MoveOn.org - Virtual Town Hall Meeting

Next Tuesday—April 10th—at 7:15pm Eastern, MoveOn is using the Internet to connect presidential candidates directly to the people.

Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich, and Joe Biden will answer questions from MoveOn.org's 3.2 million members in the first of three unprecedented virtual town hall meetings. The topic: Iraq.

Sign up for email reminder.

Attend a local house party to watch the Virtual Town Hall with others by going here:
http://pol.moveon.org/event/events/index.html?action_id=80

Here is a one-page background document with more information:
http://pol.moveon.org/iraqtownhall/onepager.doc

Global Warming: Al Gore

Today I sent the following email to family and friends:

Dear Family and Friends,

It is my understanding that global warming is a real issue caused by human related greenhouse gas emissions with potentially devastating consequences. I believe that it is time for the US to lead by example and implement regulations to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

In that light I am forwarding the following email that I received from Al Gore.

If you choose not to receive emails of this type please let me know.

Love,
T


Begin forwarded message:

From: "Al Gore"
Date: February 27, 2007 10:35:00 AM PST
Subject: Our Next Step
Reply-To: AlGore@algore.com

On March 21st, I'll hand-deliver your message to Washington when I testify at Congressional hearings on the climate crisis.

Can you commit to finding 10 friends to send a message to Congress demanding immediate action?

Ask them to visit:

http://algore.com/cards.html


Dear T,

When the producers of An Inconvenient Truth first approached me with the concept for the film, I was skeptical. Could we really take a slideshow about the climate crisis and turn it into a compelling movie? Davis Guggenheim’s Oscar win for best documentary and a second one for Melissa Etheridge’s beautiful song “I Need to Wake Up” was a testament to their ability, but it was also a testament to you.

It was you who packed the theaters and got your friends to go see this film, greatly increasing the audience. And then this past December, it was you who connected through MoveOn.org and AlGore.com to attend An Inconvenient Truth viewing parties. At those parties and in the weeks that followed, nearly 200,000 of you wrote to Congress, demanding that they address the climate crisis like the planetary emergency that it is.

Even though I have been a life-long movie fan, I didn’t really understand how big of an audience a movie could reach. And of course I never would have imagined in a million years that a movie that I was a part of would receive two Academy Awards—or one—or would have ever been made in the first place! As humbling as this moment is, An Inconvenient Truth will only succeed if it drives all of us to take action. That’s why I’m asking you to join me in the next stage of our fight. On March 21st, I'm going to hand-deliver the messages you signed when I testify at Congressional hearings on the climate crisis.

This is an incredible opportunity to demonstrate to Congress that we demand immediate action. And I need your help to really make this moment count. Can you commit to getting 10 friends to send their message to Congress through AlGore.com before March 21st? The more voices I can bring to Washington, the more powerful our message will be.

To get your friends involved, just forward them this note or direct them to:

http://algore.com/cards.html

There is no longer a debate about the fact that global warming is real. We're causing it. The consequences are serious, and could be headed towards catastrophe if we don’t fix it. And it's not too late. I don't want to imagine a future in which our children say, “What were our parents thinking?” “Why didn't they wake up when they had a chance?” And I know you don’t either.

The hundreds of thousands of you who signed messages to Congress showed me what's possible. Working together we can unite millions of people and build support for real action on a scale that has never been seen before.

Help me take the first step and fill up that hearing room with your signatures. That picture alone will send a powerful message.

Can you commit to getting ten more people to send messages to Congress demanding action to stop global warming?

http://algore.com/cards.html

I’m looking forward to working with you on this monumental task.

Thank you,
Al Gore

I believe that Al Gore received my email address through MoveOn.org. If you are not already a member I would recommend registering with MoveOn. They will keep you busy, but the issues with which they are involved tend to be pretty important.

Corporate Ethics, Publicly Funded Campaigns

The sun is out and it's snowing which is unusual for Ellensburg, but beautiful nonetheless.

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Corporate Ethics
I have been thinking about the market economy lately and its checks and balances. In a true free market economy business is only regulated by consumer purchasing habits. There are some gray areas where this regulation breaks down. The classic example is in the case of monopolies which limit choice, innovation, and quality.

Another example I would give is in regards to energy dependence. Most Americans are dependent on petrochemically generated energy for heating, food production, transportation and livelihood. It is not realistic to think that we can all live off the grid at this point. Therefore most of us are not able, for economic reasons, to use our buying power to influence the shift to more holistic energy sources. This is where governmental regulation and public pressure come into play.

I am interested in helping to shift the ethical consciousness of the corporate community such that corporate ethics align with a humanistic morality in terms of human rights and the environment.

An organization that I believe does an excellent job in helping corporatocracies to make this moral shift is ran.org.

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Publicly Funded Campaigns
I sent the following email to my friends and family today:

Dear Family and Friends,

I have become concerned about the influence of big money on politics and public policy. This in turn has sparked my interest in publicly funded campaigns.

The show that keyed me in to the potential of publicly funded campaigns was an episode of NOW on PBS which may be viewed at: http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/242/index.html.

If you are interested in learning more and perhaps becoming involved on a state level go to: http://washclean.org.

There is also a movement at the national level. To find out more go to: http://www.just6dollars.org.

Love,
T

If you are local to Ellensburg, WA I invite you to attend the Washington Public Campaigns presentation to the League of Women Voters on April 17th at 7 pm in the Hal Holmes Community Center: 209 N. Ruby Street, 962-7240.

The Net @ Risk

I just caught an episode of Moyers On America called The Net @ Risk. There were a couple of interesting segments.

Internet Connection Speed
The first segment discussed how the US is now tenth in terms of connection speed to the internet. According to the information provided the telephone companies in return for reduced regulation and lower taxes agreed to upgrade to fiber optics across the nation. This means that for the price we are paying for a 3 MBps connection we should have a 45 MBps connection.

The phone companies were previously required to reinvest a significant portion of their returns in their infrastructure ensuring that the structure was maintained and updated. The model was based on public utilities. The deregulation allowed the companies to pocket the profits instead of reinvesting them.

The companies have not been held accountable or forced to keep their promises because, according to one interviewee, they are in bed with the commissioners who are supposed to be monitoring their activities.

To add insult to injury the telecommunications companies are suing municipalities that are trying to implement fiber optic networks for their citizens.

Net Neutrality
The second segment I found of interest discussed Net Neutrality. The internet service providers currently charge us for our internet connection. They would like to be able to charge a second fee to content providers. If the content providers pay the fees their content will download faster.

Previously the ISPs were regulated by a notion called "Common Carriage" which was enacted for interstate commerce and then applied to the communication services. The idea is that some services are so important and powerful that companies should not be allowed to favor some customers over others.

Early in railroad shipping the railroads would charge different rates to different clients for the same service. Railroad companies favored those clients in whom they were invested. This caused problems for towns that were not able to receive necessary goods and thus regulation was enacted.

The regulation was later applied to telegraph companies as they charged different rates to different wire services. The AP was favored and as a result is still the dominant wire service today. The system was also used to favor certain political candidates over others. Thus the Common Carriage regulations were applied to the communications industry.

The same regulations were initially applied to the internet, but internet service providers have been fighting successfully to have the regulations removed. This means that they can promote certain companies over others. They can provide exclusive high speed transmission to one company and deny it to another which in an internet dependent society effectively destroys the potential of the company that is not being favored.

Rick Karr said,

In 2002, the Federal Communications Commission decided that neutrality didn't apply to cable internet and in the summer of 2005, the FCC let phone companies off the hook, too. Suddenly, there were no more net neutrality rules. The FCC replaced them with suggested "principles" for an open Internet.

For more information on what you can do to restore internet neutrality go to: www.SaveTheInternet.com.

John Perkins

I did want to mention, while I was thinking about it, that my comments on John Perkins, the author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, are only intended to be a review of the speech that I saw. I don't know how credible he or his story actually are. Nor do I know, of what he is sharing, how much is true how much of it is speculation.

Re: Disqualification?

The dialogue continues:

Hi T,

Haven't watched the documentaries yet, but I will go rent Mr. Gore's video tonight. At the very least, I hear that it has good graphics and I just bought a new HD TV (well, used, but its new to me) so I will look forward to it.

I am in a different position than those that are being directly funded by oil companies but my point is that the oil companies have done me a lot of good. Note also that the opposition, the environmentalists, have done me a lot of bad. They destroyed the town that I lived in and, subsequently, the forests surrounding them with their doltish logging restrictions in the 70s. You know all those dramatic pictures of California forests burning, my home burning? That is not caused by global warming. That is caused by the fact that white fir (aka piss fir) grows like weeds, crowds out the bug and fire resistant Ponderosa pines, gets killed by bugs and becomes a tinder box. But can we cut down those shitty and unnatural (normally they would be destroyed by creeping ground fires) piss firs and let the high quality Ponderosas thrive? No, because the earth worshippers insist that they have souls and are more important than people. Bah.

I would say that personal development and progress is a spiritual process, Tory. Someone that lives 18 years is not going to make as much progress as someone that lives for 500 (oh yeah, did I tell you that I intend to live forever?). And think of it this way, pre-industrial revolution, out of the five of us brothers (Daniel, Conner, Sean, You, I) MAYBE one of us would have made it to adult hood...possibly two of us. But based on solid statistics from the time, not all of us would survive. Tell me, if it was your choice which two of us would you have die in early childhood?

Concentration of power: Yes, this is a problem, especially in places like Zimbabwe and North Korea, where power is concentrated in the hands of a single brutal dictator. It becomes less of a problem in places like the United States where concentration of power is primarly based on economic power...the power of persuasion as opposed to political power, the power of force. Don't get me wrong, I think that there is still too much concentration of power here. Look into the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. It was done in the cover of night on Hyde island and gave 12 people the power to control your money (money being a representation of energy, btw). THAT is evil. I also really look forward to the time when I can have a cheap, nano-engineered solar array on the roof of my house so that I don't have to pay some government sponsored monopoly (that being the only way that a monopoly can ever exist, btw) way too much money for power. Here in Texas, I am glad to say that the monopolies have been broken up somewhat and there is some decent level of competetion to hold prices down, but I am all about more and more decentralization.

Yes, I would rather pay a little more for organic foods as well, and I often do so for health reasons. But I work with a woman with four young children, divorced from a philandering husband who can't be bothered to pay child support on time. Do you think that she can afford to pay 30% more for organics on a regular basis. I am sure that she would be concerned to hear about those poor people in India, but when it comes down to it, she would rather be able to feed her children. By the way, you talk about those 12,000 people with concern. Have you changed your attitude towarrds people since we last talked? Goodness, I do hope so. Can you then celebrate the fact that the population of the world has more than tripled and life spans have increased dramatically since the industrial revolution began?

As for morality, here is mine: That which supports human life is the good. That which destroys human life is the evil. You speak of the basics of meeting needs. This is important. I would argue that that the energy companies have helped with that tremendously and will prove to be a major bridge to the next revolution, the technology revolution, that is already in its advanced juvenile stage. Do you believe me when I suggest that it is likely that in the next 50 years, the human paradigm will shift from What do you need? to What do you want? Check out a book called "The Age of Spiritual Machines" you can read the chapter headings on Amazon...prepare for your mind to be blown.

As for the rules of competition and creation of wealth. In Atlas Shrugged, Francisco DeAntio says in his famous "Money Speech" that the thing that he most likes about Americans is that we are the first culture to use anything akin to the phrase "Make Money." The revolution there is that, throughout history people believed, and many still do, that wealth is a static thing...that there is only so much of it and in order for one man to have something, it must be strippped, usually by force, from another. This is simply untrue. Wealth is a growing thing and it is created every time a man conceives of an idea and then turns it into some usable framework. These computers that we are typing on are wealth. Did they exist, even as a thought, 500 years ago? The homes that give us shelter, the medicines that keep us well, the foods that keep us whole and, yes, the energy sources that underly it all, these are wealth and wealth is a thing that grows and expands...as long as humans are free to create it.

Note that it is the places with less freedom that have less wealth. North Korea and Zimbabwe being two extreme examples. India is an example of a place still fraught with beauracratic bunglers, but far more free than it was even five years ago. China is another good example. Ireland is a great example as well. In the early 1990s they got rid of anti-business socialist policies, cut taxes to the bones and said, "Come on in, we want jobs!" Now they are one of the wealthiest countries in the EU! Note that Iceland followed suit right around the turn of millenium. Both of these countries had basically been in depressions for the last 1000 years. Where do you think that they will be in 10 years from now? And when was the last time you heard of someone blowing up school children in Belfast? Right around 10 years ago, I think...what a coincidence.

>>When the majority are being harmed (when I say majority I include not only the human majority, but the flora and fauna as well) such that the minority can fiddle while Rome burns then it is time to affect a change.<<

Believe me, I am right with you when you say that it is time to effect a change. The question is, how do we do it? Do we enact destructive government regulations making it impossible for the energy companies, and as a result, anyone else to do business, as Al Gore advocates, or do we allow the natural progress of science develop new energy sources? Once again, I think that ten years from now, fossil fuels will be a non-issue. Well, maybe it will kick into high gear 10 years from now and be a non-issue in 20. Is that soon enough?

Now, here is my next question: Is that really what you are after? If it is, you are in luck because it is coming. But if you have bought into the Anti-human agenda that drives modern environmentalism (it ceased to be pro-environment many years ago) than you will continue to be frustrated. You remember our talk about the Singularity and Event Horizons? We have passed the first event horizon. There is no turning back now. Personally, I am very happy and that is because I have a comfortable understanding of it and a well-founded belief in the goodness of people. Really consider reading the books "The Age of Spiritual Machines" and "The Singularity is Near." I think that they are very important, if not the most important books that you can read regarding your business. I will look into "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" although I do have to tell you that I am much more interested in the future than the past.

Finally, altruism is a sham. I help people. For example, the woman with four children who I work with, I got her the job. Did I do it for altruistic, sacrificial reasons. Hell no. I did it for selfish reasons. I did it because I knew that she would do a good job and make me look good. I also did it because it felt good and right. Would I have done it if I thought that she would be a lazy tax on resources and make me look bad? No, I would not. I would never be an altruist.

OK. I have to run!

Love,

D

And my response:

Hi D,

It sounds like the forest you were talking about may have been mismanaged. Were the firs natural to the area?

You do touch on the philosophy that humans are above and somehow separate from the natural system upon which we depend for life. Personally I revere all life. And if we don't support natures biodiversity then the long term consequences for humanity are potentially disastrous.

It's true that the oil companies have made some things more convenient for a few people in the short term, but our awareness of the cost of a petroleum based society has grown. It is not sustainable in the long term (by long term I am not talking about 10 years, but the truly long term) for a couple of reasons. We are all aware that petroleum resources are finite, but more than that we have learned that the side effects of a petroleum based society are harmful in the short term (in terms of damage to the flora and fauna as well as human rights abuses) and have long term global ramifications of human suffering on a scale that has never before been experienced.

I am not a luddite and I apologize for allowing you to couch the argument in those terms, but I believe that we should take the time to carefully weigh the consequences and future ramifications of the actions we take and the products we create.

Economic power is political power. Armies don't fight for free and our government is currently beholden to the investment of special interests. Right now we are embroiled in an engagement that is rooted in economics (I had a history professor in high school whose contention was that all wars are rooted in economics). War is profitable. The documentary "Why We Fight" discusses the military industrial complex and how dependent all the states are on military contracts. The current administration has ties to the corporations that are making a lot of money off of many aspects of the current conflict.

The conflict currently goes against the will of the American people and if we weren't led into it by lies I don't believe it would ever have popular support. It does however make a lot of money for a few individuals. (I really wish that Daniel hadn't joined the National Guard.)

Corporations will not hesitate to use force, if they can get away with it, to forward their interests. I don't believe we see as much of it as we used to in America, but both overt and covert incidents of corporate violence still happen all over the world.

We have also externalized slavery and made it more economically feasible. Workers in developing nations (often children) work ridiculously long hours for subsistence or below subsistence wages and our corporations don't have to feed or house them. Many Americans have their needs and many of their wants fulfilled, but our current system is based on exeternalized slave labor.

I am curious about the Federal Reserve. You have studied more about economics than I have so if you want to provide me with more resources in terms of economic theory I am interested.

I feel for the woman who is raising four children. Fortunately we have some social systems in place that will at least keep Americans from starving to death.

One of the reasons I am a proponent women's education is that the more highly educated a woman is the longer she will wait to have children and the fewer children she will have. I am also an advocate of birth control. I have done pro-bono work for an organization promoting women's education in a number of developing nations. I also contribute money, goods, and services to organizations that I believe to be worthwhile.

However your mention of the single mother just reinforces my point. There are currently more people on the planet than we are willing or able to care for. The stated ideal of the Green Revolution was to alleviate the suffering of the starving masses. What actually happened was that it allowed the population to explode (while at the same time having negative impact on the environment and not alleviating starvation) and set the world up for even greater suffering as there are now significantly more people who we are unwilling or unable to support.

Although the 20,000 individuals who lost their lives in Bhopal is a significant number it is just one small example of corporate negligence. The list of tragedies created by corporate malfeasance is seemingly endless. You can turn on PBS late at night and see different shows documenting human and environmental injustices night after night. It is my contention that as a member of the privileged class with the time and resources to make a difference that I am honor bound to try to improve the quality of all life on this planet.

There are some traditional methods of controlling population: famine, disease, and war. There is also an unexplained wave of male infertility that may tie in to the population issue. As self aware, forward looking beings we have to ability to reduce population to manageable levels without the tragic suffering caused by famine, disease, and war.

You mischaracterize my position when you say that I am anti-human. I characterize myself as a humanist with the ultimate extension of humanism being environmentalism. The environment is a requirement for the support of human life. If we destroy the worlds natural resources in a pell mell rush to hedonism we are shooting ourselves in the foot (maybe in the head).

I would like to point out that the author John Perkins, who I mentioned in my last email, is sharing aspects of his personal history so that we can understand what is happening in the present.

My understanding of Objectivism is that it is a somewhat dated philosophy from the Modern movement. The idea being that only special individuals with unique characteristics should rise and lead whereas Postmodern thought is more along the lines that large groups of people affect change and that the leaders are not unique or special, but are merely fulfilling a role for the whole (that rhymes).

I caught a trial PBS show called "22nd Century" that may have been inspired by the Kurzweil book. The information was interesting, but the premise of the show (a debate between the ghost of Aldous Huxley and a woman from the future tied in to the World Wide Mind) was a little hard to take and the editing (fast cuts, weird choppy zooms, and hoaky background graphics) was terrible.

I read a bunch of reviews of the Kurzweil book, The Age of Spiritual Machines. The reviews were mixed although the consumer reviews averaged four out of five stars. I also read the table of contents which has chapter summaries. It sounds like an interesting book, but it is not available at my local library and the odds are against my buying it.

Love,
T

Disqualification? - Email Correspondence

The following is an email from one of my brothers with whom I am corresponding:

Hey T,

Just sent you a couple of articles from Capitalism Magazine...my favorite resource, of course. Sorry it has taken me a while to respond to your last e-mail. I have been busy.

Unfortunately, I think that I have to disqualify myself from this debate entirely, according to your standards. You see, I have been very recently bought off by the energy companies. Actually, I have been receiving benefits from them my entire life! Even more so now that I am in Texas, of course.

You see, all of my life the energy companies have provided me with many of the things that I need to live. They fuel my transportation, they heat my homes, they fertilize the crops that provide me with foods (the vast majority of fertilizer is made from crude oil). Furthermore, they have enabled the scientific developments in areas such as medicine, computation and creation of new textiles and other advanced materials.

Without the energy companies, I could not even conceive of having a debate such as this! I would be far too busy eking out an existence--hunting for my food, fighting off predators and rival humans, tending a few meager crops and hauling putrid water from contested sources.

In fact, without the energy companies, I would very likely be dead by now! The average lifespan in pre-industrial Europe was 18 years. Maybe I would have made it to 25 and been an "elder" but I would probably have been killed off as soon as I was perceived as a non-contributing tax on slim resources. Of course, that all would depend upon me making it through my first five years--the vast majority of children did not back then.

So, according to you and Mr. Gore, I am not qualified for this debate because everything that I am, everything that I love and everything that I look forward to is made possible, directly or indirectly, by these energy companies that you demonize. Don't get me wrong, I look forward to the time when nano-engineered solar arrays completely replace our need for carbon based energy--that is about 10 years from now according to fairly reliable models. But the only reason that I look forward to that is it is CHEAPER. I will be able to devote the resources that I am currently, quite literally, burning to far more valuable pursuits.

Talk to you soon.

D

The following is my response:

Hi D,

It's nice to hear from you. I hope that you are doing well. Have you had a chance to check out any of the documentaries I recommended?

You are in a different position than those being directly funded to produce propaganda for the oil industry. You are not beholden to the oil companies in the same way. You are a customer not a client and there is a significant difference. I do understand that you are invested in the status quo as you enjoy the creature comforts and aspire to an upper class lifestyle.

The industrial revolution and organic chemistry have changed the way that we conduct our lives, but I don't believe that because a person only lives 18 or 30 years that their life is any less worthwhile, fulfilled, or meaningful. Many of the great heros of our age lived less than the average life span. I also find family farming to be a noble profession.

There are a couple of issues that I have with the concentration of power:
1. Traditionally the concentration of power leads to human rights and environmental abuses.
2. It makes it difficult to affect a change even when that change is clearly necessary.

You mentioned fertilizers in your email. An example of corporate negligence I would give is the Asarco fertilizer plant in Bopal, India. The management of the company did not feel it was cost effective to maintain the plant even though they were warned of potential calamity by on-sight engineers. The result was a leak that killed 20,000 Indians and crippled countless others.

I would rather pay a little more for organic foods than to have the blood of those people on my hands. This is just a small example, but if you do some research you will find that in the long run it is probably not a good idea to use chemical pesticides and fertilizers. They cannot be metabolized by animals, the run-off causes algae blooms, they deplete the soil in such a manner that once used they have to continue to be used and in larger quantities, etc.

Which brings us to morality. A french philosopher named Henri Louis Bergson wrote a book called The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, in which he discusses various levels of morality. The first level is the individual. One has to make sure that their basic needs for water, food, shelter, etc. are being met. The next level is the family, then the community, the state (nation), and finally the world. (By extension I would add all life.)

We have been given many gifts and privileges. Our basic needs have been more than adequately met. Therefore we are able (and I would argue that we are obligated) to focus our moral attention on those larger, all encompassing levels of morality.

I heard the former Treasury Secretary speak on Charley Rose last night and one of the things he mentioned was that a strong dollar means that in an exchange of goods Americans receive more than they give. Sounds like a swindle to me. The premise is (if you read between the lines) that in order for us to maintain a "high" standard of living we have to take advantage of others forcing them to have a lower standard of living. I think this is a fallacious premise. I much prefer the idea that we are all on the same side in this life and that we can all have our basic needs met without having to put each other down.

The former Treasury Secretary also spoke about the growing gulf between the upper and lower classes in America and the shrinking middle class. Haiti is a good example of what happens in a barbell economy. The land is devastated environmentally as the poor do whatever they can to meet their basic needs. The wealthy live in armed camps and cannot travel without body guards for fear of kidnapping. There has been a series of corrupt elected officials and dictatorships that have to be periodically removed by an organized group of armed dissidents. I fear that in the not too distant future we may be facing similar challenges.

I saw a video of John Perkins speaking at a Veterans for Peace convention. He wrote a book called Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. I haven't read the book, but I think that it would be right up your alley and he did cover the basic ideas in his speech. If you would like to read more of my thoughts on the speech go to Corporatocracy, Carbon Offsetting, Clean Elections.

One of the things that I did find interesting was his mention of the fact that CEO's are people. They have families and they care about the future of the planet, etc. However they often needed to be forced by pressure from the outside in order to make holistic changes. This is because they fear losing their lucrative positions. The CEOs need public pressure in order to show their share holders that changes are justified.

When the majority are being harmed (when I say majority I include not only the human majority, but the flora and fauna as well) such that the minority can fiddle while Rome burns then it is time to affect a change.

We spoke once about altruism. As I recall you mentioned that altruism requires suffering and therefore must promote suffering in order to be justified (this is a paraphrase from what I recollect). I think that idea has the facts reversed. Suffering exists. Altruism is a response to suffering. Therefore altruism exists because suffering exists.

We are all in this together. I want the same things for you that I want for myself as well as for everyone and everything else which is health and happiness.

I haven't had a chance to view all the links that you have forwarded, but I will as time permits.

Love,
T

Corporatocracy, Carbon Offsetting, Clean Elections

Corporatocracy
Last night I watched a video of a speech by John Perkins who is the author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. He was speaking to the Veterans for Peace.

He was discussing the tactics that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in conjuction with multinational corporations and the US Government use to coerce developing nations. The goal being to exploit the natural resources of developing nations as well as to earn money for corporations by helping the developing nations to "modernize".

An individual like John Perkins would approach the leadership of a given country and offer them a loan from the World Bank to help "modernize". Private corporations such as Haliburton would then be hired to come in and build roads, ports, power plants, cities, etc.

John Perkins contends that the modernization was not of benefit to the average citizens of these countries as they are to poor to be connected to the power grid, too poor to have cars to drive on the roads, nor would they be likely to have boats that would benefit from the ports.

The loan money would actually end up in the pockets of the corporations doing the work without benefiting the people of these developing countries.

The loan amounts would be too large for the developing nation to ever be able to repay which gives what he calls the "corporatocracy" leverage. When the developing nation is unable to pay its debt it is asked to sell its resources to the "corporatocracy" for less than market value or vote a particular way in the UN, etc.

If the leader of the developing nation refuses to accept the loan then they are coerced with subtle threats of violence.

The next level of escalation is to send in what Perkins calls the "Jackals" which are CIA operatives used to assassinate the particular leader. He gives a list of leaders who have been assassinated or died under mysterious circumstances.

If the "Jackals" fail then the US military is mobilized, the recalcitrant government is removed and it is replaced with a government that is willing to deal.

It is his contention that 9/11 can be linked to these actions. Apparently US corporations through a deal with the Saudis built facilities near holy sites which enraged Osama Bin Laden and may have been the catalyst for the terrorist attacks.

Perkins also contends that the Iraq war is due to Saddam Hussein's unwillingness to accept the deal offered by the "corporatocracy" and the failure of the "Jackal's" assassination efforts.

Perkins is encouraging a holistic shift in corporate policy that gives greater value to the workers, greater environmental consciousness, and the end of exploitation and destruction of native cultures. He also believes that if we want to end terrorism we need to respect the cultures and religions of other peoples and to ensure that everyone in the world has a standard of living that precludes things like starvation.

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Carbon Offsetting
The Christmas present that my significant other gave to her extended family was to offset their carbon footprint. Her contribution was to carbonfund.org which also helped her determine how much to offset.

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Clean Elections
I think that publicly funded elections are a good starting point in terms of regaining control of the American democratic process.

We heard RFK Jr. speak a few weeks back and one of the things he mentioned is that in order for a democracy to work we need an informed populace which in turn requires a free press. In order to have a free press we need officials that are not beholden to special interests such that they can rework the regulations governing our broadcasters. (He mentioned the damage that the Reagan Administration did in terms of loosening broadcast regulations.)

If we want to reign in the power of the multinational corporations and hold them accountable then we need to free our government from the grip of their monetary influence.

Many of the issues I have researched tend to loop back to the issue of corporations running amok and being allowed to do so because of the influence they have on the varying governing bodies in the world.

For example, I am concerned about the safety of our food supply. There is a concerted effort to reduce organic standards (http://organicconsumers.org) and the panels that are intended to oversee the safety of our food supply are being stacked with industry insiders (this has been cited in the mainstream media as well as a number of independent documentaries I have viewed). We are also being sold Genetically Modified foods with no requirement for package labeling. And most recently we are being sold foods from cloned animals. The fact that there are no labeling requirements means that consumers are not being allowed to make an informed decision about their food purchases.

If consumers were allowed to make an informed decision about their food purchases I believe that the majority would choose not to purchase GMO or cloned food products. The companies producing these "foods" believe the same thing which is why they are fighting so hard to keep the products from being labeled.

Which brings us back to public officials being allowed to represent the will of the people and not the desires of special interests.

Here is the URL of the PBS show that originally sparked my interest in clean elections: http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/242/index.html

Here is a link to an episode of Town Hall Seattle presenting A Public Forum: Clean Elections:
http://www.seattlechannel.org/videos/video.asp?ID=5070703

Publicly Funded Elections

I can't recall if I have discussed publicly funded (clean) elections before. I caught a show on PBS a few months back that covered the issue. Versions of publicly funded elections exist in Arizona, Maine, Massachusetts, and Vermont.

The idea is that candidates have the option of running a publicly funded campaign. They will receive funds up to a set limit that will allow them to run against privately or other publicly funded candidates. The intent of "clean" elections is to reduce the amount of influence that special interest groups have on our public officials.

Here are a couple of links if you are interested in finding out more:
http://washclean.org
http://www.just6dollars.org

I contacted washclean.org as I am interested in joining or helping to organize my local chapter.

I am ready to take action. In order to resolve some of the serious issues that this generation is facing we are going to need public officials that are not beholden to special interests.

Entries from earth.toryj.com

I have finished posting the entries from my original blog site. If you are interested in reading any of the older entries they may be found at http://earthsanity1.blogspot.com. Or in the sidebar there is a link called Saving the World - The Beginning under the heading The Early Entries.

For the early entries I have posted the original date next to the title. Some of the titles may have changed from the original.

Excerpts from Correspondence

The following are a couple of excerpts from emails that I have sent to one of my brothers who has a slightly different viewpoint than my own.

Email excerpt number one:

There are also three movies I would like you to view. You may disagree with some of the information they provide, but I would ask that you watch them with an open mind and if you disagree to backtrack the sources to either verify or debunk them and in return I will do the same for any information you provide me.

The three movies are:
The Corporation
An Inconvenient Truth
Life Running Out of Control and/or The Future of Food

I think that Life Running Out of Control is the better choice, but The Future of Food is available through NetFlix which the former is not.

Email excerpt number two:

A Truncated Response to:
An Inconvenient Truth: An Inaccurate Depiction of the State of Global Warming Science
by Robert C. Balling Jr. (October 13, 2006)
(http://capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4806)

1) The Revele article sited is 14 years old.
2) I don’t know anything about declining atmospheric moisture.
3) Gore shows research covering 600,000 years not merely 1000 years.
4) Gore doesn’t discuss greater frequency of storms, but greater intensity.
5) Gore doesn’t claim that the sea has risen significantly yet, but that it has the potential to rise.
6) a) Gore admits that he was mistaken in not pushing to sign the Kyoto treaty.
6) b) It is the responsibility of the US to lead the world by example.

5 out of 6 points the article is making are either deceptive or inaccurate. Balling also appears to have received funding from oil and gas companies which makes his objectivity suspect. I would be hesitant to use this article as a refutation of global warming arguments.

"Balling is a declared 'global warming skeptic.' However, in Balling and Sen Roy (2005) he writes: 'There is substantial evidence that a non-solar control has become dominant in recent decades. The buildup of greenhouse gases and/or some other global-scale feedback, such as widespread changes in atmospheric water vapor, emerge as potential explanations for the recent residual warming found in all latitudinal bands.'" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Balling

"Balling has acknowledged that he had received $408,000 in research funding from the fossil fuel industry over the last decade (of which his University takes 50% for overhead). Contributors include ExxonMobil, the British Coal Corporation, Cyprus Minerals and OPEC." - http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Robert_C._Balling

Robert C. Balling Jr. has received funding from ExxonMobil according to http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=5

"Robert C. Balling, Jr. has received more than $400,000 from the coal and oil industries,” according to the Center for Media and Democracy. - http://www.answers.com/topic/robert-balling

-----

A Truncated Response to:
Wake up and Smell the Ammonia
by John A. Charles, Jr. (January 3, 2007)
http://capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4885

This author makes some valid points in terms of the significant impact that livestock production has in terms of greenhouse gases. It is one of the reasons that I am a vegetarian.

However the following is from an EPA report:
“Although transportation is a vital part of the economy and is essential for everyday activities, it is also a significant source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In 2003, the transportation sector accounted for about 27 percent of total U.S. GHG emissions, up from 24.8 percent in 1990.” - http://www.epa.gov/otaq/climate/420r06003summary.htm

-----

A Truncated Response to:
The Real Inconvenient Truth About Global Warming: Skeptics Have Valid Arguments
by Tom DeWeese (December 19, 2006)
http://capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4870

“The main source of such thinking seems to come from the Eden Institute, operating out of New York and with close ties to the UN. The official use of globally acceptable truth is best described in a letter to the Eden Institute from Robert Muller, Assistant Secretary General of the UN. He wrote, ‘I am referring to the need to establish a body of objective, globally acceptable information to serve as a foundation for global education…Its (Eden Project) formula for identifying universally acceptable objective data is truly unique. It achieves this distinction by establishing a global standard for inquiry.

Translation: We will decide what is truth and all new information or scientific discovery will be judged on whether it matches this ‘globally acceptable’ truth.”

I believe that Tom’s translation may be a little skewed. I think the keyword in the quote is objective. I would point out that the Bush administration has stacked the environmental and organic commissions with industry insiders as has been reported in the mainstream media as well as documentaries such as The Future of Food; that reports by government scientists have been censored (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/07/24/politics/main564873.shtml); and that NASA would attempt to silence their own experts (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/science/earth/29climate.html?ex=1296190800&en=28e236da0977ee7f&ei=5088)

“There are over 12,000 environmental groups in the country controlling over $20 billion in assets...”

The author seems to suggest that there is a money motive behind the attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but according to him the total funds that have been devoted by all the environmental groups to this issue is $20 billion. This is less than one years profit by one oil company.

If you want to look at money as a motivating factor then it seems the oil industry has a huge stake in maintaining the status quo.

Tom DeWeese has received funding from ExxonMobil according to http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=1158

-----

I’ll take a look at some more of the articles, but I have a hunch that anyone writing for Capitalism Magazine is going to have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

Concentration of power has always been a dangerous thing and traditionally leads to human rights abuses, etc. The multi-national system of corporations that we are currently experiencing borders on fascism due to the amount of power that a few corporations wield. It is a corruption of the original intent of corporations which was to serve the public good by working on large scale projects.

By law a corporations main obligation is to earn profits for its shareholders. The shareholders may do good works with their profits, but the corporations themselves are not humanist because they can only promote good works if it serves the bottom line.

There are a couple of other documentaries that I would like to recommend. I find them fascinating on a number of levels. They are:

Why We Fight
Who Killed the Electric Car

There are also a couple of books that I have found to be worth reading:

The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability
by Paul Hawken

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
by William McDonough & Michael Braungart

An Inconvenient Truth

If you haven't yet seen the Al Gore documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, then I would strongly encourage you to watch it.

Call for Change

Today is election day. It's a tight race and it's not too late to make a difference.



Click on the graphic to help make some calls and ensure a democratic change on this election day.

(Please feel free to leave a comment about your experience.)

Iraq War | World Bank, IMF, WTO

The Ellensburg Film Festival is in full swing and I just caught an interesting double feature. The first movie was Falluja: Caught in the Crossfire and the second was Argentina: Hope in Hard Times.

The Iraq War
The first movie was about the devastation of Falluja caused by US troops. The city was decimated and now operates under marshall law in an effort to crush the insurgency. It was devastating.

One of the facts that the film brought up is that the average family in Falluja had six to eight children which means that the majority of the civilians killed or wounded and that the majority of the refugees are children. I am not a proponent of large families, but I am even less of a proponent of killing, maiming, and orphaning children.

I don't believe that the American presence in Iraq will ever have a positive outcome. The resentment against American troops runs deep.

Our top down theory of control has failed.

We should pull our troops out of Iraq and allow the people of the region to determine their own fate. The consequences of our actions will no doubt be terrible, but our continued presence is not stabilizing the region and is engendering a dangerous amount of resentment.

How then can we get our government to pull the troops out of Iraq?

I just received a phone call from moveon.org asking me to make phone calls encouraging individuals to vote in those areas where the Democrats have the potential of winning a seat in congress. I think I am going to take them up on their offer.

-----

World Bank, IMF, WTO
The second flick I caught was about the Argentine depression which apparently was caused by the Argentine government listening to the advice of the IMF and WTO.

The Argentine economy had been the sixth largest in the world with a flourishing middle class. The government supported and regulated industry.

Following the advice of the aforementioned organizations the government privatized many government services and reduced industry regulations. Government and industry borrowed heavily. The farming industry was encouraged to specialize and export. The end result was a depression, bank closures, 40% unemployment and starvation. There are now basically only rich and poor in Argentina with no middle class.

The former head of the World Bank, a nobel prize winning economist, is featured in the film. He states that current economic theory has failed in every emerging economy. I expect that he is no longer head of the World Bank because it was easier to get rid of him than to change a failed system.

-----

There are certain issues that we need to look at globally. For any issue that impacts your neighbor, your neighbor should be allowed input. Pollution and toxins including nukes as well as population are issues that impact us all. Other than that people should be allowed to resolve their issues locally.

The ideas of the WTO seem contrary to the long term survival of the human race. Massive imports and exports in no way diminish the global climate change of which we are in the midst.

Get Active - Internet Activism

I received some internet activism emails today from which I am posting excerpts. The first two excerpts are from Greenpeace:

Green my Apple, Steve
Here at Greenpeace, we love our Macs. And that's why we want them to be free of toxic chemicals that create poison e-waste. We've seen the kids in Asia who wade through mountains of discarded gadgets to recover bits of metal they can sell. In the process, they breathe dioxins from burning PVC plastic and are surrounded by lead and mercury pollution. That's not what Apple is all about. And we know just the people to make Apple change its ways: its customers. Love your Mac? Wish it came in green?

Let Apple know how much you want them to be green.

I am a long time Mac user so of course I responded by sending an email to Apple.

Here's another:

Hi, my name is Sini Harkki and I would like you to help me in Finland. I'm a student and in my spare time I work to save forests in Finland and around the world. I've been working with Greenpeace helping an undercover investigation team expose wood that's been illegally logged in Russia and imported into Finland.

We are trying to make the Finnish Government take responsibility for this problem, but they've been avoiding the issue. When we told our Government about this illegal logging scandal they said that they shouldn't get involved! Wood from Russia is made into many things, like paper, cardboard for packaging, plywood and furniture - and you might even be buying it.

You can help by sending a letter to Mr Mauri Pekkarinen, Finland's Minister of Trade and Industry, asking for laws to stop illegal timber being imported and sold in Europe.

I responded to this plea as well.

I also received a forward from a friend regarding voting machines:

Dear Friend,

Paperless electronic voting machines will be used once again
this fall, and already during the primaries they failed. In
Maryland crowds of legal voters were turned away from the polls
when the machines couldn't be started.

There's a simple safeguard -- have enough paper ballots on hand
so the election can go forward even if the machines let us down
again. Obvious, right? Senators Boxer (D-CA) and Dodd (D-CT)
have introduced a last-minute bill which would provide money to
any state that is willing to print up the paper ballots. It's
cheap, it's easy, and there's no reason not to do it. But time
is short.

Join with me and TrueMajority to tell your Senator to support
the emergency paper ballot bill.
http://action.truemajority.org/campaign/paper_ballot?rk=YdwuYVS1GX4nW

It seems like a no brainer that if people show up to vote that they should be allowed to vote.

Part of my personal environmental plan is internet activism. If you are not currently active I encourage you to become active. Never before has it been so easy for the middle class of America to take part in influencing national and world politics.

Philanthropy, SRI, Venezuela, Making a Difference

I applaud billionare Richard Branson's recent promise to donate $3 billion of profits from his travel industries towards solving the global warming issue. I also applaud Bill Clinton's Global Initiative and the involvement of Bill Gates.

It's about time some power brokers stepped up in a public and financial way and started trying to right the wrongs that their companies have helped to perpetrate.

Even the Bush administration has promised $3 billion toward alternative energy research. Of course this seems like a paltry sum for an administration that is spending $85 billion a year on the war in Iraq.

For those of us who are not billionaires, but are striving for financial security, here is an article on Socially Responsible Investing:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_2415.cfm

-----

I have also been hearing a lot about Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela. Apparently Venezuela is sitting on the greatest remaining oil reserves in the world.

After calling Bush "Satan" in front of the United Nations Chavez has pledged to double the amount of low cost heating oil that Venezuela will provide to the people of America who are less fortunate financially.

Oil moneys are also being used to finance free health care to the people of Venezuela who are less fortunate financially. The cost of gas in Venezuela is currently $0.20 per gallon.

Now I don't agree with low gas prices, but at least Chavez is trying to do something helpful with the oil profits as opposed to building palaces and mansions. (Don't get me wrong, I haven't done much research so he could be building palaces as well as helping people who are destitute.)

I am not a communist (although maybe I should be), but I do wish that our government were comprised of philanthropists instead of war profiteers.

I also think it is interesting that communism and democracy are not mutually exclusive ideals as we have been taught to believe.

Chavez's political adversaries have accused him of pandering in order to win the upcoming election. In that regards, helping people out just might work.

-----

I have a friend that visited recently and he fell back on the old argument that I am not making a difference with my avocation; that the fifteen people I am reaching makes my pursuit meaningless.

This is a variation on the defeatist arguments I have mentioned in previous posts.

The closer a person is to me the stronger the affect my lifestyle has upon them. They in turn influence the people to whom they are close. "And they tell two friends... and so on."

I have also contributed to and provided pro bono work to some charities over the last couple of years. In this way I am contributing a little to a lot of people.

The actual impact I am having is not quantifiable. It's chaos theory in action. I am just a little butterfly beating my wings. I am just a drop of water in the wave of progressive change.

And in the end whether or not my actions truly make a difference does not relieve me of my obligation to live my life in an ethical and morally upright manner. I believe in an all encompassing morality. I am a humanist and the ultimate extension of humanitarianism is environmentalism.

Peace out.

Democracy is Fragile

Democracy is a fragile ideal. My heart goes out to the people of Thailand in this trying time. Apparently one must be diligent and hold ones government to task. I received the following from moveon.org:

Dear MoveOn member,

This week, the Senate is planning to quietly hold a vote that would pardon President Bush for breaking the law by illegally wiretapping innocent Americans without warrants. According to Senator Leahy, the bill would "...immunize officials who have violated federal law by authorizing such illegal activities."1

President Bush broke the law, and courts are starting to agree. Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter once said the program was illegal "on its face." But he has now caved to pressure from Vice President Cheney, and introduced legislation that marks a new low: the bill justifies everything the president did. Worse, it makes it legal to wiretap Americans, in secret, without warrants or oversight, whenever the administration wants to.2

So far, Democrats and some Republicans are holding strong against the bill, and there are good chances to stop it if enough of us speak up. Can you sign the petition opposing the Republican move to pardon President Bush for breaking the law?

http://pol.moveon.org/dontpardon/?id=8810-6717564-7qk_ZfzGKRLs2CTdgT03NA&t=2

Many legal experts agree that the president's program to wiretap Americans who have nothing to do with terrorism violates the law. President Bush already has the authority to wiretap suspected terrorists—and we support that. In fact, his administration can tap anyone it likes as long as it gets an OK from a court a few days later.

Congress should be trying to hold him accountable—that's their job. Instead, some Republicans are trying to let President Bush off the hook completely. In fact, the legislation would give the president even more unchecked power.

Here are some quick facts about the Cheney-Specter bill:
• It allows President Bush—and every president after him—to wiretap Americans indefinitely, in secret, without a warrant and without any oversight. 3
• It effectively pardons the president for any illegal behavior by forcing Congress to concede that he has the inherent authority to conduct the program4—something federal courts, numerous legal experts and many leading Republicans disagree with. 5
• It completely guts FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) which has protected the privacy of Americans against illegal wiretaps for close to 30 years.6
• It prevents any legal challenges from taking place in the public court system. Instead, it moves all cases to a secret court, where only Bush administration officials can argue it. 7
• It would help "immunize" any officials who broke the law in this program from being held accountable in the future. 8
Since the program was exposed in December of last year, we've learned that President Bush personally blocked a Justice Department investigation of the program, Vice President Cheney also personally intervened to stop telecom companies from testifying to Congress about it, and a federal court recently ruled the program unconstitutional.9 In an effort to protect himself from further consequences, the president is pressuring Congress to let him off the hook.

This is an important issue and it will help remind Americans, in an election year, what Republicans are all about—accumulating power for themselves, and trampling the system of checks and balances designed to stop that. Can you sign the petition today?

http://pol.moveon.org/dontpardon/?id=8810-6717564-7qk_ZfzGKRLs2CTdgT03NA&t=3

It's the Senate's job to act as a check on the president's power. If they can't do it, they shouldn't be in Washington.

Thanks for all you do,

–Nita, Eli, Jennifer, Wes and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Monday, September 18th, 2006

Sources:

1. "Today's Republican circus trick: Legislating in the Dark," Senator Leahy, provided by the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, September 13, 2006
http://www.bordc.org/threats/leahy91306.php

"NSA Whitewash Passes Judiciary Committee on Party-Line Vote," People for the American Way, September 13, 2006
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=22373

2. "NSA Whitewash Passes Judiciary Committee on Party-Line Vote," People for the American Way, September 13, 2006
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=22373

3. "Top 5 things Sen. Specter won't tell you about the Cheney-Specter bill," ACLU
http://action.aclu.org/site/PageServer?pagename=SpecterTop5

4. ACLU Letter to the Senate Regarding Strong Opposition to the Substitute Version of S. 2453, the "National Security Surveillance Act of 2006" May 16, 2006
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/25578leg20060516.html

**Note: The bill has changed slightly from when this letter was written, however the sections accepting the president's claim of inherent authority remains

5."Judge Rules Against Wiretaps," Washington Post, August 18, 2005
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2096&id=8810-6717564-7qk_ZfzGKRLs2CTdgT03NA&t=4

"On NSA Spying: A Letter to Congress," New York Review of Books, February 9, 2006
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18650

McCain: Bush Does Not Have "The Legal Authority To Engage In These Warrantless Wiretaps," ThinkProgress, January 22, 2006
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/01/22/mccain-wiretaps-illegal/

6. "Top 5 things Sen. Specter won't tell you about the Cheney-Specter bill," ACLU
http://action.aclu.org/site/PageServer?pagename=SpecterTop5

7. "NSA Bill Performs a Patriot Act," Wire News, September 13, 2006
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71778-1.html?tw=wn_story_page_next1

8. "Today's Republican circus trick: Legislating in the Dark," Senator Leahy, provided by the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, September 13, 2006
http://www.bordc.org/threats/leahy91306.php

9. ACLU Slams Senate Judiciary Committee Approval of NSA Spying Bills, ACLU, September 13, 2006
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/26722prs20060913.html

Of course I signed the petition because I don't believe that any person should be above the law and in fact those in power should perhaps be held to a higher standard as they set the precedent for ethical behavior.

I fear that the grand experiment called Democracy has already failed in this country. The corporate lawyers may have done us in last century, but that does not relieve me of my responsibility to try and help restore the fundamentals of the ideal.

Israel, Lebanon & Iran

I apologize for my political naivete. I avoided knowing about politics for as long as I possibly could and I am still in the process of getting up to speed.

The August 21, 2006 issue of the New Yorker does a much better job than I (although he reaches some of the same conclusions) of covering the Israel, Lebanon, Iran triangle in an article called "Watching Lebanon," by Seymour M. Hersh. He has much greater access than I do so I would encourage you to stroll down to your local library and take a look at the article.

Military/Economic Imperialism vs. Charity

Military/Economic Imperialism
I hate to get into the politics of military and economic imperialism, but it seems to be intrinsically tied (in a negative way) to the deterioration of the environment.

At the beginning of the Iraq War I remember commenting to a reporter friend of mine that Iran would be next in line. I don't even recall why I felt this to be true. He emphatically denied the possibility, but I fear that he will soon have to eat his denial.

The reason I bring this up tonight is because of the recent conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. Hindsight being twenty-twenty I am willing to bet that the Hezbollah leaders regret kidnapping the Israeli soldiers. For an intelligent terrorist organization it seems to have been a fairly boneheaded move. The reason I credit them with intelligence is because they have been actively working towards legitimacy via humanitarian and political efforts in Lebanon. They need this legitimacy in order to be treated with by the international community (I may be overstating this. They may just be seeking credibility within Lebanon).

One of their spokesman stated that the reaction was unexpected as prisoner exchange is a precedented practice in that geopolitical arena. Why then such a strong reaction from Israel?

Although it is pure speculation on my part I would contend that the neoconservatives who currently seem to control the US government probably encouraged Israel to retaliate in such a way as to gain the attention of the international media.

I believe that one of short term goals of the neocons is to invade Iran. There has been much posturing as of late in regards to the development of the Iranian nuclear program. This is a hard sell after the failure of the neocons to produce evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

But according to the popular media Iran is supplying Hezbollah with arms (although far inferior to the arms that we supply to Israel), therefore Iran is ultimately responsible and I have heard the term "victor" in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.

You may not want to believe it, but our government is notorious for backroom dealings (think Iran-Contra etc.) and Israel is beholden to us for one billion dollars a year (the figure I have heard, but have not tried to verify) as well as the means by which they defend and offend their country.

The neocons are not trying to hide their agenda (although their motives may be suspect). Check out The Project for the New American Century. I will not provide a link, but you can do a search for it on any search engine.

They clearly state that America must fight and win two major theater wars simultaneously. They don't state that America must be prepared to fight and win two major theater wars simultaneously, but that America must fight and win two major theater wars simultaneously. The two theaters are the Middle East and Asia. (Hence the posturing over the Iran nuclear threat and the North Korean nuclear threat.) Specifically look for a document in their archives called "Rebuilding America's Defenses" which is one of the scariest articles I have ever perused.

The aforementioned article also discusses the need to dominate the globe militarily. I have recently begun to fear that China is on the list too as they are the only nation that has the near potential to become a major super power as well as competing with us for oil.

I don't think you'll hear too much about the neocons agenda on corporate controlled news outlets, but if you want to watch a scary documentary check out Why We Fight which should be available at your local Safeway or on Netflix.

The neocons are a little ambiguous as to why we should dominate the world (think supervillains from James Bond), but the theory is that it has to do with making lots of money (for people who are already millionaires) via the military-industrial complex (i.e. Haliburton and Dick Cheney) at the cost of our safety and sense of security as well as the safety of innocents in the Middle East and Asia.

118,900 Iraqi civilians dead according to http://mindprod.com/politics/iraqbodycounts.html, but you can do your own research on that. These Iraqi civilians died so that a handful of rich Americans (probably some foreigners too) could become even richer. We are the world's villain. This nation has never been more hated or feared and it ain't cause the world's jealous. It's because we are killing people wholesale. The neocons have painted a huge target on America to fatten their own gluttonous coffers. We are all being victimized under the auspices of the freedom.

An all volunteer army means we are sending only our poor and under-educated to war. We are turning the ignorant of our country into killers. Those who haven't died and lost limbs and who really work at it may recover (with counseling) from the trauma of war in twenty years or so. This trauma will affect their children and probably their children's children etc.

14 or so years after Vietnam as my Dad was beating me I can remember him saying, "I've killed men, son!" My Mom burst in yelling, "If you want to kill someone then kill me." I believe that she misunderstood what he was saying. I believe that he was trying to share with me that whatever I had experienced that day that pushed me and then him over the edge was not as terrible as the act of taking another man's life. They were divorced within a couple of years.

I saw my Dad and my best friend, at the time, off to the original Gulf War. My friend returned with Gulf War Syndrome (they actually were never able to diagnose the illness that destroyed his liver) from which he will never recover.

Charity
On a lighter note, we went to a friends wedding recently and instead of purchasing a gift (they already have plenty of pots and pans) we made a donation to Proliteracy Worldwide (specifically Women in Literacy). It may be old hat to some of you to donate to charity as a gift, but this was the first time I had ever done so. They are both professors of literature so it seemed appropriate. They said it was one of their favorites of the gifts that they had received and I tell you what, the card was enough to bring a tear to a strong man's eye.

Composting, Charity, Carbon Portfolio Strategy

Barrel Composter
I got my hands on a barrel composter and we are working on our first batch of compost created from food waste.

The composter was sitting unused behind a house that my friend is renting. The landlord is another friend of mine's best friend from high school who now lives in another city. I had previously helped develop the landlords web site so I felt comfortable asking her if I could borrow the composter. Small towns, eh?

It's funny how easily some things fall into place.


Charity
I have tracked down a charity that I believe directly applies to the principles I have been espousing in regards to global population control.

UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. UNFPA supports countries in using population data for policies and programmes to reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.

http://www.unfpa.org

A direct donation is not tax deductible as the organization is not based in the US. In order to make a tax deductible donation an American chapter has been organized at: http://www.americansforunfpa.org.


World Neighborhood Fund
I don't know that I ever mentioned the name and URL of the charity that I helped with some design work. It is the World Neighborhood Fund at http://worldneighborhoodfund.org. Many of their causes focus on educating and protecting women of which I am a strong proponent.

I helped them develop their logo and integrate it into their web site. I am pleased to report that the net result, according to their feedback, was an increase in donations.


Pearl Jam
I am happy to see that Pearl Jam is receiving national recognition for their Carbon Portfolio Strategy. http://www.pearljam.com/activism/carbon.php

I am a closet musician with occasional delusions of grandeur and have been trying to work out a similar strategy. I would love for my business to have net zero emissions.