“In Washington we used to laugh when we’d get an anti-war rally…because we knew in their back pocket [so many of the protesters] had a Citibank credit card. So as long as [the hundred thousand marching protesters] were financing the war, who cared? Let ‘em walk up and down. They’re just affirming how important and powerful we are by coming to march in front of us.”
—Catherine Austin Fitts

I’ve been really trying to learn about how to build closer-knit communities and understand, say, wider economics—and if I find or understand something, just pass it on with love via this blog or conversation.

In the process, I’ve been learning a lot by listening to or reading Catherine Austin Fitts, former Assistant Secretary for Housing-Federal Housing Commissioner (HUD) under Bush I—and then doing my own research.

In fact, being a deeply commited nerd, I have, for two reasons, footnoted an interview she gave in 2004 with Jim Puplava:

One, to help myself slowly grasp challenging financial jargon.

Two, to try and understand some of the methods by which giant governmental and corporate institutions can commit widespread fraudulent undocumentable transactions, and in the process of stealing so much money, increase their centralization of power and wealth (consider the $59 billion missing from HUD or the $2.3 trillion unaccounted for at the Department of Defense).

And make no mistake: to have for whatever reason such easy access to vast sums of money—in a game you know many of your rich and powerful peers are playing—must be incredibly tempting. And to act upon it might just be human nature’s most likely response.

Most likely, it should be noted, does not mean inevitable. Either way, it becomes evident just how desperately (for democracy) financial transparency is needed in these big institutions, and so not the case.

TRANSPARENCY

Financial transparency in these institutions and corporations, one could argue, is the lifeblood of a democracy that wishes to survive democratically.

With financial transparency—and again considering $2.3 trillion in undocumentable transactions in one fiscal year—can you imagine how much financial fraud could be revealed?

Granted, preventing even some of that fraud would pensions and stocks to almost certainly go down, which would effect a lot of people who are not actually committing—yet still funding by their choice of stocks etc—these undocumentable transactions.

But maybe, just maybe, by limiting financial fraud and smuggling and so on, wealth within communties, overall freedom and individual integrity would go up. Hm.

Where do I stand on this? Or sit? Or hide?

From that footnoted interview:

…so we [Austin Fitts] got in the first Bush administration a law requir[ing] that the Federal government had to produce audited financial statements, which went into operation in 1995—they had about four years before they were required. And what happened when the first financial statements came out, was essentially most agencies could not comply, or produce audited financial statements.

And as of today…in 2004 [still, as of 2007], the Federal government has yet to comply with the laws requiring audited statements for those 24 agencies, and the Treasury consolidated…

I repeat this, sisters and brothers, with an IRS/CRA disclaimer: “Don’t try this at home.” As a rule, the IRS/CRA will be a lot harder on you than they are on these government agencies.

So, I’ll post that foortnoted interview (with an essay) as a pdf in the next few days.

Hopefully it will be of use to others like myself who see economic jargon as undecipherable hieroglyphics, and the bigger economic picture as a brain-numbing alien from outer space, or at least the Washington suburbs.

In the meantime, I’ll link here (below) a talk Catherine gave in Vancouver on the 10th of October. I missed the talk, unfortunately—I hadn’t heard about it—and I was actually out of the country, so I couldn’t have been at it anyway.

TAPEWORMS AND OTHER PARASITES

Catherine describes the economy as a tapeworm economy which, given the undeniable debt, the ongoing economic scandals and the near-bursting and already burst bubbles, seems appropriate. From the Solari website:

In a tapeworm economy a small group of insiders centralize political and economic power at the expense of people, living things and the environment, in a manner that destroys real wealth.

A tapeworm economy is one in which it is considered acceptable to make money from our popsicle index going down.

FUDGESICLES

The Popiscle Index is the percentage of people in a given place who believe their children can safely venture out in the neighbourhood alone (say, to get a popsicle).

The index has been plummeting for decades—from nearly, probably, a 100% belief in safety three decades ago in Vancouver, to probably now about, what, 10% of people believing their kids are safe?

Even if fear-mongering isn’t a crime against humanity, it turns out it’s a crime against community.

You know, I was just thinking: Maybe life’s always been this way, but given the nature of the modern world economy, being a kind, open and engaged community citizen in a way that increases joyful communication between strangers may just qualify as an act of subversion.

RETURN OF THE TAPEWORM

In investment terms, [the tapeworm economy] is an economy with a negative return on investment.

It is parasitic in nature.

The way an actual tapeworm operates is to inject its host with a chemical that makes the host crave what is good for the tapeworm and bad for the host.

So the Tapeworm Economy is adept at using media and education and numerous financial incentives to get us acting against our own strategic interests and instead supporting and depending on the Tapeworm.

One of the things that makes community solidarity less likely is increased fear and lack of trust between neighbours and strangers within a given community.

Where does this distrust come from? Sometimes increased violence, to be sure (Clifford Olsen’s abominations cleared parks of children in the early 1980s). But if increased violence is not the statistical reality over time, what’s the reason? A myserious virus? A meme?

HYPE-NOTIZED

Well, I recall reading years ago that although the violent crime rate had not changed in years in Vancouver, the violent crime reporting in the mainstream media had tripled.

At the same time one might have noticed that the actual visual recording (ie the filming) of the brutal, bloody carnage created by war—either war in Iraq, I or II, or Afghanistan, or even from inner-city violence—was and is virtually non-existent on the nightly news.

This ommission is not an oversight. It is policy.

This was one of the lessons for government from the Vietnam War, where a significant percentage of television viewers saw the soldiers wounded and dead bodies dragged across the nightly news.

Soon enough, they couldn’t stomach the misery they were supporting as citizens and tax-payers—and began to protest as the bloody, blinded, torn-to-shreds reality of the body count went up.

The ommission could be signs of a large yet sneaky species of tapeworm media (Latin: Wormus nefarious).

Summing up those two theories, one could logically decipher that neighbournoods are getting way more dangerous (when most, statistically, are not) and wars are getting less dangerous (when…well, how insane is that?).

For the record, my understanding is that investigative reporting of, say, white collar crime, is both expensive and takes time, both demands being anathema to the modern newscast and the bottom line. In other words, investigative journalism, as a general rule, would not serve the tapeworm.

GETTING TURNED OFF

About three-quarters of the way through the talk, Catherine says, “If I can suggest anything, turn of your TV. Turn off the tapeworm media.” A woman after my own heart—and definitely not the hearts of a lot of others—I think she mentioned the average amount of time the TV is on in a household, per day, is 8.5 hours. That, my friends, is a devotion even God can’t seem to get.

SYMPTOMS

Fitts, on the Solari site, writes:

The symptoms of the Tapeworm are many—narcotics trafficking that targets our children, runaway exploitive and predatory corporate practices such as the patenting of life, terminator seed and the destruction of our topsoil and food supply, fraudulent inducement of debt to homeowners, students and consumers, suppression of knowledge and renewable energy technology, criminal mismanagement of government credit and resources, black budget operations and the manipulation of currency, financial and precious metal prices and markets.

These practices introduce organized crime throughout all aspects of our lives… these transactions drain our families and neighborhoods on a daily basis—much like a tapeworm drains its host.

As we understand the history of these drains in our lives—who is doing them and how we are complicit—we begin to understand the power of the opportunity to transform them in a manner that is safe and profitable for ourselves and those we love.

THE JOY OF SOLIDARITY

Admittedly, I of course don’t know if the things Catherine suggests can actually change the world today, right now—unless, perhaps, enough people can gather in solidarity and dialogue to make decentralization understandable and investment in community economically and politically sustainable.

But either way, don’t you want to feel more joy inside your community?

That can be shifted instantly by applying Gandhi’s “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

But how to expand that? How to make both our personal actions and impersonal transactions have meaning?

Actually, do you even feel you have a community? If not, you deserve one.

And who doesn’t want to know more about their specific role in the world? What their actions and money are doing or not doing?

It is weird to think our pension plans—”a significant amount of equity in the markets is managed by pension plans”—might be heavily supporting drug smuggling, weapons production and so on. Who wants to carry that burden into their golden years—even with a decent return?

Well, it turns out many of us. And that’s worth a little soul-searching—and the answers are not easy. I know because I’m in the remedial class, in constant search of a tutor.

But the bottom line about what can one do is answered in part when she says, “Don’t do anything that doesn’t energize you.”

The spirit of a true sustainable thinker.

DOOMSDAY

But what I was getting at earlier, my friends, is that I don’t actually believe the world is coming to an end: not via science and nuclear weapons, not via Armageddon, not via environmental disaster, not via One World Government and not via aliens.

However, certain pro-centralization people, as Fitts calls them, are banking on citizens adamantly disagreeing with me, and believing that it probably is coming to an end. And leaving us in a constant state of panic will, in theory, leave us begging for a paternalistic leadership to tuck us into bed.

We must, with love, grow up.

THE IDIOCY OF IT ALL

Meanwhile, at an airport the FBI or whoever it is can put out a “Code Orange” Alert, have us all panicking, and staring suspiciously at curious stereotypes, while in fact the FBI or whomever surely must realise that giving the public the Code Orange information offers us no means of helping alleviate the terror alert whatsoever.

The result is simply increased anxiety and panic. Thank you, Big Brother.

FEAR AND LOATHING

It turns out that creating excessive fear in a population is a hallmark of increasing fascism. The Threat of Terror information at, say, an airport is utterly useless to the populace. Yet it’s put there. Hmm.

I thought we were supposed to love our enemy, in the words of the man from Galilee.

That said, of course I know the planet is taking a beating, nuclear weapons (and small weapons) are a cancer of the human species, and the world’s equity is of late getting highly centralized (and perhaps spread out somewhat in the process, depending who you ask).

Either way, and notwithstanding economist John Meynard Keynes’ comment, “In the long run, we are all dead,” I’ve decided something else, too:

I will for my continued soulful sanity try to commit to learning how to plant seeds that help produce harvests that make living for the next generation, seven generations from now, ten generations (I don’t care how long), more sustainable, more transparent, more intimate and open to more people being able to direct their own lives.

This effort will live as an antidote to literally paying for the increasing centralization of wealth, government and power.

Too many sisters and brothers deserve better than that.

Not to simply “be here now” or “live for today,” or “maximize returns”—as tempting as those things can be—but hopefully “to live with a growing awareness and hope for life that will continue for eons after I’ve finished with my last breath.”

And in the process of learning, may I always try to remember the idea of ahimsa, a Sanskrit term which means: cause no harm.

For the love of god, we’re all subject to the human condition.

So how, garl darnit, to make change that supports the whole, sisters and brothers, and causes no harm? I don’t know, exactly—but I bet my instincts are better than I think.

And this talk given by Catherine Austin Fitts in Vancouver on October 10th was deeply thought-provoking.

It’s bold enough as you’ll hear—and courageous enough, too, to name a few names.

Fitts believes in the absolute necessity of government financial transparency, in community reinvestment and, to quote Jimmy Stewart in Mr Smith Goes To Washington, “…a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness—and a little looking out for the other fella, too.�

An excerpt from the talk:

I think if we’re going to have ethical investment, we need to start from a premise that says I’m responsible for my world. And if things are going wrong that are evil, I’m responsible to understand how they connect to my money…

In short, we can actually fund thngs that we agree with, that enhance and enrich community.

Another excerpt:

Catherine: One of the greatest myths on the planet is we need to have more consumption to make money. It’s a complete lie. It’s not true.

But, if we want to make money reducing consumption and healing the environment, then we need a much more decentralized equity system that’s going to provide for much more local control. Needing more consumption for growth is fine if you want a highly centralized system.

But if you want a highly decentralized system, it goes the other way.

Question: Do you mean more local control or direct ownership? I mean the control and the ownership need to go together, but we need more direct ownership.

Catherine: It’s direct ownership—but it’s much more intimacy and much more knowledge of the financial process.

To hear for yourself what Catherine’s saying, if it interests you, vist the Solari website. The ideas, I feel, are meant to expand the listener. They are meant to energize the listener. They are meant to increase the strength and wealth of communities.

That’s a beautiful intention, even to those who might disagree. Who knows what could be done?

The Vancouver talk is here.

Here’s to smiling while walking.

Pete xo

Despite its sometimes catastrophic and almost always poisonous effect on the environment, I am often surprised how little factory farming is mentioned overall by the mainstream environmental movement (see, say, An Inconvenient Truth or The Eleventh Hour etc…). Why this is is open to debate.

And this all excludes whatever potentially shattering effect systemic human-produced animal cruelty has on human behaviour and interaction, whether subliminally or overtly.

Given that, here’s a very short yet provocative (August 29th) interview given by Pete Singer on the Michael Vick’s dog-fighting/killing horror.

An excerpt:

The big thing that is going undiscussed here is the industrial raising of animals for food.

Just in terms of the numbers, it’s so vastly greater than sport-hunting, which in turn is a lot bigger than dog fighting. We’re talking literally about billions of animals each year being reared in conditions that don’t enable them to have a minimally decent life and then being killed in mass-production factory ways that again often are not painless….

It’s not that there’s an overreaction to the Vick business, it’s rather that there’s an underreaction to what’s happening elsewhere.

The full yet short article is here.

By the way, I found this piece on Pablo Stafforini’s site, which is an amazing library of articles and essays on and by Utilitarian Philosophers, ethicists and just all around great thinkers. The site is definitely worth perusing if the nightly news is threatening to entirely suck out your soul, or at least your discernment (night by night, without even warning you in the first place).

It never ceases to amaze me how one can, in my opinion, discover a so-much-wider perspective on what’s going on in the world today by reading, say, old, great philosophers or modern thinkers, than by reading the daily newspaper or watching the evening news.

Press here to go through Pablo’s catalogue of papers.

Hope all is well, you’re eating well, your air feels good going in and your walk has bounce. Lots of love to you and yours,

Pete xo

Hope all is well, creativity, energy and positive attitude flowing in inspiring directions.

I finally figured out how to post the essay NOAM CHOMSKY ON DRUGS: A Little Insite On The Hypocrisy Of It All in a pdf format—with about ten pages of added footnotes to relieve my nerd anxiety by fulfilling my addiction to supporting material.

If you’re interested in the article—it’s about the War On Drugs in general, some history on drug prohibition, and the Insite injection site on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside—press here and you will see it on the front page of my site, beneath LATELY.

Or just press here and it should download.

It’s almost 12:30, so lots of love to you—and may sisters and brothers sleep well tonight,

Pete

Here’s a lovely article in India Together from the great Indian journalist P Sainath:

Its header:

Countless rural Indians sacrificed much for India’s freedom, to fade into oblivion later, seeking neither reward nor recognition. Gandhian Baji Mohammed, who has been active for 70 years in one or the other cause, is amongst the last of this dying tribe, writes P Sainath.

Quoting the almost 90-year-old freedom fighter, a Muslim, a sacred cow supporter, politically apolitical, a Ghandian, a non-violent protester (your basic antidote to cliché and stereotype):

“I did not seek power or position,” he explains. “I knew I could serve in other ways. The way Gandhi wanted us to.” He was a staunch Congressman for decades. “But now I belong to no party,” he says. “I am non-party.”

The full article is here.

Love, freedom, patience, sister, brother,

Pete

I was just reading, and reading some more, then contemplating about the ails of humanity, and it came to me that I don’t have to be right, because there is no cure.

That’s it, my shortest blog ever.

Love Pete xox

I was recently writing—I can’t remember what or where—how when I was a kid (not all that long ago), my classmates and I all wanted to be hockey players, truck drivers, doctors, writers, marine biologists, vets and so on.

You know, people who produced something.

At some point, the media onlsaught from every level—paparazzi on up to the New York Times—paid off. North America now has a significant percentage of elementary school kids who just want to be famous, by any means, for any reason.

After all, how else to be loved by strangers?

That thought was magnified in a funny way by a quote I just read. Actually, here are two good quotes (well, a quote and a joke) I heard in the last couple of days, that are sort of unrelated, but somehow not.

First, from the late, great Kurt Vonnegut:

One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.

Now for a joke. This one was told by Jim Vallance, a songwriter (and great guy) with an extraordinary discography of credits, from Ozzy Osbourne to Aerosmith and 712,000 of Bryan “Vegan” Adams’ hits—and he has a terrifically fun website, too.

And yes, the following joke applies to me, but so what?

Question: What’s the difference between a songwriter and a large pizza?

Answer: A pizza can feed a family of four.

I actually met Jim at a talk he gave, and then had a little correspondence. For the record, I think he appreciated my rambling, endlessly devoted site, but curiously never mentioned the hit-like-nature of my songs.

Didn’t mention the songs at all, in fact, though I linked a couple as I often do.

By ommission I know what it means.

Jealousy, right?

No.

It means he’s a nice guy—and he really is; funny, humble, and full of great stories—and my songs just aren’t…garl darn it…hit-like!

But you’ll see! You’ll all see! Quasi-devotional folk music on acoustic guitar with an average voice will one day find its place in the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of fame!

And if not, if I die on television trying, at least I finally entertained you.

And for the record, Jim, I played a short set of my songs last night and made a few beautiful women tear up, and not only because of my pitch—and excluding my mother, whom I adore, I might add.

So, my friend, I will stay Wide Open and Be Brave Tonight.

As for the rest of you, don’t forget to be a Little Dreamer, read a little Jean Paul Sartre, be good to The Little Guy, have some Naked Love, stop and smell the Flowers, and in the end (to quote my first attempt at a radio smash hit), Stay With Me.

All hits, all the time. And if none of that works, consult a Wise Old Lady of Love.

For the record, I have a check coming from SOCAN (the Canadian ASCAP or BMI, I believe) for $3,700, for about ten years of radio play (they finally tracked me down at my most recent Witness Protection Plan address). And by the way, yes, I said radio play. Where? I have no idea.

And yes it’s true that the last time Jim sneezed (or maybe every time Jim sneezes), a check that size came out—but that’s no reason to hurt me.

Further, I also have another very long-winded, footnoted essay on politics about ready to come out. So who’s jealous now?

And finally, for those who are reticent of expressing themselves through poetry or songs or painting or anything else—for fear of negative feedback—please read my Love Letters. They’re just for you.

Lots of love to you,

Pete xoxo

***

Footnotes:

Being an honest man, Jim, in his talk, actually credited the pizza joke to songwriter Eddie “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” Schwartz.

I read this quote today from anarchist (and prince!) Petr Kropotkin in his book Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution. Written in 1902, the book was a rebuttal to Darwin’s (or Spencer’s, I guess) Survival of the Fittest idea, and more specifically Thomas “Darwin’s Bulldog” Huxley’s The Struggle for Existence.

Ironically, Huxley more resembled a Basset Hound crossed with a Pointer.

Kropotkin (1842-1921) writes:

In the animal world we have seen that the vast majority of species live in societies, and that they find in association the best arms for the struggle for life: understood, of course, in its wide Darwinian sense—not as a struggle for the sheer means of existence, but as a struggle against all natural conditions unfavourable to the species.

The animal species, in which individual struggle has been reduced to its narrowest limits, and the practice of mutual aid has attained the greatest development, are invariably the most numerous, the most prosperous, and the most open to further progress.

That’s true. I mean who can forget the Great Ant Revolution of 1916?

The mutual protection which is obtained in this case, the possibility of attaining old age and of accumulating experience, the higher intellectual development, and the further growth of sociable habits, secure the maintenance of the species, its extension, and its further progressive evolution.

The unsociable species, on the contrary, are doomed to decay.

The last line really stuck out out:

The unsociable species, on the contrary, are doomed to decay…

It never ceases to amaze me, even in a country as relatively great and free as Canada, how afraid people seem of each other.

If not afraid, at least somehow conditioned not to engage with strangers, to say hello, to feel some connection—and how we often retract from getting even closer, and being even kinder, in devotion to our most beloved/Beloved.

The puppy gets a thousand times more love than the person walking the puppy. And the person walking the puppy gets a thousand times more love than the person walking without a puppy.

This is curious, and worth reflection.

Kropotkin’s last line reminds me so deeply about what is a wonderful, daily revolutionary act: Loving your neighbour.

And one giant step for mankind beyond that: No longer simply love your neighbour, but love your enemy.

Now that’s a challenge for even great beings.

But how important it is to be kind to people, to listen to people, to remember that most people go through their day with relatively similar desires to one’s own.

Somehow (he said, dreaming), the energy and unfolding creation of this universal process is related to the coming together of forces, finding a balance, and eventually recycling/evolving in a continuum that is very difficult to pin down.

And (I think I’ll add) the glue that loosely binds whatever harmony we find, is love.

Love. That inconceivable, unquantifiable, invisible and even illogical thing (romantic love, anyone?) that scientists, atheists, fundamentalists and mystics all long for.

Try to talk to strangers. Try to believe that you are safe in your neighbourhood. Try to increase solidarity and relationship in your community. This seems like the greatest possible endeavour.

Speaking of Anarchism—and to add some clarity to a muddled definition—the legendary Canadian anarchist George Woodcock (1912-1995) described anarchists this way:

Anarchists are much concerned with equilibriums, and two kinds of equilibriums play a very important role in their philosophy. One is the equilibrium between destruction and construction, which dominates their tactics [and is related, I think, to the idea of “harm reduction’].

The other is the equilibrium between liberty and order, which dominates their view of the ideal society. But order for the anarchist is not something imposed from above.

It arises from self-discipline and voluntary cooperation….

In an ordinary political faith like communism or social democracy or even conservatism, the party is needed as a kind of church, a vehicle of the dogma.

But anarchism has always been rather like those mystic faiths that rely on personal illumination [always a tricky bet!], and for this reason, it has never needed a movement to keep it alive…

Although much can be said about the benefits of a good movement.

The limitations are somewhat obvious (those limitations being aspects of human nature), but so is its beauty obvious.

Either way, I thought you might like the quote, in rebuttal to the standard description of an anarchist (from Woodcock):

Anarchy is very often mistakenly regarded as the equivalent of chaos, and an anarchist is often thought of, at best, a nihilist, a man who has abandoned all principles and, at worst, a sinister bearded figure speaking broken English, who secretes a black and smoking bomb under a shabby opera cloak.

Here’s to freedom (of thought, from fear, to love, to play)

Pete

I mentioned recently the troubling 2004 book House of Bush, House of Saud: The Hidden Relationship Between the World’s Two Most Powerful Dynasties by Craig Unger, in a conversation over what could have or should have or might have been done by the US government with respect to 15 of the 19 terrorists involved in the 9/11 horrors being Saudi Arabian (two were from the UAR, one from Egypt and one from Lebanon).

That is, what might have been done if life, even in a democracy, really was above board, transparent, clear, open, honest and just.

Well, I don’t know the answer, or the answers—in case anyone thought I did, including me.

Nevertheless, I was so startled rereading this quote from the book, page 200-201, that I thought I would (could or should) post it, seeing as so many average, heroic citizens fought for so long and hard to allow people to express themselves freely, as best they can—and its reality can help a person like me be more discerning when watching the standard news, or anything else:

“In all, on a conservative estimate, $1.476 billion had made its way from the Saudis to the House of Bush and its allied companies and institutions [there is a breakdown at Appendix C in the book page 295, and by its own admission leaves out much and could be "substantially greater"—including "undisclosed legal fees for deals with the Saudis done by Baker Botts, nor does it include contracts between largely publickly held companies, such as the major oil cpompanies, and the Saudis. The actual total will never be known..."].

It could be safely said that never before in history had a presidential candidate—much less a presidential candidate and his father, a former president [and many of their well known friends, over and over]—been so closely tied financially and personally to the ruling family of another foreign power [not to mention fundamentalist power].

Never before had a president’s personal fortunes and public policies been so deeply entwined with another nation.

And what were the implications of that? In the case of George H. W. Bush, close relations with the Saudis had at times actually paid dividends for America—primarily during the Gulf War, for example.

But that carried with it a high price.

The Bushes had religiously observed one of the basic tenets of Saudi-American relations, that the United States would not poke its nose into Saudi Arabia’s internal affairs.

That might have been fine if the kingdom was another Western democracy like, say, Great Britain of Germany or Spain.

By the late nineties, it was clear that Saudi Arabia, more than any other country in the world, was responsible for the rise of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism….

What had previously been considered a purely domestic issue for the Saudis—the house of Saud’s relationship to Islamist extremists—was now a matter of America’s national security.

Hundreds had already been killed by Saudi-funded terrorists, yet former President Bush and James Baker continued their lucrative business deals with the Saudis apparently without asking the most fundamental questions…”

Take that as you will—a temporary and tiny yet significant cloaked reality of the world we live in, 2007.

If the world is a stage, the curtain sure doesn’t come up too often.

Wishing you clarity and grace, love and good company,

Pete

Regardless of the outcome—and there never will be an outcome—of the debate between believers in human made climate change and non-believers, it is undeniable and dangerous that the environment (nature and presumably our nature) continues to take a beating pollution-wise, all over the world, from human endeavour.

A few generalized examples are human-related species extinction, human-related air pollution, human-related poisoning of rivers, seas etc, the depletion of marine life etc, human created top-soil degradation, the inconceivable and horrific effects of human-caused factory farming on soil and water (not to mention the animals), and on and on.

FRESH WATER THOUGHTS

I had a little dream the other day that humans could actually make the Great Lakes fit for drinking again, as it must have been for millions of years until the last two hundred or so. Extraordinary thought, to just dip one’s hand into Lake Superior (the cleanest of the Great Lakes) and drink it up.

Imagine.

But my point again is that the environment is ravaged regardless of the truths and untruths (and unknowns) of global warming. The debate might be leading certain uninclined folks to think that global warming is the only serious environmental problem, and if it is a “hoax”—or even if one believes it is a “hoax”—there is no problem.

This is always one of the brain-numbing effects of polarized debate.

All these effects are symptomatic of the massive amounts of pollution and environmental degradation—as a result of both insane negligence and the unavoidable side-effects of expansion and fossil fuel use, and infinite other complexities.

It’s never easy being human—and figuring out how to live for the most benefit of all, with the most grace and discernment possible. Heck, deciding who we think we are is a handful.

9/11—YET AGAIN!

The best and worst example is the 9/11 theorists, where the arguments get so shrill and wide, that everybody gets painted with the same brush, no matter how small their questions might be.

Whether there was a so-called conspiracy or not (and what isn’t a conspiracy?—I conspired with the voices in my head to write this blog), who would for a minute not believe that massive business interests in the US and the incredibly wealth Saudis (who have deep intersts in American businesses) didn’t limit due diligence on the part of the US government agencies overseeing, say, who’s funding who in Saudi Arabia?

We hear relatively little about the inner workings of Saudi Arabia, and yet the Wahhabism branch of Sunni Islamic ideology appears to be profoundly fundamental, even extremist. Saudi society by Western “standards” is brutal on human rights (and of course women’s rights).

Yet Saudi Arabia is a full-fledged, almost never (if ever) threatened Western Ally…hmm.

Here’s a brief excerpt from Amnesty International.

For the average civilian in Saudi Arabia—a sister or brother, no doubt—I am relieved they were never bombed and destroyed like Afghanistan or Iraq, but you get my point.

Fourteen of the 19 hijackers, we’ve all read, were Saudi Arabian (which speaks volumes, no?). None were Iraqi. There never seems to have been a concerted effort by government leaders or the media to more deeply explore the meaning of that profound fact.

That’s not conspiracy. That’s business.

But these facts are so old and undeveloped that I feel bored even writing them myself. Extra! Extra! Read all ab…out…zzzzzzzzz.

BACK TO NATURE

Either way, and back to the environment, here’s a section from the Royal Society site called Climate change controversies: a simple guide, that may be of some use.The Royal Society, for the record, believes humans are contributing to global warming.

Nonetheless, the counter arguments are clear and easily accessed.

The excerpt points them out, and the full page goes into greater detail:

This is not intended to provide exhaustive answers to every contentious argument that has been put forward by those who seek to distort and undermine the science of climate change and deny the seriousness of the potential consequences of global warming.

Instead, the Society—as the UK’s national academy of science—responds here to eight key arguments that are currently in circulation by setting out, in simple terms, where the weight of scientific evidence lies.

Misleading argument 1 : The Earth’s climate is always changing and this is nothing to do with humans.

Misleading argument 2 : Carbon dioxide only makes up a small part of the atmosphere and so cannot be responsible for global warming.

Misleading argument 3 : Rises in the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are the result of increased temperatures, not the other way round.

Misleading argument 4 : Observations of temperatures taken by weather balloons and satellites do not support the theory of global warming.

Misleading argument 5 : Computer models which predict the future climate are unreliable and based on a series of assumptions.

Misleading argument 6 : It’s all to do with the Sun – for example, there is a strong link between increased temperatures on Earth with the number of sunspots on the Sun.

Misleading argument 7 : The climate is actually affected by cosmic rays.

Misleading argument 8 : The scale of the negative effects of climate change is often overstated and there is no need for urgent action.

Our scientific understanding of climate change is sufficiently sound to make us highly confident that greenhouse gas emissions are causing global warming. Science moves forward by challenge and debate and this will continue.

However, none of the current criticisms of climate science, nor the alternative explanations of global warming are well enough founded to make not taking any action the wise choice. The science clearly points to the need for nations to take urgent steps to cut greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, as much and as fast as possible, to reduce the more severe aspects of climate change.

We must also prepare for the impacts of climate change, some of which are already inevitable.

The full page, with detailed responses, is here.

Being so similar, we humans really should learn to get along better. But being so different, it’s difficult for humans to get along.

Lots of love to you,

Pete

Hope all who a reading this are well, which of course is never the case—but being creative with their options, anyway. I’ve been away again, so haven’t been able to write.

I got this sent to me. After writing the super long essay on the War on Drugs—Noam Chomsky on Drugs—a really informative site that I didn’t reference enough, but I think have mentioned before.

Anyway, a really good site, with startling statistics that force us to ponder the madness of the drug wars. An excerpt:

Drug arrests have more than tripled since 1980 to a record 1.8 million by 2005;

Four of five (81.7%) drug arrests were for possession offenses, and 42.6% were for marijuana charges in 2005;

Nearly six in 10 persons in state prison for a drug offense have no history of violence or high-level drug selling;

Only 14% of persons in 2004 who report using drugs in the month before their arrest had participated in a treatment program, a decline of more than half from participation rates in 1991;

A shortage of treatment options in many low-income neighborhoods contributes to drug abuse being treated primarily as a criminal justice problem, rather than a social problem.

The entire article—A 25-Year Quagmire: The War on Drugs and Its Impact on American Society—is here.

Hopefully, I can write a little bit more soon. I’d like to do some more reflective, spiritual, invigorating, inspiring stuff. We’ll see.

Lots of love to you,

Pete x