Obama’s Secret Wars
This article by Patrick Cockburn is re-posted from CounterPunch.
Drones or their equivalent have long attracted political and military leaders dreaming of the surgical removal of their enemies. In 1812, the governor of Moscow, Count Rostopchin, devised a plan to get a hot-air balloon to hover over the French lines at Borodino and drop an explosive device on Napoleon. The source for this is the memoirs of the French writer, traveller and politician Chateaubriand and I have not read it anywhere else, but the story illustrates how, from the first moment man took to the air, he has seen it as a means of assassination.
President Barack Obama thinks much the same way as Rostopchin did 200 years ago. The enhanced and secret use of unmanned drones is one of the most striking features of his foreign policy. During his presidency they have been used against Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq. In Pakistan alone some 337 CIA strikes have killed 1,908 to 3,225 people since 2004, according to the Washington-based New America Foundation. Of these, between 1,618 and 2,769 are said to have been militants.
The precision of the numbers, combined with the great disparity between the highest and lowest figures, will send a chill through anybody who has examined US air attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan. Official mendacity about civilians killed has been a feature of every air war. Within days of the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the US military was trying to explain away why it had blown up Afghan wedding parties that it claimed were convoys of “terrorists”.
What makes Obama’s drone wars so important is that they are right at the centre of foreign policy in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. Drones were used by George W Bush between 2004 and 2008 on a smaller scale, but their mass use since is not just the fruit of technical developments or tactical convenience.
One of the most important changes in world politics over the past decade is that the US has failed to win two wars, one in Iraq, the other in Afghanistan, despite deploying large and vastly expensive land armies. Equally telling, these failures were against relatively puny forces of guerrillas. For American hardliners and neo-liberals these wars were designed to lay the ghosts of Vietnam and Somalia, enabling the open use of US military might, but they turned out to be Vietnam and Somalia revisited. American popular and establishment support for military intervention abroad using ground troops is at a low ebb.
The use of unmanned drones seems to avoid these problems. First of all there are no direct and immediate American casualties. The attacks also sound as if they are carrying the fight to the enemy in the shape of al-Qa’ida, with its top 20 operatives in north-west Pakistan being regularly eliminated – only to be mysteriously replaced by another top 20 operatives. Drone strikes have been difficult for the Republicans to criticise during the presidential campaign without opening themselves up to charges that they are soft on terrorism. In one of the few sensible remarks on foreign policy in the presidential debates, Mitt Romney said “we can’t kill our way out of this”, but later added that this did not mean he was anti-drone.
From the White House’s point of view, drones have the great advantage of being largely secret. Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger were once denounced as war criminals for waging a secret bombing campaign by B-52s on Cambodia. The official silence over today’s drones can be justified by claiming that this is a covert war against al-Qa’ida waged by the CIA and the US Joint Special Operations Command, and requires secrecy to be effective.
Are the drones as effective as claimed? Air power has always over-sold itself as being cheap and deadly compared with ground forces. It was first used by the Italians in their colonial conquest of Libya in 1911. Britain’s “Bomber” Harris, who led the RAF Bomber Command during its mass raids on Germany in the Second World War, cut his teeth devastating Kurdish villages in Iraq in the 1920s.
Air power can deliver much, but it cannot deliver everything. This is as true of drones as it is of B-52s. The drones make more political sense at home than military sense abroad. Whatever the accuracy of the missiles, targets must still be identified before they are destroyed, requiring good local information. Where the local state is weak or nonexistent, as in Yemen, Somalia, Libya or Waziristan in north-west Pakistan, this is easy to do because the CIA can have its own network of agents or co-operate with local intelligence agencies.
But there is something misleading and almost comical about a picture of al-Qa’ida as a tightly organised group along the lines of a miniature Pentagon. It is, on the contrary, much more a series of political and religious attitudes combined with willingness to wage holy war using certain tactics, notably suicide bombing.
Drones have other serious disadvantages. They create rage in the countries where they are used, such as Pakistan. If, as is evident, they are carried out with the connivance of Islamabad, this discredits the government as American proxies. Exact figures about civilian casualties are often mythical since outsiders do not know who is living in family compounds in Afghanistan or north-west Pakistan (witness the time it took for US intelligence to find Osama bin Laden in his Abbottabad compound).
Many places where drones are used are inaccessible to foreign or even local journalists. Civilian casualties can be minimised or denied. I reported in 2009 a US bombing raid on three villages in Farah province, south of Herat, which killed 147 people, according to locals. There were craters 30ft deep which a US spokesman cheerfully suggested had been made by Taliban fighters throwing grenades into houses. This was an obvious lie, but it was impossible for journalists to prove the opposite.
Of course, local people knew what had happened. They drove their tractors pulling trailers full of body parts to the provincial capital where government soldiers opened fire, killing three of them. I wondered at the time how many of the surviving young men of the three villages, and in the rest of Farah province, joined the Taliban because of that bombing raid.
Drones do not change very much on the ground. They do provide political camouflage at home and abroad, concealing the US retreat in Afghanistan and Iraq. They store up trouble because they may create more enemies than they eliminate. They rely on a network of informants that can only be established in weak, failed or failing states. They also invite other states such as China and Russia to invest in drones to kill their dissidents beyond their borders. Secret assassination campaigns by drones, hot-air balloons, bombs or rare poisons all carry the risk that somebody, somewhere is plotting their retaliation.
After Sandy, Communities Mobilize A New Kind Of Disaster Relief
This article by Laura Gottesdeiner is re-posted from ZNet.
I’m not sure when I realized that we were in the middle of a full-blown disaster. Maybe it was when I saw the outline of a National Guard soldier hanging off the side of a hummer on a blackened strip of Rockaway Boulevard. Perhaps it was when I received a panicky email from an assemblyman’s office saying that “ppl are starving in Broad Channel.” I’m sure the comparisons to Hurricane Katrina and September 11 helped speed the realization. All I know for sure is that by Thursday, when widespread gas shortages swept New York City and out-of-staters began offering to donate bio-diesel trucks, I understood that we were organizing in the midst of a crisis.
Communication and travel in the affected areas has been difficult for lack of electricity and cell reception, but reports are nevertheless circulating among the network of volunteers who have mobilized since Tuesday morning, when Hurricane Sandy abated. There were stories of elderly women eating food out of dumpsters in still-blacked-out Lower Manhattan; a large ship cresting the median of a highway in Rockaway; the Red Cross aid station in the center of a desolate parking lot in Staten Island, guarded by NYPD barricades and serving only military rations; trick-or-treating through the pitch-black streets of Red Hook; the anxiety over running out of gas; kids navigating the former streets in a canoe; seniors stuck in their homes; families told to abandon their pets because the emergency shelters can’t accommodate animals. In some of these isolated pockets of the city, the logistical challenges are so daunting that federal authorities were just getting their feet on the ground as late as Thursday afternoon.
Meanwhile, a grassroots network of community-run relief stations and free kitchens has sprung up in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. The response began small and grew rapidly. On Monday there appeared an Occupy Sandy Relief Facebook page and the Recovers sites, set up by the environmental organization 350.org. Tuesday, a free kitchen opened at the Red Hook Initiative, a small nonprofit adjacent to a 5,000-person public housing complex without electricity. Wednesday, another kitchen was up and running in Rockaway Beach, much of which was on fire. During a Thursday evening conference call, it took an hour simply to list the number of drop-off locations, distribution sites and on-the-ground relief stations that spanned at least four of the boroughs, all coordinated by the InterOccupy network. Thousands of volunteers clamored to be put to work; donations were pouring in. The almost unwieldy expansion was similar to the early days of Zuccotti Park: spontaneous, decentralized and, for many, all-consuming. Few outside the network, however, understood that this relief was in itself an act of resistance.
Storms receive a very different kind of response from society and from government officials than other types of crises — especially in a major urban center like New York City. The police and firefighters suddenly take interest in people’s material needs; the Red Cross and FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, deploy millions of dollars and thousands of workers in efforts to alleviate the devastation. Officials yank on boots and call press conferences where they’ll say almost anything; Mayor Bloomberg went so far as to endorse Obama, words of support that the campaigning president welcomed with gratitude.
Unlike poverty, homelessness, hunger, displacement and other untenable living situations, weather-wrought devastation mobilizes public sympathy and government action because it is a “natural” disaster. This delineation is, of course, mostly a myth in the era of accelerating climate change. But it’s one society clings to anyway, because to recognize natural disasters as the natural outcomes of human capitalism would be even more disruptive than the storm itself.
For organizers, however, disaster relief and political protest are two tactics toward a common goal: stopping large-scale human suffering incentivized by global economic forces. After all, as a former volunteer at occupied Zuccotti Park recently reminded me, Occupy itself was also born out of a deadly and lucrative crisis.
I first learned this lesson from members of Occupy Homes Minneapolis, many of whom had been first responders after a tornado sliced through an area of North Minneapolis in May 2011. The storm knocked down chimneys, damaged roofs and sculpted trees into gigantic bonsais. A year later, as many of the same organizers focused on saving the area from the undeniably human-created foreclosure crisis, it was almost impossible to distinguish between the blocks that were hit by the tornado and those plagued by displacement. The boarded-up doors, the kicked-in cellar windows and neglected roofs were all the same. Aside from the intact trees, there were only two major differences. One was architectural: The tornado-stricken blocks were mostly filled with Tudor homes, while the foreclosed homes were, conveniently, more often 1940s Colonials with aluminum siding and copper wires that made them especially enticing for scrappers. The second was sentimental: The broader public had sympathy for the victims of the tornado, while, only one year later, the majority still held foreclosed-upon families responsible for the collective crisis that ended up claiming these families’ homes.
Hurricane Sandy wrecked devastation on thousands of New Yorkers, and temporary inconvenience on millions more. Meanwhile, nonprofits, churches, neighborhood groups and community organizers have been lending and continue to lend everything from a day’s work to a chainsaw to bike-powered electricity — a show of community care that many are talking about as the spirit of New Yorkers. The question remains, however, what will happen to this spirit when the effects of this storm abate, leaving us again to the mercy of a world that incentivizes suffering. At the very least, an even stronger relief network will be in place to weather the next surge.
Michiganders Fight Fracking on State Land
This article by Maryann Lesert is re-posted from In These Times.
(Photo by Maryann Lesert)
At 8:00 a.m. on October 24, over 100 protesters gathered outside Michigan’s Lansing Center, preparing to do battle with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (MDNR). A banner dropped over a roof across the street read, “No Fracking. No Compromise.” Thirty minutes later, two balloons with noisemaking devices floated up to the atrium ceiling, beeping over the staircase and the hall to the auction room, as more banners appeared: “Deep Water Earth First!” and “You Frack and We’ll Be Back!”
The occasion for the protest was the MDNR’s biannual auction of hundreds of thousands of acres of public land to bidders interested in purchasing mineral rights leases for oil and gas drilling. The MDNR, charged with “manag[ing] state-owned mineral rights in a manner that protects and enhances the public trust,” has held leasing auctions for decades, but in the past five years, with increased industry speculation over Michigan’s shale layers and potential gas and oil production, the MDNR has leased out over one million acres through a process some Michiganders feel favors the industry (and the money it brings to the table) over the public.
The October 24 auction saw mineral rights for over 193,000 acres of state land in 22 counties put up for bid. And the protesters—college students, middle-aged Michigan residents alarmed that the right to extract minerals and water from the land around their homes and communities was about to be handed over to the oil and gas industry—were hoping to stop the auction and the quiet spread of horizontal hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) across “Pure Michigan,” as the state’s tourism department calls it.
Kevin Heatley is a restoration ecologist from Pennsylvania who lives on the Marcellus Shale, a gas-rich shale “play” about a mile below the surface of parts of Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York that has been extensively fracked. Heatley was at the auction last week and understands protesters’ concerns. “It only took [the natural gas industry] four to five years to fundamentally change Pennsylvania. And they use the same playbook everywhere they go.” With the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality’s current map of frack wells showing 40 permits issued (over half of which are on state land) and another 15 applications pending, Heatley predicts that “the whole lower peninsula is going to be under the drill” if the industry has its way.
The industry has a friend in Michigan’s GOP-controlled House. In April, the Natural Gas Subcommittee released a report recommending that the state lease all of its remaining public land—5.3 million acres of mineral rights—and encouraging fracking and carbon dioxide injection to boost extraction. Bemoaning the fact that the MDNR currently administers “only 14,136 oil and gas leases,” the report called for “lease or lose” legislation that would “effectively force the state to lease all mineral interests not currently leased.”
Public opposition to the auctioning off of state land for oil and gas drilling began building momentum at last May’s auction, when the state offered mineral rights to 108,000 acres, including Barry and Oakland County recreation areas that locals expected the MDNR to protect. As bidders walked into the building to register, protesters drummed and chanted; later they banged on the auction room windows as specific parks went up for bid. In the wake of that auction, several action groups formed, including the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan. (Full disclosure: I worked on the Committee’s summer signature drive to get a fracking ban on the November 2012 ballot; I’ve also shared research and writing with anti-fracking education groups, such as Ban Michigan Fracking, that are working with the Committee to gather the 322,600 signatures needed to get a ban on the 2014 ballot.)
Last week’s protest was organized by Central Michigan University students Chloe Gleichman, Alysha McClain and Mariah Urueta, who formed Citizens Against Drilling on Public Land (CADPL) after attending the May auction. Frustrated by the MDNR’s lack of accountability, they drafted a petition urging MDNR Director Keith Creagh “to put our citizen’s welfare and environmental health as a top priority and cease oil and gas lease auctions on state land.” They collected 3,300 signatures and 13 nonprofit endorsements, and, with help from Michigan’s Food & Water Watch, delivered those signatures to a September 13 public comment session of the Natural Resources Commission. When Creagh announced that the October auction would go forward despite opposition, CADPL called on the coalition of individuals and grassroots groups to join the protest.
Inside the auction room at 9:00 a.m., after some initial disruptors had been removed, 10 or 12 armed MDNR conservation officers kept watch as protesters quieted and sat down. Signs posted between the public seating and the bidder’s area set the rules: “[T]here is no opportunity for public comment. Only the auctioneer and registered bidders are authorized to participate or speak.” But as bidding began, protesters continued to disrupt the proceedings, and within minutes a dozen had been evicted, including several who hollered out “Stolen!” during the auctioneer’s first few pronouncements that bidders had “won” acreage. Those making audible comments were turned over to Lansing police officers who recorded each protester’s name and address and evicted them from the building, warning that they would be arrested if they returned.
Within an hour, nearly half of the room had been evicted. As Allegan County bidding drew to a close, Kathy Chiaravalli, a human resources consultant who lives on Cass Lake in Oakland County, called out, “Why are we selling the right for them to poison us for pennies?” Chiaravalli was one of several people who registered to bid at the May auction, hoping to keep at least some land out of the hands of the oil and gas industry, but she realized early on that “bidding didn’t work. No matter what, we’d be outbid.” She’s been researching fracking from an economic perspective, trying to work with the governor’s office to raise the minimum bid. “At $10 per acre,” she said, “we’re subsidizing the industry.” As she was escorted out, she reiterated: “Billions in gas profits. Pennies for Michigan. Drink benzene!”
By the time the auction ended at 3:00 p.m., over 12,000 acres of the Allegan State Forest, several Kent County parks, and what seemed to be all of Ogemaw County’s public land had been leased. Forty protesters had been evicted and seven arrested, including three people who dove past the ropes that separated bidders from observers just before the auction began, in an attempt to lock themselves to the auction podium or the bidders’ tables.
Now, activist groups are looking ahead. The newly formed Michigan Land Air Water Defense (MiLAWD), working with Michigan environmental attorney Jim Olson, is seeking to nullify the results of the October and May auctions on the grounds that the MDNR has failed to uphold the public trust and to use its own regulations to protect state game, recreation, and other specialty designated areas. Meanwhile, the founders of CADPL, pleased by the banner drops, the direct action and the disruptions, are looking forward to keeping the solidarity and the momentum going. The next event, sponsored by MiLAWD, CADPL, Flow for Water, and Food & Water Watch, is a November 12 Michigan Fractivism workshop in Allegan that will feature sessions on legal issues, organizing, and using the media to promote awareness.
The fractivists’ hope is to increase public awareness and participation. Corinne Turner, a Barry county resident and one of the many protestors at both auctions, says of the May experience, “What struck me to my core as we marched and shouted in the lobby of Constitution Hall, was that we were in the people’s house, and they were downstairs auctioning off the people’s land. It was obvious that if more people knew about it, they’d be there too.”
The Indefinite Detention of the Progressive Voter
This article by Sam Husseini is re-posted from CounterPunch.
Earlier this year President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law. It allows for the indefinite detention without trial for any U.S. citizen deemed to be a terrorist or an accessory to terrorism.
Some might have thought that there would be wide-spread revolt among people who voted for Obama against legalized indefinite detention. And there was some protest, mostly led by Chris Hedges (who did not vote for Obama), with some legal victories against the law.
But the political success seems to have come from the law itself — in favor of Obama. Instead of provoking a revolt, the result seems to be this:
Obama is in effect telling his supporters: “You better support me more, because I just signed this law saying the president of the U.S. can detain anyone he wants. Now, do you want me to have this power, or do you want Mitt Romney to have this power?”
And so, perversely, Obama by signing a law most of his supporters almost certainly didn’t want, has actually ensured a greater grip on them. He has in effect indefinitely detained them.
Solving a problem in a positive way strengthens the citizenry. Avoiding doing so fosters a continual servitude upon the benevolence of corrupt power.
Similar effects are produced by targeting specific “constituencies”. Consider:
By allegedly deferring final decision on the XL pipeline, environmentalists concerned with climate disruption are further compelled to back Obama — with no assurance on the issues they presumably care about. But Obama benefits in a sense since this threat of the pipeline is real — people who care about this issue feel desperate, needing to stop Romney and minimize long term activism that could propel the emergence of the Green Party or another challenge to the mainstream.
Similarly, rather than resolving the standoff with Iran, keeping “all options on the table” — the Obama administration maintains the threat of war at a simmer while assured that “Romney is worse.”
Because “Obamacare” did not create a new structure, as Medicare and Social Security did, it is largely reversible, so, limited as it was, whatever benefits come from it are largely dependent on Obama winning the election.
This extends to dealings with foreign officials as well. The Financial Times recently reported: “Barack Obama has pleaded with Russia’s president for ‘space’ to deal with the issue of missile defense, saying he would have greater ‘flexibility’ after the 2012 U.S. election.”
After Obama stated that he personally favors gay marriage, gay pundit Dan Savage wrote: “Gay people better get out there and support the president. If he loses in November, we’ll be blamed.” What a cowering stance. This is a world were “constituencies” view themselves as such, not as citizens — and also, where they are made to work for the politician, not the other way around. Politicians thus are not “public servants” as they frequently depict themselves, but as lords that serfs are made to defend lest another “lord” who is worse prevail.
Similar patterns exist on a host of issues from military spending, to immigration, and a related dynamic happens with the Republican Party.
The entire structure of political support, of lesser evilism, of operating continuously out of fear, not only stifles dreaming, but the fixation on survival comes at the cost of actually living.
New Media We Recommend
Below is a list of new materials that we have read/watched in recent weeks. The comments are not a “review” of the material, instead sort of an endorsement of ideas and investigations that can provide solid analysis and even inspiration in the struggle for change. All these items are available at The Bloom Collective, so check them out and stimulate your mind.
Capitalism: A Structural Genocide, by Garry Leech – This new book by Garry Leech is an important contribution, not only to the growing body of anti-capitalist literature, but to our collective understanding of how millions are people die unnecessarily because of the structural violence that is inherent in capitalism. Leech makes the case about the inherent structural violence and structural genocide of capitalism by looking at numerous case studies, such as Mexico after NAFTA, neo-liberalism in India, disease and pharmaceutical companies in Sub-Saharan Africa and global climate change. In addition, Leech looks at the hegemonic role of the US education system, the media and the non-profit industrial complex. Capitalism: A Structural Genocide is well written and a powerful into illuminating own understanding of an economic system that is brutal, pathological and must be dismantled.
Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism, by Richard Wolff – In his sequel to Capitalism Hits the Fan, Richard Wolff gives us another gem on understanding the structural problems of capitalism. This new book from Haymarket Books provides a strong critique of capitalism, particularly with the author’s investigation of the free market through history. Wolff not only points of the inherent anti-democratic nature of free market capitalism, he demonstrates that the evolving forms of State Capitalism in the US have only served to prop up the market as a means of avoid social revolution. Wolff looks at the crisis after the 1929 Stock Market crash and the more recent economic disaster from 2007/2008. What makes this book useful beyond the critique, is Wolff’s writing style, which is extremely accessible. The only shortcoming of the book is that he doesn’t spend enough time hashing out what he refers to as Worker Self-Direct Enterprises (WSDEs). He contrasts what WSDEs are with the anti-democratic nature of capitalist employees, but he could have made his argument stronger by providing more concrete examples of where and how these work. Despite this shortcoming, Democracy at Work is still worth reading.
Autobiography of a Blue-eyed Devil: My Life and Times in a Racist, Imperialist Society, by Inga Muscio – In her widely anticipated follow-up to Cunt: A Declaration of Independence, controversial author Inga Muscio asserts that the history we learn in school and throughout life is, in fact, a marketing brand developed by white men who maintain the right to spin their ideologies as hard facts. Muscio draws insight from personal experience, tackling a wide array of topics, from white normativity to gentrification to US foreign policy, with dissention and unflinching self-awareness. Beautifully written, with passion and delightful prose. Highly recommended.
Earth at Risk (DVD) – This 4 DVD collection is based on a recent conference featuring some of the best environmental voices in North America, which hosted a conference to talk about developing a culture of resistance to industrial capitalism and modern civilization. The format of each video is that Derrick Jensen facilitates a conversation with people who address different aspects of resisting and dismantling the system that is killing the planet. The conversations include environmental activist such as the amazing Indian writer Arundhati Roy, the environmental lawyer Thomas Linzey, Native American activist Waziyatawin, radical cartoonist Stephanie McMillan, and more. Each DVD provides a wealth of information and ideas for radical change. Highly recommended for those who believe that direct action is necessary for the future of all life.
Insurgent artist Josh MacPhee speaks at GVSU on art and resistance
Last night, GVSU hosted artist Josh MacPhee, with the international arts cooperative known as Just Seeds.
Josh identifies as a printmaker, but he said that his work and that of the collective is more about collecting people’s culture, particularly cultures of resistance.
He told the audience of mostly students and faculty that he wanted to talk about 5 projects the cooperative has been involved in, all of which deal with history. But before he discusses these project, MacPhee says that he had an interest in art from very early on, especially as a means of telling a story. He showed the audience a slide of a drawing he did at 6 of dinosaurs. He also told those in attendance that he was involved in punk rock, which because of its political nature, also influenced the evolution of his interest in doing radical art.
The Just Seeds Cooperative has produced two books, with two more in the works, books that are collections of international political artwork. The most recent volume Signal: 02, that we included in our recommended reading section, is a fabulous selection of international political art, which includes art from the 1968 Mexican student movement that was brutally repressed.
MacPhee then shifted to talking about the history-themed projects he mentioned in his opening remarks. One of those projects was called Resourced, dealing with the environment and resource extraction. While doing this project there was a campaign to bring a pipeline in with liquefied gas, which led to other prints being made. Just after this there was a large climate change summit in Cancun, where lots of their work was shown/used.
He then talked about the Quebec student movement, which was in part a response to the government’s attempt to increase student tuition. Massive protests broke out and the students made all kinds of images and used them for posters, signs, banners and put them in windows.
A third project that MacPhee mentioned was the Celebrate People’s History Project. This project was designed to both investigate and communicate the rich history of activism in particularly communities, a history, which has often been suppressed. MacPhee says about 60 of them have already been created, but many more are in the works. He said that the idea was to get them up on the street and add an e-mail addresses on the poster, so people could respond and give input. MacPhee says they get responses both positive and critical, but either way it has generated lots of conversation about this forgotten or suppressed history.
MacPhee then discussed the project they called United Victorian Workers. This was a project to reclaim the suppressed history about the radical labor organizing that was taking place over 100 years ago in one town. The group used street theater and gave out worker newspapers and buttons as a means to educate people about what organized workers did in those days. Here is a video of the project:
Another project MacPhee highlighted was called Spectres of Liberty. This is a multi-media project to make history visible, particularly the history of anti-slavery resistance that has been suppressed in the city of Troy. Ironically, Troy is supposed to be the hometown of the mythical character of Uncle Sam. Here is a video of one of those projects entitled The Ghosts of Liberty Street Church:
MacPhee also talked about a project called Interference Archive, which evolved out of their experience of dealing with archivists, who too often were unwilling to grant access to material created by activists in the past or were unwilling to allow such archived material come alive again in projects that people were working on. Their project was to create an archive space with materials available for anyone, so people can not only look at material, but use it again. They also use the space for creating new work, screenings, critiques, hosting exhibition and creating/displaying zines.
The last project that MacPhee presented dealt with the decades long struggle against the use of nuclear power. In this project there was an effort to connect the nuclear disaster at Three Mile Island in 1979 in Pennsylvania to what has happen at the Fukushima plant in Japan. Josh talked about how so many Hollywood movies are about The Apocalypse, which isually is presented as happening quite abruptly, but it was his contention, based on what is happening in Japan, that the Apocalypse happens slowly and we get to watch it. MacPhee said there is a massive movement in Japan against the nuke plant, where every week at least 50,000 people are protesting and using art as a form of resistance. MacPhee showed us a print he did that used the culturally iconic image of the Hollywood symbol in California and replaced it with the word Fukushima. MacPhee did this, waste from the nuclear disaster in Japan are now washing up on shore in California.
Increase in Chemical Industry campaign contributions connected to the rise of Fracking
Determined to block efforts to strengthen the 36-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act, chemical interests have invested $375 million since 2005 to elect and influence industry-friendly political leaders, Common Cause said in a report released today.
“The dimensions of chemical industry spending documented in this study, ‘Toxic Spending,’ are staggering,” said James Browning, Common Cause’s regional director for state operations and a principal author of the report. “By following the money, we see how and why the industry has been so successful in blocking attempts to strengthen the Toxic Substances Control Act.”
The report provides us with several important pieces of information; 1) how much money the chemical industry is spending to influence policy and elections, 2) which candidates and members of Congress are the recipients of this money and 3) the relationship between the increase in chemical company financial contributions at a time when fracking is exploding across the country.
Since 2005, the Chemical Industry has spent about $375 million in either lobbying or campaign contributions in order to influence policy, particularly to fight the Toxic Substance Control Act.
The recipients of the Chemical Industry’s contributions are from all over the country as you can see from this first chart.
In addition to funding candidates, the Chemical Industry has been spending lots of money to produce political ads for candidates. For example, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the American Chemistry Council has spent more than $200,000 to convince voters to reelect House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R).
The American Chemistry Council is the trade association representing the Chemical Industry, which includes roughly 150 companies involved in manufacturing and marketing chemicals. In this second chart, you can see how much money the Chemical Industry has spent on political advertising in 2012, which includes data on Michigan Representatives Fred Upton and Dave Camp.
Lastly, the increase in Chemical Industry spending on elections is in part due to the escalation in drilling for natural gas through the method known as fracking. Obtaining gas through fracking requires large amounts of “fracking fluid”—a mixture of dozens of chemicals whose effects on groundwater quality are still being studied by the EPA. Many states now require disclosure of the 
chemicals used in fracking but grant exemptions for chemicals that companies deem to be proprietary information, or “trade secrets.”
According to the Common Cause report, “Natural gas obtained from fracking will rise from 16 percent of all U.S. natural gas production in 2009 to 45 percent by 2035, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.12, 13 And after gas is removed from the ground, it can be sent to a chemical plant to help make more complicated chemicals that end up in consumer products.”
Here is a clear example of how corporate interests are interconnected, with the chemical industry connected to the oil & gas industry. This is important to understand if grassroots movements are going to defeat the power of these industries and prevent further environmental devastation and negative consequences to human health.
Five Easy Post-Election Predictions
This article by Shamus Cooke is re-posted from CounterPunch.
It’s true that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have many political differences. But they also agree on many essential policies; enough to make the next four years easily predictable, no matter who wins. Here are five predictions based on the most important shared beliefs of the two candidates:
1) The war on unions will continue. The Republicans are explicitly anti-union, while the Democrats are pro-union in words, but anti-union in practice. Obama’s much touted Race to the Top national education policy directly targets the heart of the teacher’s unions — the most powerful union in the country — by attacking seniority rights and restricting wages and benefits.
Also, Democratic and Republican governors on a state by state basis aim to either carve giant concessions from public employees, or take away their rights as unionists altogether — the lesser evil policy of demanding concessions (Democrats) is but one step from ending collective bargaining (Republicans).
As the recession grinds on, this bi-partisan anti-union policy will intensify, no matter who is president. The aim of this anti-union policy is to lower wages for all workers, since unions artificially skew the labor market to the benefit of workers in general; attacking the unions is thus an attack on all workers, organized or not, so that corporations can regain “profitability” by having their labor costs lowered.
2) The war on the environment will continue. Both parties treat the environment like they do organized labor. The Republicans openly degrade it and the Democrats make pro-environment statements while practicing the opposite. Whoever wins will continue to pander to Big Coal, and they will continue to advocate for dangerous arctic and Gulf oil drilling, wreak havoc by shale “natural gas” drilling, build the cross continental Keystone pipeline, while continuing to do little or nothing to build the absolutely necessary alternative energy infrastructure that would provide jobs and hope for humanity against climate change. Obama and Romney refuse to take the necessary actions to address the climate crisis because doing so would harm the profits of the big corporate polluters. Neither presidential candidates will do so much as begin an honest public discussion about the problem, ensuring that other countries will follow suit, to the peril of all of us.
3) Wall Street will reign supreme. During the debates it was made clear that no further action against Wall Street was necessary. But the banks are bigger under Obama than they were under Bush, which means they are still “too big to fail,” ensuring future bailouts paid by taxpayers. Federal Reserve policy is not controversial for either Republicans or Democrats: historic low interest rates combined with printing massive amounts of additional money — called “quantitative easing” — have both served the profits of Wall Street banks quite well, while everyone else sees their wages and benefits cut. Loans to working people are no easier to come by, while the banks and corporations are literally sitting on trillions of dollars of reserves in cash.
4) Post election national austerity cuts. The national deficit is the result of bank bailouts, foreign wars, and decades of continually lowering taxes for the rich and corporations. Obama and Romney both ignore these facts, and favor “trigger cuts” — massive cuts in jobs and social programs that would go into effect if Republicans and Democrats can’t agree on how many trillions of dollars of cuts to make (Obama’s proposed deficit cutting plan would make 4 $trillion in cuts; Paul Ryan wants 6 $trillion.)
And while Obama has made quite a bit of noise about “taxing the rich” to help fill the deficit gap, the same promises were made last election and amounted to naught when he extended Bush’s tax cuts for the rich. Taxing the rich is the only alternative to making cuts, since working people have so little left to tax. Instead, Obama is using the deficit to justify massive cuts to Medicare, public education, unemployment insurance, and likely Social Security and other programs. The Obama/Romney “rift” over the deficit is, in reality, a polite discussion of how best to slash and burn social programs, while differences are exaggerated for the sake of their election campaigns.
5) Foreign wars will continue. Listening to Obama and Romney debate foreign war was very much a Pepsi/Coke style debate. Both candidates love Israel, hate Iran and Syria, lie about a “time table” for Afghanistan (no serious foreign policy pundit believes the U.S. is leaving Afghanistan in 2014). Both are for continued drone bombings of Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia which are obvious war crimes, while both candidates hypocritically accuse Syria of “human rights violations.” In short, both candidates argue over how best to push the Middle East and North Africa to the brink of regional war, without being blamed for it.
Ultimately, there do exist differences in social policy between President Obama and Mitt Romney. The above policies, however, will deeply affect all working people in the United States. The country is not in a typical recession. Most economists agree that, at best, the U.S. economy can expect a “lost decade” of economic stagnation — at worst, a double dip recession/depression.
The above policies are shaped with this worst case scenario in mind, with the understanding that for capitalism to re-stabilize itself, a “new normal” is needed that shifts the power in the U.S. even more towards the banks and corporations, who must be completely unrestrained by labor, environmental and other regulations to ruthlessly chase profit, to the detriment of us all.
Thus, the Democrats and Republicans have the same “big picture” agenda that all working people should find abhorrent, since corporate gains will come at our expense. Once workers feel compelled to organize themselves to put up a fight, as the Chicago teachers did, all illusions in the Democrats will begin to fade, as people see with their own eyes the Democrats not only refusing to help them but actively opposing them, just as they did to the teachers in Chicago. Developments like this will allow a real movement to emerge that can challenge the two-party corporate dominated agenda. Until labor and community groups can unite on a widespread basis in independent action against the above bi-partisan agenda, we’ll be forever dragged into rooting for one of two candidates, neither of who have our basic interests in mind.
Michigan companies and influence peddling in the 2012 election
We hear every day how much money influences politics, but more often than not the specifics of that dynamic doesn’t reach most voters.
For instance, when was the last time you read a story in one of the major local newspapers or saw a story on one of the commercial TV stations about which Michigan companies were buying influence in the 2012 elections?
It is rare to see those kinds of stories, even though it is critical information to how the electoral process actually functions in this country. So lets take a look at some of the larger Michigan companies and which federal candidates have been the recipients of their money.
Let’s start with energy companies. DTE is a major player in Michigan and they are not shy about financing political campaigns. According to Open Secrets, DTE has contributed $646,380 to candidates in 2012. The top recipients of their contributions are Sen. Debbie Stabenow $54,940, Rep. John Dingell $20,800 and Rep. Fred Upton $20,000.
Another big energy company in Michigan is Consumers Energy, also known as CMS Energy. In 2012, CMS Energy has contributed $228,653 to candidates for federal office. The top recipient of campaign money from CMS Energy is Rep. Candice Miller $27,350, followed by Rep. Tim Walberg $17,500 and Sen. Debbie Stabenow $15,050.
How about the Auto Industry? One cannot talk about Michigan businesses and not talk about the car companies. General Motors has contributed $485,709 to candidates in 2012. President Barack Obama leads all recipients with $58,123, followed by Mitt Romney with $28,815, Rep. Dave Camp $26,000 and Sen. Debbie Stabenow $19,150.
The Ford Motor Company has contributed almost double what GM has, with $906,938. As of the last campaign finance deadline, Ford had contributed $48,285 to Mitt Romney, $36,253 to Barack Obama and $25,800 to Rep. John Dingell.
The Midland-based company, Dow Chemical, has contributed $1,149,332 to candidates in 2012. The largest recipients of the company’s money are Mitt Romney $59,648 and Barack Obama $20,340.
Closer to West Michigan we see no major changes with numerous companies contributing significant amounts to influence the outcome of the 2012 elections. Meijer has contributed $224,189 to candidates so far this year. The top recipient’s of Meijer political money are Mitt Romney $13,251, Pete Hoekstra $10,000, Bill Huizenga $7,000 and Barack Obama $5,500.
The office furniture manufacturer Steelcase has contributed $32,250 to candidates in 2012. $9,500 has gone to Barack Obama and $5,700 to Mitt Romney.
Amway has contributed more money to political candidates than any other company in West Michigan and has a long history of being a heavy hitter in political contributions. The Ada-based company has contributed $825,050 to candidates so far in 2012. The top recipient of Amway money in the 2012 elections is Mitt Romney $46.750, followed by Pete Hoekstra $31,300, then Justin Amash $28,500 and Bill Huizenga at $26,000.
For the most part, Michigan companies spread their money out to both major political parties, which tells us that they want access and influence no matter who wins.
Bankrolling Climate Disruption
This article by Rainforest Action Network is re-posted from Ecowatch.
A number of major banks, including Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, invest in the acceleration of climate change each year by committing billions to polluting energy industries like coal, according to a report published yesterday by Rainforest Action Network (RAN).
The report, Bankrolling Climate Disruption: The Impacts of the Banking Sector’s Financed Emissions, finds that major banks have failed to reduce investment in carbon-intensive companies at a time of global climate chaos. The report also demonstrates that major banks have failed to properly measure their carbon footprint, despite the availability of comprehensive guidelines enabling them to do so.
“Rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have begun to disrupt the global climate, triggering extreme weather events around the globe,” said Ben Collins, research and policy campaigner for RAN. “To address this growing climate crisis, the global economy must rapidly transition to low-carbon energy sources that can power our future.”
While the transition could pose challenges for the banking sector, which hold financial relationships to some of the most polluting industries like coal, the report offers guidance on both measuring and reducing emissions.
“Banks will need to shift financing from fossil fuel-based power sources to low-carbon energy infrastructure for our communities and the climate,” Collins continued. “One way of doing that is by measuring the climate impact of investments and committing to reduction targets for financed emissions, now.”
RAN’s report draws attention to the chasm between the relatively modest climate impact of the banking sector’s physical operations and that of the energy and mining companies it finances. According to the report, financed emissions—the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated by investments in fossil fuels—increase the magnitude of carbon output of the world’s major banks. The report points out that, while banks have adopted policies to address the pollution from their offices and branches, they fail to measure or reduce the emissions induced by loans, investments, and other financial services of fossil fuel companies.
The report cites JPMorgan Chase as an example, highlighting the disparity between its ambitious goal of reducing its GHG emissions to 80 percent of 2005 levels by 2012, and its relationship with Duke Energy, which in 2010 was one of the largest carbon emitters in the US electric power sector.
“The climate footprint of energy financing activities is estimated to be 100 times larger than those that banks emit through operations,” said Amanda Starbuck, RAN’s energy and finance campaign director. “The time has come for banks to address the global impacts of doing business with fossil fuel industries and come clean on their commitments.”
The report also points to the fact that despite the “reputational and financial risks [associated with financing dirty energy], the world’s largest banks have yet to measure the greenhouse gas emissions induced by their investing and financing relationships.” The emergence of tools for measuring financed emissions, including the Greenhouse Gas Protocol can provide a reliable method for banks to quantify and manage financed emissions.
Among the report’s recommendations are that—in order to “reduce and disclose their financed emissions,” banks should “support broadening the GHG Protocol’s disclosure guidelines to measure the full extent of a bank’s exposure to climate risk from its lending, underwriting and investing activities, and disclose comprehensive financed emissions data and commit to financed emissions reduction targets of at least 3.9 percent per year.”
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 