--Tim Robinson, Connemara: Listening to the Wind, 2006
(thanks to Angela Kelly of Country Guardian)
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query ecoanarchism. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query ecoanarchism. Sort by date Show all posts
April 25, 2007
"The walls of brass contract around us"
The wind-farming industry's mechanization of great tracts of countryside is a profound tragedy, whether or not it is necessitated by the onset of global warming. Like any other extractive industry, mining the wind produces spoil heaps; in them lie foregone landscapes of fenced-off hillsides, closed paths, culverted steams, plant life bulldozed aside. This is a sudden additional encroachment of the machine world on the natural world. Ever increasingly, the old, wild, weird places become inaccessible except to the imagination. And now the sea is not inviolable. The desert isle becomes a factory in which the wind itself, no longer the spirit of freedom, is condemned to drudge like Caliban. Experience and the imagination can no longer accompany one another on the voyage to Ogygia, and both suffer and decline, the latter starved of sensory detail, the former chilled by its own indifference.
May 28, 2007
Wind: corporate "environmentalism" at its worst
To Don Fitz, editor of Synthesis/Regeneration: A Magazine of Green Social Thought and writer of "Consume Like There's No Tomorrow":
The corporate enviro embrace of industrial-scale wind energy is not an exception but fits perfectly in your critique.
As the first section of the essay "A Problem With Wind" concludes, 'wind farms constitute an increase in energy supply, not a replacement. They do not reduce the costs -- environmental, economic, and political -- of other means of energy production. If wind towers do not reduce conventional power use, then their manufacture, transport, and construction only increases the use of dirty energy. The presence of "free and green" wind power may even give people license to use more energy.'
Wind is an intermittent, highly variable, and unpredictable source, so it either requires the building of new quick-response conventionally powered plants for back-up (such as the natural gas plant that would be built to support Delaware's planned off-shore wind facility and the diesel plant that Cape Wind's parent company would build to support that facility) or elaborate and manufacturing-intense storage systems, whose added inefficiencies would seriously cut into wind's already low output.
Since Enron set up the modern wind industry in the 1990s, its only success has been a massive transfer of public funds into private bank accounts.
Wind energy also requires huge amounts of space (60 acres per megawatt, according to the American Wind Energy Association) or clearing and road building on forested mountaintops.
With very rare exceptions, it also represents NIMBY predatory capitalism at its worst. In the U.S. and similar countries, the usual targets for sprawling industrial wind facilities are poor rural communities. Wind has become part of the current strife in Oaxaca, as the governor and president assist the Spanish energy giant Iberdrola in taking the lands of ejidatarios without consent and with very poor compensation. Their interest in erecting hundreds of giant wind turbines in the western hemisphere's most important migratory bird flyway is not to provide energy (which will be all but lost by the time it gets to where it might be needed) but to generate carbon "credits" for Spain.
Not only should big wind not be a focus at the expense of conservation, it should be rejected as a destructive boondoggle.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, anarchism, ecoanarchism
The corporate enviro embrace of industrial-scale wind energy is not an exception but fits perfectly in your critique.
As the first section of the essay "A Problem With Wind" concludes, 'wind farms constitute an increase in energy supply, not a replacement. They do not reduce the costs -- environmental, economic, and political -- of other means of energy production. If wind towers do not reduce conventional power use, then their manufacture, transport, and construction only increases the use of dirty energy. The presence of "free and green" wind power may even give people license to use more energy.'
Wind is an intermittent, highly variable, and unpredictable source, so it either requires the building of new quick-response conventionally powered plants for back-up (such as the natural gas plant that would be built to support Delaware's planned off-shore wind facility and the diesel plant that Cape Wind's parent company would build to support that facility) or elaborate and manufacturing-intense storage systems, whose added inefficiencies would seriously cut into wind's already low output.
Since Enron set up the modern wind industry in the 1990s, its only success has been a massive transfer of public funds into private bank accounts.
Wind energy also requires huge amounts of space (60 acres per megawatt, according to the American Wind Energy Association) or clearing and road building on forested mountaintops.
With very rare exceptions, it also represents NIMBY predatory capitalism at its worst. In the U.S. and similar countries, the usual targets for sprawling industrial wind facilities are poor rural communities. Wind has become part of the current strife in Oaxaca, as the governor and president assist the Spanish energy giant Iberdrola in taking the lands of ejidatarios without consent and with very poor compensation. Their interest in erecting hundreds of giant wind turbines in the western hemisphere's most important migratory bird flyway is not to provide energy (which will be all but lost by the time it gets to where it might be needed) but to generate carbon "credits" for Spain.
Not only should big wind not be a focus at the expense of conservation, it should be rejected as a destructive boondoggle.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, anarchism, ecoanarchism
December 19, 2006
When Animals Resist Their Exploitation
From "Kasatka, the Sea World Orca," by Jason Hribal:
Two weeks ago, an orca named Kasatka intentionally grabbed and pulled her trainer underwater twice-nearly killing him in the process. Kasatka is a performer for Sea World Adventure Park, San Diego. She is one of seven orca entertainers at the Southern California park. With operations in five other US locations, Sea World and Busch Gardens are owned by the Anheuser-Busch corporation. Indeed, as Susan Davis demonstrated in her Spectacular Nature (1997), these flagship zoological parks are corporate enterprises: for-profit businesses.
According to a park official, the Sea World orcas perform as many as 8 times per a day, 365 days a year. The Kasatka attack happened during the final daily show. As for the performances themselves, they are finely choreographed and composed of several acts. Each is highly complex in its routines and challenging in its stunts. These shows require skill, patience, labor, and hours of weekly practice. The orcas are, in every sense, performers and entertainers. ...
In order to see the world from Kasatka's perspective, three facts need to be considered. First, there are no recorded incidences of orcas "in the wild" attacking humans unprovoked. This is an institutional problem. Second, Kasatka and other performers have a long history of attacking trainers. Resistance in zoos and aquariums, in truth, is anything but unusual. Third, the zoological institutions themselves have to negotiate with their entertainers to extract labor and profit. Indeed, animal performers have agency, and zoos have always (privately, at least) acknowledged this. Therefore, the next time you hear about an orca attack, don't dismiss it from above: "Animals will be animals." But instead, look from below: "These creatures resist work, and can occasionally land a counterpunch or two of their own."
animal rights, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, ecoanarchism
Two weeks ago, an orca named Kasatka intentionally grabbed and pulled her trainer underwater twice-nearly killing him in the process. Kasatka is a performer for Sea World Adventure Park, San Diego. She is one of seven orca entertainers at the Southern California park. With operations in five other US locations, Sea World and Busch Gardens are owned by the Anheuser-Busch corporation. Indeed, as Susan Davis demonstrated in her Spectacular Nature (1997), these flagship zoological parks are corporate enterprises: for-profit businesses.
According to a park official, the Sea World orcas perform as many as 8 times per a day, 365 days a year. The Kasatka attack happened during the final daily show. As for the performances themselves, they are finely choreographed and composed of several acts. Each is highly complex in its routines and challenging in its stunts. These shows require skill, patience, labor, and hours of weekly practice. The orcas are, in every sense, performers and entertainers. ...
In order to see the world from Kasatka's perspective, three facts need to be considered. First, there are no recorded incidences of orcas "in the wild" attacking humans unprovoked. This is an institutional problem. Second, Kasatka and other performers have a long history of attacking trainers. Resistance in zoos and aquariums, in truth, is anything but unusual. Third, the zoological institutions themselves have to negotiate with their entertainers to extract labor and profit. Indeed, animal performers have agency, and zoos have always (privately, at least) acknowledged this. Therefore, the next time you hear about an orca attack, don't dismiss it from above: "Animals will be animals." But instead, look from below: "These creatures resist work, and can occasionally land a counterpunch or two of their own."
animal rights, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, ecoanarchism
November 9, 2012
COMPASSION IS SUSTAINABLE
Friday (Nov. 9) 1pm and Sat (Nov. 10) 12pm
Everyone knows about our beloved Bill and Lou by now, but they don’t all see the boys as special and deserving of sanctuary after all their years of hard work — and people want to eat them [actually they would probably be used for dog food, the college receiving more edible meat in return]. We are going to change that! Invite non-students too and be there Friday and Saturday.
Our new cheer: SAVE BILL AND LOU — IT’S THE RIGHT THING TO DO!
Only 3 main points — EASY:
— It’s the right thing to do!
— Save Bill and Lou from slaughter
— Give Bill and Lou to sanctuary.
Facebook event page.
Read Bill and Lou’s story here.
View Larger Map
View Larger Map
environment, environmentalism, animal rights, vegetarianism, Vermont, ecoanarchism
March 24, 2009
Social taboo to question leaders
Allegra Stratton writes in today's Guardian (U.K.):
The government's faith in the wind industry's sales brochures is bad enough. If they listened to people who have actually examined wind energy's record, they would not be in the hole they have dug for themselves. But like any sociopath, they blame the very people who are trying to save them, who, perhaps foolishly, have thought that an injection of reality into the debate is in the interest of all but in time have learned that the issue of wind power has and wants nothing to do with reality but only wishful thinking.
It is government's habit to let itself be bought and to persuade itself that it is serving the public good. And when the public doesn't buy it, it claims to be serving a "higher" good, such as spreading democracy (by squelching it at home!), otherwise saving the planet, or simply preventing something "even worse". Thus the government places itself amongst the angels and those who question it in the slimepits of hell. And democracy is dead. By the government's own definition, it is above dispute and no longer open to discussion with those who would tear down all that the government deems good and worthy, that is, the furthering of the interests of those who bought it.
Or, more simply, here's another idiot unable to defend his position with rational argument so instead using his political power to force it on people instead of letting democracy work. Who is harmed? The people (and the landscape and wildlife). Who benefits? One specific industry.
And the argument that it is necessary to save the planet from climate change? Please. Wind turbines require a huge industrial base, destroy huge swaths of countryside and mountaintops, and require continuous thermal-powered backup. They add to the problem!
Well, that's politics. A politics that has lost not just its bearing but its legitimacy.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, Vermont, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, ecoanarchism
Opposition to wind farms should become as socially unacceptable as failing to wear a seatbelt, Ed Miliband, the climate change secretary, has said. Speaking at a screening in London of the climate change documentary The Age of Stupid, Miliband said the government needed to be stronger in facing down local opposition to wind farms. He said: “The government needs to be saying, ‘It is socially unacceptable to be against wind turbines in your area — like not wearing your seatbelt or driving past a zebra crossing’.”We have always been at war against climate change.
The government's faith in the wind industry's sales brochures is bad enough. If they listened to people who have actually examined wind energy's record, they would not be in the hole they have dug for themselves. But like any sociopath, they blame the very people who are trying to save them, who, perhaps foolishly, have thought that an injection of reality into the debate is in the interest of all but in time have learned that the issue of wind power has and wants nothing to do with reality but only wishful thinking.
It is government's habit to let itself be bought and to persuade itself that it is serving the public good. And when the public doesn't buy it, it claims to be serving a "higher" good, such as spreading democracy (by squelching it at home!), otherwise saving the planet, or simply preventing something "even worse". Thus the government places itself amongst the angels and those who question it in the slimepits of hell. And democracy is dead. By the government's own definition, it is above dispute and no longer open to discussion with those who would tear down all that the government deems good and worthy, that is, the furthering of the interests of those who bought it.
Or, more simply, here's another idiot unable to defend his position with rational argument so instead using his political power to force it on people instead of letting democracy work. Who is harmed? The people (and the landscape and wildlife). Who benefits? One specific industry.
And the argument that it is necessary to save the planet from climate change? Please. Wind turbines require a huge industrial base, destroy huge swaths of countryside and mountaintops, and require continuous thermal-powered backup. They add to the problem!
Well, that's politics. A politics that has lost not just its bearing but its legitimacy.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, Vermont, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, ecoanarchism
October 23, 2012
Freaking Out!
Robin Beck of Moveon.org is "freaking out":
First, it's a close "race" because it's bogus. The "contest" is set up and reported (shaped) to be close so that real differences are not possible.
Second, it's close because the only difference is that one party and its candidate represents Wall Street and the Military with lip service (but not too much!) to so-called liberals and the other party and its candidate represents Wall Street and the Military with lip service to so-called conservatives). To win, each also has to pay lip service to the other group as well. That's what fighting for the center means. And that's why it's necessarily always "close". It is a system designed not to challenge the hegemony of Wall Street and the Military.
And relax, all of you who receive these Moveon.org or similar e-mails. They are fundraising devices, nothing more. Moveon.org is part of the whole machine that requires this "fight" for the center so that they can foment fear among "liberals" just as the tea party foments fear among "conservatives". Meanwhile, Bush expanded Clinton's security state and submission to the banksters, Obama expanded Bush's, and Romney would only expand Obama's.
The threat of fascism is real, but it is already here, it started in a concerted way 30 years ago with the election of Ronald Reagan, and it continued to grow without slowing under every Republican and Democratic administration, Congress, and Supreme Court since.
So relax about the election. It's a charade.
There's plenty of real stuff to freak out about.
anarchism, ecoanarchism, anarchosyndicalism
I'm freaking out. Despite President Obama and Vice President Biden dominating the past few debates, the race is still incredibly close. ... It's scary. And I'm not sleeping much any more. This whole election is coming down to which side can turn out the most voters. And the only thought that helps me fall asleep—rather than staying up worrying—is that I know I can count on MoveOn members like you, ——, to step up and help us win.Relax, Robin.
First, it's a close "race" because it's bogus. The "contest" is set up and reported (shaped) to be close so that real differences are not possible.
Second, it's close because the only difference is that one party and its candidate represents Wall Street and the Military with lip service (but not too much!) to so-called liberals and the other party and its candidate represents Wall Street and the Military with lip service to so-called conservatives). To win, each also has to pay lip service to the other group as well. That's what fighting for the center means. And that's why it's necessarily always "close". It is a system designed not to challenge the hegemony of Wall Street and the Military.
And relax, all of you who receive these Moveon.org or similar e-mails. They are fundraising devices, nothing more. Moveon.org is part of the whole machine that requires this "fight" for the center so that they can foment fear among "liberals" just as the tea party foments fear among "conservatives". Meanwhile, Bush expanded Clinton's security state and submission to the banksters, Obama expanded Bush's, and Romney would only expand Obama's.
The threat of fascism is real, but it is already here, it started in a concerted way 30 years ago with the election of Ronald Reagan, and it continued to grow without slowing under every Republican and Democratic administration, Congress, and Supreme Court since.
So relax about the election. It's a charade.
There's plenty of real stuff to freak out about.
anarchism, ecoanarchism, anarchosyndicalism
March 3, 2009
Wind energy executive gets elected to state legislature, pushes laws to benefit wind energy
The Feb. 26 St. Paul (Minn.) Legal Ledger included a profile of freshman state representative Andrew Falk:
The usual ethics problem for legislators is their becoming lobbyists for industries soon after steering laws to their benefit. Here we have a lobbyist becoming a legislator and promising to work for laws benefiting his company. Sheesh!
wind power, wind energy, anarchism, ecoanarchism
In 2005 he started his own wind-power company, Knight Energy, and has been a frequent presence at the Capitol in recent years lobbying for legislation supporting eco-friendly power sources. In part because of Falk’s advocacy work, his rural district has become something of an epicenter for the development of renewable energy sources, with wind farms and turbines dotting the west-central Minnesota prairie landscape. ... The freshman legislator from Murdock now expects to expand this work through his post as vice chair of the Energy Finance and Policy Division.There was no mention in the piece that Falk divested his stake in Knight Energy before becoming a lawmaker. As far as I could determine, Falk is still invested in Knight Energy.
The usual ethics problem for legislators is their becoming lobbyists for industries soon after steering laws to their benefit. Here we have a lobbyist becoming a legislator and promising to work for laws benefiting his company. Sheesh!
wind power, wind energy, anarchism, ecoanarchism
April 21, 2007
Corpse-eating at Seven Days
Suzanne "I want meat" Podhaizer, the food writer for Burlington weekly Seven Days, chose for this week's "Animal Issue" to highlight pasture-fed "beef."
While the rest of the newspaper looks at caring for, rescuing, and protecting animals both domestic and wild, Podhaizer explores the question of whether muscles cut out of dead cows who were not fattened on grain but grazed and exercised more naturally in pastures are indeed tastier.
Chip Morgan, owner of Wood Creek Farm Beef, "where the farmers process 400 head of Angus and Hereford cattle each year," sez: "We think that animals raised in a natural environment are healthier, happier and taste better."
According to Podhaizer, "Morgan describes Wood Creek as if it were a spa for steaks of the future." She irrelevantly notes that "the lucky animals get to enjoy views of the Adirondacks and Lake Champlain with their dinners." Perhaps she envied their happy lives, where "a healthy diet and lots of movement are key."
But what about being slaughtered and having her body parts drooled over and judged by other food writers? Podhaizer appears to have missed that part of the story. The Wood Creek Farm will be featured on next week's "Regeneration" show on VPT. I have a feeling they will not follow the whole process any more than Podhaizer did.
Although Morgan is to be commended for not polluting the land and waterways as much as he could, the end result is the same as on the filthiest feed lot. The animals are slaughtered (the "head" of "cattle" are "processed"). These intelligent animals are raised for a single cruel purpose: to be killed and their corpses rended and eaten.
Yet that crucial step to what Podhaizer finds so tasty is never described, let alone photographed or filmed, to enlighten readers and viewers.
tags: Vermont, ecoanarchism, animal rights, vegetarianism
While the rest of the newspaper looks at caring for, rescuing, and protecting animals both domestic and wild, Podhaizer explores the question of whether muscles cut out of dead cows who were not fattened on grain but grazed and exercised more naturally in pastures are indeed tastier.
Chip Morgan, owner of Wood Creek Farm Beef, "where the farmers process 400 head of Angus and Hereford cattle each year," sez: "We think that animals raised in a natural environment are healthier, happier and taste better."
According to Podhaizer, "Morgan describes Wood Creek as if it were a spa for steaks of the future." She irrelevantly notes that "the lucky animals get to enjoy views of the Adirondacks and Lake Champlain with their dinners." Perhaps she envied their happy lives, where "a healthy diet and lots of movement are key."
But what about being slaughtered and having her body parts drooled over and judged by other food writers? Podhaizer appears to have missed that part of the story. The Wood Creek Farm will be featured on next week's "Regeneration" show on VPT. I have a feeling they will not follow the whole process any more than Podhaizer did.
Although Morgan is to be commended for not polluting the land and waterways as much as he could, the end result is the same as on the filthiest feed lot. The animals are slaughtered (the "head" of "cattle" are "processed"). These intelligent animals are raised for a single cruel purpose: to be killed and their corpses rended and eaten.
Yet that crucial step to what Podhaizer finds so tasty is never described, let alone photographed or filmed, to enlighten readers and viewers.
tags: Vermont, ecoanarchism, animal rights, vegetarianism
March 20, 2009
The Age of Stupid
'Windfarm developer Piers Guy doesn't see wind energy as the magic bullet that will save the world from climate change. But he does think that, especially for a windy country like England, turbines are the "foot soldiers, the pioneers" of a more intelligent energy system based on massively reducing energy use. He believes that "out of sight, out of mind" energy production has led to us all becoming "consumerholics" and, therefore, "the more you can see the turbines the better".' (The people of the film 'The Age of Stupid' [click here])
There is so much illogic here that it is almost unassailable.
1. Wind energy will not save the world from climate change.
2. A more intelligent energy system will be based on reducing use.
3. The current system encourages excessive use because consumers don't see the blight of electricity production.
4. Filling the countryside with giant wind turbines will make consumers more conscious of electricity production.
5. Being more conscious of electricity production, consumers will use less.
There's a lot missing in the leap to the conclusion of point 5, but most importantly it implies that wind turbines are necessary to 'spread the blight', as it were, a program the justification of which relies on an assumption that seeing the blight of electricity production will cause consumers to use less energy.
This assumption, however, is not supported. If spreading the blight is the motive, consumers are hardly likely to conserve because they've been punished with a vandalized landscape. Or, if we assume that Piers Guy believes that wind turbines symbolize 'intelligent' energy and thereby would stand as inspiration for consumers, their presence would actually stand as license not to conserve -- because now the energy they use is 'smart'.
(All of this ignores the fact that it is not obscure knowledge that fossil fuel burning is an environmental scourge. By the logic here, we need to build more highways and coal plants precisely because we usually try to minimize their impacts. Thus there is a contradictory premise at the basis of this syllogism: People are ignorant of energy production, because they have worked to minimize its impacts.)
But anyhow, wind energy is not "the magic bullet that will save the world from climate change". So it's a sham, meant to destroy our landscapes (not to mention our lives and the lives of other animals) either to make us feel bad or to make us feel good -- but not actually changing anything for the better.
At best, the "consumerholic" will shift from rotgut to plonk (as sold by Messieur Guy).
The fact is, Piers Guy is a salesman who seems to have bought his own pitch and thus finds himself in a morass of twisted logic as he pretends (to himself, no less) that his interest is not simply to make money, that it is not his life alone that would be made better by energy sprawl in the form of giant wind turbines.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, ecoanarchism
There is so much illogic here that it is almost unassailable.
1. Wind energy will not save the world from climate change.
2. A more intelligent energy system will be based on reducing use.
3. The current system encourages excessive use because consumers don't see the blight of electricity production.
4. Filling the countryside with giant wind turbines will make consumers more conscious of electricity production.
5. Being more conscious of electricity production, consumers will use less.
There's a lot missing in the leap to the conclusion of point 5, but most importantly it implies that wind turbines are necessary to 'spread the blight', as it were, a program the justification of which relies on an assumption that seeing the blight of electricity production will cause consumers to use less energy.
This assumption, however, is not supported. If spreading the blight is the motive, consumers are hardly likely to conserve because they've been punished with a vandalized landscape. Or, if we assume that Piers Guy believes that wind turbines symbolize 'intelligent' energy and thereby would stand as inspiration for consumers, their presence would actually stand as license not to conserve -- because now the energy they use is 'smart'.
(All of this ignores the fact that it is not obscure knowledge that fossil fuel burning is an environmental scourge. By the logic here, we need to build more highways and coal plants precisely because we usually try to minimize their impacts. Thus there is a contradictory premise at the basis of this syllogism: People are ignorant of energy production, because they have worked to minimize its impacts.)
But anyhow, wind energy is not "the magic bullet that will save the world from climate change". So it's a sham, meant to destroy our landscapes (not to mention our lives and the lives of other animals) either to make us feel bad or to make us feel good -- but not actually changing anything for the better.
At best, the "consumerholic" will shift from rotgut to plonk (as sold by Messieur Guy).
The fact is, Piers Guy is a salesman who seems to have bought his own pitch and thus finds himself in a morass of twisted logic as he pretends (to himself, no less) that his interest is not simply to make money, that it is not his life alone that would be made better by energy sprawl in the form of giant wind turbines.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, ecoanarchism
February 26, 2011
Final Statement to the Court
Animal liberationist Walter Bond received the minimum sentence allowed by a Colorado court, 5 years prison and 3 years probation, after pleading guilty to burning the Sheepskin Factory in Glendale.
I'm here today because I burnt down the Sheepskin Factory in Glendale, CO, a business that sells pelts, furs and other dead animal skins. I know many people think I should feel remorse for what I've done. I guess this is the customary time where I'm suppose to grovel and beg for mercy. I assure you if that's how I felt I would. But, I am not sorry for anything I have done. Nor am I frightened by this court's authority. Because any system of law that values the rights of the oppressor over the down trodden is an unjust system. And though this court has real and actual power, I question its morality. I doubt the court is interested in the precautions that I took to not harm any person or by-stander and even less concerned with the miserable lives that sheep, cows and mink had to endure, unto death, so that a Colorado business could profit from their confinement, enslavement, and murder.
Obviously, the owners and employees of the sheepskin factory do not care either or they would not be involved in such a sinister and macabre blood trade. So I will not waste my breath where it will only fall on deaf ears. That's why I turned to illegal direct action to begin with, because you do not care. No matter how much we animal rights activists talk or reason with you, you do not care. Well, Mr. Livaditis (owner of the Sheepskin Factory), I don't care about you. There is no common ground between people like you and me. I want you to know that no matter what this court sentences me to today, you have won nothing! Prison is no great hardship to me. In a society that values money over life, I consider it an honor to be a prisoner of war, the war against inter-species slavery and objectification! I also want you to know that I will never willingly pay you one dollar, not one! I hope your business fails and you choke to death on every penny you profit from animal murder! I hope you choke on it and burn in hell!
To my supporters, I wish to say thank you for standing behind me and showing this court and these animal exploiters that we support our own and that we as a movement are not going to apologize for having a sense of urgency. We are not going to put the interests of commerce over sentience! And we will never stop educating, agitating and confronting those responsible for the death of our Mother Earth and her Animal Nations. My vegan sisters and brothers, our lives are not our own. Selfishness is the way of gluttons, perverts and purveyors of injustice. It has been said all it takes for evil to conquer is for good people to do nothing. Conversely, all it takes to stop the enslavement, use, abuse and murder of other than human animals is the resolve to fight on their behalf!
Do what you can, do what you must, be vegan warriors and true animal defenders and never compromise with their murderers and profiteers. The Animal Liberation Front is the answer. Seldom has there been such a personally powerful and internationally effective movement in human history. You cannot join the A.L.F. but you can become the A.L.F. And it was the proudest and most powerful thing I have ever done. When you leave this courtroom today don't be dismayed by my incarceration. All the ferocity and love in my heart still lives on. Every time someone liberates an animal and smashes their cage, it lives on! Every time an activist refuses to bow down to laws that protect murder, it lives on! And it lives on every time the night sky lights up ablaze with the ruins of another animal exploiters' business!
That's all Your Honor, I am ready to go to prison.
environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, vegetarianism, anarchism, ecoanarchism
I'm here today because I burnt down the Sheepskin Factory in Glendale, CO, a business that sells pelts, furs and other dead animal skins. I know many people think I should feel remorse for what I've done. I guess this is the customary time where I'm suppose to grovel and beg for mercy. I assure you if that's how I felt I would. But, I am not sorry for anything I have done. Nor am I frightened by this court's authority. Because any system of law that values the rights of the oppressor over the down trodden is an unjust system. And though this court has real and actual power, I question its morality. I doubt the court is interested in the precautions that I took to not harm any person or by-stander and even less concerned with the miserable lives that sheep, cows and mink had to endure, unto death, so that a Colorado business could profit from their confinement, enslavement, and murder.
Obviously, the owners and employees of the sheepskin factory do not care either or they would not be involved in such a sinister and macabre blood trade. So I will not waste my breath where it will only fall on deaf ears. That's why I turned to illegal direct action to begin with, because you do not care. No matter how much we animal rights activists talk or reason with you, you do not care. Well, Mr. Livaditis (owner of the Sheepskin Factory), I don't care about you. There is no common ground between people like you and me. I want you to know that no matter what this court sentences me to today, you have won nothing! Prison is no great hardship to me. In a society that values money over life, I consider it an honor to be a prisoner of war, the war against inter-species slavery and objectification! I also want you to know that I will never willingly pay you one dollar, not one! I hope your business fails and you choke to death on every penny you profit from animal murder! I hope you choke on it and burn in hell!
To my supporters, I wish to say thank you for standing behind me and showing this court and these animal exploiters that we support our own and that we as a movement are not going to apologize for having a sense of urgency. We are not going to put the interests of commerce over sentience! And we will never stop educating, agitating and confronting those responsible for the death of our Mother Earth and her Animal Nations. My vegan sisters and brothers, our lives are not our own. Selfishness is the way of gluttons, perverts and purveyors of injustice. It has been said all it takes for evil to conquer is for good people to do nothing. Conversely, all it takes to stop the enslavement, use, abuse and murder of other than human animals is the resolve to fight on their behalf!
Do what you can, do what you must, be vegan warriors and true animal defenders and never compromise with their murderers and profiteers. The Animal Liberation Front is the answer. Seldom has there been such a personally powerful and internationally effective movement in human history. You cannot join the A.L.F. but you can become the A.L.F. And it was the proudest and most powerful thing I have ever done. When you leave this courtroom today don't be dismayed by my incarceration. All the ferocity and love in my heart still lives on. Every time someone liberates an animal and smashes their cage, it lives on! Every time an activist refuses to bow down to laws that protect murder, it lives on! And it lives on every time the night sky lights up ablaze with the ruins of another animal exploiters' business!
That's all Your Honor, I am ready to go to prison.
environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, vegetarianism, anarchism, ecoanarchism
February 11, 2014
More on science fetishization
The corporate bullies of GMOs, wind power, “smart” meters, etc. invariably appeal to “science” to dismiss concerns of harm and tout the claims of good. But the actual good is invariably the benefit to their companies’ or research teams’ viability and profits. There is no questioning of their necessity or consideration of what is to be lost or taken away (e.g., farming freedom, open and wild spaces, privacy, etc.).
Their appeal to science is amoral. Their defenders apparently believe that a conclusion is “good” simply for being reached logically. And that criticism of science, however logical, can not in fact be so, because logic has already determined that it is good.
The problem, of course, is an infantile division of human thought between “rational” and “emotional”. Both religion and science operate with both, but the latter claims the exclusive mantle of “reason” and then self-servingly stops there. Any questioning of what science does in the name of reason, or what companies do under the name of science, is called an attack on reason itself, even when it is itself quite reasonable.
The business of science, as its own gatekeeper, is often deaf to reason outside its own self-serving logic. A prime example is the swallowing by GMO supporters of the claim that Roundup-Ready crops would reduce pesticide use, when they are expressly designed to tolerate the company’s own pesticide, thus removing an important check on that pesticide’s use. The result has indeed been an increase in pesticide use, and the “anti-science fear-mongers” who warned of super-weeds and the threat to monarch butterflies have been proved correct. While “golden rice” has been talked about for many years without any practical results, the actual results of GMO “research” have been “terminator” genes to prevent seed saving and plants that produce their own pesticides, as well as pesticide-tolerant crops. Even if golden rice were a beneficial reality, it has nothing to do with all that is wrong with the GMO business.
The assertion that humans have always manipulated the genes of plants and animals illustrates the amoral logic that actually, in the service of corporate science, avoids thought. There is a big difference between selecting the results of a plant or animal’s own natural processes and splicing genes between species and even kingdoms. The latter represents a violation of the natural order that science purports to study.
Reason without consideration of ethics or morals, or simply without considering potential harms or seriously assessing actual benefits, is a mark of a sociopath. Human reason is not a good in itself. It is ultimately self-serving: hence the term “rationalization”. And rationalization of corporate depredation and profit — along with demonization of those who question it — is not science.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, anarchism, ecoanarchism, anarchosyndicalism
February 17, 2007
Bolshevik wind energy: "for your own good"
Marshall Rosenthal writes, in response to the dogmatic love of and defense of industrial wind energy against all reason and sense:
Self-convinced "enlightened," educated, environmentally "liberal" folks have accepted renewables as a matter of faith, just like American "lefties" accepted Joe Stalin and the Soviet "experiment" in the 30's and 40's, notwithstanding his genocides and depredations on his own people. Wind is just one part of the litany that they have embraced. If you approach them with the displacement of property owners and their destroyed property values, they simply don their anti-Republican blinders. If you appeal to their love of threatened wildlife, they toss the birds and bats and your concerns onto the fires of "global warming." If you present them with the abundant evidence that shows wind to be a failed technology, their anti-techno-speak goggles and ear plugs are deployed. If you show them the driving financial boondoggle and scam that wind actually is, they will brand you a conspiracy theorist and seek to silence and exile you from their midst. If you succeed in stopping the intrusion of these monstrous "toys for boys" they will revile you, or worse.
[See Emma Goldman's 2-volume My Disillusionment in Russia (1923) and My Further Disillusionment in Russia (1924) about her experiences in Soviet Russia from 1920 to 1921 and the Bolsheviks' betrayal of the revolution. --Ed.]
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, anarchism, ecoanarchism
Self-convinced "enlightened," educated, environmentally "liberal" folks have accepted renewables as a matter of faith, just like American "lefties" accepted Joe Stalin and the Soviet "experiment" in the 30's and 40's, notwithstanding his genocides and depredations on his own people. Wind is just one part of the litany that they have embraced. If you approach them with the displacement of property owners and their destroyed property values, they simply don their anti-Republican blinders. If you appeal to their love of threatened wildlife, they toss the birds and bats and your concerns onto the fires of "global warming." If you present them with the abundant evidence that shows wind to be a failed technology, their anti-techno-speak goggles and ear plugs are deployed. If you show them the driving financial boondoggle and scam that wind actually is, they will brand you a conspiracy theorist and seek to silence and exile you from their midst. If you succeed in stopping the intrusion of these monstrous "toys for boys" they will revile you, or worse.
[See Emma Goldman's 2-volume My Disillusionment in Russia (1923) and My Further Disillusionment in Russia (1924) about her experiences in Soviet Russia from 1920 to 1921 and the Bolsheviks' betrayal of the revolution. --Ed.]
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, anarchism, ecoanarchism
July 30, 2009
Social stigmata
“Not every windfarm should be licensed, but the great bulk of them will need to be. In a country that is serious about tackling climate change, raising objections might need to become something that carries a certain social stigma, as the climate secretary, Ed Miliband, has suggested.” —The Guardian, Editorial, July 30
Anything other than entertain the possibility for a moment that for tackling climate change windfarms are useless ...
This is the same paper that consistently defends horrible and useless animal experimentation against stigmatization by those who are serious about tackling unnecessary cruelty. For a supposedly “liberal” paper, it might be upsetting to note that the common thread is a defense of corporate violence, whether against animals or against the landscape and rural residents – both activities pointless except as demonstrations of power.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, anarchism, ecoanarchism, anarchosyndicalism
March 10, 2008
CLF calls for industrial development of 300 miles of Maine's wild mountain ridges
The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) of New England participated in the Maine Governor's Task Force on Wind Power Development, which issued its recommendation for installing 3,000 MW of wind power by 2020 on Feb. 14. In a press release the same day, CLF expressed its support and excitement, believing that it would "help avert the disastrous impacts climate change could have on our region and economy".
The output of 3,000 MW, at an average rate of 25% capacity, would be equivalent to about half of Maine's current electricity consumption (though much less of 2020's likely needs). But Maine exports a fourth of its power and is already arranging with New Brunswick to export its wind-generated power.
Given that the wind rarely blows in proportion to electricity demand, and blows erratically with high variation, that makes sense. The utilities have quite enough of a challenge to keep supply and demand in balance. The most practical way to deal with the huge and largely unpredictable swings of wind power -- which, unlike the power from other facilities, they have no control over -- is to make sure the grid is big enough to absorb it as insignificant. That is how Denmark manages its "20%" wind: by using its large international connectors so that the wind is only 1% of the total, which can be easily balanced by Sweden's substantial hydro capacity (thus no carbon savings).
And that is why building heavy-duty roads to access 300 miles of Maine ridgelines for the erection of thousands of giant industrial wind turbines will not "help avert the disastrous impacts climate change could have" -- not even a little.
Even if Maine tried to balance the fluctuating wind energy -- using their abundant diesel and natural gas capacity -- those plants would be forced to operate less efficiently and less cleanly, canceling much -- perhaps all -- of the expected benefit.
When there is no record anywhere in the world of a single thermal electricity plant shutting down, nor of any measurable reduction of fossil fuel use or emissions, due to wind energy on the grid, it is rash indeed to call for the destruction of 300 miles of mountain ridgelines for such an unlikely prospect of actual benefit.
This is a political game that the CLF should be ashamed of. They should be opposing this obvious industry putsch into our last rural and wild places, not abetting it.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, Maine, ecoanarchism
The output of 3,000 MW, at an average rate of 25% capacity, would be equivalent to about half of Maine's current electricity consumption (though much less of 2020's likely needs). But Maine exports a fourth of its power and is already arranging with New Brunswick to export its wind-generated power.
Given that the wind rarely blows in proportion to electricity demand, and blows erratically with high variation, that makes sense. The utilities have quite enough of a challenge to keep supply and demand in balance. The most practical way to deal with the huge and largely unpredictable swings of wind power -- which, unlike the power from other facilities, they have no control over -- is to make sure the grid is big enough to absorb it as insignificant. That is how Denmark manages its "20%" wind: by using its large international connectors so that the wind is only 1% of the total, which can be easily balanced by Sweden's substantial hydro capacity (thus no carbon savings).
And that is why building heavy-duty roads to access 300 miles of Maine ridgelines for the erection of thousands of giant industrial wind turbines will not "help avert the disastrous impacts climate change could have" -- not even a little.
Even if Maine tried to balance the fluctuating wind energy -- using their abundant diesel and natural gas capacity -- those plants would be forced to operate less efficiently and less cleanly, canceling much -- perhaps all -- of the expected benefit.
When there is no record anywhere in the world of a single thermal electricity plant shutting down, nor of any measurable reduction of fossil fuel use or emissions, due to wind energy on the grid, it is rash indeed to call for the destruction of 300 miles of mountain ridgelines for such an unlikely prospect of actual benefit.
This is a political game that the CLF should be ashamed of. They should be opposing this obvious industry putsch into our last rural and wild places, not abetting it.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, Maine, ecoanarchism
March 29, 2007
Wind Energy in the Third World
It has just been announced that Energias de Portugal (EDP) is buying Horizon Wind Energy from Goldman Sachs (for $2.15 billion, twice what Goldman Sachs paid for it less than 2 years ago). This follows the purchase of Community Energy and PPM Energy (the latter through its purchase of Scottish Power) by Spanish energy giant Iberdrola.
Other foreign companies active in U.S. wind energy development include Ireland's Airtricity, Spain's Gamesa and Naturener, Australia's Babcock & Brown, Electricité de France (via Enxco), Nedpower of The Netherlands, Shell, BP, and the various UPC Wind companies funded by European investors through Italian parent UPC Group.
Beyond the fact that prospects for wind energy expansion are drying up in Europe while subsidies in the U.S. can cover up to 75% of the cost of erecting a wind energy facility, might there be another reason for so much foreign investment in wind energy?
Spain's Iberdrola is also erecting wind turbines in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Oaxaca. Spanish regulators have ruled that the electricity produced there can be applied towards Spain's Kyoto (and now E.U.) obligations. That's because Mexico is exempt from the Kyoto accord.
The U.S. has not signed on to the Kyoto accord and has not established similar requirements. As in Mexico, might the foreign owners of wind energy facilities in the U.S. be intending to claim the "renewable energy credits" for their own countries?
Thus, all that industrialization of rural and wild landscapes, the fragmentation and degradation of natural habitat, the destruction of wildlife, and the wrecking of people's peaceful enjoyment of their homes would not even serve to meet the goals of expanded renewable energy established in many states.
This ineffective tokenism is also seen in the misdirected effort of renewable portfolio standards. The goal, as with the Kyoto accord, is to reduce emissions from fossil fuels. But the requirement is only to add non-carbon sources of electricity (and ignoring transport, heating, and industry uses of fossil fuels).
If the goal is indeed to reduce emissions, then that should be the requirement.
Spain will not be reducing its carbon emissions by building giant turbines in Mexico. Yet they will nonetheless be credited for doing so, based only on the production from those turbines without any proof of a corresponding reduction of fossil fuels even in Mexico, let alone in Spain.
It appears that much of the U.S. has become a third-world country as well, ripe for exploitation by global capitalists as well as our own "developers."
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, Vermont, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, ecoanarchism, human rights
Other foreign companies active in U.S. wind energy development include Ireland's Airtricity, Spain's Gamesa and Naturener, Australia's Babcock & Brown, Electricité de France (via Enxco), Nedpower of The Netherlands, Shell, BP, and the various UPC Wind companies funded by European investors through Italian parent UPC Group.
Beyond the fact that prospects for wind energy expansion are drying up in Europe while subsidies in the U.S. can cover up to 75% of the cost of erecting a wind energy facility, might there be another reason for so much foreign investment in wind energy?
Spain's Iberdrola is also erecting wind turbines in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Oaxaca. Spanish regulators have ruled that the electricity produced there can be applied towards Spain's Kyoto (and now E.U.) obligations. That's because Mexico is exempt from the Kyoto accord.
The U.S. has not signed on to the Kyoto accord and has not established similar requirements. As in Mexico, might the foreign owners of wind energy facilities in the U.S. be intending to claim the "renewable energy credits" for their own countries?
Thus, all that industrialization of rural and wild landscapes, the fragmentation and degradation of natural habitat, the destruction of wildlife, and the wrecking of people's peaceful enjoyment of their homes would not even serve to meet the goals of expanded renewable energy established in many states.
This ineffective tokenism is also seen in the misdirected effort of renewable portfolio standards. The goal, as with the Kyoto accord, is to reduce emissions from fossil fuels. But the requirement is only to add non-carbon sources of electricity (and ignoring transport, heating, and industry uses of fossil fuels).
If the goal is indeed to reduce emissions, then that should be the requirement.
Spain will not be reducing its carbon emissions by building giant turbines in Mexico. Yet they will nonetheless be credited for doing so, based only on the production from those turbines without any proof of a corresponding reduction of fossil fuels even in Mexico, let alone in Spain.
It appears that much of the U.S. has become a third-world country as well, ripe for exploitation by global capitalists as well as our own "developers."
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, Vermont, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, ecoanarchism, human rights
August 10, 2007
Wind "ought" to help -- but won't
To the Editor, Rutland (Vt.) Herald:
The key word in your August 10 editorial, "Wind win," is "ought." You conclude that the PSB approval of the Sheffield wind project is a "positive step that ought to improve Vermont's energy future." The fact is, unfortunately, that it won't.
Although you admit that the wind turbines would not be generating at full capacity all the time, you let stand the figure of the project's 40-megawatt installed capacity as meaningful. In fact, the facility would rarely, if ever, generate at full capacity. Its average annual output is more likely to be a fifth of that, as it is for the existing Searsburg facility and the average through the U.S. and the world: 8 megawatts. Even the developer projects an average output of only 13 megawatts.
Because of the cubic relation of output to wind speed, however, any wind energy facility generates at or above its average rate only a third of the time. And those times are at the whim of the wind, not necessarily corresponding to actual need on the grid.
Consequently, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority plans for wind energy to provide useful energy at the rate of a third of its average output. This is in line with estimates from similar studies in Europe. The Sheffield project would thus represent a contribution of only about 3 to 4 megawatts for Vermont's energy planning.
Yet this potentially small source requires blasting for foundations and roads, tons of cement for each turbine, acres of forest clearing, and the erection of 419-feet-high towers with 162-feet-long turning blades and strobing safety lights over miles of ridge line where any other development would never even be considered, much less praised by the likes of Bill McKibben and VPIRG. This is a win for industry and the robber barons that run our country again, not for the environment. And not for our energy future, either.
[Published in the Rutland Herald, Aug. 14]
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, Vermont, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, ecoanarchism
The key word in your August 10 editorial, "Wind win," is "ought." You conclude that the PSB approval of the Sheffield wind project is a "positive step that ought to improve Vermont's energy future." The fact is, unfortunately, that it won't.
Although you admit that the wind turbines would not be generating at full capacity all the time, you let stand the figure of the project's 40-megawatt installed capacity as meaningful. In fact, the facility would rarely, if ever, generate at full capacity. Its average annual output is more likely to be a fifth of that, as it is for the existing Searsburg facility and the average through the U.S. and the world: 8 megawatts. Even the developer projects an average output of only 13 megawatts.
Because of the cubic relation of output to wind speed, however, any wind energy facility generates at or above its average rate only a third of the time. And those times are at the whim of the wind, not necessarily corresponding to actual need on the grid.
Consequently, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority plans for wind energy to provide useful energy at the rate of a third of its average output. This is in line with estimates from similar studies in Europe. The Sheffield project would thus represent a contribution of only about 3 to 4 megawatts for Vermont's energy planning.
Yet this potentially small source requires blasting for foundations and roads, tons of cement for each turbine, acres of forest clearing, and the erection of 419-feet-high towers with 162-feet-long turning blades and strobing safety lights over miles of ridge line where any other development would never even be considered, much less praised by the likes of Bill McKibben and VPIRG. This is a win for industry and the robber barons that run our country again, not for the environment. And not for our energy future, either.
[Published in the Rutland Herald, Aug. 14]
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, Vermont, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, ecoanarchism
July 6, 2012
Sanders voted yes
Alexander Cockburn wrote in The Golden Age Is In Us (1995), entry from September 6, 1994:
I thought the point of having an independent socialist in Congress was precisely that: to be an independent and a socialist. Instead of which we have Bernie Sanders (supposedly the ‘independent socialist’ from Vermont), hack Democrat. He voted for Clinton’s budget, and now he’s voted for the crime bill, a milepost in the development of the repressive corporate state.
This summer we passed, for the first time, the million mark for people in US prisons (not counting city and county jails). Steve Whitman of the Committee to End the Marion Lockdown calculates that the imprisonment rate for blacks is now 1,534 per 100,000, compared with a white rate of 197. The central aim of the crime bill, passed on August 25, is to lock up even more black people. ...
People designated as gang members can have their sentence for certain offenses (even those unconnected with gang membership) increased by up to ten years. ... There's no medical or scientific distinction between the two substances, but poor people use crack and rich people use powder. ... Get five years for first-time possession of more than five grams of crack; get no jail time for possession of the same amount of coke powder. The crime bill did nothing to alter such inequities.
This is to pass over the rest of the fascist panorama of the bill: the three-strikes provision, the enhanced mandatory sentencing, the stripping of federal judges of their power to enforce constitutional rights of prisoners, the ending of Pell grants which provide funding for prisoners to get higher education, the car searches, the hysterical and unjust treatment of sex offenders, and on and on, through the expansion of the death penalty to cover more than fifty crimes.
... Sanders voted yes. I asked him why and he faxed me four paragraphs of pitiful blather — almost all other ‘Progressives’ had voted yes; rejection of this bill would have meant a worse one down the road ...; there was money in the bill for cities and towns and for battered women's shelters.
For over a decade I've listened to the rap from Sanders and the Progressive Coalition in Vermont about the need for an alternative to the two-party system. Some alternative! Sanders’ record is scarcely more liberal than that of Vermont’s Republican senator, Jim Jeffords. To their everlasting shame, not one squeak, so far as I can ascertain, was raised by the Vermont Pwogwessives abut Sanders’ crime bill vote. I suppose the money for battered women’s shelters caused them not to notice one of the most rabid expressions of racism in the nation’s legislative history.
human rights, anarchism, ecoanarchism, Vermont
I thought the point of having an independent socialist in Congress was precisely that: to be an independent and a socialist. Instead of which we have Bernie Sanders (supposedly the ‘independent socialist’ from Vermont), hack Democrat. He voted for Clinton’s budget, and now he’s voted for the crime bill, a milepost in the development of the repressive corporate state.
This summer we passed, for the first time, the million mark for people in US prisons (not counting city and county jails). Steve Whitman of the Committee to End the Marion Lockdown calculates that the imprisonment rate for blacks is now 1,534 per 100,000, compared with a white rate of 197. The central aim of the crime bill, passed on August 25, is to lock up even more black people. ...
People designated as gang members can have their sentence for certain offenses (even those unconnected with gang membership) increased by up to ten years. ... There's no medical or scientific distinction between the two substances, but poor people use crack and rich people use powder. ... Get five years for first-time possession of more than five grams of crack; get no jail time for possession of the same amount of coke powder. The crime bill did nothing to alter such inequities.
This is to pass over the rest of the fascist panorama of the bill: the three-strikes provision, the enhanced mandatory sentencing, the stripping of federal judges of their power to enforce constitutional rights of prisoners, the ending of Pell grants which provide funding for prisoners to get higher education, the car searches, the hysterical and unjust treatment of sex offenders, and on and on, through the expansion of the death penalty to cover more than fifty crimes.
... Sanders voted yes. I asked him why and he faxed me four paragraphs of pitiful blather — almost all other ‘Progressives’ had voted yes; rejection of this bill would have meant a worse one down the road ...; there was money in the bill for cities and towns and for battered women's shelters.
For over a decade I've listened to the rap from Sanders and the Progressive Coalition in Vermont about the need for an alternative to the two-party system. Some alternative! Sanders’ record is scarcely more liberal than that of Vermont’s Republican senator, Jim Jeffords. To their everlasting shame, not one squeak, so far as I can ascertain, was raised by the Vermont Pwogwessives abut Sanders’ crime bill vote. I suppose the money for battered women’s shelters caused them not to notice one of the most rabid expressions of racism in the nation’s legislative history.
human rights, anarchism, ecoanarchism, Vermont
August 6, 2012
A Good Life for Fellow Creatures
While our fellow creatures are put behind bars or held captive in the camouflaged cages of modern zoos, where they are stared at and poked by the young, the curious and the idle, our consciences should continue to disturb us. So long as animal hunting and fishing licenses are issued by the million, permitting the holders to trap or shoot our fellow creatures for sport or as a business, we cannot rest content. While our fellow creatures are bred and raised by tens of millions to be butchered in cold blood, their bodies hung up or laid out for sale in public markets and finally cooked and eaten, cannibal fashion, those of us who are radicals in our interpretation of the precept “thou shalt not kill” must continue to agitate and organize on behalf of these myriad victims of artificially stimulated and jaded human appetites.
Restraint does not cease to be imprisonment when it is applied to our fellow creatures. Nor is a form of sport tolerable which maims its victims or deprives them of their lives. Deliberate killing is murder whether the object of the attack is a human being or a fellow creature.
Violations of fellow creature rights take many forms: trapping and shooting wild life for food or sport; saturation spraying and dusting of poisons which destroy birds, mammals and insects; raising and slaughtering creatures for food; torturing and killing fellow creatures for educational, diversional or experimental purposes; the use of fellow creatures as “work animals”; shearing the wool from sheep, goats, camels, rabbits; using the fur of wild or domestic animals; the incarceration of fellow creatures in circus and zoo cages; the maintenance, in permanent servitude, of domestic pets who would not know how to care for themselves if released, who “enjoy their servitude,” “love their masters,” and who, if released, would return voluntarily to live parasitical lives.
There was a time, not too long ago, in the United States or elsewhere, when human beings were hunted and eaten, bred, bought and sold as chattels. For the most part, this form of slavery is a thing of the past. The enslavement, torturing, imprisonment and killing of animal, bird and insect fellow creatures to satisfy human fancy. whim, habit or assumed need is still practiced, on a larger scale than elsewhere, in highly industrialized and civilized communities, where mass slaughter, mass chemical poisoning, mass experimentation with fellow creatures, and mass incarceration behind barbed wire and other restraining means are matters of every day occurrence.
Restraints, incarceration, exploitation, torture and murder of fellow creatures attracts no more attention and arouses no more comment in the leading civilized countries of today than the like treatment of human slaves aroused in the leading civilized countries of previous centuries. Humanity has passed through periods of cannibalism and of chattel slavery. In the course of its evolution, it will surely reach a point at which the greatest good to the greatest number of living creatures will be accepted and applied with equal rigor to humanity’s fellows and neighbors.
If there is a “right” to the demand for security, for dignity and for life itself, that right must apply with equal force to all living things. We humans, as trustees for the planet and its inhabitants are duty bound to recognize and uphold such rights and to protest against their denial, no matter who or what the victims of the denial may be.
(from Chapter VI, The Conscience of a Radical, Scott Nearing, Harborside, Maine: Social Science Institute, 1965)
Buy a copy of the book directly from The Good Life Center, Harborside, Maine.
[Click here for all more excerpts.]
environment, environmentalism, animal rights, vegetarianism, ecoanarchism
Restraint does not cease to be imprisonment when it is applied to our fellow creatures. Nor is a form of sport tolerable which maims its victims or deprives them of their lives. Deliberate killing is murder whether the object of the attack is a human being or a fellow creature.
Violations of fellow creature rights take many forms: trapping and shooting wild life for food or sport; saturation spraying and dusting of poisons which destroy birds, mammals and insects; raising and slaughtering creatures for food; torturing and killing fellow creatures for educational, diversional or experimental purposes; the use of fellow creatures as “work animals”; shearing the wool from sheep, goats, camels, rabbits; using the fur of wild or domestic animals; the incarceration of fellow creatures in circus and zoo cages; the maintenance, in permanent servitude, of domestic pets who would not know how to care for themselves if released, who “enjoy their servitude,” “love their masters,” and who, if released, would return voluntarily to live parasitical lives.
There was a time, not too long ago, in the United States or elsewhere, when human beings were hunted and eaten, bred, bought and sold as chattels. For the most part, this form of slavery is a thing of the past. The enslavement, torturing, imprisonment and killing of animal, bird and insect fellow creatures to satisfy human fancy. whim, habit or assumed need is still practiced, on a larger scale than elsewhere, in highly industrialized and civilized communities, where mass slaughter, mass chemical poisoning, mass experimentation with fellow creatures, and mass incarceration behind barbed wire and other restraining means are matters of every day occurrence.
Restraints, incarceration, exploitation, torture and murder of fellow creatures attracts no more attention and arouses no more comment in the leading civilized countries of today than the like treatment of human slaves aroused in the leading civilized countries of previous centuries. Humanity has passed through periods of cannibalism and of chattel slavery. In the course of its evolution, it will surely reach a point at which the greatest good to the greatest number of living creatures will be accepted and applied with equal rigor to humanity’s fellows and neighbors.
If there is a “right” to the demand for security, for dignity and for life itself, that right must apply with equal force to all living things. We humans, as trustees for the planet and its inhabitants are duty bound to recognize and uphold such rights and to protest against their denial, no matter who or what the victims of the denial may be.
(from Chapter VI, The Conscience of a Radical, Scott Nearing, Harborside, Maine: Social Science Institute, 1965)
Buy a copy of the book directly from The Good Life Center, Harborside, Maine.
[Click here for all more excerpts.]
environment, environmentalism, animal rights, vegetarianism, ecoanarchism
September 20, 2014
A 'crisis of bigness'
from “This economic collapse is a 'crisis of bigness'” by Paul Kingsnorth, The Guardian, 25 September 2011:
To listen to a political leader at this moment in history is like sitting through a sermon by a priest who has lost his faith but is desperately trying not to admit it, even to himself. Watch Nick Clegg, David Cameron or Ed Miliband mouthing tough-guy platitudes to the party faithful. Listen to Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy or George Papandreou pretending that all will be well in the eurozone. Study the expressions on the faces of Barack Obama or Ben Bernanke talking about "growth" as if it were a heathen god to be appeased by tipping another cauldron's worth of fictional money into the mouth of a volcano.
In times like these, people look elsewhere for answers. A time of crisis is also a time of opening-up, when thinking that was consigned to the fringes moves to centre stage. When things fall apart, the appetite for new ways of seeing is palpable, and there are always plenty of people willing to feed it by coming forward with their pet big ideas.
But here's a thought: what if big ideas are part of the problem? What if, in fact, the problem is bigness itself?
The crisis currently playing out on the world stage is a crisis of growth.
Published in 1957, The Breakdown of Nations [by Leopold Kohr] laid out what at the time was a radical case: that small states, small nations and small economies are more peaceful, more prosperous and more creative than great powers or superstates. ... Kohr's claim was that society's problems were not caused by particular forms of social or economic organisation, but by their size. ... [O]nce scaled up to the level of modern states, all systems became oppressors. Changing the system, or the ideology that it claimed inspiration from, would not prevent that oppression – as any number of revolutions have shown – because "the problem is not the thing that is big, but bigness itself".
Drawing from history, Kohr demonstrated that when people have too much power, under any system or none, they abuse it. The task, therefore, was to limit the amount of power that any individual, organisation or government could get its hands on. The solution to the world's problems was not more unity but more division. ... Small states and small economies were more flexible, more able to weather economic storms, less capable of waging serious wars, and more accountable to their people. Not only that, but they were more creative. ...
Bigness, predicted Kohr, could only lead to more bigness, for "whatever outgrows certain limits begins to suffer from the irrepressible problem of unmanageable proportions". Beyond those limits it was forced to accumulate more power in order to manage the power it already had. Growth would become cancerous and unstoppable, until there was only one possible endpoint: collapse.
human rights, anarchism, ecoanarchism, anarchosyndicalism
September 13, 2008
Thoreau on hunting
Paul Theroux ends an excellent essay (click the title of this post) about Republican cruelty (cynically and perversely called "pro-life") with this quote from Henry David Thoreau:
"Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve life than destroy it."
environment, environmentalism, animal rights, ecoanarchism
"Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve life than destroy it."
environment, environmentalism, animal rights, ecoanarchism
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