More Militant Vegans, Less Ethical Butchers

A friend of mine recently brought to my attention a former vegan who has now re-invented himself as the “Ethical Butcher” (a title right up there with Peacekeeper missiles, limited autonomy, and military intelligence). The butcher writes: “After 14 years as a vegetarian, a few of those as a quite ‘militant’ vegan, I became a butcher. The factors that went into me taking the position are many, but the result was maybe quite predictable. Within a month I was a full-fledged meat eater. What has not changed is my passion for the welfare of animals. Through my work as a butcher and chef, I now see a more direct way to influence and work for change in the meat industry and to improve the quality of life for all of the animals we rely on for food.”

Such backlash in the face of compassionate evolution is not uncommon. For example, just as more and more women begin to challenge gender roles, the patriarchal culture countered with Howard Stern, Maxim, and Spike TV. But I digress…

Becoming a butcher in the name of animal welfare is like joining the Marines to promote peace. What’s next, the Ethical Executioner with his “passion” for the “welfare” of prisoners? Surely, he’d just be choosing a “more direct way to influence and work for change,” following the lead of his butcher comrade.

In a society less and less capable of critical, independent thought, this pro-meat character will probably be widely praised as the antidote to “militant” vegans. You know, the food Nazis. By current standards, you could pack a calf into a veal crate or pump food down a goose’s gullet or grind up live male chicks to fertilize your fields and run no risk of being called militant. For that matter, you can clear cut forests, blow off mountain tops in search of coal, and drop white phosphorous on villages filled with brown children and garner virtually no attention at all…let alone be labeled a militant.

Choose a lifestyle of compassion and logic, speak out against vivisection, or protest the use of fur? You, my friends, are a worthy of a Hitler mustache.With the global economy collapsing like a house of cards, 80% of the world’s forests cut down, 90% of the large fish in the ocean gone, more military conflicts than anyone can count, and our eco-systems rapidly approaching the point of no return, there’s never been a more urgent time to be a truly militant vegan.

At some point, we each have to decide: Do we respect all life or not? If we choose life instead of death, then we must view the culture holistically. To divide issues of animal suffering, eco-destruction, and human rights, is to fall into the trap of the dinosaur Left. For example, ZNet founder Michael Albert, who writes: “I see no comparison in importance between seeking to eliminate the roots and branches of sexism, and seeking to eliminate the roots and branches of violence against animals. I see no comparison in importance between how chickens are treated and how women or any humans are treated. In fact, for me the animal rights agenda resonates barely at all, and the anti-sexism agenda is part of my life.”

Let’s be clear: Attempting to separate sexism from violence against animals (and all nature) is like trying to separate the human circulatory system from the respiratory system. If such obvious connections are not being made by the entrenched Left, I have to wonder: Why is anyone wasting even 5 minutes of their time on such myopia?

Since Michael Albert can’t seem to stop quoting Dylan, this song excerpt is for him, the Ethical Butcher, and all those who seek to fragment and obscure the big picture:

Don’t criticize what you can’t understand … your old road is rapidly agin’Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand

For the times they are a-changin’

Fuck the New York Times and Fuck “Permitted” Marches

On September 26, 2009, the New York Times deemed it fit to run an article called “Thousands Hold Peaceful March at G-20 Summit,” in which propagandist Ian Urbina informed us of “several thousand demonstrators” converging on downtown Pittsburgh in light of that city’s hosting of the Group of 20 (G-20) meeting. Urbina called it a “peaceful and permitted march.” The demonstrators, he said, were “calling for solutions to a range of problems that they attributed to the economic policies of the world leaders.” Later, he told of speakers urging demonstrators to “fight for an array of social issues they felt had been largely ignored in global economic policy.”

“They attributed” and “they felt.”

Okay, in a rare case of actual objectivity, Urbina was careful to clarify that not everyone agrees with the protesters. However, that’s where the any attempt at journalism ended. If Urbina were capable of even an iota of independent thought, he’d have found out why demonstrators feel and attribute what they feel and attribute. But…it’s so much easier to just describe what they looked liked.

Some wore fatigues, some chimed cymbals, one played a French horn, 400 “self-described anarchists” were clad in black, and dig this: one very radical group even “held aloft with bamboo poles a giant fabric replica of a dove.” None of these dissidents, Urbina reminded us, ever got closer than the steps of the city-county building, blocks from where the G-20 meeting was being held.

Ain’t dissent neat? Surely peace and justice will be upon us soon.

When telling his loyal readers about a group called “Students for Justice in Palestine” and what they were calling for, propagandist Urbina was extra-cautious to use quotation marks: “the Israeli occupation.” A practicing journalist might have at least used a search engine to include some context from United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 (1967), which refers to the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war” and calls for the “withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.”

Unburdened by such rudimentary journalistic standards, Urbina goes on to end his report by quoting a 20-year-old student from Duquesne University, who was somehow “optimistic that it would be hard to ignore thousands in the street.” As the student explained: “They will listen to a certain degree. They might not necessarily do anything.”

Take home message: Fuck the New York Times and fuck peaceful and permitted marches that won’t necessarily do anything.

Revenge of the Dammed

Much of today’s environmental conversation revolves around personal choices (perhaps an offshoot of An Inconvenient Truth.) However, while every change we make–e.g. shorter showers–is a tiny step, we can’t lose sight of the big picture. For example: dams. More than 45,000 large dams (45 feet or higher) were built in the 20th century and these structures are a serious green issue that impacts all life on earth. How serious?

“I’ve written books and done activism, but it is neither a lack of words nor activism that is killing salmon here in the Northwest. It’s the dams. Anyone who knows anything about salmon knows the dams must go,” says Derrick Jensen. “Anyone who knows anything about politics knows the dams will stay. Scientists study, politicians and business people lie and delay, bureaucrats
hold sham public meetings, activists write letters and press releases, and still the salmon die.”

Dams are expensive, destructive, and ineffective. In California alone, dams have resulted in the loss of 90% of that state’s river environment and 95% of the salmon and steelhead habitat–all at a cost fifty times higher than more efficient solutions.

FEMA may tell us, “Dams provide a range of economic, environmental, and social benefits, including recreation, flood control, water supply, hydroelectric power, waste management, river navigation, and wildlife habitat.” But Jacques Leslie, author of Deep Water: The Epic Struggle over Dams, Displaced People, and the Environment, explains: “The world’s dams have shifted so much weight that geophysicists believe they have slightly altered the speed of the earth’s rotation, the tilt of its axis, and the shape of its gravitational field.”

Yeah, it’s that serious–and there’s more. We’ve already touched on the threatened salmon, the water loss, and the earth’s impacted gravitational field, now read on for: 5 Reasons Why Large Dams Have to Go Now; 5 Ways to Help Make That Happen.

The World’s Worst Polluter: U.S. Military

No matter what we’re led to believe, the world’s worst polluter is not your cousin who refuses to recycle or that co-worker who drives a gas guzzler or the guy down the block who simply will not try CFL bulbs. “The U.S. Department of Defense is the largest polluter in the world, producing more hazardous waste than the five largest U.S. chemical companies combined,” explains Lucinda Marshall, founder of the Feminist Peace Network. Pesticides, defoliants like Agent Orange, solvents, petroleum, lead, mercury, and depleted uranium are among the many deadly substances used by the military.

What does this mean for us? To start with, it can help illustrate how to best foment a green revolution. As Derrick Jensen reminds us: “Even if every single person in the United States were to change all their light-bulbs to fluorescent, cut the amount they drive in half, recycle half of their household waste, inflate their tire pressure to increase gas mileage, use low flow shower heads and wash clothes in lower temperature water, adjusts their thermostats two degrees up or down depending on the season, and plant a tree, it would result in a one time, 21% reduction in carbon emissions.”

For those of you scoring at home, that’s a one time, 21% reduction in carbon emissions. We compost, we drive hybrids, we bring our own bag to the market but meanwhile, the U.S. military and its fellow polluters—trans-national corporations—treat the planet like it’s a porta-potty…with little or no opposition from the general population. In fact, the military typically enjoys unconditional support even from those who identify as “anti-war.”

Keep this in mind the next time you hear the phrase “war on terror”: Our tax dollars are subsidizing a global eco-terror campaign and all the recycled toilet paper in the world ain’t gonna change that.

In other words, if we don’t want our legacy to be one of inaction and shame, we must create drastic, permanent change very, very soon…because here’s the most inconvenient truth of all: it’s time to embrace a much darker shade of green.

Humans vs. Birds: Hitchcock in Reverse

“Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts.” – William S. Burroughs, Thanksgiving Prayer

Once, there were many billions of passenger pigeons in America. Then the “settlers” arrived. As one of those settlers wrote in the 1600′s: “There are wild pigeons in winter beyond number or imagination, myself have seen three or four hours together flocks in the air, so thick that even have they shadowed the sky from us.”

“By anyone’s estimation, it was the most abundant bird on Earth,” writes Alan Wiesman in his book, The World Without Us. “Its flocks, 300 miles long and numbering in the billions, spanned horizons fore and aft, actually darkening the sky.” As late as April 1873, residents of Saginaw, Michigan witnessed “a continuous stream of passenger pigeons overhead between 7.30 in the morning and 4 o’clock in the afternoon.”

By 1900, however, all the wild passenger pigeons had been killed by humans. Fourteen years later, the last passenger pigeon died in captivity. Once, there were many billions of passenger pigeons in America. Now there are none.

This might have been the most dramatic example of avicide. Today, the methods by which human activities kill birds are far more varied but no less deadly:

• As many as 80 million birds are killed each year by collisions with plate glass windows.
• 60 to 80 million birds are killed each year by motor vehicles. This averages out to roughly 15 bird deaths per mile per year.
• 120 million birds are murdered by hunters each year.
• Feline companions allowed to roam free kill about 4 million birds each day in North America alone. Worldwide, the yearly number of birds killed by domestic cats is in the billions.
• There are 77,000 radio-transmission towers higher than 199 feet in the U.S. and nearly 200 million birds collide fatally with these towers per year. Add in 175,000 cell phone towers and the number of dead birds approaches a half-billion annually.
• Then, of course, you have habitat loss, environmental toxins, introduced diseases, and the biggest bird killer of all: the meat-based diet, e.g. every day, 23 million chickens are killed in the U.S. for food. That’s 269 dead chickens per second.

It’s Hitchcock in reverse as the planet’s most destructive species systematically slaughters everything in its path.

Once, there were many billions of passenger pigeons in America. Now there are none.

I don’t wanna live on a planet without birds. Do you? In fact, I can’t live on a planet without birds and neither can you. So, what should we do about it…now?

Urban Cavemen

Living life out of balance…

Balance: A harmonious or satisfying arrangement or proportion of parts or elements

In early 2000, I was walking through Manhattan with three friends on our way to meet a fourth member of our party. This was well before cell phones had become so completely pervasive but still, I was the only one in our group without one. I sarcastically commented on this and was prompted mocked as a Luddite. Then it was on to the essential business of figuring out how to meet up with friend #4.

Out came a cell phone. A call was placed to another cell phone. A meeting place was agreed upon and we were on our way. Friend #1 hung up his phone and turned to me, declaring that this was “one of those times” when a cell phone was indispensable. To which I replied:

“If we didn’t have access to your cell phone or any cell phones at all, we would’ve been simply been more creative in order to come up with a plan that would’ve gotten all of us together without a major hassle. Instead, the phone made us lazy because we knew we could just wing it. Instead of problem-solving, we opted for reliance on consumer electronics.”

A similar rant, of course, could realistically be applied to calculators. Not to mention, the spell-check function on your computer, most software programs in general, and yeah…the computer itself. We no longer have to learn how to spell or remember phone numbers or do math in our heads or memorize directions or even walk up a single flight of stairs. Thanks to the marvels of industrial civilization, we happily delegate such tedious tasks to technology so we can have time to focus on the truly important stuff, like…um…well…uh…removing 90% of the large fish from the ocean, perhaps?

Harmony: Agreement in feeling or opinion

We each possess a physiology that evolved to negotiate the Stone Age. Unfortunately, we live in the Space Age. There’s the rub. We are urban cavemen – overmatched in our daily battle to navigate an artificial reality because we have lost contact with our instincts.

“Pediatricians nowadays see fewer kids with broken bones from climbing trees and more children with longer-lasting repetitive-stress injuries, which are related to playing video games and typing at keyboards,” writes Sally Deneen at The Daily Green. Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, calls this “nature deficit disorder.” As a fourth-grader quoted in Louv’s book explains: “I like to play indoors better, because that’s where all the electrical outlets are.” Nature deficit disorder is obviously not a medical term; it’s more of a social trend…a trend that plays in factoids like this: American children between the ages of 8 to 18 spend an average of 6.5 hours a day indoors using computers, video games, television, and MP3 players.

The payoff for all this spectator-ship is a lifestyle based on imitation, competition, materialism, and self-delusion. The dominant culture keeps us inactive while our biology desires movement. The dominant culture sells us junk food while our bodies crave nutrients. The dominant culture trains us to be obedient while our minds yearn for freedom. The dominant culture teaches conformity while our souls demand individuality. The dominant culture denies our biology and puts us out of balance with nature.

Among many others things, it can be posited that we did not evolve to experience artificial light after sundown, live inside four walls under that artificial light, eat processed and refined food products, ingest chemicals and pharmaceuticals, sleep during the day and stay up all night, drive cars, travel in an airplane across time zones with such rapidity, become obese, remain sedentary, consume animal flesh or mammary secretions, usurp our immune system with toxic vaccines, exist on a man-made time schedule, be surrounded by copious human-induced electromagnetic radiation, climb giant mountains, travel to space or underwater, wear shoes or eyeglasses, lift weights and develop hypertrophied muscles, exist without community, give birth lying down, live in a world devoid of top soil and nutrient-rich food, smoke cigarettes, be hyper-exposed to toxic pesticides, endure global warming and the greenhouse effect, use cosmetics, or manage the high level of stress and noise that is synonymous with our so-called progress.

Koyaanisqatsi…this is what the Kogi Indians of Colombia call “life out of balance” and this is what we have created as our culture. When I say “culture,” I am referring to what Jason Miller calls “the pitiless, soulless, murderous machine of capitalism and industrial civilization inculcates, indoctrinates, entices, bribes, and coerces nearly everyone to participate in its bloody, rapacious, and relentless assault on the Earth and its sentient inhabitants.” This culture has quickly fucked up the entire planet. So much so that the elusive Kogi have issued a warning to us, their Younger Brothers.

Equilibrium: A condition in which all acting influences are canceled by others, resulting in a stable, balanced, or unchanging system

Even the eyes of veteran activists glaze over when I talk about 80% of the world’s forest being gone. They want to debate the latest political minutia while all life on this planet is under relentless assault. It’s cliché to declare that our problems cannot be solved by the same type of thinking that created them. Cliché but accurate. Elections, legislation, protests, petitions, and so on will not stop the flow of pesticides or the use of nuclear power or the glorification of war and its volunteer soldiers or our culture’s relentless march toward total destruction.

Life on Earth is out of balance. Corporations, politicians, judges, cops, and soldiers can’t fix this. In fact, most of them can’t even perceive the imbalance. The change has to come from somewhere else. The change will come from somewhere else…of that we can be sure. The details of outcome, however, are far less certain.

Symbiosis: A relationship of mutual benefit or dependence

One final note, on the medium by which I have shared these thoughts: The aforementioned Kogi have no written language. In part, this is to assure they remember. They talk, they pass down stories, and they remember. “The Kogi attach great importance to memory,” explain the editors of Ode Magazine. “The memory of events with which the community has been confronted, the memory of social regulations within the group and so forth. ‘Memory,’ they say, ‘is like eyes which were made to see. If they close, everything becomes darkness.’ For them, this memory cannot be written down, it must be spoken, passed down by members of the group. In writing, memories are separated from the people and lose their effectiveness.”

So, I ask: what memories are we creating and what are we doing to ensure there will be someone left to appreciate and remember them?

Synergy: Cooperative interaction among groups

Poverty draft?

You take a black kid, Hispanic kid, Italian kid, and a kid of undefined ethnicity…and let’s say each of them—surprise, surprise—has meager pecuniary prospects. You know, the whole “economic downturn” thing everyone is yapping about.

So…the undefined guy weighs his options and promptly enlists in the United States Marine Corps. The few, the proud, and all that.

Everyone—and I mean, everyone—in his immediate circle applauds this decision. Not only will undefined guy pull himself out of financial hardship, they reason (sic), but he also gets to “serve his country.” Bravo…

Meanwhile, the poor black kid weighs his options and promptly “enlists” in the Crips.

The poverty-stricken Hispanic weighs his options and promptly “enlists” in Latin Kings.

The uneducated Italian kid weighs his options and promptly “enlists” in the Mafia.

Like the “heroes” in the military, these three kids are also facing a stark choice—being poor or choosing a uniform and gun—but no one hangs yellow ribbons for them, no one makes excuses them when they kill innocents.

No one argues when these kids are called “criminals.”

Why?

Well, there’s one colossal difference between them and the men and women who volunteer to join the US military and get paid to wage illegal and immoral war:

Even though the US military is far more dangerous than any street gang or Mafia family, the US military is considered legal.

The Obama/Soros Plan To Destroy America

OBAMA’S MAIN ‘PUPPETEER’ IS THE HUNGARIAN BORN JEW – GEORGE SOROS. With his financial ability in the billions of dollars to back whatever cause he chooses and his powerful control of the media, Soros has the means to engineer the political and economic destinies of entire nations. Indeed, Soros has already implemented his global agenda in both Georgia and Kosovo.

The latest “cause” backed by Soros is the Obama presidency. Known as Obama’s “money man,” Soros’s involvement with Obama’s national political career began in 2005 with Soros fundraising for Obama’s campaign for US Senate and continued through the 2007 Presidential campaign launch with huge fundraising operations managed by Soros.

Soros, a proponent of the “hard left,” has also been funneling money into the Democratic Party and to its candidates with the intent on building a slate of Senators and Representatives with socialist leanings. “George Soros has purchased the Democratic Party,” said Republican National Committee spokeswoman, Christine Iverson, “and he who pays the piper calls the tune.”

Through his Open Society Institute, Soros has contributed to left wing socialist groups such as, Human Rights Watch, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, The New American Foundation, ACORN, MoveOn, and his own, Center For American Progress, of which, Obama recently appointed its senior fellow, Todd Stern, as his ‘Climate Czar.’ Stern, a Zionist Jew, is the chief architect of the socialist-inspired Climate Change Bill, just passed by Congress.

George Soros now has a superhighway to Change – ‘Socialist Change.’ We are already beginning to see the largest growth in government in the history of America. Hell-bent on destroying the American dollar and installing a global currency, Soros has got his bought-and-paid-for White House stooge now installing his socialist agenda.

FOR IN HIS FIRST 100 DAYS as president, Obama has passed a flurry of deficit-deepening legislations such as the Stimulus Bill, the Equal Pay Bill, the Global Poverty Bill, the Tobacco Bill, the Climate Change Bill, and his upcoming Health Reform Bill. These will bring an already bankrupt America into a deficit of $2 trillion dollars including interest on the debt, paid to the Zionist Jews who own the Federal Reserve Bank. Obama’s next plan is to pass a UN sponsored Bill which will force Americans to pay a global tax. View Entire Story Here & Here.

And who will be the ruling elite of the socialist American state now in the making? Wealthy and powerful Jews – like George Soros – who have eliminated all capitalist power blocs that would oppose them. And with Obama’s creeping socialism becoming more and more apparent, George Soros emerges as the chief mogul behind Obama’s Marxist policies.

OBAMA’S CHILDHOOD MENTOR WAS THE MARXIST, Frank Marshall Davis, a black communist writer.

In his book, Dreams From My Father, Obama admits developing a close relationship, “almost like a son,” with Davis in 1977, whom he repeatedly refers to as “Frank.” Writing about attending “socialist conferences” and coming into contact with Marxist literature, Obama reminisces of listening to Frank’s “poetry” and getting advice on his career path.

One particular piece of Marxist literature, Rules for Radicals, penned by the Chicago Marxist Jew, Saul Alinsky, had oft been quoted by Obama in campaign speeches during his run for a State Senate seat in Illinois in 1996.

Obama’s embrace of the ideology of Saul Alinsky began when he was 24 years old, unmarried, very accustomed to a vagabond existence, and according to his memoirs, Dreams From My Father, was searching for a genuine African-American community.

White leftists of the Developing Communities Project of Chicago were looking for someone who could recruit in a black neighborhood in the south side of Chicago. Obama answered their Help-Wanted ad and soon took up a paid position as a community organizer. The Developing Communities Project was built on the Alinsky model of community agitation, wherein paid organizers learned how to “rub raw the sores of discontent.”

“The agitator’s job,” according to Alinsky, “is first to bring folks to the realization that they are indeed miserable, that their misery is the fault of unresponsive governments and greedy corporations, then help them to bond together to demand what they think they deserve.”

As a confirmed atheist, Alinsky saw an opportunity to cynically spread his socialist ideology in already-formed church communities as being the perfect springboards for agitation and creating bonds for their demands.

WHEN OBAMA FIRST UNDERTOOK HIS AGITATION WORK, he was un-churched. But to fulfill the Alinsky manifesto, Obama joined a huge black nationalist church, whose pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, (whom Obama called his spiritual mentor), preached a “black” gospel. Denouncing white supremacy and decrying black inferiority, Wright would intone from the pulpit: “GAWD! Has GOT! To be SICK! OF THIS S**T!” View Entire Story Here & Here.

In 1996, Obama received the endorsement of the Chicago branch of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) for an Illinois State Senate seat. Later, the Chicago DSA newsletter reported that Obama, as a State Senator, showed up to eulogize the Jew, Saul Mendelson, one of the “champions” of “Chicago’s democratic left.”

The Democratic Socialists of America is the principal US affiliate of the Socialist International, which enjoys a “consultative status” with the United Nations. This international connection is significant because two of Obama’s recent legislations, The Global Poverty Act, and The Climate Change Bill, are both pieces of the UN’s socialist agenda to siphon the wealth of Western nations to Third World Muslim countries and ultimately, to implement its plan for a socialist World Government.

SOROS WAS BORN OF JEWISH PARENTS IN BUDAPEST IN 1930 as Gyorgy Schwartz. When young Gyorgy Schwartz enrolled at the Fabian socialist London School of Economics in 1949 he changed his surname to Soros. At the London School of Economics he became friends with Marxist philosopher Sir Karl Popper, founder of the Association of Socialist School Students and author of the 1945 book, The Open Society And Its Enemies.

In 1956, in an “open society” of America, of which Soros now wishes to expand into a “borderless society,” young George Soros arrived on Wall Street with $5,000 and quickly demonstrated a Jewish “knack” for investing other people’s money.

Soros soon came to be called “the greatest money manager in the world” by satisfied clients of his multi-billionaire international hedge fund called the Quantum Fund. Today, Forbes Magazine ranks him the 28th richest person in the United States, with an estimated fortune worth $7 billion.

In 1993, Soros established the US branch of his Open Society Institute as a “tax-free” foundation to support his socialist foundations in Central and Eastern Europe. The President of the Open Society Institute is the Jew, Aryeh Neier, who as Director of the Socialist League For Industrial Democracy, personally created the radical group Students For A Democratic Society in 1959.

Though he likes to be considered a “stateless statesman,” Soros, in fact, is more accurately described as the “Godfather of World Socialism.” For through his Open Society Institute, Soros funds an army of socialist organizations that advocate abortion, open borders, amnesty for illegal aliens, a global currency, prevention of global warming, and a world poverty tax. View Entire Story Here.

Again, two of Obama’s recent legislations, The Global Poverty Act, and The Climate Change Bill, are both pieces which are consonant with the George Soros agenda.

OBAMA’S SOCIALIST CONNECTIONS EXPLAINS WHY he has libertine views on sexual matters such as abortion and homosexuality.

One of Obama’s first actions in office was to issue an executive order authorizing federal funds for pro-abortion groups that operate globally. Obama supports the Freedom of Choice Act, which would make abortion an entitlement that the government could not limit.

This falls in line with the socialist agenda of George Soros, the “puppeteer” pulling the strings of his “puppet,” Barack Obama. Among Soros’s demands are to make abortions freely available and to legalize gay marriages. Soros also demands full rights for illegal aliens and felons, as well as the legalization of euthanasia for the “infirm.” And, oh yes, Soros demands the end of US global supremacy through a borderless society.

Unless we wake up soon, our “infirm” nation will soon be put to an eternal sleep by Barack Obama & George Soros, SOCIALISTS, who now run a Marxist White House

http://www.realzionistnews.com/?p=411

Activism 1010

Okay, short attention span crowd: Grab your remote (or mouse) and get ready to click, click, click…

“How much can you know about yourself if you’ve never been in a fight? I don’t wanna die without any scars.”

- Tyler Durden (Fight Club)

Click…

William Burroughs once wrote about how we humans-like the bull in a bullfight-tend to focus on the elusive red cape instead of the matador. Indeed, we are all-too-easily distracted from real targets by an attractive image or illusion.

Of course, some bulls see right through the red cape, uh, bullshit…and quite justifiably introduce the matador to the business end of their horns. Before you mistake that for a lesson and/or inspiration, don’t forget that such bulls are promptly killed while the matador is mourned as a brave hero.

Here’s my question: If every bull in every bullfight were to gore every matador, how long would it be before bullfights were a thing of the past?

Click…

Malcolm X sez:

“It is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.”

Click…

In the late 1960s-thanks to Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers (UFW)-deciding whether or not to buy grapes became a political act. Three years after its establishment in 1962, the UFW struck against grape growers around Delano, California…a long, bitter, and frustrating struggle that appeared impossible to resolve until Chavez promoted the idea of a national boycott. Trusting in the average person’s ability to connect with those in need, Chavez and the UFW brought their plight-and a lesson in social justice-into homes from coast-to-coast and Americans responded.

“By 1970, the grape boycott was an unqualified success,” writes Marc Grossman of Stone Soup. “Bowing to pressure from the boycott, grape growers at long last signed union contracts, granting workers human dignity and a more livable wage.”

Through hunger strikes, imprisonment, abject poverty for himself and his large family, racist and corrupt judges, exposure to dangerous pesticides, and even assassination plots, Chavez remained true to the cause…even if meant, uh…”stretching” the non-violent methods he espoused:

Once in 1966, when Teamster goons began to rough up Chavez’s picketeers, a bit of labor solidarity solved the problem. William Kircher, the AFL-CIO director of organization, called Paul Hall, president of the International Seafarers Union.

“Within hours,” writes David Goodwin in Cesar Chavez: Hope for the People, “Hall sent a carload of the biggest sailors that had ever put to sea to march with the strikers on the picket lines…There followed afterward no further physical harassment.”

Click…

To me, the following quote reads like a poem…so that’s how I’ll present it:

You’ve got to learn

that when you push people around,

some people push back.

As they should.

As they must.

And as they undoubtedly will.

There is justice in such symmetry.

- Ward Churchill

Click…

When early American revolutionaries chanted, “Give me liberty or give me death” and complained of having but one life to give for their country, they became the heroes of our history textbooks. But, thanks to the power of the U.S. media and education industries, the Puerto Rican nationalists who dedicated their lives to independence are known as criminals, fanatics, and assassins.

On March 1, 1954, in the gallery of the House of Representatives, Congressman Charles A. Halleck rose to discuss with his colleagues the issue of Puerto Rico. At that moment, Lolita Lebrón alongside three fellow freedom fighters, having purchased a one-way train ticket from New York (they expected to be killed) unfurled a Puerto Rican flag and shouted “Free Puerto Rico!” before firing eight shots at the roof. Her three male co-conspirators aimed their machine guns at the legislators. Andrés Figueroa’s gun jammed, but shots fired by Rafael Cancel Miranda and Irving Flores injured five congressmen.

“I know that the shots I fired neither killed nor wounded anymore,” Lebrón stated afterwards. With the attack being viewed through the sensationalizing prism of American tabloid journalism, this did not matter. She and her nationalist cohorts became prisoners of war for the next twenty-five years.

Why prisoners of war? To answer that, we must recall that since July 25, 1898, when the United States illegally invaded its tropical neighbor under the auspices of the Spanish-American War, the island has been maintained as a colony. In other words, the planet’s oldest colony is being held by its oldest representative democracy-with U.S. citizenship imposed without the consent or approval of the indigenous population in 1917. It is from this geopolitical paradox that the Puerto Rican independence movement sprang forth.

This movement is based firmly on international law, which authorizes “anti-colonial combatants” the right to armed struggle to throw off the yoke of imperialism and gain independence. UN General Assembly Resolution 33/24 of December 1978 recognizes “the legitimacy of the struggle of people’s for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial domination and foreign occupation by all means available, particularly armed struggle.”

Prison did not dampen Lebrón’s revolutionary spirit as she attended demonstrations and spoke out to help win the long battle to evict the US Navy from the tiny Puerto Rican island of Vieques in 2003.

Click…

Emma Goldman sez:

“No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law.”

Click…

In her excellent 1995 book, Bridge of Courage, Jennifer Harbury quotes a Guatemalan freedom fighter named Gabriel, responding to a plea to embrace non-violent resistance: “In my country child malnutrition is close to 85 percent,” he explains. “Ten percent of all children will be dead before the age of five, and this is only the number actually reported to government agencies. Close to 70 percent of our people are functionally illiterate. There is almost no industry in our country-you need land to survive. Less than 3 percent of our landowners own over 65 percent of our lands. In the last fifteen years or so, there have been over 150,000 political murders and disappearances… Don’t talk to me about Gandhi; he wouldn’t have survived a week here. There was a peaceful movement for progress here, once. They were crushed. We were crushed. For Gandhi’s method to work, there must be a government capable of shame. We lack that here.”

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Huey P. Newton sez:

“In the spirit of international revolutionary solidarity, the Black Panther Party hereby offers … an undetermined number of troops to assist you in your fight against American imperialism. It is appropriate for the Black Panther Party to take this action at this time in recognition of the fact that your struggle is also our struggle, for we recognize that our common enemy is U.S. imperialism, which is the leader of international bourgeois domination. There is no fascist or reactionary government in the world today that could stand without the support of United States imperialism. Therefore our problem is international, and we offer these troops in recognition of the necessity for international alliance to deal with the problem … Such alliance will advance the struggle toward the final act of dealing with American imperialism. To end this oppression we must liberate the developing nations … As one nation is liberated elsewhere, it gives us a better chance to be free.”

(Excerpted from an October 29, 1970 letter to the National Front for Liberation and Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Viet Nam)

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Arundhati Roy sez:

“People from poorer places and poorer countries have to call upon their compassion not to be angry with ordinary people in America.”

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In his book Endgame, Derrick Jensen tells of a discussion he had with a longtime activist. “She told me of a campaign she participated in a few years ago to try to stop the government and transnational timber corporations from spraying Agent Orange, a potent defoliant and teratogen, in the forests of Oregon,” Jensen writes. All too predictably, the dedicated demonstrators assembled to protest the toxic spraying were, “like clockwork,” ignored by the helicopter pilots. Both humans and landscape ended up thoroughly doused with Agent Orange-time and time again. The protest campaign obviously had no effect, so a different approach was taken. “A bunch of Vietnam vets lived in those hills,” the activist told Jensen, “and they sent messages to the Bureau of Land Management and to Weyerhauser, Boise Cascade, and the other timber companies saying, ‘We know the names of your helicopter pilots, and we know their addresses’

“You know what happened next?” she asked.

“I think I do,” Jensen responded.

“Exactly,” she said. “The spraying stopped.”

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MLK sez:

“When you’re right, you can never be too radical.”

Obama and the Denial of Genocide

Writer-activist David Boyajian’s investigative articles and commentaries have appeared in Armenian media outlets in the U.S., Europe, Middle East, and Armenia and the Newton Tab and USA Armenian Life newspapers named him among their “Top 10 Newsmakers of 2007.” So, when Barack Obama paid a visit to Turkey last month, it seemed like a good time to ask Boyajian for his take on the new president’s approach to the issue of the Armenian genocide.

Map: http://www.armenianchurch.net/heritage/history/map.html

Mickey Z: This April, President Barack Obama broke campaign promise #511, namely to explicitly acknowledge the Armenian genocide as U.S. President. What happened on his recent visit to Turkey? What are the ramifications of his breaking this promise?

David Boyajian: President Obama visited Turkey from April 6 to 7, where he did not use the word “genocide” when referring to the 1.5 million murders committed by the Turkish Ottoman Empire against its Armenian citizens from 1915-1923. As a candidate, Obama had promised several times to do so. His statement in Turkey that he had “not changed his views”-implying he still believes it was genocide-was still a clear breach of his promise to use the “G word.” It was a case study in verbal gymnastics and political duplicity and should be studied in political science courses. Obama’s broken promise obviously eroded his credibility. The same holds true for Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who, as senators, supported the Armenian genocide resolution. They’ve since fallen disgracefully silent. Dr. Samantha Power should also be embarrassed. She’s the National Security Council’s genocide expert and a Pulitzer Prize winning author. As a campaign advisor to Obama, she made a video telling Armenian Americans that as president, Obama would definitely acknowledge their genocide. “Take my word for it,” she said.

Appeasement of a genocide-denying country such as Turkey is bad policy because its message is that genocides can be committed without consequence. Appeasement also erodes U.S. credibility on human rights and its stated desire to be a leader in genocide prevention. Unlike what lobbyists for Turkey would have U.S. believe, Armenian genocide affirmation by America would not harm U.S. national interests. Turkey depends on the U.S. for weapons systems, support for billions in loans from the International Monetary Fund, security guarantees through NATO, advocacy for Turkish membership in the European Union, and more. Some 20 countries, including Canada, France, and Switzerland, as well as the parliaments of the EU and the Council of Europe, have acknowledged the Armenian genocide. None has ever experienced much more a Turkish temper tantrum in retaliation.

MZ: Two days prior to Armenian Genocide Remembrance day- which annually falls on April 24-Turkey and Armenia announced that they had agreed to a “roadmap” to normalize relations. What was the significance of this timing? What does the “roadmap” contain?

DB: Behind the scenes, the U.S. State Department had long been twisting Armenia’s arm to agree to a so-called “roadmap” with Turkey before President Obama issued what has become a customary “April 24 statement” by U.S. presidents marking Armenian genocide memorial day. The “roadmap,” announced on April 22, provided political cover for Obama to not use the “G word” on April 24. That is, since there was now supposedly a roadmap for normalization of relations-no matter how vague and hurriedly slapped together- Obama could say that he did not want to upset Turkey and the touted-as-highly-delicate Turkish-Armenian negotiations by using the “G word.” Notice that Obama did not consult with Armenian-Americans or Armenia about this. So much for promises and moral principles. It’s disgraceful that Obama, simply to help Turkey save face, not only broke his promise, but showed blatant disregard for the activists-not just Armenians-who labored so hard for many years for the cause of recognizing all genocides.

Armenia has always said that it was ready to normalize relations with Turkey-which would include Turkey’s re-opening its border with Armenia-without pre-conditions. Suddenly, however, Armenia has had pre-conditions imposed on it in this “roadmap.” According to the Turkish press, the “roadmap” allegedly contains pre-conditions such as: Armenia’s agreeing to a joint commission to examine the veracity of the Armenian genocide-yes, you heard right, Armenia’s formal recognition of current Turkish boundaries-which contain the Armenian homeland, and, possibly, Armenia’s accepting Turkish mediation in the conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijan over the disputed Armenian region of Karabagh-which is absurd since Azerbaijan and Turkey are allies. It appears that Armenia’s president, whose electoral legitimacy is in question, has been worn down in these negotiations by Turkey, the West, and possibly even Russia. And because the Armenian president is grappling with his legitimacy, he is not heeding the cautions being voiced by the people of his own nation about the “roadmap.”

MZ: The U.S. administration and mainstream media would have us believe that Turkey is seeking to “reconcile” with Armenia. Is “reconciliation” really a possibility, or have we misunderstood what’s going on?

DB: The word “reconciliation” in relation to Armenian-Turkish relations is largely an invention of U.S. policymakers, their emissaries, and the mainstream media who take their cues from them. What the U.S. and Europe would like to see is a more stable Caucasus-that is, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia-with open borders. Open borders, you see, would facilitate laying more oil and gas pipelines that would originate in the Caspian Sea region and proceed west to Turkey and then to energy-hungry Europe and Israel. The U.S. and Europe don’t want to put it quite that crudely-no pun intended-so they try to depict Armenia and Turkey as possibly “reconciling” and thus resolving all their differences. Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 out of sympathy with its ally Azerbaijan, which was in a war with the Armenians of Karabagh, a historically Armenian-populated autonomous area within Azerbaijan that Stalin handed to Azerbaijan. Turkey has also been infuriated that Armenia and Armenians worldwide have been demanding that Turkey acknowledge the genocide it committed against Armenians.

Turkey has to acknowledge the genocide or there will never be peace between it and Armenia. And although the Armenian government has not put forth any claims for reparations arising out of the genocide, or for territory, many Armenians do have these goals. They cite the Treaty of Sèvres of 1920, which provided for Armenian sovereignty over Armenian lands upon which Turkey committed the genocide, and which have since been incorporated into what is now eastern Turkey.

MZ: The countries of the Caucasus are Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. Most Americans, including the mainstream media, could not find these small countries on a map. Why are Russia and the U.S.-the latter being thousands of miles from the region-so interested in these three small countries?

DB: The Caucasus is truly Ground Zero in Cold War II, the ongoing conflict between the U.S. and Russia. The U.S.-along with Europe and the NATO military alliance-regard Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan as middlemen between the West and the gas and oil-rich regions around the Caspian Sea. The West has already laid gas and oil pipelines from Azerbaijan through Georgia and then on to Turkey and the west. The U.S. wanted those and future pipelines to bypass Russia and Iran because those two countries could shut such pipelines to pressure the U.S. and others. The only possible pipelines routes, therefore, are through Georgia or Armenia. But Turkey shut its border with Armenia in 1993, and Azerbaijan closed its border with Armenia even earlier due to the conflict between it and the de-facto Armenian region of Karabagh. That left Georgia as the only place for these Western pipelines. After the Russian-Georgian was last year, however, opening an alternative route has become more urgent. That largely explains the West’s renewed interest in Armenia. Conversely, Russia sees the Caucasus as within its traditional sphere of influence, and regards U.S. and European interest in the region as hostile acts.

Simultaneously, NATO has been pushing into the region. Georgia, Azerbaijan, and to some extent even the ex-Soviet republics on the other side of the Caspian Sea, are on the path to joining NATO. Russia was already upset that, following the Cold War, NATO had absorbed the former Warsaw Pact nations of Eastern Europe. NATO is now attempting, in effect, to do the same thing on Russia’s southern border. Russia fears that it will eventually be virtually surrounded by NATO. As a result, we have Cold War II: The U.S. and NATO are trying to push into the Caucasus and Central Asia, while Russia is trying to keep them out.

MZ: Why is Israel interested in the Caucasus, and what role is that country playing? Why are Israel and the pro-Israel lobby dead set against recognition of the Armenian genocide by the U.S. Congress?

DB: Israel is interested in getting some of the oil and gas that flow out of the Caspian Sea region. That is, from countries such as Azerbaijan, oil and gas flow west through Georgia, and then on to Turkey and other countries, possibly including Israel. After all, the U.S. and Turkey, which are important players in these pipelines, are obviously also very friendly with Israel. Israel also welcomes all non-Arab supplies of energy since they would make its Western allies less dependent on Arab oil and gas. And Israel has long had what it calls its Periphery Policy. Historically, Israel has not had good relations with its Arab neighbors. Therefore, to serve as counterweights, Israel befriends those countries further away, especially Muslim countries that aren’t necessarily sympathetic to Israel’s Arab neighbors or Palestinians. Azerbaijan, the only Muslim nation in the Caucasus, and some Muslim nations to the east, such as Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, are such countries. Fortuitously for Israel, they also possess significant deposits of gas and oil.

For decades, Israel and Turkey have had very good relations, mainly because they have a common ally, the U.S., and common adversaries, namely Arab nations. In the 1990′s, Israel and Turkey signed a number of military, economic, and political agreements that solidified their relationship. Even before that, but particularly after that, Turkey felt that it did not have sufficient lobbying muscle in Washington. So the Turks asked Israel to convince some of the pro-Israel lobby-the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee and others-to serve as advocates for Turkey. The Jewish lobby groups agreed. So these groups, as part of their deal with Turkey, deny or call into question the Armenian genocide and work to prevent U.S. acknowledgement of that genocide. These groups won’t tolerate anyone questioning of the Holocaust, and yet hypocritically work against acknowledgment of the Armenian genocide. Interestingly, for the last 2 years, Armenian Americans have exposed the ADL’s hypocrisy. In Massachusetts, for example, fourteen cities severed ties with an anti-bias program sponsored by the ADL because of the latter’s hypocritical and anti-Armenian stance (see NoPlaceForDenial.com). Armenians are determined to challenge genocide denial whenever it occurs.

MZ: Is there a problem with the way the mainstream media has been covering Armenian issues?

DB: Yes. The mainstream media have several problems. First, they know very little about the Caucasus or Armenians. Reporters tend, therefore, to copy each other and repeat clichés and falsehoods-such as that Armenia and Turkey are on the verge of a historic “reconciliation.” Media also tend to accept at face value the propaganda issued by Western governments whose interest in the Caucasus is-let’s be frank-not “reconciliation,” democracy, or human rights, but rather self-interested economic, political, and military political penetration of the Caucasus.

Turkey has about 30 times more people and territory, and 50 times more Gross Domestic Product, than Armenia. The power differential is enormous. Turkey has infinitely more allies in Western media, governments, think tanks, and multi-national corporations-and knows how to use them. Commentators who have a vested interest in touting Turkey for their own political and even financial reasons have particularly come out of the woodwork to deride legitimate Armenian demands. But we rarely hear commentators speak of how a small country that has been the victim of genocide, that has had most of its territory stripped from it, and that has been blockaded by the denier of that genocide-Turkey-is being threatened by that very same unrepentant denier. Mainstream media largely fail to appreciate the foregoing facts. Hopefully, Mickey, this interview will help the media and your readers understand the issues and the region a bit better.

David Boyajian can be reached at David_Boyajian@Yahoo.com

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