Demise of the Dollar

SUBHEAD: The Great Recession never left us and collapse of the industrial economy is already under way. By Guy McPherson on 22 February 2011 in Nature Bats Last - (http://guymcpherson.com/2011/02/demise-of-the-dollar) Image above: Illustration of hyperinflation by David Dees. From (http://www.rense.com/1.mpicons/deesA2.htm).

The U.S. dollar continues its journey from Brobdingnagian to Lilliputian stature, and the latest trade report is a prelude to the dollar as microbe. The Prime Mover in this case is King Ben, who has the helicopter on track for a one-way trip to Zimbabwe with every American along for the ride. Death of the world’s reserve currency “is irreversible, and it will unleash a cyclone of chaos and confusion that will leave many literally suspended in disbelief as the entire false paradigm most of humanity has lived under for their entire existence is washed away forever.” It’s not just a bunch of bloggers and pundits announcing the dollar’s funeral, either: Even the International Monetary Fund is discussing abandoning the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency, which portends hyperinflation as surely as Benny and the Inkjets working overtime on the printing presses.

Already, the crushing of the consumer sector is under say even as the road to madness is paved with King Ben’s $100 bills. To his credit, Bernanke finally admitted that nearly every bank in the country almost failed shortly after the price of oil peaked in mid-2008. He failed to mention, however, that such an outcome surely would have terminated western civilization within a month.

Meanwhile, Ben and the boys at the Federal Reserve Bank keep launching new ships in the never-ending fleet of Quantitative Easing. QE II was intercepted by Wall Street on its way to Main Street, so QE III is on the way, undoubtedly destined for the same fate. Like a high-speed, head-on collision, QE III will have quite an impact, but only on those immediately involved. The rest of us will be rubber-necking and wondering what happened as we drive by.

Coincident with the death of the U.S. dollar, the industrial economy is perched on the brink of catastrophic collapse. Or, as I’ve written before, the Great Recession never left us and collapse of the industrial economy is already under way. Most people have simply not realized it yet because they haven’t been told by the media or the completely impotent federal government. Many signs point to 2012 as the year the ongoing collapse of the industrial economy reaches its overdue end, although I’m not yet giving up on 2011.

If you prefers charts to texts, try this set for an abbreviated version of the story. In other words, the Keynesian experiment has nearly run its course, so it’s time to get serious about feeding yourself and your community in the near future.

If you think revolution is restricted to other countries, take a look at the gap between the haves and the have-nots around the world. Inequality is far worse in the U.S. than Egypt, Tunisia, or Yemen: The American picture is truly ugly. Ongoing events in Middle Eastern countries, driven by economic factors, are the canaries in the coal mine of global economic collapse, as intimated by Dmitry Orlov and further explained by noted trends forecaster Gerald Celente. And if you think we wouldn’t use force on our own, then you haven’t checked with the troopers in Wisconsin.

Even as Middle Eastern puppets for the U.S. are falling like dominoes, despite continued U.S. support, it becomes increasingly clear Obama will be the president who asks the last mercenary to turn out the lights on American Empire. Collapse is proceeding apace, and even Congressional Representative Ron Paul admits the federal government is in the process of complete failure.

Crude oil underlies the entire industrial mess and CNBC admits we need those dictators puppets to keep the oil flowing to the U.S. as the major domestic source of oil in the U.S. continues to falter and past-peak, free-falling Saudi Arabia clings by a thin thread (as recognized by Foreign Policy). When the kingdom falls, it could well take the U.S. dollar with it, and quickly. And contrary to statements from our politicians, “we’re not worried about the rivers of blood — we’re worried about the rivers of oil” coming out of the Middle East. As we’ve been since the 1970s.

If you think we can pay our way out of this predicament, it’s time to pony up. If you pay taxes, you and your family owe more than $1 million en route to saving our monetary system. Small wonder, then, that Tim Geithner foresees imminent default on U.S. debt. Before we get there, Timmy is blackmailing Congress, claiming that failure to raise the debt limit leads to default. But Timmy knows default is right around the corner, either way.

Jeff Rubin explains why oil-price shocks induce recession, and also why there is a lag between the shock and the economic pain. Rubin and an ever-larger choir are joined by Jim Rogers and financier and author Stephen Leeb in the expanding club forecasting oil priced at $150 per barrel in the near term (and Global Research has joined the party, too). That’s what happens when the giant oil fields run dry.

Lest you run out and buy oil futures, bear in mind the other potential outcome to this globalized world: China’s economic bubble could burst in short order. When it does, only one bubble remains: the human population bubble on Earth.

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From the bottom of the pyramid

SUBHEAD: The wealthy may have deliberately chosen to buy themselves out of the need for 'messy' human entanglements and interdependencies.  

By Nicole M. Foss on 22 February 2011 for the Automatic Earth -  
(http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2011/02/february-22-2011-view-from-bottom-of.html)


 
Image above: Jane Darwell as Ma Joad in 1940 film "The Grapes pf Wrath". From (http://www.examiner.com/movie-events-in-salt-lake-city/9-admirable-movie-moms).

People occasionally comment that we only consider the circumstances of the relatively wealthy in articles like, for instance, our Lifeboat Primer. It is true that by no means everyone can achieve the ideal circumstance of holding no debt, having cash on hand and having some control over the essentials of their own existence, however there are many other important factors in play that may decide the balance of advantage. It seems important to consider explicitly the plight of those lower down the financial food-chain. The decisions people have to make will depend critically on their personal circumstances.

However unfair it may be, all of us face constraints grounded in where we find ourselves in life, and we do not all have the same options available to us. This may seem overwhelmingly to favour the currently better off, but this is not always the case by any means. There are different ways of being well off besides the conventional monetary definition. If one is going to fall out of a window, how much it hurts when one hits the ground will depend on how many stories high the window was.

Some of those who live a relatively hand to mouth existence may find themselves falling out of a ground floor window. They will dust themselves off and move on. This will be much less painful than falling from the hundredth floor, as many of the better off will end up doing. People who may have nothing, but also owe nothing, are not so badly off in comparison with those who have a lot, but owe far more than they have. The latter is a very common situation, and will become increasingly common as assets prices fall in a deflationary environment, and debt servicing becomes ever more onerous.

Very many seemingly wealthy people are over-stretched "like butter spread over too much bread", as Bilbo put it in The Lord of the Rings. Essentially, it is far better to have nothing, than less than nothing in net monetary terms.

As we have pointed out before (see Trickles, Floods and the Escalating Consequences of Debt), indebtedness can have serious consequences. Just because we have not seen these recently in developed countries does not mean they are gone forever (in an ever-increasing spiral of civilized behaviour). For the time being, civilized methods exist for getting out from under unrepayable debt, but these are unlikely to persist once too many people try to rely on them.

For those who think they may need to have recourse to bankruptcy, it would be better not to wait too long, as that particular door may close. Being in debt gives others power over one's life, and that power may be exerted in many different ways, none of which are likely to be pleasant for the debtor. We have seen the subprime crisis, which involved primarily the poor in an exploitative and predatory relationship with the financial system.

That is now essentially over. The interest rate adjustments on those negative amortization loans (where borrowers were offered a low teaser interest which reset after a few years, and the unpaid interest was added to the principle at the end of that time) are mostly in the past. Loan re-adjustments will continue until 2012, but now for prime mortgages. These are typically people who are much wealthier, but couldn't resist, for instance, the Palm Springs beach house or the New York condo.

These are people whose lives have always been thoroughly embedded in in our modern bubble economy, and whose decisions have all been based on the assumption of its continued existence. A significant percentage of such people is carrying many other forms of debt in addition to mortgages. Many wealthy people are in at least as deep a hole compared to their income as any subprime borrower, and many of them will lose their shirts as well. Also, everything you own you may have to protect in one way or another, and this can require significant resources, as well as cause significant stress.

Many wealthy people in disparate parts of the world effectively live in gilded prisons, where they have to pay for protection services (and never know when someone else may outbid them for the services of their private security guards). In some parts of the world, kidnapping the children of the wealthy approaches the level of national sport. While there are obvious comforts to being wealthy, it is no panacea and no real predictor of surviving or thriving. The critical factor is not so much available money, as adaptability.

Although money represents unmade choices, and is therefore an advantage in one way, the ready availability of money has also made many people soft, and prone to take the path of least resistance.

This has often lulled them into a false sense of security. Some people know how to be poor and others do not. Better yet, some know how to be both poor and happy. For some, poverty would be merely a frustration, and for others an insurmountable obstacle. The Future Belongs to the Adaptable, not necessarily to the currently wealthy. Wealthy people are too often dependent on a functioning system - a system they have learned well how to navigate and function within, but a system that is extremely brittle in its economic efficiency. Without that all-encompassing life-support system, they may not be able to function at all. During the Soviet collapse, the former pillars of community (most often middle-aged men) frequently drank themselves to death because they could not adapt to a new reality.

The wealthy may have deliberately chosen to buy themselves out of the need for 'messy' human entanglements and interdependencies in favour of maximizing autonomy, but this can be an acute vulnerability in hard times. Community matters far more than money. No man is an island, and pooling resources can do a lot to help a group of people get through a bottle-neck, even if none of them is wealthy. Time, skills, creativity and emotional support are at least as important to share as money in building a mutual support system. Doing so can greatly reduce the dependence on money to the benefit of all involved, given that money will be very scarce. Pooling resources across the generations can be particularly important, and represents the way the vast majority of humanity already lives, where top-down services and other external supports have never been available.

Extended family is a tried-and-tested, and very robust, structure. In difficult times, who you know, and how well you know them, matters at least as much as what you know, and the most important connections are not necessarily those with the wealthy or powerful. There is simply strength in numbers, especially where those numbers are based on relationships of trust, and a trust born of mutual interdependence can be far more common in the lower echelons of society where it has been more necessary, and may therefore have been more firmly established already. It is necessary to know whom to trust, and towards whom to maintain a healthy scepticism. The poor are often more adept at telling the difference. As Dimitri Orlov said, Real Communities are Self-Organizing:

"The rich get to play, while other, less privileged parts of the population, such as the immigrants, the squatters and the homeless, the chronically unemployed or underemployed, the bums (the real ones, not the ones in government), simply don't have the same options. At the same time, their need for community is much greater, and so they spontaneously self-organize, network informally, and defend their interests as best they can. They all know that "a nail that sticks up gets hammered down" and so they don't advertise their efforts or make them official or explicit."

We need to learn from those who have lived a life where they have had to learn on their feet. It is not possible, nor indeed necessary, to avoid all difficult environments, but it is quite likely to be necessary to learn to operate within them, and this is not a subject taught in school. As TAE commenter Subgenius said recently:

"I also bought a LOT of unpleasant people drinks, etc. over the first few years. A few years in and a situation got very out of control and I found I had a small army backing me up, which saved me from a pretty nasty set of possibilities. Remember - neighbors are ALL. You don't have to LIKE them, but treat them with what THEY perceive as respect and they will look out for you. "

Finally, we can take comfort in the words of John Steinbeck, expressed by Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath:

"I ain’t never gonna be scared no more. I was, though. For a while it looked as though we was beat. Good and beat. Looked like we didn’t have nobody in the whole wide world but enemies. Like nobody was friendly no more. Made me feel kinda bad and scared too, like we was lost and nobody cared…. Rich fellas come up and they die, and their kids ain’t no good and they die out, but we keep on coming. We’re the people that live. They can’t wipe us out, they can’t lick us. We’ll go on forever, Pa, cos we’re the people."

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Geopolitics Rule

SUBHEAD: We must reinvent democracy in a way that embraces the concept of less at at all levels. By Steve Ludlum on 21 February 2011 in Economic Undertow - (http://economic-undertow.blogspot.com/2011/02/geopolitics-rule.html) Image above: "Until Libya is Free" photo. From original article. One of the big ideas here at the Undertow is that the economic price limit or upper bound for crude oil is a lot lower than most analysts suggest. The American Way was built on a foundation of unlimited sub- $20 per barrel crude. $18 crude made Hollywood, TV, advertising, Interstate highways, Suburbia, shopping malls and mass consumption. $18 crude created then enabled a massive automobile- industrial complex. $18 crude allowed cheap meals to be had without getting out of a car; cheap crude severed the bounds between humans and nature and substituted company 'values' for all the other kinds. Suburbia would not exist in any form without cheap fuel which is the loss-leader for everything else. Big cars, big houses and long commutes make no sense when fuel is expensive. Neither do chain stores, speed boats, Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO's), and air travel for the masses. The writ of suburbia is parking lots stuffed with automobiles as far as the eye can see. Whatever existed before is erased from history, bulldozed in favor of more parking lots stuffed with automobiles. What remains is determined by the marketing departments of multinational businesses which invent what is useful for them. Do you think 'money' is valuable? It is because the businesses have decided this is so. Expensive fuel not only 'strands' capital investment by rendering it unprofitable, it makes any follow- on costs unsupportable. Support and maintenance expenses cannot be serviced by the meager returns suburbia provides in an expensive fuel regime. This is why state and municipal budgets have spiraled out of control. Sprawl is expensive. It requires a lot of people to service it. Unlike what marketing suggests, the inhabitants of sprawl are not rugged individualists facing the future with canned hams, knobby tired all-terrain vehicles and Glock semi-auto pistols. Instead, they are like helpless children who require the attention of thousands of highly paid specialists to make sure the hams, the vehicles and various belt-fed weaponries work as the warranties promise. Heaven forbid that the streets are left unplowed after a snowstorm or that the little nuggets have to walk more than three blocks to school! Hell hath no fury like the neighbor of someone building a barbecue pit without a permit or having an uncovered garbage can! The 'Nanny State' is a product of consumer demand and is geared into the proper function of all the products that make up sprawl. Shrinking government or down- scaling the ability of managers to function strands trillions in capital investment! Shrunken services lead shrinking property values. Instead of fixing problems the stripping of services amplifies them. This is where the neoliberal apologists fail as economists: cutting wages only shifts the costs rather than eliminating them. The 'value' of sprawl shrinks right along with the wages: any savings are an illusion. While support for sprawl will by necessity shrink along with sprawl itself it is necessary to put this shrinkage in the proper context. It must be understood that sprawl cannot support itself: without this understanding nothing about government functions and costs makes sense! Geopolitics rule. What is happening in Egypt and Libya is also taking place in America and for the same reasons. Geopolitics transcends culture. Qaddafi is not an Andy Warhol character. There is no 'escapist fun' about a madman strafing crowds of one's own citizens from helicopters. There is also nothing fun about $110 oil. A couple of more months at this level and the system built on $18 oil surrenders to fate. Signs of breakage/leakage are ominously appearing across the world's economies. High prices have caused the unrest, they are also the first results of it. The world is poised at the edge of a geopolitical compounding price-feedback spiral. The mendacity of the Establishment whether Qaddafi's or Walker's feeds on itself. The first level outcome is the unmanning of the neoliberal order which is itself a collection of false premises that are dependent upon passive acceptance of accumulating outrages in exchange for phantom benefits. The other outcome is the reaction to what the false premises actually represent in real time. The reaction to vicious Qaddafi is a threatened shutdown of Libya's oil fields. The reaction to Walker's bald-faced assault on sprawl-management is the possible suspension of important public services. People are learning fast the vulnerabilities of the system and are starting to take advantage. Even if both Qaddafi and Walker succeed for the instant, the game itself is changed with advantages now accumulating to the neoliberals' putative victims. Right now both the municipal employees as well as the politicians are failing to face reality. The problems in state and local governments are structural and unsolvable without dismantling the high- cost, energy gobbling structures. Refusing to dismantle does nothing but shift the timing of the ultimate bankruptcy somewhat. Bankruptcy is the peak oil outcome: it cannot be outwitted or outmaneuvered by intellectual dishonesty or any other kind! It must be faced and dealt with directly. This is some unreality, from Mike Konczal:

The Less Discussed Part of Walker’s Wisconsin Plan: No-Bid Energy Assets Firesales. Have you heard about 16.896? The fight in Wisconsin is over Governor Walker’s 144-page Budget Repair Bill. The parts everyone is focusing on have to do with the right to collectively bargain being stripped from public sector unions (except for the unions that supported Walker running for Governor). Focusing on this misses a large part of what the bill would do. Check out this language, from the same bill (my bold): 16.896 Sale or contractual operation of state−owned heating, cooling, and power plants. (1) Notwithstanding ss. 13.48 (14) (am) and 16.705 (1), the department may sell any state−owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state. Notwithstanding ss. 196.49 and 196.80, no approval or certification of the public service commission is necessary for a public utility to purchase, or contract for the operation of, such a plant, and any such purchase is considered to be in the public interest and to comply with the criteria for certification of a project under s. 196.49 (3) (b). The bill would allow for the selling of state-owned heating/cooling/power plants without bids and without concern for the legally-defined public interest. This excellent catch is from Ed at ginandtacos.com (who, speaking of Madison, took me to the Essen Haus on my 21st birthday, where the night began to go sideways). Ed correctly notes: If this isn’t the best summary of the goals of modern conservatism, I don’t know what is. It’s like a highlight reel of all of the tomahawk dunks of neo-Gilded Age corporatism: privatization, no-bid contracts, deregulation, and naked cronyism. Extra bonus points for the explicit effort to legally redefine the term “public interest” as “whatever the energy industry lobbyists we appoint to these unelected bureaucratic positions say it is.” In case it isn’t clear where the naked cronyism comes in, remember which large, politically active private interest loves buying up power plants and already has considerable interests in Wisconsin. Then consider their demonstrated eagerness to help Mr. Walker get elected and bus in carpetbaggers to have a sad little pro-Mubarak style “rally” in his honor. There are dots to be connected here, but doing so might not be in the public interest.

It’s important to think of this battle as a larger one over the role of the state. The attempt to break labor is part of the same continuous motion as saying that the crony, corporatist selling of state utilities to the Koch brothers and other energy interests is the new “public interest."Regardless of how the politics play out, labor must compete with fuel. Beginning in the 1990's US businesses faced the same cost squeeze that states and localities are facing now. Mexico and China bailed out US businesses by importing jobs that increased costs had rendered unprofitable. Unlike businesses, states and cities cannot export firefighting jobs to China or India. Children must be taught near their homes and the choice is to pay or have stupid children. Stripping labor's ability to negotiate wage and benefit levels is irrelevant. The economy's productive capability sets prices both for both fuel and labor. If the economy cannot support the price of fuel the price will decline to a level that can be supported. This will be accomplished by demand destruction and the unraveling of the 'Automobile State'. Credit and momentum can push an economy to the point where it appears to support a high price but not for very long. The same is true for labor. Regardless of sentiment, the economy cannot support high prices 'out of thin air'. Any given price must allow an organic return. At some level the high prices eliminate returns altogether. High labor costs, like high fuel costs are self-correcting. Oil prices that are higher than nominal $35/bbl are problematic. Allocation takes place at the higher price: fuel can be bought in place of something else like wage increases or business profits. For this reason, high fuel prices are deflationary. Allocations in scale economies are ruinous: input constraints ration individual processes. Should a vital process become non-functional, the scale economy as a whole falters. This is a variation on Leibig's Law of the Minimum. Here, the least well-functioning process hobbles all the other processes. Another way to state this is the slowest boat sets the pace for the convoy. At some point the convoy is too slow to be productive. This is the point where we are now. At the high price there is no other activity allowed but buying fuel or the choice between that and paying wages. What happens then? Like the labor protestors in Wisconsin, the millions whose upward-turning hearts are bent toward democracy and freedom are bound to be disappointed. Democracy is not magic but rather a way to efficiently express demand. The protesters in Madison are making public their desire to have access to a shrinking economic (resource) base. Long silent, the new democrats in Cairo and Benghazi are doing the exact same thing. Along with the freedom from arbitrary detention and abuse, the New Democrats are demanding consumer goods and easy, technology oriented jobs. They want automobiles, houses, luxuries and vacations. They insist the process of democracy give them both the right AND the means to have these things. What they don't understand is that these are in the process of being taken away from the Americans who created the idea of consumption in the first place. The New Democrats are idealists but also hard-headed. They want the slice of the pie, particularly since the slice available is part of the oil production pie which is baked in their kitchen! Since democracy efficiently expresses demand, the more demand overall means less available at a price that anyone but the wealthy can afford. How ironic: adding democracy actually makes things worse for everyone because the one thing it cannot do is make everyone wealthy! If Americans cannot afford the middle-class way of life the Egyptians certainly cannot afford to do so. Egypt stands now a nation of Oliver Twists, lining up for more bowls of poison. Nothing can give them what they are bleeding for other than finance, neoliberalism and property bubbles. The future of the New Democracies is likely more Albanias. Like Egypt in many ways, the US has ceased to be a productive country. It invested foolishly in toys, waste and luxury rather than is workshops and in worker skills. We have smart-ish machines and knuckleheaded citizens who refuse to learn anything. We turn away from reality and hide behind nativist politics and televised circuses. Outside of agriculture and military goods our production does not provide much in the way of return. Without subsidies from our grandchildren our entire economy would collapse. We don't earn enough. Instead of labor, artistry and discipline, we have made gambling the centerpiece of our so-called civilization which is built as cheaply and destructively as possible on a foundation of styrofoam packing peanuts. There is no good outcome to this since the 'Management' chooses not to understand gambling's nature, that it is a zero-sum operation. We do not want to embrace any other way but rather put more coins in the slot machine faster. The New Democrats are faced with a challenge that preceding versions did not have to address. They must somehow reinvent democracy in a way that embraces the concept of less at at all levels. They must find a place in their philosophy that allows nature to provide services other than 'resources' that are strip mined then landfilled. They must create a value system that embraces something outside of 'company values' created by marketing experts and American pop culture. It may be that the current distress in the oil regions may be the end of our gambling way of life. What happens next I do not know. The danger is deleveraging of the massive debt overhang - our gambling debts if you will. Since stimulus has been in effect since 1980 and easy money from central banks is already flowing to catatonic banking sector there is no reserve or 'Plan B' available to stop runs out of securities. It's likely to get 'interesting' for the next week or so. Warfare creates supply uncertainty which is added to actual shortfalls. The situation in Libya -- a major oil exporter -- is opaque. Nobody knows what is actually taking place in Tripoli right now, who is in charge and whether the mechanisms of production will be adversely effected. Oil company personnel are fleeing the country. The risk is that Libya's output might be sanctioned. This uncertainty has pushed Brent to almost $110 per barrel. Geopolitics trumps economics. Events of the past few weeks leaves the entire oil-producing region teetering. No country is secure in the sense that the government is assured of remaining in authority. This is as true of Saudi Arabia's government as well as China's. What is taking place is a demonstration of the limits of indirect coercion as an organizing idea. The two words 'Food Riots" are a figure of speech. Food riots that displace governments mean that the resource constraints that render riots inevitable have to be taken seriously. Resources matter: the action of a disgruntled fruit vendor in Tunis has set in motion what hundreds of reports and media articles have failed to accomplish: insist there are real limits that cannot be compromised. The next group to learn this will be the democracies of the West. .

GMO danger to livestock

SOURCE: Ken Taylor (taylork021@Hawaii.rr.com) SUBHEAD: Alert! Pathogen new to science found in Roundup Ready GM Crops causing spontaneous abortions in livestock.  

By Mae-Wan Ho on 21 February 2011 for Inst. for Science in Society -  
(http://www.i-sis.org.uk/newPathogenInRoundupReadyGMCrops.php)

 
Image above: British white beef cow and calf "suitable" for feeding either on grass or in GMO feedlot. From (http://www.britishwhitecattle.us.com/2009_03_01_archive.html).
 
USDA senior scientist sends “emergency” warning to US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on a new plant pathogen in Roundup Ready GM soybean and corn that may be responsible for high rates of infertility and spontaneous abortions in livestock Dr. Mae-Wan Ho

An open letter appeared on the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance (http://farmandranchfreedom.org/gmo-miscarriages) founded and run by Judith McGeary to save family farms in the US [1, 2]. The letter, written by Don Huber, professor emeritus at Purdue University, to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, warns of a pathogen “new to science” discovered by “a team of senior plant and animal scientists”. Huber says it should be treated as an “emergency’’, as it could result in “a collapse of US soy and corn export markets and significant disruption of domestic food and feed supplies.”

The letter appeared to have been written before Vilsack announced his decision to authorize unrestricted commercial planting of GM alfalfa on 1 February, in the hope of convincing the Secretary of Agriculture to impose a moratorium instead on deregulation of Roundup Ready (RR) crops.

The new pathogen appears associated with serious pervasive diseases in plants - sudden death syndrome in soybean and Goss' wilt in corn – but its suspected effects on livestock is alarming. Huber refers to “recent reports of infertility rates in dairy heifers of over 20%, and spontaneous abortions in cattle as high as 45%.”

This could be the worst nightmare of genetic engineering that some scientists including me have been warning for years [3] (see Genetic Engineering Dream or Nightmare, ISIS publication): the unintended creation of new pathogens through assisted horizontal gene transfer and recombination.

Huber writes in closing: “I have studied plant pathogens for more than 50 years. We are now seeing an unprecedented trend of increasing plant and animal diseases and disorders. This pathogen may be instrumental to understanding and solving this problem. It deserves immediate attention with significant resources to avoid a general collapse of our critical agricultural infrastructure.”
The complete letter is reproduced below.

Dear Secretary Vilsack: A team of senior plant and animal scientists have recently brought to my attention the discovery of an electron microscopic pathogen that appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals, and probably human beings. Based on a review of the data, it is widespread, very serious, and is in much higher concentrations in Roundup Ready (RR) soybeans and corn-suggesting a link with the RR gene or more likely the presence of Roundup. This organism appears NEW to science! This is highly sensitive information that could result in a collapse of US soy and corn export markets and significant disruption of domestic food and feed supplies. On the other hand, this new organism may already be responsible for significant harm (see below). My colleagues and I are therefore moving our investigation forward with speed and discretion, and seek assistance from the USDA and other entities to identify the pathogen's source, prevalence, implications, and remedies. We are informing the USDA of our findings at this early stage, specifically due to your pending decision regarding approval of RR alfalfa. Naturally, if either the RR gene or Roundup itself is a promoter or co-factor of this pathogen, then such approval could be a calamity. Based on the current evidence, the only reasonable action at this time would be to delay deregulation at least until sufficient data has exonerated the RR system, if it does. For the past 40 years, I have been a scientist in the professional and military agencies that evaluate and prepare for natural and manmade biological threats, including germ warfare and disease outbreaks. Based on this experience, I believe the threat we are facing from this pathogen is unique and of a high risk status. In layman's terms, it should be treated as an emergency. A diverse set of researchers working on this problem have contributed various pieces of the puzzle, which together presents the following disturbing scenario: Unique Physical Properties This previously unknown organism is only visible under an electron microscope (36,000X), with an approximate size range equal to a medium size virus. It is able to reproduce and appears to be a micro-fungal-like organism. If so, it would be the first such micro-fungus ever identified. There is strong evidence that this infectious agent promotes diseases of both plants and mammals, which is very rare. Pathogen Location and Concentration It is found in high concentrations in Roundup Ready soybean meal and corn, distillers meal, fermentation feed products, pig stomach contents, and pig and cattle placentas. Linked with Outbreaks of Plant Disease The organism is prolific in plants infected with two pervasive diseases that are driving down yields and farmer income-sudden death syndrome (SDS) in soy, and Goss' wilt in corn. The pathogen is also found in the fungal causative agent of SDS (Fusarium solani fsp glycines). Implicated in Animal Reproductive Failure Laboratory tests have confirmed the presence of this organism in a wide variety of livestock that have experienced spontaneous abortions and infertility. Preliminary results from ongoing research have also been able to reproduce abortions in a clinical setting. The pathogen may explain the escalating frequency of infertility and spontaneous abortions over the past few years in US cattle, dairy, swine, and horse operations. These include recent reports of infertility rates in dairy heifers of over 20%, and spontaneous abortions in cattle as high as 45%. For example, 450 of 1,000 pregnant heifers fed wheatlege experienced spontaneous abortions. Over the same period, another 1,000 heifers from the same herd that were raised on hay had no abortions. High concentrations of the pathogen were confirmed on the wheatlege, which likely had been under weed management using glyphosate. Recommendations In summary, because of the high titer of this new animal pathogen in Roundup Ready crops, and its association with plant and animal diseases that are reaching epidemic proportions, we request USDA's participation in a multi-agency investigation, and an immediate moratorium on the deregulation of RR crops until the causal/predisposing relationship with glyphosate and/or RR plants can be ruled out as a threat to crop and animal production and human health. It is urgent to examine whether the side-effects of glyphosate use may have facilitated the growth of this pathogen, or allowed it to cause greater harm to weakened plant and animal hosts. It is well-documented that glyphosate promotes soil pathogens and is already implicated with the increase of more than 40 plant diseases; it dismantles plant defenses by chelating vital nutrients; and it reduces the bioavailability of nutrients in feed, which in turn can cause animal disorders. To properly evaluate these factors, we request access to the relevant USDA data. I have studied plant pathogens for more than 50 years. We are now seeing an unprecedented trend of increasing plant and animal diseases and disorders. This pathogen may be instrumental to understanding and solving this problem. It deserves immediate attention with significant resources to avoid a general collapse of our critical agricultural infrastructure. Sincerely, COL (Ret.) Don M. Huber Emeritus Professor, Purdue University APS Coordinator, USDA National Plant Disease Recovery System (NPDRS)

References

1. “Researcher: Glyphosate (Roundup) or Roundup Ready Crops May Cause Animal Miscarriages”, Jill Richardson, La Vida Locavore, 18 February 2011 http://www.lavidalocavore.org/diary/4523
2. “Researcher: Glyphosate (Roundup) or Roundup Ready Crops May Cause Animal Miscarriages”, 18 February 2011, http://farmandranchfreedom.org/gmo-miscarriages
3. Ho MW. Genetic Engineering Dream of Nightmare? The Brave New World of Bad Science and Big Business, Third World Network, Gateway Books, MacMillan, Continuum, Penang, Malaysia, Bath, UK, Dublin, Ireland, New York, USA, 1998, 1999, 2007 (reprint with extended Introduction). http://www.i-sis.org.uk/genet.php

Wisconsin's Tunisia Moment

SUBHEAD: At long last, resentment against the economic crisis is beginning to find its natural home, the financial elites and their Republican allies. By Robert Kuttner on 20 February 2011 for Huffington Post - (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/wisconsins-tunisia-moment_b_825738.html) Image above: Wisconsin protests continue. Many scheduled for tomorrow. From (http://reality-based-world.org/2011/02/20/protests-to-continue-rallies-scheduled-across-wisconsin-for-tuesday-22-february/).

As events in Egypt showed, you never know what will set off mass protest.

Here at home, over-reaching by a novice Republican governor of Wisconsin has finally triggered the protest marches that have been eerily missing during the more than three years of an economic crisis that has savaged the middle and bottom and rewarded the top.

It's not as if we lack a politics of class. As mega-investor Warren Buffett famously said, there is plenty of class warfare in America, but the billionaire class is winning.

This economic crisis, after all, was brought on by excesses on Wall Street. Yet with the rest of the economy still mired in high unemployment and fiscal crises of public services, Wall Street was first to be bailed out, the first to return to exorbitant profitability, and the last to be held accountable.

Month after month, progressives have been asking each other, where are the mass protests?

You might expect popular indignation to be focused on the banks. Instead, the economic unease of ordinary people has been substantially captured by the Tea Party right and directed against government, while Beltway politicians of both parties are outdoing one another to vie for the role of more austere deficit hawk, which will hardly win back popular support for the public sector.

Then the newly energized Republicans made a couple of big mistakes. One was trying to cut too deep, on the heels of a massive tax cut for the rich. But the other miscalculation was to declare war on the one bastion of organized economic representation of regular people -- the labor movement.

With new legislative majorities in 18 states, several freshman Republican governors are hoping to withdraw collective bargaining rights from public employees and to otherwise demonize nurses, teachers, fire-fighters, cops, sanitation workers and others who have managed to hang on to decent pensions and health coverage.

This looked to be a cakewalk. Public workers, seemingly, are an easy target. After all, they still have jobs and benefits. Instead of demanding to know why our own pension and health coverage is so lousy, the rest of us are supposed to resent middle income workers in the public sector for having health and pension benefits better than ours. It is a carefully cultivated politics of division and resentment.

But this time, Republicans overreached, and the long smoldering economic unease has finally sparked mass demonstrations. Rather than following the script and resenting public employees as a privileged "other," the citizens of Madison increasingly view teachers, nurses, cops, firefighters, and other public workers as their violated neighbors.

One recent poll showed that two-thirds of Wisconsin citizens polled (none from public employee families) felt that Walker had gone too far. Even citizens who wanted public workers to pay more of the costs of their benefits concluded that his scheme was excessive. Another poll, sponsored by an Illinois Manufacturers Association, found a similar result.

Now, mass protest has broken out in other states where Republican governors are attacking unions, tens of thousands of other citizens are joining their union brothers and sisters, and even the mainstream press is taking sympathetic notice. In a fine piece in Saturday's Times, Michael Cooper and Kit Seelye asked: "Is Wisconsin the Tunisia of collective bargaining rights?"

Maybe it is. And not just of collective bargaining rights.

At long last, resentment against the economic crisis is beginning to find its natural home, where it always belonged -- against financial elites, their privileges and Republican allies. It is dawning on ordinary voters that something is wrong when hedge fund billionaires and investment bankers are making more than ever, while public workers (average Wisconsin pay: $48,000) are being made the scapegoats.

Why did this take so long? For one thing, organizing against this economic collapse was always a challenge because the details of the financial crisis are esoteric. Though the crisis was triggered by deregulation, by the capture of both parties by financial elites, and by reckless greed on Wall Street, the right was able to sow just enough confusion about "deadbeat" sub-prime borrowers and corrupted government guarantors at Fannie Mae as to diffuse culpability.

A Democratic president of the United States, moreover, has been reluctant to point the finger at bankers, and seeks reconciliation with a business elite which claims hurt feelings. So over time, the recession seems like a natural disaster like the extreme weather (which lately is a man-made disaster too, but I digress). Anxious people hunker down rather than taking to the streets. Responsibility is obscured.

And, what is being done to private sector workers seems impersonal. Orders are down, so layoffs ensue. Outsourcing seems inevitable if America are to stay competitive. It's all in the passive voice. The invisible hand did it.

But unlike the broader economic crisis, which is mistakenly viewed as a random unfortunate event, the actions by Governor Scott Walker are as intentional and explicit as they are malicious. Walker cut corporate taxes, then proclaimed a budget crisis, and then proposed to cut worker pensions and health benefits -- and just to rub salt in workers' wounds to eliminate collective bargaining rights as well.

Unlike the nameless financial elite, Walker has a face and an address. He is directly accountable politically.

And how fitting that it was the labor movement that fought back and kindled broader protests. We needed a reminder that individual, unorganized citizens are largely powerless against the predations of highly organized economic elites.

The labor movement may directly represent only one worker in eight, but it is the strongest organized counterweight to economic elites and a wall-to-wall rightwing takeover. As it the 1930s, labor needs to come out of this economic crisis reborn and strengthened.

It is also fitting that former senator Russ Feingold has praised the demonstrators and called on all politicians who stand with labor to join them. This is an overdue reminder of the importance of political leadership. And -- hosannas! -- even a conflict-averse President Obama has rebuked Walker for "an assault on unions."

All of this will energize not only the labor movement and "Democratic base," but clarify what this economic crisis is all about, and alter the dynamics of its politicals.

I recently interviewed Mary Kay Henry, the new president of the Service Employees International Union. "Politicians put their fingers to the wind," she memorably said. "We need to be the wind."

Governor Walker and the Republican majority in the Wisconsin legislature may win this round. Public workers in Wisconsin and elsewhere may end up paying more for their heath coverage and pension benefits, a compromise already offered by Marty Beil, president of the Wisconsin State Employees Union.

But something important that was largely missing has been kindled. Popular protest against financial abuses, top-down class warfare, clueless Republicans, and misplaced austerity is finally in the air. The labor movement is leading, and even non-union Americans are realizing why organized labor is all about protecting the middle class generally. On all counts, it's about time.

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Libya's Gadhafi to fall

SUBHEAD: Anti-government protests have erupted in capital of Tripoli, as thousands of people converged on the Green Square. By Jonathan Landay, Miret al-Nagger & Erika Bolstad on 20 February 2011 for McClatchy News - (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/02/20/109081/uprising-in-libya-against-gadhafi.html#ixzz1EbTjh77V) Image above: Protesters massing in Benghazi, Libya. From (http://jqadams.tumblr.com/post/3412624074/pantslessprogressive-benghazi-libya-february). Libya’s second largest city, Benghazi, fell Sunday after a crack army unit defected to the opposition and clashes spread to the capital, Tripoli, as an uprising against Moammar Gadhafi appeared to threaten the Middle East’s longest ruling dictator’s 42-year grip on power, residents and news reports said.

Gadhafi’s youngest son, Saif Gadhafi, seemed to acknowledge in a rambling speech on state-run television that Benghazi and the nearby eastern city of Baida were no longer under government control.

“At this moment in time, tanks are driven about by civilians. In Baida, you have machine guns right in the middle of the city. Many arms have been stolen,” said Saif Gadhafi, who called the insurrection “a plot against Libya.”

He appealed for calm, promising to institute democratic reforms. But in a dire warning suggesting that the regime was digging in for a bloody fight for survival, he said that unless its proposals are accepted, “be prepared for civil war.”

The revolt in the oil-rich nation of 6.4 million represented a major escalation in the instability ignited across the Middle East when a jobless Tunisian man desperate to feed his family set himself afire in December. That act triggered the mostly peaceful uprisings that ousted former Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Pro-reform protesters inspired by those revolutions clashed on Sunday with security forces in Tehran and other Iranian cities, marched in Morocco, Algeria and Iraq, pressed a peaceful occupation of the Bahraini capital’s main square and staged new demonstrations in Yemen.

The upheavals pose the most serious foreign policy challenge of President Barack Obama’s two years in office, upending decades-old U.S. policies geared to ensuring access to the region’s petroleum supplies by favoring its kings and dictators over their people’s rights, and safeguarding an alliance with Israel.

At least 233 people have died and hundreds have been injured in Benghazi alone since the uprising erupted on Wednesday, said New York-based Human Rights Watch, quoting unidentified hospital sources.

A doctor and a resident reached by telephone in the seaside city of 1 million told McClatchy that between 50 and 70 people died in street battles on Sunday, and they charged that more than 200 were massacred a day earlier by troops and African mercenaries loyal to Gadhafi.

Verifying developments in Libya was difficult because of restrictions imposed by the Gadhafi regime on Internet access and outgoing telephone calls. But the United States said it had “multiple credible reports” that hundreds of people had been killed and injured in the 5-day-old insurrection.

The insurrection in Libya began Wednesday in Benghazi with the arrest of a prominent human rights lawyer and spread to other cities and towns spanning the eastern coast of the Gulf of Sidra to the Egyptian border, as well as to western areas.

On Sunday evening, anti-government protests erupted in Tripoli, the seat of Gadhafi’s power, as thousands of people converged on the city’s Green Square, defying gunfire from security forces and African mercenaries, according to numerous news reports and a resident reached by telephone.

The resident, who gave his name only as Abdalla, said he witnessed two men killed in front of him, one shot in the neck, the other through the head.

Violence broke out elsewhere in Tripoli, he said, as demonstrators burned police stations, the headquarters of the city’s governing revolutionary committee and other symbols of the Gadhafi regime, including posters of the dictator and copies of his Green Book, the political treatise he published in 1975.

Gadhafi seized power in bloodless 1969 coup and imposed on the nation of 6.4 million one of the region’s most repressive regimes, with the formation of independent political parties or trade unions punishable by death and torture routine in its prisons, according to State Department human rights reports.

The clashes in Benghazi ended late Sunday night, residents reached by telephone said, after the Lighting Bolts, an army commando force, defected to citizens armed with weapons seized from army bases. Together, they overran the main security compound, the Katiba El Fadil Bu Omar, a complex that includes one of Gadhafi’s residences.

“The special forces have defected and attacked Gadhafi’s barracks,” said Muftah, a local journalist who studied in South Carolina. “Benghazi is free.”

Thousands of people poured into the city’s streets to celebrate, he said, confirming that anti-regime forces had captured large amounts of weapons and were driving several captured tanks around.

But with no identifiable leader or group in command and so much weaponry loose, Muftah, whose last name McClatchy withheld for security reasons, expressed concern that anarchy could quickly replace the jubilation.

“It is harmless so far, but let's hope it doesn’t develop into something nasty,” he said. “People are forming committees to guard neighborhoods.”

Braikah, the doctor, said that lawyers, writers, doctors and other public figures were trying to figure out how to ensure that the movement proceeded in a peaceful, orderly way. She asked that her last name be withheld for her security.

Muftah said a surgeon with whom he is friends told him that 70 people were killed in fighting on Sunday that erupted when pro-Gadhafi forces in the main security compound opened fire with heavy machineguns at a funeral procession for one of those killed the day before.

Braikah put Sunday’s toll at 50. Human Rights Watch quoted sources at the city’s three main hospitals as saying 60 were killed. Accounts provided to the organization by witnesses confirmed that a funeral procession was hit by indiscriminate gunfire as it passed by the Katiba El Fadil Bu Omar complex.

Several videos posted on YouTube appeared to verify the reports of heavy fighting. In one, thousands of people cheer men armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers riding in a white pickup. The bloodied bodies of what were said to be two African mercenaries were lashed to the vehicle’s hood.

Video posted on several websites shows a bloodied man described as an African mercenary being detained by a group of protestors. He tells them "I swear by God these were orders," and they keep asking "orders from who?" He answers "orders from the officers." Some of the men begin punching and picking him, and he falls to the ground. Others protect him and shout "no!"

In Washington, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said that the United States was “gravely concerned with disturbing reports and images coming out of Libya. We are working to ascertain the facts, but we have received multiple credible reports that hundreds of people have been killed and injured in several days of unrest.”

“We have raised to a number of Libyan officials, including Libyan Foreign Minister Musa Kusa, our strong objections to the use of lethal force against peaceful demonstrators,” Crowley said in a statement. “We reiterated to Libyan officials the importance of universal rights, including freedom of speech and peaceful assembly. Libyan officials have stated their commitment to protecting and safeguarding the right of peaceful protest. We call upon the Libyan government uphold that commitment.”

In Iran, thousands responded to opposition leaders’ calls to take to the streets to mark a week since two protesters were killed in demonstrations staged to support the uprisings that drove former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and former Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from power.

Demonstrators clashed with security forces on Valiasr Street, the capital’s main thoroughfare, and other areas parts of the city, the New York-based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said, quoting telephone interviews with witnesses.

Large deployments of baton-swinging police, some mounted on motorbikes, charged the protesters at Tehran’s Enghelab Square, Valiasr Street and other major intersections, one witness told McClatchy.

In a video posted on an Iranian blogger’s Facebook site, thousands of protesters are heard shouting “Mubarak, Ben Ali, it’s time for Seyed Ali,” a call for the ouster of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

There were unconfirmed reports of security forces firing live ammunition, and an unknown numbers of casualties and arrests.

Press TV, the state-run English-language satellite news channel, reported that Faezah Hashemi, the daughter of former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the government’s leading critic within the clerical leadership, was briefly detained by police during the protest but was later released.

The human rights group and posts by Iranian bloggers on the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter also spoke of clashes in the cities of Shiraz, Hamedan, Isfahan, Tabriz, and Rasht.

The protests were staged in defiance of stern government warnings, with a state news service claiming that protesters were in danger of being shot by armed infiltrators.

See also: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/02/20/109081/uprising-in-libya-against-gadhafi.html#ixzz1EclExyre .

White is the new Black

SUBHEAD: Americans lost in the techno-rapture of Fashion Week have no idea how fragile we are. By Jame Kunstler on 21 February 2011 for Kunstler.com - (http://kunstler.com/blog/2011/02/white-is-the-new-black.html) Image above: Calvin Klein's presentation during Fashion Week of white styles for summer 2011. From (http://www.styleguru.com/tags/mercedes-benz-fashion-week-2011). Let it be remembered that as the world was blowing up, Fashion Week gave the New York news media a case of the vapors. But let them tell it. In the immortal words of The New York Times's Cathy Horyn:

"...amid the parkas and the managed pant-suits there was a story here: the amount of embellishment and New Technology...."

The mantra of "New Technology" is on everybody's lips, of course. New Technology is the New Jesus. It's descending from out of the holy ethers to float us across the rivers of Babylon to the New Jerusalem - although, now that fashion has got its hooks into the stuff, I dunno, it could be game over for New Technology. Nothing goes out of fashion like fashion. The same newspaper, by the way, tells us that "long-form blogs" are also joining the Dodo and Paris Hilton in the Museum of Extinct Curiosities. But I wouldn't want to try this on Twitter. And the mosh-pit of Facebook seems an uncongenial place for my brand of high-toned comedy. I guess I'll have to soldier on here.

Around the same time that Kanye West was perusing the gift bags at the Alexander Wang show on Pier 94, I heard a curious thing on NPR. Some cheeky young envoy from the realm of New Technology was complaining that the "public space" of Twitter and Facebook had to be respected world-wide as "the new town square," and wasn't it appalling that the authorities tried to shut these things down in places like Egypt, Algeria, and the lesser kingdoms of Arabia?

This is the kind of virtual thinking that passes for mental exercise these days in the land ruled by Lady Gaga. Hello! We (meaning the USA) do not run these foreign countries - I know it may come as a surprise to the paranoid conspiracy crowd. Even when these faraway places blow up and their former tyrants beat it to Monte Carlo, Zurich, or Riyadh, we do not step in and run them. We try to meddle a little, of course, but in the moiling red mists of revolution nobody even has the authority to pay attention to one of our perspiring attaches, and they don't want to hear our bullshit anyway, even when it comes with a suitcase full of cash.

The idea that the rest of the world owes Jeff Zuckerberg and the creators of Twitter a certain respect is unrealistic, though it goes against the grain of our own First Amendment and the cardinal beliefs of Rachel Maddow. The clinical psychologists often speak of boundary problems - the inability to recognize where your stuff leaves off and the other person's stuff begins - but what we're seeing now in the American thought-sphere is explicitly geographic (and ethnographic) confusion. We don't understand that we are not them, and they are not us.

Likewise, the infantile idea that these nations in the throes of revolt will slide from disorder into natural democracy like falafels into a pita pocket. What you generally get in political upheavals throughout history are protracted periods of confusion, factional fighting, and violence. More often than not, they resolve in the rise of a new tyrant, some figure who seems to know what he is doing when everybody else around him does not - which is the essence of human charisma, being a declension of the following:

1.) People who know what they are doing.

2.) People who seem to know what they are doing.

3.) People who pretend to know what they re doing.

4.) And people who don't know what they are doing.

Most of the human race is composed of the fourth category, which is why the figures in the categories above them claim their attention and allegience. Sometimes, the results are very unfortunate.

The world is now blowing up politically at the same time that it is blowing up financially, and there should be little doubt about the relation of these two conditions. At a time of rising resource scarcity (oil, metals, fertilizers), and capital scarcity (unpaid loans vanishing in the black hole of default), and raucous weather in places where grain crops usually grow (Russia, Australia, Argentina), you can be sure that things will get weird.

They are finally getting weird in the streets of the USA now, too. Wisconsin is surely just the first of many hashes that cry to be settled - and that state is not nearly as broke as broke as Illinois, New Jersey, and California. A lot of stuff is shaking loose out there. Our charismatic leaders, alas, have been drawn mostly from category 3, and out of all their pretending comes a banking system that is flying apart like a Chrysler Slant Six engine that somebody poured Karo syrup into, thinking it might work as an "alternative fuel." The reverberations will be felt in every household, business, and office in the land.

Some wags out there are even blaming Ben Bernanke for the worldwide rise in food prices, and the cause-and-effect relationship there is rather plausible. You juice the world money supply with an artificial $100 billion a month, at least, and the juice flows somewhere, lately into stock and commodity markets because who the heck wants bonds when no issuing entity has a prayer of staving off some kind of default, and the interest rates are a joke anyway.

Americans lost in the Techno-rapture and the inane transports of Fashion Week have no idea how fragile our vital supply chain system is. If the lands around the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea continue to fall apart politically, you can be sure that something required by the oil markets will get broken over there - whether it is an oil terminal, or a shipping channel, or a royal skull - and before you can say Mike Huckabee the shipments of food to America's supermarkets will be interrupted, with predictable results.

This could be a helluva week. We've flattered ourselves for years about how wonderful it is that everything is connected in this world - the Tom Friedman fantasy about the eternal sunshine of the global economy. Now, we're more likely to see the dark side of connectedness, as the planet's goodie-bag deflates and folks in colorful costumes start fighting over what's left.

End of GMOs in wildlife refuges

SUBHEAD: Fish & Wildlife Service pulls GMO crops from wildlife refuges in the U.S. Northeast. By Rachel Cernanski on 17 February 2011 for4 TreeHugger - (http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/01/fish-wildlife-service-pulls-gmo-crops-wildlife-refuges-us-northeast.php) Image above: GMO corn growing in wildlife refuge. From original article.

As part of a lawsuit settlement, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service announced last week it would stop (illegally) planting genetically engineered crops on all its refuges in 12 states in the northeast, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

According to PEER, the lawsuit had charged that FWS "had illegally entered into Cooperative Farming Agreements with private parties, allowing hundreds of acres on its Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware to be plowed over without the environmental review required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)."

It's not the first time that GMO crops in national refuges have sparked controversy, and although this latest lawsuit is a success for the conservation and food safety groups who filed it, additional litigation is being prepared elsewhere to address the 75 other wildlife refuges nationwide that could be growing GMO crops illegally.

From a PEER press release:

In settling the suit, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service promised to revoke any authorization for further GE agriculture at Bombay Hook and the four other refuges with GE crops: the Rappahannock River Valley Refuge and the Eastern Shore of Virginia Refuge, Montezuma Refuge in New York and Blackwater Refuge of Maryland, unless and until an appropriate NEPA analysis is completed - a condition that has yet to be met for GE agriculture on a National Wildlife Refuge.

"Planting genetically engineered crops on wildlife refuges is resource management malpractice," said PEER's Paula Dinerstein, who noted that FWS policy forbids "genetically modified agricultural crops in refuge management unless [they] determine their use is essential to accomplishing refuge purpose(s)."

More from PEER:

National wildlife refuges have allowed farming for decades but in recent years refuge farming has been converted to GE crops because that is only seed farmers can obtain. Today, the vast majority of crops grown on refuges are genetically engineered. Scientists warn that GE crops can lead to increased pesticide use on refuges and can harm birds, aquatic animals, and other wildlife.

"GE crops have no place in National Wildlife Refuges," said Paige Tomaselli, Staff Attorney with the Center for Food Safety. "These pesticide-resistant crops pose significant risks to the very wildlife those refuges serve to protect, including massively increasing pesticide use and creating of pesticide-resistant superweeds. This Northeast region-wide ban is an important step in the right direction, but the Fish & Wildlife Service must stop planting these crops in other regions as well."

See also: TreeHugger: Judge rules GMOs out of Wildlife Refuges 3/27/09 .

County quits anti-marijuana rally

SUBHEAD: To use the weather as an excuse is unacceptable. The reason for the cancellation wasn’t the weather. It was the ACLU’s concerns. By Jessica Musicar on 18 February 2011 for the Garden Island - (http://thegardenisland.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_4ed87e18-3bf7-11e0-9012-001cc4c002e0.html) Image above: Mel Rapozo talks with proponents of controlled distribution of medical marijuana during an anti-drug rally in front of the historic County Building. From original article. A day after the County of Kauai pulled out of an anti-drug rally it had planned to host, County Attorney Al Castillo said the county is no longer in danger of legal action from the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU on Wednesday wrote to the county to raise “serious legal concerns” about using public funds to host a partisan event.

“We have duly noted the concerns of the ACLU and will certainly consider them in light of future action on these bills and others,” Castillo said via an e-mail from county spokeswoman Beth Tokioka.

Tokioka added in a separate e-mail that because the county resolved the issue, Castillo no longer anticipates any further action from the ACLU.

“I don’t think we’re planning to reschedule it from the county side,” she said.

The Kauai Police Department, County of Kaua’i Anti-Drug Program, Office of the Prosecuting Attorney, and local community organizations had first advertised they would sponsor the event.

The demonstration was intended to raise awareness and inform the community of dangers associated with pending marijuana legislation, according to a county press release.

County councilman Mel Rapozo, acting as a private citizen, reinstated the rally following the county’s cancellation Thursday morning. It was held that afternoon in front of the Historic County Building.

ACLU’s complaint

In a letter sent to Castillo and KPD Chief Darryl Perry, the ACLU urged the county to cancel or postpone the rally because it believed county employees were “acting outside the scope of their limited, delegated authority, thus exposing the county to litigation,” and faced liability under the First Amendment. The complaint was accompanied by a 16-page-description of an ACLU lawsuit against City and County of Honolulu prosecuting attorney Peter Carlisle regarding a similar matter.

“The issue with the upcoming rally is not about the individual police officers, prosecuting attorneys and other county employees expressing their viewpoints,” the letter states. “It is about the potential use of public resources (including time and labor of county employees) to do so.”

The ACLU letter alleges that neither the police department nor the prosecutor have the authority under the county’s charter to use public funds to advocate for a particular political position; and that using public resources to fund the rally could expose the county to liability under the First Amendment.

Castillo said the county hasn’t run into this problem before.

“County officials involved have previously spoken publicly against these measures and these concerns were never raised,” Castillo said.

Much ado about press releases

The trouble began after the ACLU learned of the county’s first press release regarding its plans to hold the rally.

It includes a quote from County Prosecutor Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho, who stated that if the proposed marijuana bills passed, they would result in increased violent crime, economic crisis, and a higher rate of marijuana usage among children. It also stated that police chiefs and prosecuting attorneys from the four counties stand united against this “dangerous legislation.”

“It cannot be disputed that the overriding purpose of the rally is to persuade constituents to lobby legislators to vote against the pending bills, HB 1169 and SB 58,” the ACLU wrote in its complaint letter.

Citing Stanson v. Mott in the California Supreme Court, the ACLU argued that the expenditures for such matters would raise potentially serious constitutional questions.

“The Stanson court, after reviewing the relevant jurisprudence in other jurisdictions, explicitly limited the department’s campaign activities to neutral informational messages stating … ‘A fundamental precept of this nation’s democratic electoral process is that the government may not ‘take sides’ in election contests or bestow an unfair advantage on one of several competing factions,’” the complaint letter stated.

Cancellation tug-of-war

Hours before the rally began, the county sent a press release stating it was canceling the rally due to a flash flood warning. Then the county issued a second release stating that the ACLU complaint was also a cause for the sudden cancellation.

Rapozo said the county couldn’t stop the event, which he had originally scheduled.

“To use the weather as an excuse is unacceptable,” Rapozo said Thursday. “The reason for the cancellation wasn’t the weather. It was the ACLU’s concerns.”

Attempts to contact ACLU were unsuccessful.

See also: Ea O Ka Aina: An Offer you Can't Refuse 2/16/11

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Hawaii accepts same sex unions

SUBHEAD: The final vote came after years of thousands-strong rallies, election battles and passionate public testimony on an issue. By Mark Niesse on 16 February 2011 for Huffington Post - (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/16/hawaii-samesex-civil-unio_n_824291.html) Image above: Rainbow flags celebrate civil rights breakthrough. From original article. Hawaii lawmakers approved a bill Wednesday to allow civil unions for same-sex couples, marking an end to what the governor called an "emotional process" for a longtime battleground in the gay rights movement.

Democratic Gov. Neil Abercrombie's office said he intends to sign the bill into law within 10 business days. Civil unions would begin Jan. 1, 2012, making the state the seventh in the nation to grant essentially the same rights of marriage to same-sex couples without authorizing marriage itself.

"I'm overjoyed. I'm so relieved. I'm so happy," said Kristin Bacon of Honolulu, who intends to get a civil union with her partner of 15 years. "We're really representing aloha and the aloha spirit with this vote. I'm thrilled."

Bacon was among a crowd of supporters wearing rainbow-colored lei and stickers saying "Equality" as they cheered, hugged and cried for joy after the Senate's 18-5 vote. The House passed the bill last week.

Gay rights advocates praised the vote as a victory for equal rights in a state known for its diversity and tolerance.

Opponents of the measure, many of them Christians, said civil unions erode the concept of the traditional family and could lead to same-sex marriage.

"I feel very grieved for all of us. Now we'll need God even more in our islands," said Stephanie Kon of Honolulu.

Rather than leave the decision to elected lawmakers, she wanted the state to vote on the issue as it did 13 years ago when voters overwhelmingly passed the nation's first "defense of marriage" constitutional amendment.

The amendment, approved by 69 percent of voters, was a response to a 1993 state Supreme Court decision that nearly legalized gay marriage.

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The ruling would have made Hawaii the first state to allow same-sex couples to wed, but it didn't take effect while voters were given a chance to decide.

The "defense of marriage" amendment gave the Legislature the power to reserve marriage to opposite-sex couples, and resulted in a law banning gay marriage in Hawaii but also left the door open for civil unions.

Since then, 29 other states also have enacted defense of marriage amendments.

Five more states and the District of Columbia permit same-sex marriage.

"I have always believed that civil unions respect our diversity, protect people's privacy, and reinforce our core values of equality and aloha," Abercrombie said in a statement released minutes after Wednesday's vote. "For me, this bill represents equal rights for all the people of Hawai'i."

The anxiously awaited civil unions vote came immediately after the Senate confirmed the state's first openly gay Supreme Court justice, Sabrina McKenna.

The Hawaii Legislature also passed a similar civil unions bill last year, but it was vetoed by then-Gov. Linda Lingle, a Republican. She was term-limited from running for election again in November.

The final vote came after years of thousands-strong rallies, election battles and passionate public testimony on an issue that has divided the Rainbow State for nearly 20 years.

"It's been a long time coming. To see it come to fruition is a big day," said David Robins of Honolulu, who also wants full marriage rights for gay couples. "This is the right first step."

Starting Over

SUBHEAD: Moving away from civilization and toward a durable and better way of living.  

By Guy R. McPherson on 18 February 2011 in Nature Bats Last -
  (http://guymcpherson.com/2011/02/starting-over)

 
Image above: Graffiti "Without Money We'd All Be Rich" on white brick wall. From original article.
 
Judging from my email in-box and the occasional comment in this space, my essays have taken a surprising turn. It seems my efforts are worth alerting the authorities, at least according to comments from anonymous cowards who hide behind online monikers.

Unsurprisingly, the black helicopters haven’t arrived yet. Apparently the authorities are otherwise occupied.

If you click the “tags” button on my blog, you’ll see what I write about, which is what I’ve written about for a long time. Among the largest items: economic collapse and civilization (and during none of this time have I been heralding the advantages of the latter). Here’s a couple lines from my fourth essay in this space, going back to 7 September 2007:

“The longer and harder we promote civilization, the worse will be the collapse — more people and other animals will die horrible deaths. So, we need to bring down civilization, now.”

Seems I’ve been calling for termination of civilization for quite a while. So what’s the big surprise, dear readers? Why bother throwing your fits, removing your essays, and calling the authorities at this late date?

You could have saved us all a lot of huffing, puffing, and distracting bother if you had paid the slightest bit of attention before you contacted me, unsolicited, to write an essay in this space, or even before it appeared in print pixels.

You could have alerted the unnamed authorities back when the police departments had money to track me down and arrest me, instead of waiting until all the relevant municipalities were flat broke.

While we’re all gathered here, let’s take a step back for some definitional clarification. I have adopted and used the definition of civilization provided by Derrick Jensen:

“I would define a civilization much more precisely [relative to standard dictionary definitions], and I believe more usefully, as a culture—that is, a complex of stories, institutions, and artifacts— that both leads to and emerges from the growth of cities (civilization, see civil: from civis, meaning citizen, from Latin civitatis, meaning city-state), with cities being defined–so as to distinguish them from camps, villages, and so on–as people living more or less permanently in one place in densities high enough to require the routine importation of food and other necessities of life.”

Returning to a theme I last considered many years ago, again I ask each of you to read, and then re-read, each of the 20 premises underlying Jensen’s 2006 book, Endgame. Premise 4 seems particularly noteworthy in light of recent discussions here:

“Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims.”

And let’s not start with that tired line about the hypocrisy of using contemporary technology while promoting an anti-civ message. If I believed my forgoing this laptop in this off-the-grid house would move us one iota further along the path toward a durable set of living arrangements, I would gladly pull the plug. Indeed, as I’ve indicated countless times, I would gladly give my life, immediately, to terminate the industrial economy.

Alas, as my mother-in-law used to say when she was alive, “if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.” Even in a nation based on militaristic force and filled with wishful thinking and dreams of propping up a dying empire, not all our wishes come true.

Can you say the same about your commitment to propping up civilization? Are you willing to die right now to keep the industrial economy cranking along? Or, are you merely willing to keep killing humans and other animals in support of an industrial economy that is making us crazy and killing us while also taking down dozens of species every day? Bear in mind Premise 3 from Endgame:

“Our way of living — industrial civilization — is based on, requires, and would collapse very quickly without persistent and widespread violence.”

If you’re propping up civilization, even if you claim to believe in non-violence and even if you claim to support non-aggression, your actions are louder than your words.

And, too, let’s not go down the misguided path of referring to my actions as rooted in financial gain or seeking attention. My goals are completely contrary to both notions. I eagerly anticipate the day money no longer matters. Ditto for ego-centrism.

I don’t discuss merely civilization in this space. In the words of the great American poet Walt Whitman, “I am large, I contain multitudes.” Thus, whereas I could easily restrict my writing to the horrors of civilization, occasionally I take a turn toward the pragmatic. I consider, for example, topics as varied as philosophy, war, education, anthropogenic climate change, chickens, ducks, goats, greenhouses, and gardening.

Greenhouses and gardening are evident in the tag cloud because they are among the pragmatic issues worthy of our attention. These and other essays describe how we can muddle through, and even thrive, during and after economic collapse. These essays thus provide an example of my efforts to help humanity while also acting as if the remainder of the world matters. Which, of course, it does.

Ultimately, as should be obvious to even the most obtuse reader, I do what writers do: I experience the world, and I describe my experiences. These experiences include the mundane as well as the horrifying, the boring and the riveting (if only to me). And my writing is, by necessity, a reflection of the way I view the world, as a rationalist, a scientist, a conservation biologist, a social critic, a son, a brother, a husband, an uncle, a teacher, a student, a mentor, a colleague, a friend, and an imperialist who grew up during an era when resistance against the dominant paradigm mattered.

It certainly could be true, as I’m often told, that my efforts are wasteful and even counter-productive. But I am certain my efforts take us in the correct direction, away from civilization and toward a durable and better way of living. Continuing the current murderous path, or even supporting that path, is an activity in which I can no longer participate because I care about non-industrial cultures, non-human species, and future generations of humanity.

What about you? Where do you draw a line in the sand? Where do you say, “enough is enough”? At what point do you stop signing petitions and start fighting back against a culture that is killing us all? Are you so comfortable with your role in the dominant paradigm you are unable to see it for what it is, and then act accordingly? Are you willing to sit back and watch — or stand up and cheer — and the doublespeak continues from the fascists running the show, and destroying our future?

As the industrial economy continues to destroy every aspect of the living planet on which we and future generations of humans need to survive, are you working to preserve habitat for humanity, or are you merely preparing an apologetic letter to them?


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