Emma Goldman, 1910:
... Anarchism is the great liberator of man from the phantoms that have held him captive; it is the arbiter and pacifier of the two forces for individual and social harmony. To accomplish that unity, Anarchism has declared war on the pernicious influences which have so far prevented the harmonious blending of individual and social instincts, the individual and society.
Religion, the dominion of the human mind; Property, the dominion of human needs; and Government, the dominion of human conduct, represent the stronghold of man's enslavement and all the horrors it entails. Religion! How it dominates man's mind, how it humiliates and degrades his soul. God is everything, man is nothing, says religion. But out of that nothing God has created a kingdom so despotic, so tyrannical, so cruel, so terribly exacting that naught but gloom and tears and blood have ruled the world since gods began. Anarchism rouses man to rebellion against this black monster. Break your mental fetters, says Anarchism to man, for not until you think and judge for yourself will you get rid of the dominion of darkness, the greatest obstacle to all progress.
Property, the dominion of man's needs, the denial of the right to satisfy his needs. Time was when property claimed a divine right, when it came to man with the same refrain, even as religion, "Sacrifice! Abnegate! Submit!" The spirit of Anarchism has lifted man from his prostrate position. He now stands erect, with his face toward the light. He has learned to see the insatiable, devouring, devastating nature of property, and he is preparing to strike the monster dead.
"Property is robbery," said the great French Anarchist Proudhon. Yes, but without risk and danger to the robber. Monopolizing the accumulated efforts of man, property has robbed him of his birthright, and has turned him loose a pauper and an outcast. Property has not even the time-worn excuse that man does not create enough to satisfy all needs. The A B C student of economics knows that the productivity of labor within the last few decades far exceeds normal demand. But what are normal demands to an abnormal institution? The only demand that property recognizes is its own gluttonous appetite for greater wealth, because wealth means power; the power to subdue, to crush, to exploit, the power to enslave, to outrage, to degrade. America is particularly boastful of her great power, her enormous national wealth. Poor America, of what avail is all her wealth, if the individuals comprising the nation are wretchedly poor? If they live in squalor, in filth, in crime, with hope and joy gone, a homeless, soulless army of human prey. ...
Such free display of human energy being possible only under complete individual and social freedom, Anarchism directs its forces against the third and greatest foe of all social equality; namely, the State, organized authority, or statutory law,–the dominion of human conduct.
Just as religion has fettered the human mind, and as property, or the monopoly of things, has subdued and stifled man's needs, so has the State enslaved his spirit, dictating every phase of conduct. "All government in essence," says Emerson, "is tyranny." It matters not whether it is government by divine right or majority rule. In every instance its aim is the absolute subordination of the individual.
Referring to the American government, the greatest American Anarchist, David Thoreau, said: "Government, what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instance losing its integrity; it has not the vitality and force of a single living man. Law never made man a whit more just; and by means of their respect for it, even the well disposed are daily made agents of injustice."
Indeed, the keynote of government is injustice. With the arrogance and self-sufficiency of the King who could do no wrong, governments ordain, judge, condemn, and punish the most insignificant offenses, while maintaining themselves by the greatest of all offenses, the annihilation of individual liberty. Thus Ouida is right when she maintains that "the State only aims at instilling those qualities in its public by which its demands are obeyed, and its exchequer is filled. Its highest attainment is the reduction of mankind to clockwork. In its atmosphere all those finer and more delicate liberties, which require treatment and spacious expansion, inevitably dry up and perish. The State requires a taxpaying machine in which there is no hitch, an exchequer in which there is never a deficit, and a public, monotonous, obedient, colorless, spiritless, moving humbly like a flock of sheep along a straight high road between two walls."
Yet even a flock of sheep would resist the chicanery of the State, if it were not for the corruptive, tyrannical, and oppressive methods it employs to serve its purposes. Therefore Bakunin repudiates the State as synonymous with the surrender of the liberty of the individual or small minorities,–the destruction of social relationship, the curtailment, or complete denial even, of life itself, for its own aggrandizement. The State is the altar of political freedom and, like the religious altar, it is maintained for the purpose of human sacrifice.
In fact, there is hardly a modern thinker who does not agree that government, organized authority, or the State, is necessary only to maintain or protect property and monopoly. It has proven efficient in that function only. ...
The most absurd apology for authority and law is that they serve to diminish crime. Aside from the fact that the State is itself the greatest criminal, breaking every written and natural law, stealing in the form of taxes, killing in the form of war and capital punishment, it has come to an absolute standstill in coping with crime. It has failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the horrible scourge of its own creation.
Crime is naught but misdirected energy. So long as every institution of today, economic, political, social, and moral, conspires to misdirect human energy into wrong channels; so long as most people are out of place doing the things they hate to do, living a life they loathe to live, crime will be inevitable, and all the laws on the statutes can only increase, but never do away with, crime. What does society, as it exists today, know of the process of despair, the poverty, the horrors, the fearful struggle the human soul must pass on its way to crime and degradation. ...
But what about human nature? Can it be changed? And if not, will it endure under Anarchism?
Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name! Every fool, from king to policeman, from the flatheaded parson to the visionless dabbler in science, presumes to speak authoritatively of human nature. The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature. Yet, how can any one speak of it today, with every soul in a prison, with every heart fettered, wounded, and maimed?
John Burroughs has stated that experimental study of animals in captivity is absolutely useless. Their character, their habits, their appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from their soil in field and forest. With human nature caged in a narrow space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its potentialities?
Freedom, expansion, opportunity, and, above all, peace and repose, alone can teach us the real dominant factors of human nature and all its wonderful possibilities.
Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. Anarchism stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real social wealth; an order that will guarantee to every human being free access to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life, according to individual desires, tastes, and inclinations. ...
[click here for complete essay]
human rights, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query anarchism. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query anarchism. Sort by date Show all posts
March 8, 2011
August 28, 2004
Anarchism and Violence
"The Jurassic, the Spanish, and the Italian federation and sections of the International Working Men's association, as also the French, the German and the American Anarchist groups, were for the next years the chief centres of Anarchist thought and propaganda. They refrained from any participation in parliamentary politics and always kept in close contact with the labour organizations. However, in the second half of the 1880s and the early 1890s, when the influence of the Anarchists began to be felt in strikes, in May-day demonstrations, where they promoted the idea of a general strike for an eight-hour day, and in the antimilitarist propaganda in the army, violent prosecutions were directed against them, especially in the Latin countries (including physical torture in the Barcelona castle and the United States (the execution of four Chicago Anarchists in 1887 [for being part of a protest meeting on May 4, 1886, in Haymarket Square against the murder of several workers, and wounding of many more, by police responding to a strike at the McCormick Harvester factory -- the meeting (already seen to be peaceful by the mayor) was ordered dispersed by the police chief and 180 of his armed officers, when a bomb was thrown, killing 6 policemen and wounding others]). Against these prosecutions the Anarchists retaliated by acts of violence which in their turn were followed by more executions from above and new acts of revenge from below. This created in the general public the impression that violence is the substance of Anarchism, a view repudiated by its supporters, who hold that in reality violence is resorted to by all parties in proportion as their open action is obstructed by repression, and exceptional laws render them outlaws."
-- Peter Kropotkin, from "Anarchism," Encyclopedia Britannica
This ought to be considered by the authorities in New York this week as they do all they can to intimidate and prevent lawful protest during the Republican Party convention.
December 5, 2010
The conspiracy against us
Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul this unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of statesmanship.
[as quoted in an earlier draft ("State and Terrorist Conspiracies") of the essay "Conspiracy as Governance" (click here)]
Also see: "Wikileaks, Julian Assange & Modern Anarchist Praxis":
Most people could probably not name very many anarchists -- historical, contemporary, or even fictional. A few might cite artists like George Orwell or Leo Tolstoy, and fewer still will be aware of prominent historical anarchists like Emma Goldman or Peter Kropotkin. The historical impact of anarchist practice has largely been glossed over in the curriculum of government run, and compulsory, public schools. People generally aren't aware of anarchists fighting for the first labor rights in America or giving the first public talks on birth control. People are unaware that it was the anarchists who brought about the Russian revolution which was subsequently derailed by the Bolsheviks. People are largely unaware of historical anarchist movements in Spain, the Ukraine, and elsewhere. As for contemporaries, most people might only be able to name Noam Chomsky as an anarchist (and that is probably something of a misnomer).
But now, in the headlines of all the world's newspapers, on the lips of all the television pundits, all over the internet, and in the running for Time magazine's "Person of the Year," we have Julian Assange. One may argue about whether or not he precisely fits into the definition of what an anarchist is, and some dyed-in-the-wool anarchists will perhaps turn up their noses at the suggestion, but Julian Assange is engaged in anarchist acts and has presented governments around the world with damning attacks against their credibility and legitimacy.
He is one of the founders, and the public face, of Wikileaks (which publicly leaks damning internal documents from governments and corporations from around the world). With that tool he has thereby presented one of the biggest contemporary challenges to the continuation of state power. In theory, by the nature and design of the Wikileaks project, no national authorities with any degree of power are safe from exposure and subsequent public scrutiny. If that isn't a threat to corporatism and centralized governing power, nothing is. And while that alone isn't enough to make Assange an anarchist, the Wikileaks organization is intentionally designed to exist outside, and in spite of, the control of all nation states. Furthermore, in his own words, "leaking is basically an anarchist act." His organization, and his personal actions, are overtly in support of anarchist acts! At the very least, his tireless devotion to freedom of speech, and his intense scrutiny of governing bodies, is anarchistic at its core -- because most modern governments and major corporations could arguably not exist if people were fully aware of what the leaders of those institutions were actually doing. ...
Earlier in this essay was mentioned the historical impact of anarchist ideals and practice. That praxis cuts across many of the differences that modern states and figures of authority have used to divide the masses. This is because the common person (regardless of race, religion, or creed) does not wish for wars, or prisons, or opulence in the face of poverty. But those in power require these elements to be in place so that they can maintain their control over the various populations.
Consequently, false ideas of racial, religious, and national inequality are instilled and maintained by the governing institutions. At their core, however, most people around the world value anarchistic ideals. Even the masses of religiously-minded people are not usually at odds with the principles of anarchism. The Mahatma Gandhi was a Hindu who identified himself as an anarchist. The Christian ideal of Jesus Christ is fundamentally anarchist in his earthly habits. Lao Tzu (author of the Tao Te Ching and originator of Taoism), practically made a religion of anarchism. And the list of anarchistic saints could surely go on across many other cultures and religions.
One needn't totally agree with the pacifism of those spiritual anarchists to recognize that their anarchistic ideals resonate with many people across most cultures of the world. The point is... many people already value anarchistic ideals but are nevertheless controlled and manipulated by people who have polar opposite values. And it may not be the pacifism of the aforementioned religious figures that enthralls people but, rather, their sense of basic justice. That's why archetypes like Robin Hood, for example, are also held in high regard. And, when it comes down to it, all of humanity descended from, in the not-so-distant past, relatively egalitarian and peaceful primitive tribes. The majority of humanity has the same underlying values, buried in the very needs of our existence, but we have been manipulated, domesticated, and made subservient to those who do not have our best interests at heart. ...
— U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt
[as quoted in an earlier draft ("State and Terrorist Conspiracies") of the essay "Conspiracy as Governance" (click here)]
Also see: "Wikileaks, Julian Assange & Modern Anarchist Praxis":
Most people could probably not name very many anarchists -- historical, contemporary, or even fictional. A few might cite artists like George Orwell or Leo Tolstoy, and fewer still will be aware of prominent historical anarchists like Emma Goldman or Peter Kropotkin. The historical impact of anarchist practice has largely been glossed over in the curriculum of government run, and compulsory, public schools. People generally aren't aware of anarchists fighting for the first labor rights in America or giving the first public talks on birth control. People are unaware that it was the anarchists who brought about the Russian revolution which was subsequently derailed by the Bolsheviks. People are largely unaware of historical anarchist movements in Spain, the Ukraine, and elsewhere. As for contemporaries, most people might only be able to name Noam Chomsky as an anarchist (and that is probably something of a misnomer).
But now, in the headlines of all the world's newspapers, on the lips of all the television pundits, all over the internet, and in the running for Time magazine's "Person of the Year," we have Julian Assange. One may argue about whether or not he precisely fits into the definition of what an anarchist is, and some dyed-in-the-wool anarchists will perhaps turn up their noses at the suggestion, but Julian Assange is engaged in anarchist acts and has presented governments around the world with damning attacks against their credibility and legitimacy.
He is one of the founders, and the public face, of Wikileaks (which publicly leaks damning internal documents from governments and corporations from around the world). With that tool he has thereby presented one of the biggest contemporary challenges to the continuation of state power. In theory, by the nature and design of the Wikileaks project, no national authorities with any degree of power are safe from exposure and subsequent public scrutiny. If that isn't a threat to corporatism and centralized governing power, nothing is. And while that alone isn't enough to make Assange an anarchist, the Wikileaks organization is intentionally designed to exist outside, and in spite of, the control of all nation states. Furthermore, in his own words, "leaking is basically an anarchist act." His organization, and his personal actions, are overtly in support of anarchist acts! At the very least, his tireless devotion to freedom of speech, and his intense scrutiny of governing bodies, is anarchistic at its core -- because most modern governments and major corporations could arguably not exist if people were fully aware of what the leaders of those institutions were actually doing. ...
Earlier in this essay was mentioned the historical impact of anarchist ideals and practice. That praxis cuts across many of the differences that modern states and figures of authority have used to divide the masses. This is because the common person (regardless of race, religion, or creed) does not wish for wars, or prisons, or opulence in the face of poverty. But those in power require these elements to be in place so that they can maintain their control over the various populations.
Consequently, false ideas of racial, religious, and national inequality are instilled and maintained by the governing institutions. At their core, however, most people around the world value anarchistic ideals. Even the masses of religiously-minded people are not usually at odds with the principles of anarchism. The Mahatma Gandhi was a Hindu who identified himself as an anarchist. The Christian ideal of Jesus Christ is fundamentally anarchist in his earthly habits. Lao Tzu (author of the Tao Te Ching and originator of Taoism), practically made a religion of anarchism. And the list of anarchistic saints could surely go on across many other cultures and religions.
One needn't totally agree with the pacifism of those spiritual anarchists to recognize that their anarchistic ideals resonate with many people across most cultures of the world. The point is... many people already value anarchistic ideals but are nevertheless controlled and manipulated by people who have polar opposite values. And it may not be the pacifism of the aforementioned religious figures that enthralls people but, rather, their sense of basic justice. That's why archetypes like Robin Hood, for example, are also held in high regard. And, when it comes down to it, all of humanity descended from, in the not-so-distant past, relatively egalitarian and peaceful primitive tribes. The majority of humanity has the same underlying values, buried in the very needs of our existence, but we have been manipulated, domesticated, and made subservient to those who do not have our best interests at heart. ...
September 21, 2011
Thought for the day: left vs. right
"Industrial wind [for example] is not a partisan issue. It is big energy–funded power politics against the people. Both right and left support wind. And both right and left are against it."
Left/right divisions as played out in the U.S. are a charade allowing the real struggle to wither and die.
The true "right" of institutional control and exploitation is allowed to continue, because its victims — for whom the true "left" fights — have been empowered to choose sides in a cartoon version of their struggle. Thus the victims of the true right fight amongst themselves: one group of victims, calling themselves the left or liberal, fighting the other group of victims as their oppressors, and the other group of victims, calling themselves the right or conservative, fighting the first group as threatening the small advantage granted them by the true power.
We are fighting over crumbs and the occasional sop.
The robber barons only laugh, when they should be cowering in shame and fear.
anarchism, ecoanarchism, anarchosyndicalism
(Thanks to windturbinesyndrome.com and commenter Pam Supign for stimulating these thoughts on the anachronism of a green fist wielding an industrial wind turbine)
Update: Pam Supign has written to me that the editor of windturbinesyndrome.com has removed her last comment responding to the editor's reply to her first comments (and they're on the same side!, illustrating the point of the present post). Apparently experienced with the "Big Brother" censorship of comment forums, she had saved what she wrote, which she shares with us here:
The clenched fist originally and primarily and still represents solidarity of the people against oppressing power. It began with trade unionism. Communism ideally is also about uniting labor against its exploiters. It is about standing strong against violence, not wreaking it. Your equation of communism and anarchism with violence is no more valid than damning the Protestant Reformation or any fight for greater freedom because it sometimes forced people to fight back against those whose control was threatened.Update 2: Now the editor of windturbinesyndrome.com has removed Pam's first comments as well and added an apologia to his post to explain his fear of leftist solidarity. He has also edited, so that its pop origin isn't as obvious, the T-shirt graphic with which he raised the specter of Stalinist greens. The post remains ridiculous. And the one comment remaining to elaborate the green/nazi/commie plot makes it even more so.
The clenched fist is an apt symbol for the fight against big wind. It no more implies violence than saying "United we stand."
That's why the outrage of that conference is the misuse of the fist image in the name of industrial development, not the evidence of a connection with a pop T-shirt version of the Comintern.
Unfortunately, we don't have the editor's reply to it, but Pam has provide us with her original comment:
First, so-called “deep greens”, such as members of Earth First, are against industrial wind. The symbolism highlighted here is more incoherent than revealing. Foster’s own bio notes that “we have reached a turning point in human relations with the earth, and that any attempt to solve our problems merely by technological, industrial or free market means, divorced from fundamental social relations, cannot succeed”. Industrial wind epitomizes the dream of technological/industrial “alternatives” saving those doomed relations.Update 3: Now Pam tells me that our friend the editor of windturbinesyndrome.com (which work I otherwise completely support, by the way, which is why I read the "Big Brother" post there — and Pam Supign's comments — in the first place) has added a picture of a dragon eating its own tail as representing violence. Well, Pam had to comment, and again is forced to offer her words here, because now she is apparently completely banned from windturbinesyndrome.com:
Rather than raise the flag of demonization and fear, it should be clear that greens such as these are the “useful idiots” of predatory capitalism when it comes to climate change — again, for believing, against their own philosophies, that big new technology will be fundamentally different from big old technology just because its marketers sell it as green. Many greens are not so taken by the centralized energy “solutions” perpetuated by big wind and are appalled by the license it enjoys to invade otherwise protected land [and flout existing environmental laws].
Finally, the raised fist image was an early symbol of labor solidarity, particularly used by the IWW union (the Wobblies). It was used by the German Communist Party, which was brutally suppressed by the Nazis. During the Spanish Civil War, it was known as the anti-fascist salute. It has also stood for black power in the struggle for civil rights and for rights of workers, native Americans, and women, among others. Interestingly (I’m getting all this from Wikipedia), the fist here is the left hand, which began use in opposition to Stalinism (the Big Brother specter evoked in this post).
A green raised left fist is the symbol of Earth First, who oppose industrial wind, so the outrage should be for this conference’s offensive appropriation of a venerable symbol to imply support of such non-green non-progressive energy development.
Plus, as far as I can determine, the symbol of the Soviet Red Army was a red star, never a fist. The image used here — with its silly use of the Cyrillic letter "ya" for an "R" — is completely modern and meaningless. It's a T-shirt design.
More abuse of symbols! The ouroboros is a symbol of eternal recreation, not violence!Update 4: In an earlier post, our windturbinesyndrome.com editor (Calvin Luther Martin, PhD) calls for ruckus-raising tent cities to publicize the harm done by industrial wind turbines, and suggests referring to municipal bureaucrats who facilitate and ignore that harm as "criminals — committing torture against their neighbors". And here's the clip art he uses to illustrate the idea of protest:
And, looking at just the first page of indexed posts, there's this, used as the thumbnail of at least three posts at windturbinesyndrome.com, Québecois are angry!, Australians are angry!, and Ontarians are angry!:
Are you scared yet?
August 29, 2012
Post Cold War
Thought for the day:
The victor of "The Cold War" between totalitarian communism and democratic capitalism has proved to be totalitarian capitalism.
During the cold war, each system fought within itself as well as against each other: totalitarianism versus communist ideals, democratic ideals versus capitalism. Each system defined itself to a great extent by the other. They attempted to reconcile the opposite pulls within their own systems: totalitarians justifying themselves as essential to communism, capitalists as essential to democracy. But still, because of the presence of the other system, the ideals, communism and democracy, had meaning.
After the collapse of both systems, the worst elements of both systems were free to discard those ideals, and totalitarian capitalism has become the dominant world system.
Broadly speaking, only in South America does there remain hope for something better: a democratic socialism.
anarchism, ecoanarchism, anarchosyndicalism
April 16, 2012
Arbeit macht nicht frei
“My wife has the occasion, as you know, to campaign on her own and also with me, and she reports to me regularly that the issue women care about most is the economy and getting good jobs for their kids and for themselves. They are concerned about gasoline prices, the cost of getting to and from work, taking their kids to school or to practice and so forth after school. That is what women care about in this country and my vision is to get America working again.”
That's what Mitt Romney said in a speech on April 4 to the Newspaper Association of America.
Here's what Hilary Rosen said on CNN on April 11:
"What you have is Mitt Romney running around the country saying, 'Well, you know my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues and when I listen to my wife that's what I'm hearing.' Guess what? His wife has actually never worked a day in her life. She's never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school, and why do we worry about their future."
The rest is history, with most people revealing that they have thrown away their humanity in picking what political team they root for.
Mitt Romney and Hilary Rosen are saying the same thing. They deny the other's right to say it, because they are both expressing false concern. And both are wielding their comments as a weapon against the other.
What this whole stand-off illustrates is the false divide in U.S. politics.
Hilary Rosen is a right-wing corporate flack, famous for leading the Recording Industry Association of America's campaign against people sharing the music they've bought with friends. She still advises Obama on the issue. After quitting that job, for a short time she was interim director of Human Rights Campaign, which awarded their 2011 Workplace Equality Innovation Award to Goldman Sachs. While working at the Huffington Post, she was outed as a consultant for BP.
Ann Romney is married to one of the predatory capitalists that Rosen serves. They may not have anything in common in personal style and beliefs, but they both serve the same master.
At least Ann Romney only raised a few children and supported her husband on behalf of that system, whereas Hilary Rosen has actively contributed to its evil. Her dismissal of Ann Romney appears to be because the latter has only listened to women on the campaign trail, without a history of actively working to maintain their economic misery.
Many "liberal" commenters on this issue have expressed a hatred for women who choose to stay at home as a betrayal of feminism, as if feminism is only about a few women getting to the top of the exploitative pyramid and everyone else being forced to toil in "service" jobs as somehow liberating.
Rosen's strong support of Obama and the Democratic Party is clear evidence that the only difference between the parties is that one is slightly more tolerant of gays.
That's certainly a good to be counted, but it does nothing for the 99% of the people, women and men, gay and otherwise, who are not striving to triumph in a cut-throat system. It's good that Goldman Sachs extends benefits to gay partners, but that hardly makes it a benign force in the world. Human rights are rather a broader issue.
What is work for? Actively raising a family should not be the privilege only of the rich. Is either Mitt or Hilary suggesting an economic system that makes raising a family easier for everyone (as in many European countries)? They are both against women, against men, against families, against humanity.
Arbeit macht nicht frei. Work does not make you free.
human rights, anarchism, ecoanarchism, anarchosyndicalism
February 11, 2011
Go Egypt!
(Omar Sharif as Ernesto Guevara in Che! (1969))
human rights, anarchism, ecoanarchism, anarchosyndicalism
July 17, 2012
Diggers 2012: towards a new Magna Carta
George Monbiot writes in The Guardian:
To be young in the post-industrial nations today is to be excluded. Excluded from the comforts enjoyed by preceding generations; excluded from jobs; excluded from hopes of a better world; excluded from self-ownership.
Those with degrees are owned by the banks before they leave college. Housing benefit is being choked off. Landlords now demand rents so high that only those with the better jobs can pay. Work has been sliced up and outsourced into a series of mindless repetitive tasks, whose practitioners are interchangeable. Through globalization and standardization, through unemployment and the erosion of collective bargaining and employment laws, big business now asserts a control over its workforce almost unprecedented in the age of universal suffrage.
The promise the old hold out to the young is a lifetime of rent, debt and insecurity.
diggers2012.wordpress.com
human rights, anarchism, ecoanarchism
To be young in the post-industrial nations today is to be excluded. Excluded from the comforts enjoyed by preceding generations; excluded from jobs; excluded from hopes of a better world; excluded from self-ownership.
Those with degrees are owned by the banks before they leave college. Housing benefit is being choked off. Landlords now demand rents so high that only those with the better jobs can pay. Work has been sliced up and outsourced into a series of mindless repetitive tasks, whose practitioners are interchangeable. Through globalization and standardization, through unemployment and the erosion of collective bargaining and employment laws, big business now asserts a control over its workforce almost unprecedented in the age of universal suffrage.
The promise the old hold out to the young is a lifetime of rent, debt and insecurity.
diggers2012.wordpress.com
human rights, anarchism, ecoanarchism
May 29, 2012
Mr Dooley spurns the church and state
From “Dooleysprudence” by James Joyce (1916):
...
Who is the funny fellow who declines to go to church
Since pope and priest and parson left the poor man in the lurch
And taught their flocks the only way to save all human souls
Was piercing human bodies through with dumdum bulletholes?
...
Who is the tranquil gentleman who won’t salute the State
Or serve Nebuchadnezzar or proletariat
But thinks that every son of man has quite enough to do
To paddle down the stream of life his personal canoe?
anarchism
...
Who is the funny fellow who declines to go to church
Since pope and priest and parson left the poor man in the lurch
And taught their flocks the only way to save all human souls
Was piercing human bodies through with dumdum bulletholes?
...
Who is the tranquil gentleman who won’t salute the State
Or serve Nebuchadnezzar or proletariat
But thinks that every son of man has quite enough to do
To paddle down the stream of life his personal canoe?
anarchism
September 17, 2012
Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif v. Barack Obama
The Guantánamo prisoner, Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, who died on Sept. 8 had been ordered freed in 2010 by the District Court for the District of Columbia, which granted the writ of habeas corpus.
Not accepting the ruling, the Obama administration appealed that order and won in 2011, condemning Latif to detention without end without trial.
Although many news reports have mentioned Henry H. Kennedy, Jr., the District Judge who ordered Latif freed, and some David Tatel, the Circuit Judge who dissented from the order vacating Kennedy's ruling, almost none named the Circuit Judges who condemned Latif to continued detention without cause and ultimately to death.
They are Janice Rogers Brown and Karen LeCraft Henderson. Henderson even wrote an additional concurring opinion to express even more contempt for law and life than Brown's ruling opinion.
Brown and Henderson should thus be remembered for their role in Obama's relentless trashing of civil rights.
human rights, anarchism
Not accepting the ruling, the Obama administration appealed that order and won in 2011, condemning Latif to detention without end without trial.
Although many news reports have mentioned Henry H. Kennedy, Jr., the District Judge who ordered Latif freed, and some David Tatel, the Circuit Judge who dissented from the order vacating Kennedy's ruling, almost none named the Circuit Judges who condemned Latif to continued detention without cause and ultimately to death.
They are Janice Rogers Brown and Karen LeCraft Henderson. Henderson even wrote an additional concurring opinion to express even more contempt for law and life than Brown's ruling opinion.
Brown and Henderson should thus be remembered for their role in Obama's relentless trashing of civil rights.
human rights, anarchism
December 6, 2009
Trim costs of wind power: Don't build 'em
Kate Galbraith writes in today's "Green, Inc." column for the New York Times that offshore wind is moving along: first example, Denmark's starting the operation of Horns Rev 2, the world’s largest offshore wind farm, in September. That project represents the first addition of wind capacity in Denmark since 2003. In November, it had already ceased operation due to problems with the transmission connections -- which Galbraith forgot to mention.
Horns Rev I, a.k.a Nysted, had expensive problems, too. Every single nacelle (with blade assembly) had to be brought back ashore to replace all of the transformers and generators. Less than 3 years later, it was shut down again because of transformer problems.
Clearly, offshore wind is even more of a boondoggle than onshore wind.
It is also clear that the imperative to build it up is stronger still -- witness the growing number of ads (and even video games) featuring wind turbines featuring wind turbines. This goes hand in hand with corporate support for a cap-and-trade "solution" to carbon emissions: Wind is the absolver. As long as those blades are spinning, someone gets to continue emitting carbon. Build enough of them, and nobody has to change anything about their energy use. With wind on board, coal and oil are clean and green! Even though the reality is that wind is just more of the same making things worse -- for people, for nature, for the economy.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms
environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, anarchism, ecoanarchism, anarchosyndicalism
Horns Rev I, a.k.a Nysted, had expensive problems, too. Every single nacelle (with blade assembly) had to be brought back ashore to replace all of the transformers and generators. Less than 3 years later, it was shut down again because of transformer problems.
Clearly, offshore wind is even more of a boondoggle than onshore wind.
It is also clear that the imperative to build it up is stronger still -- witness the growing number of ads (and even video games) featuring wind turbines featuring wind turbines. This goes hand in hand with corporate support for a cap-and-trade "solution" to carbon emissions: Wind is the absolver. As long as those blades are spinning, someone gets to continue emitting carbon. Build enough of them, and nobody has to change anything about their energy use. With wind on board, coal and oil are clean and green! Even though the reality is that wind is just more of the same making things worse -- for people, for nature, for the economy.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms
environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, anarchism, ecoanarchism, anarchosyndicalism
January 4, 2012
November 16, 2009
The enemy of the good
There is an excellent essay at Counterpunch today by Alan Nasser: "Obama's Flawed Case Against Single Payer".
Similar to what he notes about Obama, it seems to be a motto for the sometimes slightly progressive neoliberal politicians in Vermont that "We can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good [so let's not even consider it, or for that matter whether what I'm going along with actually is any good]." It's one big antidemocratic thumbing of their collective nose and most people just nod at this signature wisdom.
And so by dismissing actual good as too "perfect", as irresponsible madness, all that is usually left is quite a bit less than good.
And so we have health insurance reform from our Congress and President: the same lousy system, only more punitive.
human rights, Vermont, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism
Similar to what he notes about Obama, it seems to be a motto for the sometimes slightly progressive neoliberal politicians in Vermont that "We can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good [so let's not even consider it, or for that matter whether what I'm going along with actually is any good]." It's one big antidemocratic thumbing of their collective nose and most people just nod at this signature wisdom.
And so by dismissing actual good as too "perfect", as irresponsible madness, all that is usually left is quite a bit less than good.
And so we have health insurance reform from our Congress and President: the same lousy system, only more punitive.
human rights, Vermont, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism
January 18, 2007
Against the day
It went on for a month. Those who had taken it for a cosmic sign cringed beneath the sky each nightfall, imagining ever more extravagant disasters. Others, for whom orange did not seem an appropriately apocalyptic shade, sat outdoors on public benches, reading calmly, growing used to the curious pallor. As nights went on and nothing happened and the phenomenon slowly faded to the accustomed deeper violets again, most had difficulty remembering the earlier rise of heart, the sense of overture and possibility, and went back once again to seeking only orgasm, hallucination, stupor, sleep, to fetch them through the night and prepare them against the day.
--Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day
tags: anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, Finnegans Wake
July 31, 2012
Thoughts on Americanism and Freedom
When I was growing up in Florida some decades ago, the state required an “Americanism versus Communism” course in 11th grade. “Communism” meant not any economic system, but rather the totalitarian Soviet Union, and “Americanism” presumably its opposite — not only in the means of working towards achieving the universal aspirations of human society, but also in what those aspirations might be. Mostly, of course, the intention was to define Communism as all bad and Americanism as all good. (Our teacher subverted the state’s intention by teaching us a lot of Russian history and about world power politics. She used the official course guide as a spur to commentary and analysis. Today, illustrating how much freedom has been lost with the ascendancy of capitalism, it is unlikely that she could have gotten away with that.)
Americanism is the premise that market capitalism is the best means of securing individual freedom. At its most crude level, it is the belief that everyone striving to maximize his or her own acquisition of wealth ensures the most equitable distribution of wealth. (And too bad if you have other interests than such striving and acquisition — that’s your choice — or if you lack the advantages of the already wealthy — that’s just a greater spur.) The belief has followed that capitalism is synonymous with freedom; and consequently, that any social structure that limits the liberty of capital is an enemy of freedom itself.
Yet by definition, capitalism is a system of hoarding, such that the success of one requires the diminished wealth of many. The imperatives of Americanism require an imperial program of conquest and exploitation both to prevent socialist sharing and to expand wealth.
As more of the world is forced to live by the terms of Americanism, however, it must keep more of its own wealth. American capital must turn on its own citizens to maintain the level of hoarding it expects. Capitalism becomes the enemy of freedom, and Americanism reveals itself as fascism — no longer pretending to benefit the many and redoubling the myth that a weakening of the power of capital is a threat to the liberty of all.
The lie of American democracy also is revealed. Dissent that challenges the myth of Americanism is viewed as not just subversive, but even treasonous: a rebellious act of war. As for an alternate vision of individual freedom, secured by a social system that equitably shares the common wealth, that does not allow one individual or group to hoard while others suffer a lack of food, shelter, leisure, medical care, education, and economic security — such a vision can not be allowed publicity. Its proponents must be vilified as terrorists, whose aim is no less than to bring down the American way of life (which is true, as far as Americanism is a barrier to freedom and not its guarantor).
Politics in the U.S.A. forbids a challenge to Americanism. Only a tinkering with the capitalist myth is allowed, an occasional crumb when the people clamor for bread. One party continues to work to expand Americanism throughout the world, and the other party works to reinforce the equation of unfettered capital and individual freedom. Liberalism is the tool of the former, religion the latter’s weapon. Both muster the energies of self-righteousness and fear which characterize their cynical politics. Hand in hand, they protect capital and strengthen its power against the needs of the people. War — at home as well as abroad — is the price the people must pay for the freedom of capital. The approved parties must either minimize or deny, or deny as currently impractical, the fact that every expansion of popular freedom has been by the limitation of capitalist power.
human rights, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism
February 2, 2007
Wind projected to produce 0.89% of U.S. electricity in 2030
According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) of the Dept. of Energy, in their Annual Energy Outlook 2007, wind produced 0.36% (14.6 billion kWh) of the total electricity (4,036 billion kWh) generated in the U.S. in 2005. Wind provided 0.05% of all of the energy consumed (only 99.95% to go!).
According to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) the installed wind capacity was 6,725 MW at the beginning of 2005 and 9,149 MW at the end, an average installed capacity for 2005 of 7,937 MW. If we divide the EIA-reported generation by the 8,760 hours in a year, we find that the average rate of production was only 21% of capacity.
The EIA generously projects that wind will produce 0.89% of the total electricity generated in 2030. This is 22% lower than their previous year's projection. Of course even that ignores the fact that other sources have to burn extra fuel in the effort of balancing wind's intermittent and highly variable infeed.
See the comments in this space about AWEA's recent announcement of wind's 27% growth in 2006 (from 0.36% "penetration" to perhaps 0.45%).
((((+))))
AWEA recently noted that the 2,454 MW of wind "capacity" added in 2006 cost "approximately $4 billion." That's $1.63 million per megawatt.
According to budding energy giant AES Corporation, in its annual "Wind Generation Review" (Dec. 11, 2006) from Ned Hall, vice president for renewable generation, capital costs of installing wind have risen to $1.75 million per megawatt.
But AES also points out that "U.S. equity structures" (i.e., the Production Tax Credit, 5-year double-declining balance accelerated depreciation, sale of renewable energy credits, and other federal, state, and local subsidies) "provide return of all capital and development fees within five years." Not, of course, to the taxpayers: rather a hefty and swift transfer of public funds to private accounts.
For no benefit, but only harm to the environment, wildlife, people, and communities.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, anarchism, ecoanarchism, animal rights
According to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) the installed wind capacity was 6,725 MW at the beginning of 2005 and 9,149 MW at the end, an average installed capacity for 2005 of 7,937 MW. If we divide the EIA-reported generation by the 8,760 hours in a year, we find that the average rate of production was only 21% of capacity.
The EIA generously projects that wind will produce 0.89% of the total electricity generated in 2030. This is 22% lower than their previous year's projection. Of course even that ignores the fact that other sources have to burn extra fuel in the effort of balancing wind's intermittent and highly variable infeed.
See the comments in this space about AWEA's recent announcement of wind's 27% growth in 2006 (from 0.36% "penetration" to perhaps 0.45%).
AWEA recently noted that the 2,454 MW of wind "capacity" added in 2006 cost "approximately $4 billion." That's $1.63 million per megawatt.
According to budding energy giant AES Corporation, in its annual "Wind Generation Review" (Dec. 11, 2006) from Ned Hall, vice president for renewable generation, capital costs of installing wind have risen to $1.75 million per megawatt.
But AES also points out that "U.S. equity structures" (i.e., the Production Tax Credit, 5-year double-declining balance accelerated depreciation, sale of renewable energy credits, and other federal, state, and local subsidies) "provide return of all capital and development fees within five years." Not, of course, to the taxpayers: rather a hefty and swift transfer of public funds to private accounts.
For no benefit, but only harm to the environment, wildlife, people, and communities.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, anarchism, ecoanarchism, animal rights
October 11, 2009
Folly dressed up as science
The Burlington Free Press describes the final presentations of "The Energy Project Vermont," a celebration of wind power by the ECHO museum and Burlington City Arts:
Second, if Don Quixote were nonetheless a proto-Luddite, then he has (like the English Luddites of Blake's time) been vindicated by the environmental and social devastation wrought by centralized industry, and his battle was not madness but prescience. To equate that with denial of the devastation thus foreseen therefore doesn't fly. It is Tailer who denies the devastation wrought by industrial windmills, and Don Quixote who is right to tilt against them.
Third, Tailer evokes angels only to denigrate them as mere icons. But so it must be with windmills. Their agency doesn't really exist. They serve only as symbols.
So let's get real. If large-scale wind actually worked, it wouldn't need all these twisted rationalizations to justify it. Tailer not only mocks Don Quixote and angels, he also makes a mockery of science.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, Vermont, anarchism, ecoanarchism, anarchosyndicalism
Bringing in the science behind wind power, Thomas Tailer, co-director of UVM's Engineering Institute, ... has worked in alternative energy and education since 1979. Tailer's passion for seeing engineering and environment at work together was clear throughout his presentation. ... Tailer said just as the iconic Quixote jousted windmills to fight the Industrial Revolution, people today are in denial of our changing climate and are fighting alternative energy sources. ... "The image of an angel is an icon, and to me the windmill is that kind of icon, an icon of a sustainable future for this planet."First, Miquel Cervantes published the first volume of his history of Don Quixote 1605 (the same year William Shakespeare produced King Lear), long before the industrial revolution. Tailer may be thinking of William Blake's "dark Satanic Mills" (preface to Milton, 1804).
Second, if Don Quixote were nonetheless a proto-Luddite, then he has (like the English Luddites of Blake's time) been vindicated by the environmental and social devastation wrought by centralized industry, and his battle was not madness but prescience. To equate that with denial of the devastation thus foreseen therefore doesn't fly. It is Tailer who denies the devastation wrought by industrial windmills, and Don Quixote who is right to tilt against them.
Third, Tailer evokes angels only to denigrate them as mere icons. But so it must be with windmills. Their agency doesn't really exist. They serve only as symbols.
So let's get real. If large-scale wind actually worked, it wouldn't need all these twisted rationalizations to justify it. Tailer not only mocks Don Quixote and angels, he also makes a mockery of science.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, Vermont, anarchism, ecoanarchism, anarchosyndicalism
December 30, 2006
"Enfeebled conscience"
Aware of the Other Vibe's growing reluctance to trust reports from out in the field, Foley, who usually was out there and thought he had a good grasp on things, at first resentful and after a while alarmed, had come to see little point these days in speaking up. The headquarters in Pearl Street seemed more and more like a moated castle and Scarsdale a ruler isolated in self-resonant fantasy, a light to his eyes these days that was not the same as that old, straightforward acquisitive gleam. The gleam was gone, as if Scarsdale had accumulated all the money he cared to and was now moving on in his biography to other matters, to action in the great world he thought he understood but -- even Foley could see -- was failing, maybe fatally, even to ask the right questions about anymore. Who could Foley go to with this?
Who indeed? He had at least brought himself to reckon up what the worst outcome might be, and it came out the same every time. It was nothing to recoil from, though it did take some getting used to -- maybe not massacre on the reckless, blood-happy scale of Bulgarians or Chinese, more, say, in the moderate American tradition of Massachusetts Bay or Utah, of righteous men who believed it was God they heard whispering in the most bitter patches of the night, and God help anybody who suggested otherwise. His own voices, which had never pretended to be other than whose they were, reminded Foley of his mission, to restrain the alternate Foley, doing business as Scarsdale Vibe, from escaping into the freedom of bloodletting unrestrained, the dark promise revealed to Americans during the Civil War, obeying since then its own terrible inertia, as the Republican victors kept after Plains Indians, strikers, Red immigrants, any who were not likely docile material for the mills of the newly empowered order.
"It is a fine edge here," the tycoon had hinted one day, "between killing just the one old Anarchist and taking out the whole cussèd family. I'm still not sure which I ought to do." ...
But a voice, unlike the others that spoke to Foley, had begun to speak and, once begun, persisted. "Some might call this corrupting youth. It wasn't enough to pay to have an enemy murdered, but he must corrupt the victim's children as well. You suffered through the Wilderness and at last, at Cold Harbor, lay between the lines three days, between the worlds, and this is what you were saved for? this mean, nervous, scheming servitude to an enfeebled conscience?"
Who indeed? He had at least brought himself to reckon up what the worst outcome might be, and it came out the same every time. It was nothing to recoil from, though it did take some getting used to -- maybe not massacre on the reckless, blood-happy scale of Bulgarians or Chinese, more, say, in the moderate American tradition of Massachusetts Bay or Utah, of righteous men who believed it was God they heard whispering in the most bitter patches of the night, and God help anybody who suggested otherwise. His own voices, which had never pretended to be other than whose they were, reminded Foley of his mission, to restrain the alternate Foley, doing business as Scarsdale Vibe, from escaping into the freedom of bloodletting unrestrained, the dark promise revealed to Americans during the Civil War, obeying since then its own terrible inertia, as the Republican victors kept after Plains Indians, strikers, Red immigrants, any who were not likely docile material for the mills of the newly empowered order.
"It is a fine edge here," the tycoon had hinted one day, "between killing just the one old Anarchist and taking out the whole cussèd family. I'm still not sure which I ought to do." ...
But a voice, unlike the others that spoke to Foley, had begun to speak and, once begun, persisted. "Some might call this corrupting youth. It wasn't enough to pay to have an enemy murdered, but he must corrupt the victim's children as well. You suffered through the Wilderness and at last, at Cold Harbor, lay between the lines three days, between the worlds, and this is what you were saved for? this mean, nervous, scheming servitude to an enfeebled conscience?"
--Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day
anarchism, anarchosyndicalism
January 30, 2014
Social aspects of wind energy development
“When people are talking about changing the way we harness and use energy, industrial wind instead entrenches a centralized and inefficient system. When people are talking about reducing the burning of fossil fuels, industrial wind entrenches the grid’s dependence on them. When people are talking about moderating the corporate control of society, industrial wind entrenches the worst of predatory and crony capitalism that works to move more public money into private hands, transfering the common wealth of the many into the pockets of a few without regard for human, societal, or environmental cost. Big wind operates much like — and is often firmly embedded in — the military-industrial-banking complex subverting democracy and fairness by making politics a stepping stone to private riches, with the frisson of riding a wave of green-technology utopianism. Only those who have sworn allegiance to their program are citizens of their country. The rest of us are only resources to exploit and barriers to overcome.”
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, , anarchism, ecoanarchism, anarchosyndicalism
—from Wind Energy Primer
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, , anarchism, ecoanarchism, anarchosyndicalism
May 30, 2007
The Green Masquerade
[excerpts -- click on title for complete interview at Counterpunch]
Alan Maass: Among a number of politicians, including Democrats, the concerns about global warming seem to have become an excuse for talk about resurrecting nuclear power.
Jeffrey St. Clair: That comes out of the Gore shop. Anyone who has the slightest familiarity with Gore's political biography will know that he's his father's son, and his father was one of the prime movers behind the Tennessee Valley Authority, behind nuclear power in Appalachia, and the Oak Ridge nuclear lab. Gore Junior was their congressional protector as a congressman and as a senator.
If you go back to Gore's book, Earth in the Balance, behind the scenes of that book is a cooling tower. That's Gore's solution to the global warming crisis -- a world that is clotted with nuclear power plants. If you look at his advisers on global warming while he was vice president, that was their message, too.
Those had been lean times for the nuclear power industry. I think that the Clinton administration could have sealed the nuclear power industry's fate in the U.S. if it had wanted to. But of course, it didn't. They sort of kept them on life support, with a lot of research funding and renewing all the protections.
So is there a renewed faith in nuclear power from the Democrats? Yes. And they now have a justification for it. If you scare yourself into believing that we're going to be having a runaway greenhouse effect, and the only way to stop it is to take immediate action in reducing the burning of fossil fuels, then you're going to be confronted with the argument that a proliferation of nuclear power plants is the fastest way to do that.
Alan Maass: Can you talk about the attitude of the environmental movement toward this corporate greenwashing?
Jeffrey St. Clair: The environmental movement made its deal with the devil at least a decade ago, when they essentially became neoliberal lobby shops. The idea was that if we can't defeat capitalism, if we can't change capitalism, then let's just give in and see if we can use some of the mechanics of the free market in order to tweak the damage done to the environment.
These kinds of seeds were sown in green groups in the early 1980s, but really reached an apogee in Clinton Times.
I don't even think the term greenwashing even applies any more. That was the industry response to the great environmental tragedies of the 1970s, and '80s -- Love Canal, Three Mile Island, Bhopal, the Exxon Valdez. But they don't have to do that any more, because essentially, corporations like BP and environmental groups like the World Wildlife Fund and the Environmental Defense Fund share the same basic mindset.
You can't distinguish between, for example, Ikea, one of the world's great predators of rain forests, and the World Wildlife Fund, which is in a joint venture with Ikea -- so Ikea gets a little panda stamp on the lumber cut from primary forests in Indonesia. So greenwashing seems to me to be very passé.
Environmental politics are largely controlled by the foundations -- they control what's discussed and what the major issues are. The foundations are shackled at the hip to the Democratic Party, and the dominant ones are all children of big oil companies. Pew, the Rockefeller Family Fund, W. Alton Jones -- their endowments were the fortunes of big oil.
I was talking to an environmentalist who said that if you want a grant from any of those foundations, you have to have global warming in your agenda.
Now, let's say you're working on fighting chemical companies in Cancer Alley. How do you work global warming into your agenda? Or if you're fighting factory trawlers, which are creating dead zones off the Pacific coast, how do you work global warming into that? But if you can't, then the money dries up.
What it creates is a kind of inchoate state of environmental politics, because I don't think you can build a mass political movement around global warming.
environment, environmentalism, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, ecoanarchism
Alan Maass: Among a number of politicians, including Democrats, the concerns about global warming seem to have become an excuse for talk about resurrecting nuclear power.
Jeffrey St. Clair: That comes out of the Gore shop. Anyone who has the slightest familiarity with Gore's political biography will know that he's his father's son, and his father was one of the prime movers behind the Tennessee Valley Authority, behind nuclear power in Appalachia, and the Oak Ridge nuclear lab. Gore Junior was their congressional protector as a congressman and as a senator.
If you go back to Gore's book, Earth in the Balance, behind the scenes of that book is a cooling tower. That's Gore's solution to the global warming crisis -- a world that is clotted with nuclear power plants. If you look at his advisers on global warming while he was vice president, that was their message, too.
Those had been lean times for the nuclear power industry. I think that the Clinton administration could have sealed the nuclear power industry's fate in the U.S. if it had wanted to. But of course, it didn't. They sort of kept them on life support, with a lot of research funding and renewing all the protections.
So is there a renewed faith in nuclear power from the Democrats? Yes. And they now have a justification for it. If you scare yourself into believing that we're going to be having a runaway greenhouse effect, and the only way to stop it is to take immediate action in reducing the burning of fossil fuels, then you're going to be confronted with the argument that a proliferation of nuclear power plants is the fastest way to do that.
Alan Maass: Can you talk about the attitude of the environmental movement toward this corporate greenwashing?
Jeffrey St. Clair: The environmental movement made its deal with the devil at least a decade ago, when they essentially became neoliberal lobby shops. The idea was that if we can't defeat capitalism, if we can't change capitalism, then let's just give in and see if we can use some of the mechanics of the free market in order to tweak the damage done to the environment.
These kinds of seeds were sown in green groups in the early 1980s, but really reached an apogee in Clinton Times.
I don't even think the term greenwashing even applies any more. That was the industry response to the great environmental tragedies of the 1970s, and '80s -- Love Canal, Three Mile Island, Bhopal, the Exxon Valdez. But they don't have to do that any more, because essentially, corporations like BP and environmental groups like the World Wildlife Fund and the Environmental Defense Fund share the same basic mindset.
You can't distinguish between, for example, Ikea, one of the world's great predators of rain forests, and the World Wildlife Fund, which is in a joint venture with Ikea -- so Ikea gets a little panda stamp on the lumber cut from primary forests in Indonesia. So greenwashing seems to me to be very passé.
Environmental politics are largely controlled by the foundations -- they control what's discussed and what the major issues are. The foundations are shackled at the hip to the Democratic Party, and the dominant ones are all children of big oil companies. Pew, the Rockefeller Family Fund, W. Alton Jones -- their endowments were the fortunes of big oil.
I was talking to an environmentalist who said that if you want a grant from any of those foundations, you have to have global warming in your agenda.
Now, let's say you're working on fighting chemical companies in Cancer Alley. How do you work global warming into your agenda? Or if you're fighting factory trawlers, which are creating dead zones off the Pacific coast, how do you work global warming into that? But if you can't, then the money dries up.
What it creates is a kind of inchoate state of environmental politics, because I don't think you can build a mass political movement around global warming.
environment, environmentalism, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, ecoanarchism
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