but it's still a choice.

Consumer debt addicts live in almost every country, even though Britain is #1, Canada#2, and the US [post 2008] #3, Communist China is way up there, so is laid-back Spain. Debt enabled over-consumption has now risen to an all time high up here in the Great White North and the various 'experts' are intoning the debt addicts to 'just say no'. They have been for awhile actually but obviously Nancy Reagan's infamous line doesn't work any better for the debt addicted than it did for the drug addicted or than it does for the  porn addicted or the video game addicted or ?

Addicts are addicts, they aren't evil, they aren't sub-human, they are us and they/we all are susceptible to the rush of neuro-transmitter induced endorphin addictions be they to a substance or a process. Debt addicts need help, just like any other addict. They need medical help. If the 'war on drugs' [another Reagan era mistake] proved anything it proved that only loving, non-judgemental, consistent, medical help offers any long-term hope for the addicted.

So, my plan would mandate that every bank, every store offering in-house credit cards, every payday loan outlet, every auto dealership, etc. everywhere must have a professional addiction counselor onhand and that every consumer credit transaction can only be carried out after a 24hr. waiting period. Maybe in time this type of intervention could scale up so that every credit card terminal had a delay of at least an hour built in. If debt addicts couldn't get immediate gratification, if they had to endure 'councilling' before every transaction it would a least put a governor on the flow/speed of consumption and hopefully the amount of crap we import from countries employing actual slaves to produce it.

Support Idle No More's Global Day of Action on Jan. 28th Because We're All in This Together

Tla'amin First Nation Members Chanting and Drumming

The Tla'amin Nation and residents of the Powell River area will be joining many other Idle No More supporters for a Global Day of Action on January 28th, 2013. Folks will be meeting at the Westview Ferry Terminal, Spirit Square, at 4pm. The local organizers encourage everyone to bring their friends and family, their kids, drums, noisemakers, signs, voices, and solidarity. For more information as well as many inspiring words check out the Idle No More Powell River Facebook group.

The Idle No More Movement is a grassroots movement, clearly no political organization speaks for Idle No More. This movement is of the people… For The People! The engineers were 4 Saskatchewan First Nations women, Nina Wilson, Sheelah Mclean, Sylvia McAdam and Jessica Gordon who said, "This day of action will peacefully protest attacks on Democracy, Indigenous Sovereignty, Human Rights and Environmental Protections when Canadian MPs return to the House of Commons on January 28th."

Why support Idle No More? Because now is the moment we must all come together to ensure that children two, three and twelve generations from now will have clean water. Everyone of every political stripe, of every belief structure, of every nation needs clean water. Lakes and rivers are either clean or dirty for Native and non-Native children alike. Lakes, rivers and the many species within them, once contaminated by pollutants, might never recover in human timescales. The dangerous and illegal authoritarian dictates within Bill-38 and Bill C-45 effect everyone.

Today' news includes another great story. The Port Alberni-based Hupacasath Nation is taking legal action against the federal government over a major investment treaty with China that has sparked controversy. The Hupacasath First Nation claims there was no consultation with Native groups about the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement. The First Nation is seeking a declaration from Federal Court that Canada must consult with First Nations before the deal becomes binding and it is seeking an injunction to stop the treaty from being ratified until consultations are held. A lawyer representing the First Nation said, “This is really a court case for all citizens of Canada because it’s going to affect everyone negatively for a lot of different reasons, whether it’s to do with environmental, whether it’s to do with jobs, all kind of different areas. We’re all in this together.”

And that's the real key, we're all in this together. But while big legislative changes like Bills C-38 and 45 affect everyone in Canada, not everyone in Canada has the same legal basis for fighting back. First Nations have a unique leverage here. They are issuing legal challenges to the omnibus bills and trade agreements on the basis of infringement on treaty rights, land title, and constitutional questions.

Environmental groups are waking up to this strategy in the fight against Northern Gateway, but it needs to happen on a bigger scale.We all need to realize that First Nations and non-indigenous Canadians have common goals and interests that go well beyond any one pipeline or province; they extend across the country. We need to support each other in walking the paths that will achieve our common goals.