Thursday, March 25, 2010
Earth Hour
Join uOttawa for Earth Hour by turning off the lights on March 27 between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. to help reduce our environmental impact on the planet. Click here for more information.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
BOLIVIA: Summit to Seek Global Climate Change Referendum
LA PAZ -- An alternative "people´s conference" on climate change in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba in April will seek to advance an international global warming referendum, organizers said.
"The only thing that can save mankind from a (climate) tragedy is the exercise of global democracy," said Bolivia´s United Nations Ambassador Pablo Solon, a key organizer of the summit.
A priority of the meeting would be discussing the possibility of a global referendum "with the goal of reaching two billion people," he told reporters.
Thousands of people, mostly members of social movements and indigenous groups, are expected to attend the People´s World Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth Rights from April 20-22.
Organizers say it is intended to "give a voice to the people" on climate change after the perceived failure of the United Nations-sponsored Copenhagen summit on the same issue.
Solon said he expected participants from 94 countries and representatives from 70 governments to attend, without giving further details.
Bolivian President Evo Morales, who in January issued an open invitation to the conference to governments, scientists and social movements, has said a number of South American presidents would also attend.
But the outlines of the conference remain vague, and it is shaping up so far like something between an environmental forum and a political rally.
It is expected to tackle many of the themes Morales raised at the Copenhagen summit last year, including creating a "climate court of justice" and the need to "change the system of capitalist consumerism" -- proposals that could be included in the suggested global vote.
Solon said the summit´s conclusions would be delivered to the next UN-sponsored meeting on climate change, currently scheduled for December in Mexico.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
Aboriginal Training Program in Museum Practices
The Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation (CMCC), which is comprised of the Canadian Museum of Civilization (CMC) and the Canadian War Museum (CWM), is offering an Aboriginal Training Program in Museum Practices to those with an interest in pursing a career in the field of museology. The goal of the Program is to offer First Nations, Métis, and Inuit participants professional and technical training. The Program operates from September to April of each year, with a two week break for the holiday season.
We would be delighted if you would post the attached information at your institution in order to help us solicit candidates for this exciting program. Please note that the closing date for the receipt of applications is March 15, 2010. Additional information regarding the Aboriginal Training Program in Museum Practices can be obtained by accessing our Web site at: www.civilization.ca/aboriginaltraining.
Should you wish to obtain more information, or discuss any of the details regarding our program, please feel free to contact Ms. Jameson C. Brant at 819-776-8270.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
THE RIGHTS OF MOTHER EARTH
By Leonardo Boff (*)
RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb (IPS) There is no political formulation of the interests of humanity or mother earth that protects their nature and cultures. For centuries we have lived under the jurisdiction of nation states and their assorted forms of sovereignty and autonomy. But as all problems become increasingly global, this political model is proving incapable of offering the solutions needed by humanity and the planet as a whole.
The United Nations would be the right organisation to perform this function, but it is completely demoralised and the only part of it with real power is the Security Council, which is controlled by the veto-wielding, five major powers, led by the United States.
There is no world social contract that sets global political practices, nor is there a collective reference to build consensus and settle conflicts. This is one of the reasons for the failure of international meetings on global affairs, like the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference or the World Trade Round in Doha.
This is a unique moment in history. Our common future is in jeopardy. The interlinking of crises, especially ecological, could create a humanitarian and environmental tragedy of staggering proportions that would demand urgent action on a global scale. The
necessary precondition for such action is a common set of references, values, principles, and inspirations that provide an ethical and political foundation for the world community.
Today what must be saved is not the status quo but life itself and the system of the earth. This is the new central reality by which the major political paths to the future must be oriented. Aware of this urgency, the President of the UN General Assembly for
2008/2009 and ex-foreign minister of Sandinista Nicaragua, Miguel D’Escoto, after consulting a wide range of heads of state and other figures, resolved to create a draft of a Universal Declaration of the Common Good of the Earth and Humanity that would complement the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. He included me as one of the drafters of the text. (http://servicioskoinonia.org/logos).
This document, which will be officially introduced at the International Climate Conference next April in Cochabamba, Bolivia, will present the most reliable data regarding modern cosmology. Consider that the earth and humanity are part of a vast evolving
universe and share the same destiny and constitute in all their complexity a single entity. The earth lives and behaves as a single self-regulating system made up of physical, chemical, biological, and human components that give rise to the production and
reproduction of life, and for this reason it is our Great Mother and our common Home. It is comprised of the sum of the ecosystems through which it generated a magnificent array of forms of complementary and interdependent life, sacred and unified,such that the human being, men and women, are the same as the earth, which speaks, thinks, senses, loves, cares for, and venerates.
Since the environmental crisis must be addressed at the global level, it is essential to clearly define the Common Good of the Earth and Humanity. This Common Good is universal and free to all. It must include everyone, all people and peoples, and at the same time must be offered for free because it represents what is essential, vital, and irreplaceable for humanity and for earth itself.
The first Common Good is the earth itself, which is the condition for all other goods. It belongs to the universe, to itself, and to the totality of ecosystems that comprise it. Human beings are not its owners but guests because it is the generator of life itself
and thus deserves to be treated with dignity and to be cared for and protected.
The biosphere is a common patrimony that humanity must protect. This is true for all natural resources: the air, water, fauna,flora, microorganisms, and also the maintenance of the climate. For this reason climate change must be faced globally and recognised as a shared responsibility.
The common patrimony includes those public goods that maintain life, like food, seeds, electricity, communications, the accumulated knowledge of people, research and science, culture, art, music, religion, health, education, and security.
The second Common Good is humanity, with its intrinsic values of dignity, conscience, intelligence, sensibility, compassion, love and opening to all. Humanity appears as a project that is infinite and therefore unending.
The fecund concept of the Common Good prohibits, for example, the patenting of genetic resources that are fundamental to food and agriculture; patented technical discoveries should always be managed with an eye towards their social application.
Central to the Common Good of Humanity and Mother Earth is the conviction that a beneficent energy extends throughout the entire universe, sustains all living creatures, and can be invoked, welcomed, and venerated. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)
.....................
(*) Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian theologian, is a member of the Earth Charter Initiative and professor emeritus of ethics at the University of Rio de Janiero.
The United Nations would be the right organisation to perform this function, but it is completely demoralised and the only part of it with real power is the Security Council, which is controlled by the veto-wielding, five major powers, led by the United States.
There is no world social contract that sets global political practices, nor is there a collective reference to build consensus and settle conflicts. This is one of the reasons for the failure of international meetings on global affairs, like the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference or the World Trade Round in Doha.
This is a unique moment in history. Our common future is in jeopardy. The interlinking of crises, especially ecological, could create a humanitarian and environmental tragedy of staggering proportions that would demand urgent action on a global scale. The
necessary precondition for such action is a common set of references, values, principles, and inspirations that provide an ethical and political foundation for the world community.
Today what must be saved is not the status quo but life itself and the system of the earth. This is the new central reality by which the major political paths to the future must be oriented. Aware of this urgency, the President of the UN General Assembly for
2008/2009 and ex-foreign minister of Sandinista Nicaragua, Miguel D’Escoto, after consulting a wide range of heads of state and other figures, resolved to create a draft of a Universal Declaration of the Common Good of the Earth and Humanity that would complement the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. He included me as one of the drafters of the text. (http://servicioskoinonia.org/logos).
This document, which will be officially introduced at the International Climate Conference next April in Cochabamba, Bolivia, will present the most reliable data regarding modern cosmology. Consider that the earth and humanity are part of a vast evolving
universe and share the same destiny and constitute in all their complexity a single entity. The earth lives and behaves as a single self-regulating system made up of physical, chemical, biological, and human components that give rise to the production and
reproduction of life, and for this reason it is our Great Mother and our common Home. It is comprised of the sum of the ecosystems through which it generated a magnificent array of forms of complementary and interdependent life, sacred and unified,such that the human being, men and women, are the same as the earth, which speaks, thinks, senses, loves, cares for, and venerates.
Since the environmental crisis must be addressed at the global level, it is essential to clearly define the Common Good of the Earth and Humanity. This Common Good is universal and free to all. It must include everyone, all people and peoples, and at the same time must be offered for free because it represents what is essential, vital, and irreplaceable for humanity and for earth itself.
The first Common Good is the earth itself, which is the condition for all other goods. It belongs to the universe, to itself, and to the totality of ecosystems that comprise it. Human beings are not its owners but guests because it is the generator of life itself
and thus deserves to be treated with dignity and to be cared for and protected.
The biosphere is a common patrimony that humanity must protect. This is true for all natural resources: the air, water, fauna,flora, microorganisms, and also the maintenance of the climate. For this reason climate change must be faced globally and recognised as a shared responsibility.
The common patrimony includes those public goods that maintain life, like food, seeds, electricity, communications, the accumulated knowledge of people, research and science, culture, art, music, religion, health, education, and security.
The second Common Good is humanity, with its intrinsic values of dignity, conscience, intelligence, sensibility, compassion, love and opening to all. Humanity appears as a project that is infinite and therefore unending.
The fecund concept of the Common Good prohibits, for example, the patenting of genetic resources that are fundamental to food and agriculture; patented technical discoveries should always be managed with an eye towards their social application.
Central to the Common Good of Humanity and Mother Earth is the conviction that a beneficent energy extends throughout the entire universe, sustains all living creatures, and can be invoked, welcomed, and venerated. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)
.....................
(*) Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian theologian, is a member of the Earth Charter Initiative and professor emeritus of ethics at the University of Rio de Janiero.
Bob Thomson
Quebec Movement for convivial degrowth - Bob Thomson
English translation of http://www.decroissance.qc.ca/mouvement.html
Bob Thomson (bthomson@web.ca)
To those of you who worry about the future of the next generations.
We live in a world in crisis. Left or right, all are in agreement on that. But the proposed solutions, whether neoliberal or progressive, remain within a paradigm of development and economic growth, which is at the same time a major cause of many problems.
Following in the footsteps of European movements for sustainable economic degrowth (1), we invite the citizens of Quebec to undertake an overall review of the current system, in particular on environmental and social problems.
"Degrowth/decroissance" calls “economic growth” into question. It is an expression which gives a living and positive meaning to this phenomena which destroys ecosystems and the social fabric. Industrial economic development increases the differences between the rich and the poor, while an increase in the production of “wealth” does not mean a general improvement of the human condition. The growth of companies does not stop them from cutting jobs to increase their profits, obliterating the pro-growth argument of job creation. In addition, the continual increase in production of consumer goods eats away the resources which constitute our ecological capital and generates pollution and waste by the ton. Wars, oil spills or auto pile-ups are examples of events which raise gross domestic product, an indicator which is used to evaluate the health of nations. This analysis of human activities gives an inaccurate portrait of reality. As have many others before us, we affirm that economics must cease to dictate decisions of any kind and become again a means for the service of human beings.
Degrowth is not a simplistic or moralistic ideology, but a call for reflection based on an undeniable fact: on a limited planet, unlimited growth, the objective of all our governments, is impossible. It leads to increasingly dangerous imbalances.
Four closely dependent crises
The ecological crisis. We shouldn't need to point out that since industrialization began, human beings have caused the disappearance of thousands of species, polluted the air, water and ground, decimated forests, produced enough gas which via the greenhouse effect modifies climate, melts glaciers and raises sea levels, all with unknown consequences. The world population consumes as if we had a planet and half. If the six billion inhabitants of the planet were allowed the lifestyle which industrialized countries "enjoy", we would need six planets (2).
The Social crisis. Despite all the promises of the ideology of growth, malnutrition and food insecurity compromise the health of millions of people, in the third world and in the industrialized countries, including Quebec. At the same time, diseases linked to the american way of life and its pollution create devastation: asthma, cancer, allergies, obesity, cardiovascular disease, problems of mental health, etc. Thousands of people live with professional exhaustion by working too much, while thousands of others are excluded from the job market and subjected to shame.
Crisis of meaning. Stress and feelings of emptiness cause depression and suicide. Trapped in the swirl of productivism and consumerism, we do not have time to realize that our freedom is limited to a choice of products and to be identified with brand names. The true direction of life, which is a search within oneself, is removed from this program. Continuously occupied, agitated, diverted, we no longer have the possibility of reflecting, while at the same time we consume goods, services, and our relations. Human relations take place within a system where our cultivated reflex is to seek our greatest profit, to the detriment of any solidarity. Connected by mass media which gives an illusion of presence, we note with impotence our difficulty of being, quite simply, with our fellow man.
Finally, the Political crisis. Disillusioned citizens do not have confidence in politicians. Not so surprising when the multinationals impose their rules with the complicity of the governments of the day. Large unelected institutions, such as the World Trade Organization, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, make decisions which affect the lifes of whole peoples, who have not a word to say. Disputes are repressed by police forces, when it is not legislative and legal (3). What is it that legitimates the fact that the financial interests of corporations weigh heavier than the rights of the people?
We, “objectors to growth”, deplore these devastations caused by the ideology of growth and all the conditions which determine it.
Dead ends
To all those who carry the standard of sustainable development, we want to underline the insidious dangers of this approach, often well intentioned, but frequently co-opted by the public relations of large companies. The expression “sustainable development”, resulting from the Brundtland Commission Report in 1987, presupposes the possibility of respect for the environment in a context of economic growth, and proposes to meet the needs of the present without compromising the capacity of future generations to meet theirs. By making growth a necessity, sustainable development gives up any serious attempt to eliminate harmful economic activities. While naively wanting to meet the needs of the present, sustainable development avoids calling those needs into question. The satisfaction of our “needs” for mobility, comfort and telecommunications prepares a legacy of pollution, climatic catastrophy and waste, inter alia, for future generations .
A company which recycles its paper can claim sustainable development, while exporting the disposable objects thousands of kilometers, and which a few weeks later will be found in a dump. The movement for responsible consumption also succeeds in convincing a part of the population to consume fair trade, local, pesticide free, organic, eco-energy products… Small steps in the right direction? An awakening? We'd like to believe it. But the possibility of making “ethical purchases” avoids raising the question of the need to reduce consumption overall (i.e. the only direct means to reduce pollution, greenhouse gases, production of waste). At the same time, a rebound effect has been observed with eco-energy technologies: since machines consume less, consumers tend to use them more, and to allocate the money saved to other consumer goods; with the result that there is a total increase in material or energy resources used.
What is it about this other comforting path which at first sight, believes that technology will bring solutions to environmental concerns? Genetically modified organisms, electric cars, decontamination, biogas and ethanol, etc. Unfortunately, these “solutions” are not without consequences. To produce ethanol, for example, requires that one devote much arable land to monoculture corn production, thus devastating biodiversity and involving an intensive use of pesticides and artificial fertilisers which impoverish soils and pollute water. We live in a world which systematically develops progress and technological innovation without considering the whole of their consequences, forgetting that it is this very same faith in technology which generated the ecological catastrophes that technology claims today to solve. For example, a specific medical technology, unthinkable outside the framework of an industrialized society, makes it possible to treat cancers… which are the result of the pollution generated by that same industrialized society.
Let's see how the ideology of progress, which goes hand in hand with that of growth, causes more wrong than it can repair.
Initially, the frenzy of innovation shortens the life cycle of objects, whose obsolescence is planned. Whoever wishes to repair an apparatus must act with great conviction to give up the attraction of the new model and to find, if it is still possible, the parts and a qualified repairman or woman. For example, to buy a new toaster is less expensive than to repair that which one already has. Very quickly, products are found in the dump, after having involved the exploitation of the people who manufactured them, the wasting of resources, the consumption of energy and the generation of pollution. These phenomena are legitimized by the requirement of growth, even if the exploitation of natural resources generates fatal conflicts, or if the management of waste costs astronomical sums. This ideology, while positing that the accumulation of wealth is legitimate, judicious and necessary, justifies all the means of making money and of growth: commercialization of water, exploitation of children, wars for oil - and clever marketing.
We live, in spite of ourselves, in ignorance of the network of dependencies implied by the use of technology. So we use a toaster, one that needs a factory, a transport system, an electrical network and powerplants. Technological apparatuses do not exist alone, they imply a whole interdependent system. It is claimed that the Internet and computers reduce the use of paper, but it all remains based on printing, and one also forgets that such means of communication are not possible except in an industrialized society, which implies an immense waste and continues to waste resources (forests inter alia), if only in the packaging of parts which are trotted from one end of the planet to the other. And don't forget the tons of obsolete computers which are definitely toxic waste. In the same way, one presents the car as freedom of movement, the pleasure of driving, a symbol of success. But this means of transport implies kilometers of asphalt, pollution, the disfigurement of landscapes, noise, town planning which isolates various sectors from community life, wars for oil – not to mention the thousands of dead from accidents.
In addition, we become completely dependent on technology, incompetent to function without it, incompetent for the majority of us to understand how it functions or to repair it when appliances break down. Technological innovations require great financial investments, for research, development and production. Entrusting the safety of the environment to them means, at the end of the day, the abandonment to holders of capital and large companies, of the possibility that the entire population can take in hand the challenges of our communal life.
We call these machines “tools”, but it is important to realize that this is not a question of neutral objects which we can use just as we wish or according to our principles. Their use implicates us in a vast system of constraints, and moreover it transforms us, modifying our relationships with time, space and other human beings. Technology transforms our vision of the world and even our principles.
Hear us though. Degrowth is not the wish for an impossible return to the past. It wants to be a logical choice of inventions. Degrowth is to cease believing that what is new is better - a sorting must be made in what technology offers us. For us, certain inventions will have to be completely abandoned, for example nuclear energy and the atomic bomb. Others, such as the airplane or various types of motorized transport, will have to see their use seriously reduced. All in all, those technologies using ever more resources will have to be abandoned. That doesn't mean that any technological advance must be forgotten. Let's think of the advanced techniques of organic farming which help us discover new advantages with vegetable intercropping. We welcome those inventions, the technologies which will help humanity live more simply.
Getting out of growth
This overview of the situation allows us to affirm that the ideology of Progress, which conceives that Man, Master of nature, advances inexoribly toward improvement of the world, and that of economic growth, founded more than two hundred years ago, do not at all match the reality of the twentieth century.
The dominant ideology poses economic growth as desirable, necessary and inevitable. A natural law, say some. Obviously, any living organism grows, but this growth is stabilized quickly. Growth ad infinitum is a human mental construction, not an economic fate.
The dominant ideology relies on human nature to justify as “inevitable” the search for short-term profit. Our species however has survived for millenia thanks to mutual aid and co-operation… We believe that human nature is not limited only to its economic function and has multiple facets. We are what we cultivate in ourselves. We believe that it is possible to cultivate intelligence, creativity and the good will of human beings to take part in a radical change of culture, valuing beings and community.
At any rate, since economic growth is based on major consumption of fossil energy, for which a reduction in production capacity is predicted in the next decades, and which will not be possible to easily replace, important disturbances in the current system are to be expected. For that reason, there is an urgency to reconsider things beyond the ideology of the growth.
Obviously, in an economic system such as it is today, negative growth means recession, with all of the problematic consequences in daily newspapers of thousands of people who lose the financial means to meet their needs. The degrowth movement does not preach recession. But given the pure and simple ecological impossibility of having growth ad infinitum, we “objectors to growth” propose an attempt to break out of the paradigm of growth. It is a question of preparing society, with care for social justice, for the challenges of the physical limits of the biosphere.
To reinvent living together
We must set aside existing structures and economic pseudo-constraints to conceive a really human project, a truly realistic project - that of living according to our needs and our real resources, in harmony with our environment. Drawing from our experiences with voluntary simplicity, we are convinced that a degrowth society, which relies on the assumption of responsibility for their needs by the entire population, on a small scale, will bring about improvements in the quality of life, by supporting healthy environments, the participation of the greatest number in decisions, mutual aid and free human exchanges, and occasions for a flowering of creativity. What would this society look like? How to take steps in this direction?
These ideas confront the challenge of living together and the distribution of wealth. In the society that we consider, as in any community centered on the satisfaction of needs (and not on the creation of renewable material desires), the economy consists of exchanges of goods and services on a small scale. Work is an occasion to take part in community life according to one's talents and skills, and not a yoke necessary to gain something to consume. Factories are small sized and use machines that are simple to repair and economical to use. For example: mechanical weaving looms run with human or animal energy allow production much greater than manual weaving, without requiring billions of capital for the construction and operation of industrial manufacturing and without generating ecological disturbances. Time is not bought, it is not money, it is a space in which to expand.
If one claims that industrialization makes it possible to produce objects with lower costs, it is because air pollution is not costed, nor water and soils, physical and mental diseases of the employees of industry, rural exile or management of waste. In a degrowth society, talents and skills are devoted to manufacturing aesthetic and durable objects. The attention paid to objects reflects respect for the materials and work which were invested: they are maintained and repaired over generations. The shoemakers, dressmakers, upholsterers, cooks, cabinetmakers, carpenters and repair technicians of all kinds thus are well-established in local communities where everyone shops on foot, by bicycle, tricycle or tram, by taking narrow streets bordered with gardens. Why not import the model of European small villages, thus avoiding traversing thousands of kilometers to the other side of the Atlantic as tourists to visit them? Rather let's simply exchange our recipes instead of shipping cargoes of biscuits overseas.
An ecological society has a very different view of transport. Food safety encourages production of basic food nearby. Gardening, even downtown, in an essential component. Factories, being of small size, are established directly within communities, thus eliminating industrial parks which devastate the landscape and avoid people moving tens of kilometers each day to go to work. The transport of goods is also considerably reduced. Rail networks, municipal and national, offer fast and inexpensive service, as was the case before the car and oil industries dismantled them (4). In a society which leaves spare time for people, active transport, on foot or bicycle, has a priority place. Urban streets and boulevards are converted into cycle tracks and sidewalks bordered by parks. Since one absorbs fewer resources in the repair of roads and construction of bridges, they are available for the maintenance of rail transport and the installation of corridors sheltered from the wind and snow for winter bicycling for example. In a society thus supporting physical activity, relaxation, a healthy environment and natural diets, medicine occupies a much less important place. And we could go on to sketch the portrait of a society without growth.
Obviously, such a society will not be be easy to build. More than ever we will have to face the challenge of living together. The frightened part of us which seeks security in accumulation will grind its teeth in the face of new-found scarcity and the work required. But beyond the fear of scarcity and discomfort, these new structures will change our relationships with others and with nature. By fullfilling our need for membership in a community and in a place, they will increase meanful existence.
It is important to note that the application of these simple and accessible steps, which represent a reduction in consumption at home (and an increase in our quality of life!) would constitute, in several Third World countries currently starved by the systems of production and consumption of the so-called developed societies, an increase in their access to goods and services, establishing greater planetary justice, an ecologically impossible option if we maintain our high standard of living.
Steps toward transformation
Are we dreamers? Perhaps we should ask ourselves the question differently: are we greater dreamers than those who think of improving general well being by supporting strong economic growth?
Our existing society is extremely complex and appears unchangeable. How can we even think that things can be different? Obviously we're talking about a long path of recovery in taking individual and collective responsibility. Individual voluntary simplicity is an essential step, making it possible to gain the time to educate ourselves, to read, reflect and try out ways of doing things which will be central in a society of degrowth: gardening, steps toward personal growth, artisanal technologies or repairs, co-operative voluntary work, etc. It is in a movement of convivial economic degrowth, which is the collective expression of the principles of balance of voluntary simplicity, that this responsible lifestyle begins to make sense.
A society of transition towards a paradigm other than economic growth will support part-time work, encouraging individuals and communities to implement projects which increase their autonomy in the satisfaction of their needs. Measurements such as reduced traffic, fewer parking tickets, free public transport, the development of street malls and cycle lanes are all actions which move in the direction of relearning active transport and our presence in the world. In order to restore balance in the distribution of wealth, it would be possible to establish a limit on maximum incomes inside the same society and redistributive tax tools between the richest and poorest, thus acting against inequity and decreasing the capacity of those who have the most negative impact on nature, either through their high levels of consumption or their investments which “make the economy roll”.
Obviously many companies whose activities only have utility within the framework of a system of economic growth (publicity, disposable objects, petrochemical products, etc) will have no choice sooner or later to slow down and then stop production, upsetting the employment picture. It is here that it will be important to re-educate themselves and retool towards a greater noncommercial autonomy.
The factory shutdowns, devastating events in a small community, could be the occasion to rethink the economy of a region. In general, one is ready to invest million to preserve employment, without considering the relevance of what is produced nor the consequences of its production. For the majority of people, consumption and credit belong to the “assets” that one should not call into question, more especially as the current economic system does not offer really another choice. We hope that a realistic education of the consequences of our standard of living, united with experiments with subsistance alternatives which allow a real autonomy for communities, will lead to choices that will benefit the affected populations in regaining control over their futures, while preserving ecological balance.
We will not be able to share resources as long as we respect the right to wealth and nourish dreams of opulence. To build a society which truly respects beings and nature, it is essential to revise our values, and in particular to reject accumulation and competition. To maintain ecosystems and biodiversity, there cannot be millionaires. When it come to the survival of mankind, it is essential to cultivate detachment from the lure of gain.
Are we greater dreamers than those which claim that swimming pools, private jets and food cultivated at the other end of the world, accessible to everyone, are givens? Are we greater dreamers than those who still claim happiness from the accumulation of wealth and the frenzy of work? Greater dreamers that those who believe that they work for the future of their children by building fortunes in tax shelters?
Like teenagers, humanity lives at the rhythm of excess, intoxicated by a feeling of the power of its achievements. It's time to turn the page on this time of self-centredness and to acquire a little collective maturity. If we do not begin a real search for balance based on recognition and respect for the limits of the Earth, we can imagine upheavals much worse than those that would rise from a transition towards an economy away from industrialisation, be it capitalist or socialist. The “need” for economic growth is not an absolute constraint compared to the physical limits of planet.
Our position may seem disconcerting, but the values of solidarity which underlie it are already well anchored in Quebecois culture, where the pleasure of rendering service, the creativity of ingenuity and the simplicity of neighbourhoods are well-known, even if they are increasingly difficult to express in a world where the ideology of growth encourages us to be wary of others - because mutual aid harms the economy!
The movement to degrowth is not a Utopia. But we believe that it is possible, starting today, to undertake in a thousand ways, a turn towards a really sustainable and user-friendly social organization! And you?
Signatories:
Maude Bouchard-Fortier
Léo Brochier
Jean-Marc Brun
Jean-François Cantin
Arthur Lacomme
Jacinthe Laforte
Julien Lamarche
Louis Marion
Serge Mongeau
Marcel Sévigny
Notes:
1 - See http://www.decroissance.qc.ca for a list of links on degrowth.
2 - See “Our environmental footprint”, Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees, écosociété, 1999, 216 pages.
3 - The famous SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation): there were at least three cases recently in Quebec (Québécois Association of struggle against air pollution, Association of people of the Island of Orleans against the methane tanker port in Lévis and the bi-monthly Québécois review À bâbord). See: http://www.taisez-vous.org.
4 - See “Le livre noir de l’automobile”, Richard Bergeron, Hypothèse, 1999, 435 pages.
Bob Thomson (bthomson@web.ca)
To those of you who worry about the future of the next generations.
We live in a world in crisis. Left or right, all are in agreement on that. But the proposed solutions, whether neoliberal or progressive, remain within a paradigm of development and economic growth, which is at the same time a major cause of many problems.
Following in the footsteps of European movements for sustainable economic degrowth (1), we invite the citizens of Quebec to undertake an overall review of the current system, in particular on environmental and social problems.
"Degrowth/decroissance" calls “economic growth” into question. It is an expression which gives a living and positive meaning to this phenomena which destroys ecosystems and the social fabric. Industrial economic development increases the differences between the rich and the poor, while an increase in the production of “wealth” does not mean a general improvement of the human condition. The growth of companies does not stop them from cutting jobs to increase their profits, obliterating the pro-growth argument of job creation. In addition, the continual increase in production of consumer goods eats away the resources which constitute our ecological capital and generates pollution and waste by the ton. Wars, oil spills or auto pile-ups are examples of events which raise gross domestic product, an indicator which is used to evaluate the health of nations. This analysis of human activities gives an inaccurate portrait of reality. As have many others before us, we affirm that economics must cease to dictate decisions of any kind and become again a means for the service of human beings.
Degrowth is not a simplistic or moralistic ideology, but a call for reflection based on an undeniable fact: on a limited planet, unlimited growth, the objective of all our governments, is impossible. It leads to increasingly dangerous imbalances.
Four closely dependent crises
The ecological crisis. We shouldn't need to point out that since industrialization began, human beings have caused the disappearance of thousands of species, polluted the air, water and ground, decimated forests, produced enough gas which via the greenhouse effect modifies climate, melts glaciers and raises sea levels, all with unknown consequences. The world population consumes as if we had a planet and half. If the six billion inhabitants of the planet were allowed the lifestyle which industrialized countries "enjoy", we would need six planets (2).
The Social crisis. Despite all the promises of the ideology of growth, malnutrition and food insecurity compromise the health of millions of people, in the third world and in the industrialized countries, including Quebec. At the same time, diseases linked to the american way of life and its pollution create devastation: asthma, cancer, allergies, obesity, cardiovascular disease, problems of mental health, etc. Thousands of people live with professional exhaustion by working too much, while thousands of others are excluded from the job market and subjected to shame.
Crisis of meaning. Stress and feelings of emptiness cause depression and suicide. Trapped in the swirl of productivism and consumerism, we do not have time to realize that our freedom is limited to a choice of products and to be identified with brand names. The true direction of life, which is a search within oneself, is removed from this program. Continuously occupied, agitated, diverted, we no longer have the possibility of reflecting, while at the same time we consume goods, services, and our relations. Human relations take place within a system where our cultivated reflex is to seek our greatest profit, to the detriment of any solidarity. Connected by mass media which gives an illusion of presence, we note with impotence our difficulty of being, quite simply, with our fellow man.
Finally, the Political crisis. Disillusioned citizens do not have confidence in politicians. Not so surprising when the multinationals impose their rules with the complicity of the governments of the day. Large unelected institutions, such as the World Trade Organization, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, make decisions which affect the lifes of whole peoples, who have not a word to say. Disputes are repressed by police forces, when it is not legislative and legal (3). What is it that legitimates the fact that the financial interests of corporations weigh heavier than the rights of the people?
We, “objectors to growth”, deplore these devastations caused by the ideology of growth and all the conditions which determine it.
Dead ends
To all those who carry the standard of sustainable development, we want to underline the insidious dangers of this approach, often well intentioned, but frequently co-opted by the public relations of large companies. The expression “sustainable development”, resulting from the Brundtland Commission Report in 1987, presupposes the possibility of respect for the environment in a context of economic growth, and proposes to meet the needs of the present without compromising the capacity of future generations to meet theirs. By making growth a necessity, sustainable development gives up any serious attempt to eliminate harmful economic activities. While naively wanting to meet the needs of the present, sustainable development avoids calling those needs into question. The satisfaction of our “needs” for mobility, comfort and telecommunications prepares a legacy of pollution, climatic catastrophy and waste, inter alia, for future generations .
A company which recycles its paper can claim sustainable development, while exporting the disposable objects thousands of kilometers, and which a few weeks later will be found in a dump. The movement for responsible consumption also succeeds in convincing a part of the population to consume fair trade, local, pesticide free, organic, eco-energy products… Small steps in the right direction? An awakening? We'd like to believe it. But the possibility of making “ethical purchases” avoids raising the question of the need to reduce consumption overall (i.e. the only direct means to reduce pollution, greenhouse gases, production of waste). At the same time, a rebound effect has been observed with eco-energy technologies: since machines consume less, consumers tend to use them more, and to allocate the money saved to other consumer goods; with the result that there is a total increase in material or energy resources used.
What is it about this other comforting path which at first sight, believes that technology will bring solutions to environmental concerns? Genetically modified organisms, electric cars, decontamination, biogas and ethanol, etc. Unfortunately, these “solutions” are not without consequences. To produce ethanol, for example, requires that one devote much arable land to monoculture corn production, thus devastating biodiversity and involving an intensive use of pesticides and artificial fertilisers which impoverish soils and pollute water. We live in a world which systematically develops progress and technological innovation without considering the whole of their consequences, forgetting that it is this very same faith in technology which generated the ecological catastrophes that technology claims today to solve. For example, a specific medical technology, unthinkable outside the framework of an industrialized society, makes it possible to treat cancers… which are the result of the pollution generated by that same industrialized society.
Let's see how the ideology of progress, which goes hand in hand with that of growth, causes more wrong than it can repair.
Initially, the frenzy of innovation shortens the life cycle of objects, whose obsolescence is planned. Whoever wishes to repair an apparatus must act with great conviction to give up the attraction of the new model and to find, if it is still possible, the parts and a qualified repairman or woman. For example, to buy a new toaster is less expensive than to repair that which one already has. Very quickly, products are found in the dump, after having involved the exploitation of the people who manufactured them, the wasting of resources, the consumption of energy and the generation of pollution. These phenomena are legitimized by the requirement of growth, even if the exploitation of natural resources generates fatal conflicts, or if the management of waste costs astronomical sums. This ideology, while positing that the accumulation of wealth is legitimate, judicious and necessary, justifies all the means of making money and of growth: commercialization of water, exploitation of children, wars for oil - and clever marketing.
We live, in spite of ourselves, in ignorance of the network of dependencies implied by the use of technology. So we use a toaster, one that needs a factory, a transport system, an electrical network and powerplants. Technological apparatuses do not exist alone, they imply a whole interdependent system. It is claimed that the Internet and computers reduce the use of paper, but it all remains based on printing, and one also forgets that such means of communication are not possible except in an industrialized society, which implies an immense waste and continues to waste resources (forests inter alia), if only in the packaging of parts which are trotted from one end of the planet to the other. And don't forget the tons of obsolete computers which are definitely toxic waste. In the same way, one presents the car as freedom of movement, the pleasure of driving, a symbol of success. But this means of transport implies kilometers of asphalt, pollution, the disfigurement of landscapes, noise, town planning which isolates various sectors from community life, wars for oil – not to mention the thousands of dead from accidents.
In addition, we become completely dependent on technology, incompetent to function without it, incompetent for the majority of us to understand how it functions or to repair it when appliances break down. Technological innovations require great financial investments, for research, development and production. Entrusting the safety of the environment to them means, at the end of the day, the abandonment to holders of capital and large companies, of the possibility that the entire population can take in hand the challenges of our communal life.
We call these machines “tools”, but it is important to realize that this is not a question of neutral objects which we can use just as we wish or according to our principles. Their use implicates us in a vast system of constraints, and moreover it transforms us, modifying our relationships with time, space and other human beings. Technology transforms our vision of the world and even our principles.
Hear us though. Degrowth is not the wish for an impossible return to the past. It wants to be a logical choice of inventions. Degrowth is to cease believing that what is new is better - a sorting must be made in what technology offers us. For us, certain inventions will have to be completely abandoned, for example nuclear energy and the atomic bomb. Others, such as the airplane or various types of motorized transport, will have to see their use seriously reduced. All in all, those technologies using ever more resources will have to be abandoned. That doesn't mean that any technological advance must be forgotten. Let's think of the advanced techniques of organic farming which help us discover new advantages with vegetable intercropping. We welcome those inventions, the technologies which will help humanity live more simply.
Getting out of growth
This overview of the situation allows us to affirm that the ideology of Progress, which conceives that Man, Master of nature, advances inexoribly toward improvement of the world, and that of economic growth, founded more than two hundred years ago, do not at all match the reality of the twentieth century.
The dominant ideology poses economic growth as desirable, necessary and inevitable. A natural law, say some. Obviously, any living organism grows, but this growth is stabilized quickly. Growth ad infinitum is a human mental construction, not an economic fate.
The dominant ideology relies on human nature to justify as “inevitable” the search for short-term profit. Our species however has survived for millenia thanks to mutual aid and co-operation… We believe that human nature is not limited only to its economic function and has multiple facets. We are what we cultivate in ourselves. We believe that it is possible to cultivate intelligence, creativity and the good will of human beings to take part in a radical change of culture, valuing beings and community.
At any rate, since economic growth is based on major consumption of fossil energy, for which a reduction in production capacity is predicted in the next decades, and which will not be possible to easily replace, important disturbances in the current system are to be expected. For that reason, there is an urgency to reconsider things beyond the ideology of the growth.
Obviously, in an economic system such as it is today, negative growth means recession, with all of the problematic consequences in daily newspapers of thousands of people who lose the financial means to meet their needs. The degrowth movement does not preach recession. But given the pure and simple ecological impossibility of having growth ad infinitum, we “objectors to growth” propose an attempt to break out of the paradigm of growth. It is a question of preparing society, with care for social justice, for the challenges of the physical limits of the biosphere.
To reinvent living together
We must set aside existing structures and economic pseudo-constraints to conceive a really human project, a truly realistic project - that of living according to our needs and our real resources, in harmony with our environment. Drawing from our experiences with voluntary simplicity, we are convinced that a degrowth society, which relies on the assumption of responsibility for their needs by the entire population, on a small scale, will bring about improvements in the quality of life, by supporting healthy environments, the participation of the greatest number in decisions, mutual aid and free human exchanges, and occasions for a flowering of creativity. What would this society look like? How to take steps in this direction?
These ideas confront the challenge of living together and the distribution of wealth. In the society that we consider, as in any community centered on the satisfaction of needs (and not on the creation of renewable material desires), the economy consists of exchanges of goods and services on a small scale. Work is an occasion to take part in community life according to one's talents and skills, and not a yoke necessary to gain something to consume. Factories are small sized and use machines that are simple to repair and economical to use. For example: mechanical weaving looms run with human or animal energy allow production much greater than manual weaving, without requiring billions of capital for the construction and operation of industrial manufacturing and without generating ecological disturbances. Time is not bought, it is not money, it is a space in which to expand.
If one claims that industrialization makes it possible to produce objects with lower costs, it is because air pollution is not costed, nor water and soils, physical and mental diseases of the employees of industry, rural exile or management of waste. In a degrowth society, talents and skills are devoted to manufacturing aesthetic and durable objects. The attention paid to objects reflects respect for the materials and work which were invested: they are maintained and repaired over generations. The shoemakers, dressmakers, upholsterers, cooks, cabinetmakers, carpenters and repair technicians of all kinds thus are well-established in local communities where everyone shops on foot, by bicycle, tricycle or tram, by taking narrow streets bordered with gardens. Why not import the model of European small villages, thus avoiding traversing thousands of kilometers to the other side of the Atlantic as tourists to visit them? Rather let's simply exchange our recipes instead of shipping cargoes of biscuits overseas.
An ecological society has a very different view of transport. Food safety encourages production of basic food nearby. Gardening, even downtown, in an essential component. Factories, being of small size, are established directly within communities, thus eliminating industrial parks which devastate the landscape and avoid people moving tens of kilometers each day to go to work. The transport of goods is also considerably reduced. Rail networks, municipal and national, offer fast and inexpensive service, as was the case before the car and oil industries dismantled them (4). In a society which leaves spare time for people, active transport, on foot or bicycle, has a priority place. Urban streets and boulevards are converted into cycle tracks and sidewalks bordered by parks. Since one absorbs fewer resources in the repair of roads and construction of bridges, they are available for the maintenance of rail transport and the installation of corridors sheltered from the wind and snow for winter bicycling for example. In a society thus supporting physical activity, relaxation, a healthy environment and natural diets, medicine occupies a much less important place. And we could go on to sketch the portrait of a society without growth.
Obviously, such a society will not be be easy to build. More than ever we will have to face the challenge of living together. The frightened part of us which seeks security in accumulation will grind its teeth in the face of new-found scarcity and the work required. But beyond the fear of scarcity and discomfort, these new structures will change our relationships with others and with nature. By fullfilling our need for membership in a community and in a place, they will increase meanful existence.
It is important to note that the application of these simple and accessible steps, which represent a reduction in consumption at home (and an increase in our quality of life!) would constitute, in several Third World countries currently starved by the systems of production and consumption of the so-called developed societies, an increase in their access to goods and services, establishing greater planetary justice, an ecologically impossible option if we maintain our high standard of living.
Steps toward transformation
Are we dreamers? Perhaps we should ask ourselves the question differently: are we greater dreamers than those who think of improving general well being by supporting strong economic growth?
Our existing society is extremely complex and appears unchangeable. How can we even think that things can be different? Obviously we're talking about a long path of recovery in taking individual and collective responsibility. Individual voluntary simplicity is an essential step, making it possible to gain the time to educate ourselves, to read, reflect and try out ways of doing things which will be central in a society of degrowth: gardening, steps toward personal growth, artisanal technologies or repairs, co-operative voluntary work, etc. It is in a movement of convivial economic degrowth, which is the collective expression of the principles of balance of voluntary simplicity, that this responsible lifestyle begins to make sense.
A society of transition towards a paradigm other than economic growth will support part-time work, encouraging individuals and communities to implement projects which increase their autonomy in the satisfaction of their needs. Measurements such as reduced traffic, fewer parking tickets, free public transport, the development of street malls and cycle lanes are all actions which move in the direction of relearning active transport and our presence in the world. In order to restore balance in the distribution of wealth, it would be possible to establish a limit on maximum incomes inside the same society and redistributive tax tools between the richest and poorest, thus acting against inequity and decreasing the capacity of those who have the most negative impact on nature, either through their high levels of consumption or their investments which “make the economy roll”.
Obviously many companies whose activities only have utility within the framework of a system of economic growth (publicity, disposable objects, petrochemical products, etc) will have no choice sooner or later to slow down and then stop production, upsetting the employment picture. It is here that it will be important to re-educate themselves and retool towards a greater noncommercial autonomy.
The factory shutdowns, devastating events in a small community, could be the occasion to rethink the economy of a region. In general, one is ready to invest million to preserve employment, without considering the relevance of what is produced nor the consequences of its production. For the majority of people, consumption and credit belong to the “assets” that one should not call into question, more especially as the current economic system does not offer really another choice. We hope that a realistic education of the consequences of our standard of living, united with experiments with subsistance alternatives which allow a real autonomy for communities, will lead to choices that will benefit the affected populations in regaining control over their futures, while preserving ecological balance.
We will not be able to share resources as long as we respect the right to wealth and nourish dreams of opulence. To build a society which truly respects beings and nature, it is essential to revise our values, and in particular to reject accumulation and competition. To maintain ecosystems and biodiversity, there cannot be millionaires. When it come to the survival of mankind, it is essential to cultivate detachment from the lure of gain.
Are we greater dreamers than those which claim that swimming pools, private jets and food cultivated at the other end of the world, accessible to everyone, are givens? Are we greater dreamers than those who still claim happiness from the accumulation of wealth and the frenzy of work? Greater dreamers that those who believe that they work for the future of their children by building fortunes in tax shelters?
Like teenagers, humanity lives at the rhythm of excess, intoxicated by a feeling of the power of its achievements. It's time to turn the page on this time of self-centredness and to acquire a little collective maturity. If we do not begin a real search for balance based on recognition and respect for the limits of the Earth, we can imagine upheavals much worse than those that would rise from a transition towards an economy away from industrialisation, be it capitalist or socialist. The “need” for economic growth is not an absolute constraint compared to the physical limits of planet.
Our position may seem disconcerting, but the values of solidarity which underlie it are already well anchored in Quebecois culture, where the pleasure of rendering service, the creativity of ingenuity and the simplicity of neighbourhoods are well-known, even if they are increasingly difficult to express in a world where the ideology of growth encourages us to be wary of others - because mutual aid harms the economy!
The movement to degrowth is not a Utopia. But we believe that it is possible, starting today, to undertake in a thousand ways, a turn towards a really sustainable and user-friendly social organization! And you?
Signatories:
Maude Bouchard-Fortier
Léo Brochier
Jean-Marc Brun
Jean-François Cantin
Arthur Lacomme
Jacinthe Laforte
Julien Lamarche
Louis Marion
Serge Mongeau
Marcel Sévigny
Notes:
1 - See http://www.decroissance.qc.ca for a list of links on degrowth.
2 - See “Our environmental footprint”, Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees, écosociété, 1999, 216 pages.
3 - The famous SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation): there were at least three cases recently in Quebec (Québécois Association of struggle against air pollution, Association of people of the Island of Orleans against the methane tanker port in Lévis and the bi-monthly Québécois review À bâbord). See: http://www.taisez-vous.org.
4 - See “Le livre noir de l’automobile”, Richard Bergeron, Hypothèse, 1999, 435 pages.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
The Road to Armageddon: The Insane Drive for American Hegemony Threatens Life on Earth
By Paul Craig Roberts | |
Global Research, February 26, 2010 | |
The Washington Times is a newspaper that looks with favor upon the Bush/Cheney/Obama/neocon wars of aggression in the I was even more surprised that the news report treated the press conference seriously. How did three The paper reports that the architects and engineers have concluded that the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Institute of Standards and Technology provided “insufficient, contradictory and fraudulent accounts of the circumstances of the towers’ destruction” and are “calling for a grand jury investigation of NIST officials.” The newspaper reports that Richard Gage, the spokesperson for the architects and engineers said: “Government officials will be notified that ‘Misprision of Treason,’ U.S. Code 18 (Sec. 2382) is a serious federal offense, which requires those with evidence of treason to act. The implications are enormous and may have profound impact on the forthcoming Khalid Sheik Mohammed trial.” There is now an organization, Firefighters for 9/11 Truth. At the main press conference in Mandated procedures were not followed, and instead of being preserved and investigated, the crime scene was destroyed. He also reported that there are more than one hundred first responders who heard and experienced explosions and that there is radio, audio and video evidence of explosions. Also at the press conference, physicist Steven Jones presented the evidence of nano-thermite in the residue of the WTC buildings found by an international panel of scientists led by Before we yell “conspiracy theory,” we should be aware that the architects, engineers, firefighters, and scientists offer no theory. They provide evidence that challenges the official theory. This evidence is not going to go away. If expressing doubts or reservations about the official story in the 9/11 Commission Report makes a person a conspiracy theory kook, then we have to include both co-chairmen of the 9/11 Commission and the Commission’s legal counsel, all of whom have written books in which they clearly state that they were lied to by government officials when they conducted their investigation, or, rather, when they presided over the investigation conducted by executive director Philip Zelikow, a member of President George W. Bush’s transition team and Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and a co-author of Bush Secretary of State Condi “Mushroom Cloud” Rice. There will always be Americans who will believe whatever the government tells them no matter how many times they know the government has lied to them. Despite expensive wars that threaten Social Security and Medicare, wars based on non-existent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, non-existent Saddam Hussein connections to al Qaida, non-existent Afghan participation in the 9/11 attacks, and the non-existent Iranian nukes that are being hyped as the reason for the next American war of aggression in the Middle East, more than half of the U.S. population still believes the fantastic story that the government has told them about 9/11, a Muslim conspiracy that outwitted the entire Western world. Moreover, it doesn’t matter to these Americans how often the government changes its story. For example, Americans first heard of Osama bin Laden because the Bush regime pinned the 9/11 attacks on him. Over the years video after video was served up to the gullible American public of bin Laden’s pronouncements. Experts dismissed the videos as fakes, but Americans remained their gullible selves. Then suddenly last year a new 9/11 “mastermind” emerged to take bin Laden’s place, the captive Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the detainee waterboarded 183 times until he confessed to mastermining the 9/11 attack. In the Middle Ages confessions extracted by torture constituted evidence, but self-incrimination has been a no-no in the If a person considers the feats attributed to Khalid Sheik Mohammed, they are simply unbelievable. Sheik Mohammed is a more brilliant, capable superhero than V in the fantasy movie, “V for Vendetta.” Sheik Mohammed outwitted all 16 Sheik Mohammed outwitted the U.S. National Security Council, Dick Cheney, the Pentagon, the State Department, NORAD, the U.S. Air Force, and Air Traffic Control. He caused Airport Security to fail four times in one morning. He caused the state-of-the-art air defenses of the Pentagon to fail, allowing a hijacked airliner, which was off course all morning while the U.S. Air Force, for the first time in history, was unable to get aloft intercepter aircraft, to crash into the Pentagon. Sheik Mohammed was able to perform these feats with unqualified pilots. Sheik Mohammed, even as a waterboarded detainee, has managed to prevent the FBI from releasing the many confiscated videos that would show, according to the official story, the hijacked airliner hitting the Penagon. How naive do you have to be to believe that any human, or for that matter Hollywood fantasy character, is this powerful and capable? If Sheik Mohammed has these superhuman capabilities, how did the incompetent Americans catch him? This guy is a patsy tortured into confession in order to keep the American naifs believing the government’s conspiracy theory. What is going on here is that the U.S. government has to bring the 9/11 mystery to an end. The government must put on trial and convict a culprit so that it can close the case before it explodes. Anyone waterboarded 183 times would confess to anything. The U.S. government has responded to the evidence being arrayed against its outlandish 9/11 conspiracy theory by redefining the war on terror from external to internal enemies. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on February 21 that American extremists are now as big a concern as international terrorists. Extremists, of course, are people who get in the way of the government’s agenda, such as the 1,000 Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. The group used to be 100, now it is 1,000. What if it becomes 10,000? Cass Sunstein, an Obama regime official, has a solution for the 9/11 skeptics: Infiltrate them and provoke them into statements and actions that can be used to discredit or to arrest them. But get rid of them at all cost. Why employ such extreme measures against alleged kooks if they only provide entertainment and laughs? Is the government worried that they are on to something? Instead, why doesn’t the U.S. government simply confront the evidence that is presented and answer it? If the architects, engineers, firefighters, and scientists are merely kooks, it would be a simple matter to acknowledge their evidence and refute it. Why is it necessary to infiltrate them with police agents and to set them up? Many Americans would reply that “their” government would never even dream of killing Americans by hijacking airliners and destroying buildings in order to advance a government agenda. But on February 3, National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair told the House Intelligence Committee that the U.S. government can assassinate its own citizens when they are overseas. No arrest, trial, or conviction of a capital crime is necessary. Just straight out murder. Obviously, if the U.S. government can murder its citizens abroad it can murder them at home, and has done so. For example, 100 Branch Davidians were murdered in Waco, Texas, by the Clinton administration for no legitimate reason. The government just decided to use its power knowing that it could get away with it, which it did. Americans who think “their” government is some kind of morally pure operation would do well to familiarize themselves with Operation Northwoods. Operation Northwoods was a plot drawn up by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff for the CIA to commit acts of terrorism in American cities and fabricate evidence blaming Castro so that the U.S. could gain domestic and international support for regime change in Cuba. The secret plan was nixed by President John F. Kennedy and was declassified by the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board. It is available online in the National Security Archive. There are numerous online accounts available, including Wikipedia. James Bamford’s book, Body of Secrets, also summarizes the plot:
Prior to 9/11 the American neoconservatives were explicit that the wars of aggression that they intended to launch in the Middle East required “a new Pearl Harbor.” For their own good and that of the wider world, Americans need to pay attention to the growing body of experts who are telling them that the government’s account of 9/11 fails their investigation. 9/11 launched the neoconservative plan for U.S. world hegemony. As I write the U.S. government is purchasing the agreement of foreign governments that border Russia to accept U.S. missile interceptor bases. The U.S. intends to ring Russia with U.S. missile bases from Poland through central Europe and Kosovo to Georgia, Azerbaijan and central Asia. [see www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17709 ] U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke declared on February 20 that al Qaida is moving into former central Asian constituent parts of the Soviet Union, such as Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan. Holbrooke is soliciting U.S. bases in these former Soviet republics under the guise of the ever-expanding “war on terror.” The U.S. has already encircled Iran with military bases. The U.S. government intends to neutralize China by seizing control over the Middle East and cutting China off from oil. This plan assumes that Russia and China, nuclear armed states, will be intimidated by U.S. anti-missile defenses and acquiesce to U.S. hegemony and that China will lack oil for its industries and military. The U.S. government is delusional. Russian military and political leaders have responded to the obvious threat by declaring NATO a direct threat to the security of Russia and by announcing a change in Russian war doctrine to the pre-emptive launch of nuclear weapons. The Chinese are too confident to be bullied by a washed up American “superpower.” The morons in Washington are pushing the envelop of nuclear war. The insane drive for American hegemony threatens life on earth. The American people, by accepting the lies and deceptions of “their” government, are facilitating this outcome. | |
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