Tuesday, February 07, 2012

Hedging Our Bets on the Black Bloc: The Impotence of Mere Liberalism

By Zakk Flash

Chris Hedges has written some of the most insightful analysis of the U.S. war machine in recent years. His 2009 book The Empire of Illusion was an exploration of how exhibition has eclipsed truth and meaningful connection in American society. His acknowledgment of the ease in which one can buy into such spectacles is a small part of why it was so odd to read his article on Truthdig attacking both anarchists and black bloc tactics entitled “The Cancer in Occupy.”

It is patently clear that Hedges’ statements on anarchist theory and tactics of organizing are either false, unsubstantiated, or directly misleading. He has bought into the American Empire’s fallacy that direct action and organization in our communities is unfavorable and that submission to elected authorities is the only way to enact permanent change. But any legitimate critique of the black bloc that he manages to brush up against is quickly obfuscated by basing his conclusions on problematic assumptions and faulty definitions. It should be no surprise that Hedges, a proponent of statist solutions, should slander anarchism as a philosophy. But, for some reason, it was a surprise to many on the Left who follow his work. Here’s why:

Hedges’ Truthdig column titled, simply, “The Greeks Get It” (24 May 2010) showed a man then unafraid to take on rampant fascism, the insidious nature of capitalism, and the heavy hand of the police state.

"Here’s to the Greeks… They know what to do when they are told their pensions, benefits and jobs have to be cut to pay corporate banks, which screwed them in the first place. Call a general strike. Riot. Shut down the city centers. Toss the bastards out. Do not be afraid of the language of class warfare—the rich versus the poor, the oligarchs versus the citizens, the capitalists versus the proletariat."
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| Posted on 02/07.

Thursday, February 02, 2012

Nuclear Waste Disposal: America's Ultimate Shovel-Ready Job Scheme

By Press Action

I’ve always wondered how low the dominant culture will stoop to perpetuate its absurd and destructive economic system. I think I found the answer.

During a Feb. 1 congressional hearing, the co-chairmen of a commission to investigate nuclear waste disposal, officially known as the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, were answering lawmakers’ questions about a report the panel had recently released about options for a national nuclear waste repository. With the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada left for dead, the blue ribbon panel was tasked with finding other ways to deal with the spent fuel from the nation’s nuclear power plants.

Let’s stop right there. The fact that a group of humans would engage in industrial activity that produces waste that’s so dangerous that it would need to be stored securely for thousands of years is astonishing in itself. But the fact that this group of humans would continue engaging in this industrial practice despite knowing the dangers attached to all phases of the nuclear fuel cycle is unfathomable.

But I digress. To find out how low the dominant culture will stoop to preserve its economic system, no matter the terrible costs, check out the blue ribbon’s panel’s final report. When you open the report, focus on the sections in the report that discuss “a new, consent-based approach to siting future nuclear waste management facilities.” In particular, turn to page 58 where you’ll find a section titled “Benefits to Host States, Tribes, and Communities.”

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| Posted on 02/02.

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

FERC Ignores Environmental Impact of LNG Exports

By Press Action

The export of liquefied natural gas will lead to additional shale gas extraction, induce additional coal consumption for electricity generation, and increase greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, the Sierra Club warns in a Jan. 27 filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The Sierra Club is urging FERC to consider these effects when it decides whether to grant the owners of the Sabine Pass LNG terminal permission to build facilities that would allow natural gas to be liquefied and then exported from the Louisiana terminal. The project is being developed by Cheniere Energy subsidiaries Sabine Pass Liquefaction and Sabine Pass LNG.

But so far, FERC is refusing to analyze the impact of increased LNG exports as part of its review of Sabine Pass’ application to build the liquefaction and export facilities. Instead, FERC is focusing only on the environmental impact of the facilities themselves, not on how the facilities will create greater demand for natural gas production in the United States, with large amounts of that increased production heading overseas in the form of LNG.

According to the Sierra Club, an environmental assessment prepared by FERC’s staff and released in late December “wholly ignores” the indirect effects resulting from the export of LNG. The decision by FERC violates the National Environmental Policy Act and is incompatible with the Department of Energy’s decision to rely on FERC to assess the environmental impacts of export authorization, the Sierra Club said in its filing.

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| Posted on 02/01.

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

A Bridge Fuel Built on a Weak Foundation

By Press Action

Center for American Progress Chairman John Podesta, who served as White House Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton, co-authored a report with former U.S. Sen. Timothy Wirth titled “Natural Gas: A Bridge for the 21st Century.” In the August 2009 report, Podesta and Wirth argued that “enhancing the role of natural gas is valuable for many reasons.”

“Natural gas can serve as a bridge fuel to a low-carbon, sustainable energy future,” Podesta and Wirth wrote. “Using clean domestic natural gas will also enhance our economy. Since it is produced in the United States, higher gas demand will create more jobs, and using domestic gas in lieu of imported oil would reduce our trade imbalance, keeping energy dollars at home instead of exporting oil dollars overseas.”

Podesta and Wirth called for the increased use of natural gas by requiring that the carbon price and other costs be included “when determining the dispatch order for moving electricity onto the grid to prioritize natural gas and other clean electricity.”

(Last fall, Podesta stepped down as president of the Center for American Progress but stayed on board as its chairman.)

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| Posted on 01/31.

Monday, January 30, 2012

Switching from Coal to Natural Gas Accomplishes Little or Nothing

By Press Action

When natural gas’ supporters tell you that the fossil fuel is cleaner burning than coal, don’t let them confuse you. The fact that natural gas-fired power plants emit lower levels of carbon dioxide than plants that run on coal does not mean natural gas is a “clean"-burning fossil fuel.

Case in point: The newest power plant in South Florida, Florida Power & Light’s West County Energy Center in Palm Beach County, is now the region’s largest source of greenhouse gases. The natural gas-fired power plant discharged 5.1 million tons of carbon dioxide, the most important of the greenhouse gases responsible for global warming. The figure comes from a new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency database of the nation’s largest sources of greenhouse gases.

The data, collected under EPA’s greenhouse gas reporting program, shows 2010 U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from large industrial facilities and from suppliers of certain fossil fuels and industrial gases.

The plant’s owners and others argue that the figure is misleading because the West County Energy Center is one of the largest power plants in the nation. Indeed, the combined-cycle, natural gas-fired plant has a generating capacity of about 3,785 MW.

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| Posted on 01/30.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Stratfor Intelligence Leaked by Anonymous Reveals Spying on Occupy Movement, DGR

Statement from Deep Green Resistance

Internet group Anonymous has leaked information from October and November 2011 suggesting that private intelligence firm STRATFOR has been working with Texas law enforcement to infiltrate the Occupy movement and spy on the Deep Green Resistance movement.

In December 2011, Anonymous attacked the STRATFOR website, allegedly stealing 200 gigabytes of data and shutting the site down for weeks. This isn’t the first time Anonymous has gone after such corporations. In early 2011, Anonymous went after internet security firm HBGary, releasing private documents that included secret plans by HBGary and others to attack and discredit Wikileaks on behalf of big banks.

The information released by Anonymous is a partial “teaser” of the information taken from STRATFOR. It consists of emails in which STRATFOR employees discuss Occupy Austin and Deep Green Resistance. STRATFOR “Watch Officer” Marc Lanthemann writes about receiving information on Occupy Austin and DGR from a “Texas DPS agent.” The Texas Department of Public Safety is a statewide law enforcement agency that includes the Texas Rangers, Highway Patrol, and an Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division.

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| Posted on 01/26.

Natural Gas Industry Shows Love for President Obama

By Press Action

The natural gas industry loves President Obama. They really do. The intensity of the love affair became public knowledge this week.

First, in Tuesday’s State of the Union address, Obama blew a big kiss to the natural gas industry. George W. Bush never came close to Obama’s effusiveness for the natural gas industry in any of his State of the Union addresses.

During his speech, Obama sang natural gas’ praises, saying the United States has “a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly one hundred years.” He stressed that “experts believe this will support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade.”

Obama also proudly said his administration, over the last three years, has opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration. “And tonight, I’m directing my administration to open more than 75% of our potential offshore oil and gas resources,” he said.

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| Posted on 01/26.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Study: U.S. LNG Exports to Give Coal New Lease on Life

By Press Action

By letting U.S. companies export domestically produced natural gas, the U.S. government will cause domestic natural gas prices to rise, which in turn will lead to the burning of more coal for the generation of electricity, according to a new report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration on the impacts of exporting liquefied natural gas.

Coal use, primarily for the generation of electricity, accounts for roughly 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. When burned for electricity use, coal emits twice as much carbon dioxide per unit of energy delivered as natural gas. “Coal plants are the dirtiest, most regressive source of energy—poisoning our communities and environment,” the Sierra Club says.

Gas producers have been making significant discoveries in various geological formations across the United States over the last six years. With visions of great riches, industry officials have been racing to tap these shale gas resources. The result: gas supply is exceeding demand in the United States.

Given their significant investments in shale gas production, gas companies are hoping to reap a greater return on their investment by looking abroad for new markets. Producers, along with the owners of LNG import facilities, have been pushing to export natural gas produced in the United States to other countries. So far, the U.S. Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission have rubber-stamped all of the LNG export applications that have come before them.

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| Posted on 01/24.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

The Illusion of Environmental Protection

By Press Action

All branches of government, at the federal, state and municipal levels, insist on letting big corporations get their way at the expense of the environment. Nowhere will you find majority support among the ruling class for slowing down the destruction of the Earth, let alone entertaining the notion of downsizing industrial culture.

Occasionally, though, a rogue voice of sanity will be heard in the corridors of power. Last week, for example, a Pennsylvania appeals court judge filed a powerful dissenting opinion in a case about the devastation of forests and streams.

The case involved an electric utility company, PPL Electric Utilities Corp., which wanted permission to build a high-voltage electric transmission line that would cut a 100-foot-wide corridor through a pristine woodland preserve and a stream that is home to a number of cold water fish species.

The company, a subsidiary of PPL Corp. (formerly known as Pennsylvania Power and Light), argued that the environmental intrusion was necessary to meet the future electric service needs in the southern part of Lehigh Valley. PPL argued that it had reached this conclusion by using a planning process that was supposed to assure the public that it will “supply electricity to all customer loads in a reliable, economic and environmentally acceptable manner.”

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| Posted on 01/21.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Little Scraps of Humanity

By Press Action

"I have a question for you. How do you do it? How do you come into offices like this and squabble with people like me over a few extra inches? How is that you can sit there in your politeness and your grace and basically ask people for nothing? How do you do it? How do you beg for little scraps of humanity?” – Fast-food executive Richard Cranehill, grilling an animal welfare group representative in the film Bold Native.

The Sierra Club is running a “high-saturation" television advertising campaign in major media markets in Ohio, thanking President Barack Obama for protecting Americans from toxic pollution.

Some political observers wondered whether Obama would lose the support of Big Green groups, given his penchant for appeasing business interests at the expense of the environment. But most astute analysts understood that the mainstream enviros would always come back to Obama, no matter how bad his policies were for the environment.

Indeed, the Sierra Club’s advertising campaign indicates Obama’s reelection bid is on a fast track toward receiving the group’s endorsement. Given how Ohio is expected to be a proverbial swing state in this fall’s presidential election, one could argue that the Sierra Club is already campaigning for Obama through this advertising blitz. And once Mitt Romney or another candidate essentially clinches the Republican nomination, the other Big Green groups will follow suit with their own endorsements of Obama, followed by the launch of a campaign of scare tactics against the Republican nominee.

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| Posted on 01/18.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Occupy Movement Reignites 'Battle for Brooklyn'

By Press Action

The producers of Battle for Brooklyn attribute the documentary’s growing success to the Occupy Wall Street movement’s focus on how government institutions operate on behalf of the wealthy few in the United States.

When it was released in April 2011, Battle for Brooklyn, a documentary about a community in Brooklyn fighting real-estate developers who want to build a basketball arena and numerous other buildings, received positive feedback from reviewers and the public.

But as the Occupy movement caught fire in September 2011, Battle for Brooklyn started getting noticed by an even larger audience, said Michael Galinsky, speaking Jan. 15 at a screening of the film at the Artisphere complex in Arlington, Va. Galinsky co-directed and co-produced the film with his wife Suki Hawley.

Battle for Brooklyn addresses the same issues targeted by the Occupiers: corporate greed, crony capitalism, undemocratic institutions and community destruction.

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| Posted on 01/16.

Monday, January 09, 2012

Hey, Barnes & Noble: How Many Assassins Does It Take to Scare Off Your Customers?

An Open Letter to Barnes & Noble

The U.S. military credits Chris Kyle with killing over 160 human beings. Sometimes more. “The number is not important to me. I only wish I had killed more...” Good students always want extra credit.

This coming Thursday (01/12/2012), the Barnes & Noble bookstore located in the Mira Mesa community of San Diego has scheduled a book signing with Chris Kyle. As author, and state-sanctioned hitman, Kyle plans to visit a supposed “friendly town” to promote his heartfelt tale of bloodletting called American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History.

The event page describes this man as the “most accomplished SEAL sniper in US History.” Accomplished, evidently, in the framework of legal murder. Instead of being tried for crimes against humanity, he will be sitting amongst local families bragging about how many Arabs he has picked off while dreaming about his next Coors Light.

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| Posted on 01/09.

Sunday, January 08, 2012

Earthquakes Shake Public's Faith in Natural Gas Industry

By Press Action

Imagine if saboteurs, with an expertise in geology, intentionally drilled wells thousands of feet underground and then filled these wells with water. Imagine if the depth of the wells and the pressure created by the injected water began causing hundreds of earthquakes in assorted regions of the United States.

Such activity certainly would terrify the public. And, given the gravity of the crimes, it certainly would prompt seismologists and geologists to urge public safety officials to take whatever measures necessary to find the perpetrators and stop them from drilling any new wells. If this were to happen, the notion that someone could intentionally cause an earthquake would be unfathomable to most people. You must be reading too much science fiction or listening to Alex Jones, they’d say. But once they got over the initial shock that it indeed is happening, such unconscionable activity would create a massive public uproar.

Unfortunately, you do not have to imagine people intentionally engaging in activity that they know causes earthquakes. It is actually happening today. But if you thought public officials would be using every means possible to stop such activity, you would be wrong. And if you thought major news media outlets would be beating the drum for public safety officials to stop the perpetrators, you would be wrong again.

In fact, one of the most prominent newspapers in the country, the Washington Post, believes the people who are engaging in activity that is indeed causing the earthquakes should be allowed to continue as long as they are more closely monitored.

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| Posted on 01/08.

Thursday, January 05, 2012

You Won't Fool the Children of the Revolution

By Press Action

A well-known, fifty-something antiwar activist recently scolded the “young people” of Occupy Wall Street for turning a deaf ear to their elders. She was offended by how they were charting their own course, daring to ignore the sage advice of seasoned activists.

Let’s assume this activist’s assessment of the younger generation’s involvement in OWS is accurate … which, of course, it is not. My response would be, why the hell should these younger people, who are attempting to put real democracy into action, show any deference to the older generations?

The corporate noose around American society has grown considerably tighter over the past 30 years. Wars are now endless. Ecocide is happening before our eyes. And yet, not-so-young liberal and progressive activists, especially the self-described pacifists, continue to tell us to support the troops. The foot soldiers of the empire, they claim, are as much victims as the millions of people the U.S. military machine is killing in foreign lands. They tell us to work within the system and avoid violence in all circumstances because, if we don’t, that makes us as guilty as the homicidal maniacs that run the system.

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| Posted on 01/05.

Sunday, January 01, 2012

A Call to Live the Revolution Now

Review of Anarchism and Its Aspirations by Cindy Milstein (AK Press, 145 pages).

Anarchism has had some impressive moments. Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magón in early 20th century Mexico, the Kronstadt Rebellion, Gustav Landauer and the German revolution of 1918-1919, Bhagat Singh’s anti-British campaigns in India in the 1920s, and the Spanish anarchists in the 1930s, to name a few. The moments, as infrequent as they may be, can be electrifying. But they tend to be short-lived, with the participants often imprisoned or murdered by the state and its confederates.

As proponents of a political philosophy that disdains power, anarchists often find themselves at a disadvantage against the authoritarian governments and groups that use coercion to keep their opponents at bay. The antipathy for anarchists extends as far as the written word. State officials and their corporate partners control the mass media, including the outlets that publish the official history books in which their leaders are portrayed as heroes, while anarchists and anti-authoritarians are often labeled terrorists and criminals.

Despite the contempt for anarchism by statists on both the left and the right, anarchists have been able to get their word out through the underground press. Independent publishing houses and, in more recent decades, university presses also have published numerous books on anarchism.

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| Posted on 01/01.

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