Tuttu paikka V

Oljymies

Bensan hinta on nyt ylittanyt kolmen dollarin rajan (per gallona). Hinta on kaksinkertaistunut Bushin aikakaudella. Se on aika hyvin, jos ottaa huomioon sen, etta Bush on oljymiehia. Han tietaa ja osaa oljybisneksen. Taalla ei itse asiassa ole mitenkaan varauduttu oljyn hinnan jatkuvaan nousuun. Vaikka koko kansakunnan vauraus perustuu juuri halpaan, saatavilla olevaan oljyyn! Kuljetus, autoilu, energia - kaikki perustuu halpaan oljyyn.

Amerikan vuosisata on kestanyt sen sata vuotta, mutta se on nyt jo hiipumassa, silla amerikkalaiset ovat tehneet useita vaaria valintoja viime vuosikymmenilla. He eivat ole satsanneet tulevaisuuteen, eivatka hyvaksyneet muutoksia globalisaation, energian, tyovoiman liikkumisen tai ilmaston lampenemisen suhteen. Taalla edelleen "juhlitaan kuin viimeista paivaa", vaikka krapula on jo ovella. Niin on kuitenkin koko maailman talous Yhdysvaltojen talouteen sidottu, etta kun Amerikka alkaa toden teolla yskia, muualla sairastutaan pahanlaiseen flunssaan.

Duuni

Olemme juuri rakentamassa tallaista valtavaa "otusta". Se menee Los Angelesiin yhteen suureen tekniikka/peli nayttelyyn. Lahetan lisaa kuvia kun projekti valmistuu. Tama otus on yli 23 jalkaa korkea. Eli noin 7 metria. Sen tarkoitus on olla "portti" - niita on kaksi.
Taustalla (otuksen vasemmalla) nakyy ikkuna jonka takana on meidan office.

School Violence

Columbine High School shooting in 1999.

Tassa maassa on viimeisen muutaman viikon aikana tullut esille nelja eri suunnitelmaa ampua ja tappaa koulukavereita koulussa. Yksi tapaus Alaskassa, yksi Kansasissa ja kaksi Washingtonin osavaltiossa. Viranomaiset ovat onneksi saaneet selville poikien suunnitelmat, ennen kuin niista on yhtakaan toteutettu. Mutta kuinka monta suunnitelmaa on juuri nyt meneillaan, jos nelja tuli ilmi aivan samanaikaisesti? Olen voinut pahoin ajatellessani, mihin suuntaan ollaan menossa. Vakivallasta on tullut niin yleista ja hyvaksyttya tassa kulttuurissa, etta sita pidetaan legitiimina vaihtoehtona angstin ja vieraantumisen "hoitoon". Kuinka monta vakivaltaista videopelia ja elokuvaa nama nuoret ovatkaan katsoneet lyhyen elamansa aikana? Kuinka paljon verta on vuodatettu hauskuuden nimessa? Ja kuinka paljon raivoa on niiden nuorten psyykessa, jotka haluavat olla vihattuja koko loppuelamansa? Kuinka voidaan kasvattaa lapsi sellaisessa maassa, jossa on helpompi ostaa aseita ja kokea vakivaltaa, kuin saada kunnollinen koulutus tai terveydenhuolto?

Four different plots to shoot and kill school mates have been uncovered in less than a month in this country! All of the plots were stopped and thwarted by alert authorities - luckily. I have been feeling sick to my stomach thinking about this: if they found out about four plots in such a short time, how many more are being planned as we speak? violence has become so prevalent and accepted, that kids see it as a legitimate alternative to their feelings of angst alienation. How many violent video games and movies have these teenagers wathced in their life time? How much blood have they seen spilled in the name of fun? And how angry are they to want to be hated forever? How do you raise a child in this country, where access to guns and violence is easier than access to healthcare and education?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002951479_schoolplot25m.html

Pesapalloa

Pesapallo on taas alkanut ja viela vanhat mammat jaksavat pelata (juuri ja juuri)! Aurinko paistoi loistavasti tanaan pelikentalle ja saimme rusketusta ja liikuntaa. Oli kevaan upein paiva; toivottavasti jatkuu tallaisena.

Earth Day/Maan paiva

Otin taman kuvan viime lauantaina Greenlake puistossa, tassa meidan lahella. Nama ovat ehka omapuun tai paarynapuun kukkia. Tuoksu oli loistavan makea!

Tanaan vietetaan Maan paivaa (Earth Day) taalla Yhdysvalloissa. Sita on juhlittu jo vuodesta 1970, jolloin saasteet olivat olivat hurjimmillaan ja luonnosuojelu olematonta. Joet syttyivat tuleen ja DDT tappoi kotkat melkein sukupuuttoon. Huoli luonnosta sai ihmiset protestoimaan ja vaatimaan toimia saasteiden vahentamiseksi. Paljon on siis saatu aikaan, mutta viela on paljon tehtavaa. Ihmisten valinpitamattomyys, tietamattomyys ja itsekkyys ovat edelleen pahimmat syntipukit luonnon tuhoamisessa.

Nyt puhutaan "ekosysteemin palveluista" (ecosystem services), jotka ovat elintarkeita ihmisten (ja kaikkien luontokappaleiden) hengissapysymiseen. Nama palvelut tuottavat puhdasta ilmaa, ruokaa ja vetta, ja suojelevat meita tuhoisilta myrskyilta. Nama palvelut uudistavat meita myos hengellisesti/henkisesti. Miten tarkeaa onkaan saada kulkea luonnon keskella, kuulla lintujen laulua tai laineiden lipatusta lammen rannalla? Tuhotessamme luontoa nama "palvelut" heikkenevat; on yha vaikeampaa saada puhdasta ilmaa ja vetta. Tulevat sodat taistellaan elinkelpoisen veden ja saasteettoman ruoan turvaamiseksi.

Planet Earth, Year 2050

By Traci Hukill, AlterNet
Posted on January 25, 2006, Printed on April 22, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/31222/

The authors of the world's most overlooked environmental study held a press briefing last week in Washington to discuss what life on the planet will be like in 2050. Their upbeat conclusion: fundamental changes, in practice and policy, can protect us from the worst consequences of overpopulation and climate change.

Good news -- if anybody pays attention.

While it may not be a verifiable fact that the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) is the world's most underappreciated eco-study, it's definitely the most unevenly appreciated one. When the huge report first emerged last spring after four years, $24 million and the efforts of more than 1,300 scientists in 95 countries, it made headlines elsewhere. In December it was awarded a Zayed Prize, something like an environmentalist Nobel. Here in the United States, though, the media barely registered its existence.

What a dirty shame. The U.N.-backed Millennium Assessment is the most thorough survey of global ecosystems ever undertaken. It's also the first report of its kind to link ecosystem health to human well-being, and in so doing strikes the rich, rich vein of human self-interest. Showing people what's in it for them is a great way to get something done.

At the press conference last Thursday, Walt Reid, who directed the study and now teaches at Stanford, restated the report's radical conclusions and issued a stern warning.

The report's basic premise is that healthy ecosystems provide humans with a range of "services" -- things like food, clean water, clean air, buffers from natural disasters and even spiritual renewal. To the extent that these "ecosystem services" are degraded, so is the quality of human life.

And without serious behavior modification, we're headed for a bad run, Reid said. "We've badly mismanaged our ecosystems," he said. "As long as we regard ecosystem services as free and limitless, we will continue to use them in a way that does not make sense."

Reid enumerated the main findings of the study he directed, which concluded that 60 percent of the planet's ecosystem services are being run down or used up faster than they can replenish themselves.

Poor people suffer most from such environmental degradation because their reliance on ecosystems is immediate. When a forest is wiped out, the people who relied on its animals and plants die. The Millennium Assessment amasses vast amounts of data demonstrating human suffering as a result of environmental destruction. And it predicts more pain to come as earth's swelling population pushes more ecosystems to their thresholds and toward extinctions and other "abrupt and irreversible" changes.

Last week's briefing focused on what governments can do to reverse these trends. Reid, along with Stephen Carpenter, zoology professor at University of Wisconsin, and Prabhu Pingali, an economist at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, presented four scenarios for the year 2050 that represent distinct paths into the future. They are all disturbing.

All start out assuming a couple of basic facts in the next 45 years: a significantly higher population (up from 6 billion to 8.1 to 9.6 billion) with attendant demands for more food and water, and fallout from climate change, like severe storms and dwindling water supplies.

• The scenario dubbed "Global Orchestration" imagines a future in which global trade and economic liberalization have triumphed. Poverty has fallen and incomes have risen, leading to increased global consumption. Food and water needs are met, but at great cost: a lot of the so-called "regulating" ecosystem services -- erosion control, storm protection, water purification -- suffer. Species invasions and the release of environmental pathogens occur with greater frequency. Overall, though, the five basic indicators of human well-being (material well-being, health, security, social relations and freedom) improve.
• In "Order from Strength," arguably the most dismal of the four scenarios (though the scientists themselves studiously refrain from value judgments), governments are grouped in security-obsessed regions, exercising rigid control of goods and information. The wealth gap grows between and within nations. Wealthy nations shift resource-intensive industry to poorer countries, exacerbating neglected environmental problems. International environmental treaties are ignored. One bright spot: Less global trade means fewer species invasions. But ecosystem services overall show a decline, and most human well-being indicators deteriorate too.
• "Adapting Mosaic" might be called Hippie Heaven. Nature itself is the organizing political and economic principle. Systems are scaled to local watersheds and local governance, with great value placed on ecosystem management. Global spending on education triples. At some point, however, the emphasis on local governance leads to a worsening of problems with the "global commons." Fisheries are depleted and pollution worsens, but networks form to share best practices and cooperation saves the day. Ecosystem services across the board are ultimately enhanced, as is human well-being. What's not to love? Well, people in developing countries might go hungry while everyone else is busy creating regional utopias, and technological advancements and international agreements are weak.
• "TechnoGarden" hinges on high global investment in green technology within an interconnected world, with a subsequent focus on economic development and the rise of a large global middle class. Ecosystem services are assigned value in the marketplace. For example, farmers are paid to produce ecosystem services besides food, so they might preserve wetlands or forests. Most ecosystem services improve, as does human well-being -- with the notable exception of social relations, as local customs are lost and more transactions occur over the Internet. Reid and his colleagues disagreed about whether highly urbanized democracies would make naive decisions about nature or come to prize nature for its intrinsic value and do a good job of safeguarding it.

The scientists were careful to say these are not whimsical predictions but carefully thought-out theoretical possibilities. And one of the dismaying facts to emerge is that even the best scenarios -- the last two, for my money -- have a downside.

But the presenters last week were resolutely optimistic. "It's a good news message," Carpenter said. "We can make a very positive difference in ecosystem services by 2050. The caveat is that fundamental changes would have to be undertaken."

The primary shift would be a change in attitude about ecosystem services. The value of much of nature's work is analogous to the "invisible work" of housewives, who may not function directly within the market but play a critical supporting role that keeps it running. "Governments must consider the full range of ecosystem services benefits, not just those that pass through the markets like fish and timber," Reid said.

Therefore, the value of mangrove forests in protecting Pacific islands (or cypress forests protecting Gulf Coast cities) from storm damage needs to be factored into economic decisions about whether to cut them down to make way for another shrimp farm or suburb. A wetlands' value to society as a water filtration facility needs to be weighed against the value of filling it and selling it to a developer for a one-time benefit to a single owner.

This is where subsidies come into play. Reid, Carpenter and Pingali emphasized the possibilities of using them in creative ways, as in the TechnoGarden scenario.

In economist-speak, Pingali summed up the conference on a hopeful note:

"I'd like to emphasize one fundamental lesson," he said. "Economic policy can contribute to sustainable ecosystem services over the long run."

Traci Hukill is a freelance journalist based in Monterey, Calif.

© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/31222/

China Rising

The Chinese president received a warm welcome while visiting here in Seattle (good economic ties with Washington state businesses), but when he arrives in Washington D.C. today, the welcome will most likely be much cooler. According to Michael Klare at Tomdispatch.com the Bush Administration's global strategic goal is the containment of China, at any cost. This, of course, will fuel another arms race - which the military-industrial complex of the United States will love. Read whole article below.

Kiinan presidentti sai lampiman vastaanoton kaydessaan taalla Seattlessa (Kiinalla ja Washingtonin osavaltiolla on hyvat taloudelliset suhteet keskenaan). Mutta nyt han on matkustanut paakaupunkiin, missa vastaanotto on varmasti paljon viileampi. Michael Klaren mukaan Bushin globaali strateginen tavoite on Kiinan pitaminen aisoissa, hinnalla milla hyvansa. Tama tietysti aiheuttaa seuraavan, valtavan aseiden kilpavarustelun - mika sopii erittain hyvin amerikkalaisen sotateollisuuden suunnitelmiin. Kaiken maailman sodat/sodan uhat ovat aina rikastuttaneet niita, jotka valmistavat ja kauppaavat aseita ja varustelevat sotahulluja hallituksia. Lue koko artikkeli seuraavasta.

http://www.alternet.org/story/35186/

Anna's Hummingbird

This hummingbird is a regular guest at our feeder. When he appears, it feels like a visit from a fairy - it's magic!
Sometimes when you stand outside in the backyard the hummingbird comes out of nowhere and hovers within arm's reach of your face. Then it dashes up and disappears into the trees. Just like that.

Kiina tulee

Kiinan presidentti tulee kaymaan Seattlessa huomenna, ja viipyy kaksi paivaa. Meidan firma jarjestaa tapahtuman lentokonetehtaan museossa. Sitten matkaseurue viettaa illan Bill Gatesin luona kylassa. Seattlesta lennetaan sitten maan paakaupunkiin Washington D.C. :hen.

Tylli/Killdeer

Tylli syo mielellaan kaikenmaailman hyonteisia, matoja, toukkia ja jonkin verran siemenia. Jos se kokee pesansa olevan uhattuna, se teeskentelee olevansa siipirikko houkutellakseen saalistajan pois pesalta.

The Killdeer feeds by ground gleaning, searching for insects, other invertebrates, and small seeds. It may also glean insects from low-growing foliage.
When defending a nest or hatched young, a parent performs distractions displays. The bird may drag one wing on the ground, as if broken, or it may run some distance from the actual nest area and squat on the ground, feigning the existence of a nest in that location.

http://www.nenature.com/Killdeer.htm

Consumerism And Globalization

The new edition of International Forum on Globalization has a tone of guarded optimism: activists worldwide are not just against globalization any longer (as in Seattle in 1999), they are beginning to have a vision of a” better, more democratic, and ecologically sustainable world”. 1

Global Resistance:

Alternatives to Economic Globalization asserts that the year 2003 was a “turning point” in “corporate-driven economic globalization” because of three separate events which took place that year:

1) The U.S. invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003 aroused global anger and bewilderment; millions of people worldwide protested against the invasion “in the largest peace demonstration in human history”. Most governments refused to give any support to the invasion, even countries that have historically close ties to the United States. “Thus emerged a new set of alignments led by Germany, Russia, France and China that stood firmly against the increasingly transparent aspirations of the Bush administration to build a global empire through economic and military coercion.” 1

2) WTO meeting of government representatives and NGOs from across the world resumed with negotiations of global trade agreements in Cancun, Mexico in the fall of 2003. But the world was not the same place it was just a few years ago: WTO’s collapse in Seattle in 1999 had taught important lessons - globalization is not inevitable and it can be resisted, and that little, powerless actors have power, if they collaborate and come together; the U.S. invasion of Iraq had just taken place six months prior, against the approval of the majority of the world’s nations and peoples; many developing nations had begun to take note of their own citizen activists, who had been working for years to convince their governments that economic globalization and WTO are not good for poor countries. This time around poor nations united and “negotiated as a bloc and would not accept a deal they had no part in creating, one that mainly served the corporate interests of the rich nations”. 1 With protests in the streets of Cancun and the poor nations’ rebellion against unfair trade agreements, the negotiations failed to produce any results.

3) The third significant event was the negotiations for Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) in Miami in December of 2003. Many South American governments had recently gone through radical changes. Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Equador had all elected new governments, who were more or less against economic globalization due to negative experiences with structural adjustment policies imposed by the IMF and the World Bank. “It would be fair to categorize the South American continent as the first major region of the world to turn away from neoliberalism in an active political way." 1 Many South American and Caribbean countries united against unfair U.S. – promoted trade policies and the negotiations failed - again.

Because of these momentous events in 2003 there is “a growing awareness on every continent of the failure of the present global economic system and its ruling institutions. The demand is growing for a global system grounded in new principles and institutions that embody values of justice, democracy and sustainability”. 1

An important note about the War in Iraq is that, according to Alternatives to Economic Globalization, the war is not so much an attempt by the United States to expand its empire, but it is rather a desperate attempt to resuscitate an existing economic empire in rapid decline! The “neoliberal project”, promoted most actively by American corporations, economists and politicians, is an impossible paradigm: it requires an infinite supply of cheap resources and labor, accessible new markets and willing nations (or at least corrupt governments) to participate in their exploitation. But nations of the world have opened their eyes and seen the naked self-serving motives behind the Iraqi invasion: cheap oil, accessible markets and free trade for American corporations, and they have become increasingly unwilling to participate.

Sold to the world as a panacea for all problems, economic globalization has not lived up to its advertising. It has not lifted the poor; it has instead brought record disparities in income and wealth between rich and poor nations, and rich and poor within nations. It has greatly inhibited democracy and social justice; it destroyed local communities and pushed farmers off their traditional lands. And it has accelerated the greatest environmental breakdown in history. The only real beneficiaries of globalization are the world’s largest corporations and their top officials, and the global bureaucracies they helped to create. 1

People across the globe have become emboldened and hopeful that change is on the horizon for a better, more democratic world. The World Bank and IMF are no longer trusted by citizens or governments because of their dreadful record in “helping” poor nations. Activists are organizing to promote civil society, self-determination and peace. The World Social Forum (WSF) is an annual gathering of thousands of grass roots organizations to discuss and share a “new vision of a world that can thrive if it is freed from the grip of corporate globalization”. 1

Global Homogenization:

One cannot underestimate the power of the media today. “Who controls the media controls the world.” The ownership of the global media is in the hands of just a few multinational corporations today. And their goal is not to promote diversity of cultures or opinions, but rather to make people alike.

Alternatives to Economic Globalization states that “the external processes of homogenization” are to change the rules and regulations of media through the WTO, NAFTA etc. so that multinational media corporations can dominate local markets throughout the world and set standards for one mass culture. “…the assignment is also to make over the internal landscape, to remake human beings themselves – our minds, our ideas, our values, behaviors, and desires – to create a monoculture of humans that is compatible with the redesigned external landscapes. The idea is for our minds and values to match the commercial corporate system around us…” 1 By making people alike it is easier to market products and consumption to them. By owning all the media outlets it is easy to control access to information and manipulate the kind of information people receive. But it is not good for democracy or public debate.

Although the Internet can be a powerful force for democracy, it can be used as well – or better – for the benefit of the dominant corporations. Internet alone cannot fight the effects of media consolidation and homogenization. Although overwhelming, the problem of mass media influence cannot be ignored. “…all activist groups, whatever their primary issues, need to focus on the problems of media today or their own work [will] be continually hindered. Media reform needs to move to the front burner of every group working toward democratic outcomes and a free flow of information.” 1

Alternatives to Economic Globalization suggests seven ideas that promote more democratic media across the globe.

1) Pressure the Global Rulemakers;
2) Pressure Domestic Rulemakers;
3) Impose Fees on Commercial Broadcasters for Use of the Public’s Broadcast Commons;
4) Increase Subsidies for Public Broadcasting;
5) Set new limits on Advertising;
6) Support and Empower Alternative Media
7) Support Local Organizing.

It is indeed a daunting task to try to tackle the giant called the Mass Media; especially in the U.S., where there is no history of strong public broadcasting, and where the public is so indoctrinated and encultured by the mainstream media. But without change people will be unprepared to resist economic globalization en masse.

Alternatives:

Alternatives toEconomic Globalization in chapter five discusses the concept of
the Commons.

These are aspects of life that had been accepted since time immemorial as collective property, or the common heritage of all peoples and communities, existing for everyone to share… Obvious among them are the air we breath, the freshwater we drink, the oceans and the diverse wildlife and plant biodiversity of the world, the genes… human knowledge and wisdom…shared language and culture… 1

The commons is threatened by globalization and its attempt to commodify and make a profit out of every aspect of life. It is imperative to resist this trend. The book suggests several ways to accomplish this. The most important are the dismantling of the Bretton Woods institutions. These are the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO (previously GATT). Another important principle in resisting globalization is to support localization of decision-making as much as possible: democracy is at its liveliest at the grass-roots level. Nations need to achieve (at least in most basics) self-sufficiency in food, energy, water, education, health, culture etc.

1. Alternatives to Economic Globalization: A Better World Is Possible
Edited by John Cavanagh & Jerry Mander

http://adbusters.org/home/

Globalisaatio ja kulutuskulttuuri kulkevat kasi kadessa kohti sietamatonta tulevaisuutta. Kirjoitin taman jutun vahan yli vuosi sitten, mutta se on edelleen ajankohtainen, silla monikansalliset yhtiot valloittavat yha maailmaa median, WTO:n ja sotien avulla. Kuluttajien on itse otettava vastuu siita, miten rahansa kayttavat ja miten viettavat aikaansa ja mista saavat uutisensa. Yhdysvalloissa varsinkin "uutiset" eivat ole enaa uutisia, vaan media-viihdetta, jolla tuuditetaan kuluttajat tiettyyn mielentilaan (passiivisuuteen ja kulutukseen). "Oikeat" uutiset on itse aktiivisesti haettava internetista ja vaihtoehto-mediasta, silla valtavirta-media (mainstream media) toitottaa vain tyhjanpaivaista pulppua ja pelottelee kansaa kaikenlaisella vakivallalla.

Bird flu?

Tanaan varoitettiin paikallisessa lehdessa, etta lintuinfluenssa saattaa tulla tanne Amerikan mantereelle jo taman kevaan aikana, kun muuttolinnut saapuvat Aasiasta Alaskaan Beringin salmen kautta. Siihen varaudutaan nyt, silla jos linnut tuovat sen Alaskaan, seuraavaksi linnut lentavat sielta etelaan, tanne meille. Vesilinnut ovat kaikkein riskialttiimpia: ankat, lokit, kahlaajat ja hanhet. Saa nahda, onko lintujen ruokkiminen kohta kiellettya taallakin...


The risk of bird flu is becoming real for the US continent. As wild birds migrate from Asia to Alaska across the Bering Strait, they may bring the deadly virus to America. Once it is established in Alaska, it will only be a matter of time until infected birds will bring the virus south to the rest of the continent. I may have to stop feeding wild birds in my yard. That will be a sad day.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002929517_birdflu14.html

Tuttu paikka IV

Next: Iran

The next target of the Bush administration seems to be Iran. They have not given up their long-term goal of American worldwide hegemony and American empire. Iraq is not going well, in fact it's going so badly, it's time to change the subject. So if they just bomb Iran and humiliate the religious leaders there, the people will become more America-friendly? I don't think so. Americans screwed it up already once in the 50's by replacing a popularily elected leader with a dictatorial Shah, and eventually having a very unfriendly populace in Iran (remember the hostage crisis?) So attacking Iran is not a good idea.

Seuraava: Iran

Nyt menee Bushilla niin huonosti, etta on hyokattava Iraniin, jotta unohdettaisiin etta Irakin sota on viela kaynnissa. Bush ja kumppanit uskovat edelleen amerikkalaiseen hegemoniaan ja rauhan valtakuntaan. Lahi-ita on ollut suurin murheenkryyni, joten se on demokratisoitava miekalla.
(Miten olikaan se vanha sanonta: joka miekkaan tarttuu se miekkaan hukkuu?)
Mutta ei hataa, Jumala on edelleen kristittyjen puolella, ja suojelee heita pahoilta Ismaelin pojilta.

American Goldfinch

American Goldfinch is Washington State bird.

Tama lintu (American Goldfinch) on Washingtonin osavaltion lintu. Suomeksi se on muistaakseni jonkin lajin peippo.
Suoritan nyt kevaalla ornitologian kurssia, eli tutkin lintuja ja lintujen teita. Washingtonissa on noin 365 lintulajia, eli toita riittaa kiikareille ja lintupaivakirjoille. Olen jo usean vuoden ajan ruokkinut lintuja etu- ja takapihalla. Kaikkein mukavinta on, kun kolibri tulee ihan ikkunan viereen juomaan "metta" astiasta. Liuos on oikeastaan sokerivetta, jota kolibrit juovat mielellaan aina hyttysten ja muiden otokoiden pyydystamisen valissa.

Seattle is educated

Seattle on Yhdysvaltain koulutetuin suurkaupunki. Taalla on korkeakoulutettuja aikuisesta vaestosta 51.3% (vahintaan alempi korkeakoulututkinto). Seattle on suosittu erityisesti nuorten korkeasti koulutettujen aikuisten keskuudessa. Useat muuttavat tanne heti valmistuttuaan yliopistosta, silla Seattlella on hyva maine "elinkelpoisena" kaupunkina. Taalla on paljon tyopaikkoja teknologian alalla, ja mahdollisuudet monenlaiseen virkistystoimintaan: on vuoristoja, metsia ja meri. Ilmasto on lauha ja sallii ymparivuotisen ulkoilun. Seattle on myos avoin uusille vaikutteille, ja uudet tulokkaat sopeutuvat helposti. Poliittisesti Seattle on "vasemmalla" rannikolla, ehka juuri siksi etta vaesto on hyvin koulutettua ja suvaitsevaa.

Seattle is the best educated big city in the U.S. according to Census Bureau. 51.3% of the adult population has at least a bachelor's degree in Seattle. People are attracted to moving here after graduating from college because Seattle has a good reputation as a high tech city with many opportunities for recreation year round. It's been voted "the most livable city" many times. Seattle is open to new influences and to immigrants; it's politics are considered left of center - perhaps exactly because of the educated population, who tend to be more tolerant of diversity.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002923946_cities11m.html

Victoria

Victoria, pikku kaupunki Brittilaisessa Kolumbiassa. Siella taytyy menna kaymaan. siita on jo 25 vuotta kun olen siella kaynyt!
Mutta muistan etta se on erityisen kaunis ja siisti ja kanadalaisen ystavallinen.

Viimeiseen pisaraan

Juutas

Juudaksen evankeliumi on loytynyt. Siina kerrotaan, etta Juudas ei ollutkaan petturi, vaan Jeesuksen lahin ystava. Han teki niin kuin Mestari maarasi, eli antoi Jeesuksen ilmi jotta Jumalan suunnitelma tayttyisi. On hassua ajatella, etta toisinkin olisi voinut kayda kuin on opetettu. Jospa Da Vinci koodillakin on jotain "syvempaa" sanottavaa... Miksi juuri Matteus, Markus, Luukas ja Johannes ovat "oikeassa"? Kuka heidat valitsi? Tietysti ne, joilla oli valta valita mika kuuluu kaanoniin ja mika ei. Mutta oliko heilla siihen oikeus?

Niin kai on ollut kautta aikojen, etta voittajat kirjoittavat historian. Havinneet katoavat historiankirjoista; tai jos eivat katoa, niin ovat ainakin roistoja ja pahantekijoita.

Judas

The gospel of Judas has been discovered. It depicts Judas as not a traitor but a close friend of Jesus. He did as the Master told him to: gave Jesus up to fulfill God's greater Plan. It is strange to think that the events that took place 2000 years ago could have happened differently than we have been taught. Perhaps Da Vinci Code has deeper meaning than we might want to give it credit for... Why are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John "right"? Who chose them to be the bringers of Good News? Of course, those who had the power, chose the books of the New Testament. But did they have the right?
Throughout times the winners have written history. The losers disappear from history books; or they become the villains and the evildoers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4882420.stm

maapallo lampenee...

Onhan tassa ennenkin kayty lapi jaakausia ja lampimampia jaksoja... eikohan tasta nytkin selvita...

We have gone through ice age and warmer periods before, we'll make it through this one... right?

Democracy Deficit II

Demokratian vajaus

Noam Chomskyn haastattelu jatkuu:

(Pohjautuu kirjaan "Failed States: the Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy" - suomeksi suurin piirtein "romahtaneet valtiot: vallan vaarinkaytto ja hyokkays demokratiaa vastaan").

Yhdysvallat on muotoillut pitkaan ulkopolitiikkaansa, jolla se voisi oikeuttaa voiman kayton kansainvalisilla areenoilla. Yleisin syy on ollut kommunismin torjunta. 80-luvulle tultaessa nama syyt eivat olleet enaa kovin uskottavat, joten Ronald Reagan kehitteli uuden syntipukin: "terroristi"-valtiot. Terroristeilta olisi suojauduttava, silla he olivat barbaarisia ja pahoja. 90-luvulla Bill Clinton kehitteli ajatusta "roisto"-valtioista, joita vastaan olisi puolustauduttava. Vahan myohemmin alettiin puhua "romahtaneista" valtioista, jotka uhkasivat Yhdysvaltain turvallisuutta (Irak), tai jotka tarvitsivat Amerikan sekaantumista sisaisiin asioihinsa selviytyakseen (Haiti). Usein nama valtiot karsivat enemman Amerikan interventiosta kuin siita, ette ne olisi jatetty rauhaan.

Hassua tassa kaikessa on, etta Yhdysvallat (Chomskyn mukaan) itse sopii melko hyvin naihin kuvauksiin "roisto-valtioista". Moni maailman kansa pitaa Yhdysvaltoja sen suurimpana turvallisuusriskina. Yhdysvallat tukee ja itse tekee terroritekoja maailmalla, ja suojelee terrorismin tekijoita.
Sama koskee "romahtanutta" valtiota. Yhdysvallat muistuttaa yha enemman maata, joka on "romahtanut". Amerikassa vallitsee valtava ero julkisen mielipiteen ja julkisen vallan valilla - tata Chomsky kutsuu "demokratian vajeeksi". Kansan mielipide on kaukana julkisen vallan aarioikeistolaisesta suuntauksesta. Demokratia ei toimi niin kuin pitaisi.

Greenhouse Gases

Democracy Deficit I

Demokratian vajaus

Noam Chomsky on yksi Amerikan johtavista intellektuelleista, joka on kirjoittanut useita kirjoja ja ottanut osaa poliittiseen keskusteluun Yhdysvalloissa. Han on kielitieteen professori MIT:ssa (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Han on juuri julkaissut kirjan: Failed States: the Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy (suomeksi suurin piirtein "romahtaneet valtiot: vallan vaarinkaytto ja hyokkays demokratiaa vastaan"). Hanta haastateltiin muutama paiva sitten radiossa, ja tassa otteita haastattelusta.

Chomskyn mukaan Yhdysvallat alkaa muistuttaa romahtanutta valtiota, joka ei kykene enaa suojelemaan kansalaisiaan vakivallalta, ja jonka hallitus pitaa itseaan kotimaisen ja kansainvalisen lain ulottumattomissa. Kirjassaan Chomsky kirjoittaa eri vaihtoehdoista jotka pelastaisivat maan romahdukselta. Esimerkkeina han mainitsee mm. Yhdysvaltojen sitoutuminen kansainvaliseen rikostuomioistuimeen ja Kioton ilmastosopimukseen. Han myos kehottaa Yhdysvaltoja vahentamaan sotilaallisia menoja ja lisaamaan rahankayttoa sosiaalisilla sektoreilla.

Laitan lisaa haastattelusta myohemmin; ja sitten kun olen lukenut kirjan, kirjoitan siitakin. Mutta haastattelu on tassa mukana englanniksi...

Failed States, Rogue States and America

By , Democracy Now!
Posted on April 3, 2006, Printed on April 3, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/34321/

[Editor's Note: This is an edited transcript of an interview from the radio program Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. The interview originally aired on March 31, 2006, and the full transcipt and podcast are available for download from Democracy Now!.]

AMY GOODMAN: The New York Times calls him "arguably the most important intellectual alive." The Boston Globe calls him "America's most useful citizen." He was recently voted the world's No. 1 intellectual in a poll by Prospect and Foreign Policy magazines.

We're talking about Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the foremost critics of U.S. foreign policy. Professor Chomsky has just released a new book titled "Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy."

It examines how the United States is beginning to resemble a failed state that cannot protect its citizens from violence and has a government that regards itself as beyond the reach of domestic or international law. In the book, professor Noam Chomsky presents a series of solutions to help rescue the nation from turning into a failed state.

They include: Accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and the World Court, sign the Kyoto protocols on global warming, let the United Nations take the lead in international crises, rely on diplomatic and economic measures rather than military ones in confronting terror, and sharply reduce military spending and sharply increase social spending.

AG: In this first broadcast interview upon publication of his book, professor Noam Chomsky joins us today from Boston for the hour. We welcome you to Democracy Now!, Noam.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Glad to be with you again.

AG: It's good to have you with us. Failed states -- what do you mean?

NC: Well, over the years there have been a series of concepts developed to justify the use of force in international affairs for a long period. It was possible to justify it on the pretext, which usually turned out to have very little substance, that the U.S. was defending itself against the communist menace. By the 1980s, that was wearing pretty thin. The Reagan administration concocted a new category: terrorist states. They declared a war on terror as soon as they entered office in the early 1980s, 1981. 'We have to defend ourselves from the plague of the modern age, return to barbarism, the evil scourge of terrorism,' and so on, and particularly state-directed international terrorism.

A few years later, Clinton devised the concept of rogue states. "It's 1994, we have to defend ourselves from rogue states." Then, later on came the failed states, which either threaten our security, like Iraq, or require our intervention in order to save them, like Haiti, often devastating them in the process. In each case, the terms have been pretty hard to sustain, because it's been difficult to overlook the fact that under any, even the most conservative characterization of these notions -- let's say U.S. law -- the United States fits fairly well into the category, as has often been recognized. By now, for example, the category -- even in the Clinton years, leading scholars, Samuel Huntington and others, observed that -- in the major journals, Foreign Affairs -- that in most of the world, much of the world, the United States is regarded as the leading rogue state and the greatest threat to their existence.

By now, a couple of years later, Bush years, same journals' leading specialists don't even report international opinion. They just describe it as a fact that the United States has become a leading rogue state. Surely, it's a terrorist state under its own definition of international terrorism, not only carrying out violent terrorist acts and supporting them, but even radically violating the so-called "Bush Doctrine," that a state that harbors terrorists is a terrorist state. Undoubtedly, the U.S. harbors leading international terrorists, people described by the FBI and the Justice Department as leading terrorists, like Orlando Bosch, now Posada Carriles, not to speak of those who actually implement state terrorism.

And I think the same is true of the category "failed states." The U.S. increasingly has taken on the characteristics of what we describe as failed states. In the respects that one mentioned, and also, another critical respect, namely the -- what is sometimes called a democratic deficit, that is, a substantial gap between public policy and public opinion. So those suggestions that you just read off, Amy, those are actually not mine. Those are pretty conservative suggestions. They are the opinion of the majority of the American population, in fact, an overwhelming majority. And to propose those suggestions is to simply take democracy seriously. It's interesting that on these examples that you've read and many others, there is an enormous gap between public policy and public opinion. The proposals, the general attitudes of the public, which are pretty well studied, are -- both political parties are, on most of these issues, well to the right of the population.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, professor Chomsky, in the early parts of the book, especially on the issue of the one characteristic of a failed state, which is its increasing failure to protect its own citizens, you lay out a pretty comprehensive look at what, especially in the Bush years, the war on terrorism has meant in terms of protecting the American people. And you lay out clearly, especially since the war, the invasion of Iraq, that terrorist, major terrorist action and activity around the world has increased substantially. And also, you talk about the dangers of a possible nuclear -- nuclear weapons being used against the United States. Could you expand on that a little bit?

NC: Well, there has been a very serious threat of nuclear war. It's not -- unfortunately, it's not much discussed among the public. But if you look at the literature of strategic analysts and so on, they're extremely concerned. And they describe particularly the Bush administration's aggressive militarism as carrying an "appreciable risk of ultimate doom," to quote one. "Apocalypse soon," to quote Robert McNamara and many others. And there's good reasons for it, I mean, as they explain. That's been expanded by the Bush administration consciously, not because they want nuclear war, but it's just not a high priority. So the rapid expansion of offensive U.S. military capacity, including the militarization of space, which is the U.S.'s pursuit alone. The world has been trying very hard to block it. Ninety-five percent of the expenditures now are from the U.S., and they're expanding.

All of these measures bring about a completely predictable reaction on the part of the likely targets. They don't say, you know, "Thank you. Here are our throats. Please cut them." They react in the ways that they can. For some, it will mean responding with the threat or maybe use of terror. For others, more powerful ones, it's going to mean sharply increasing their own offensive military capacity. So Russian military expenditures have sharply increased in response to Bush programs. Chinese expansion of offensive military capacity is also beginning to increase for the same reasons. All of that raises the already severe threat of accidental nuclear war. These systems are on computer-controlled alert. And we know that our own systems have many errors, which are stopped by human intervention. Their systems are far less secure; in the Russian case, deteriorated. These moves all sharply enhance the threat of nuclear war. That's serious nuclear war that I'm talking about.

There's also the threat of dirty bombs, small nuclear explosions. Small means not so small, but in comparison with a major attack, which would pretty much exterminate civilized life. The U.S. intelligence community regards the threat of a dirty bomb, say in New York, in the next decade as being probably greater than 50 percent. And those threats increase as the threat of terror increases.

And Bush administration policies have, again, consciously been carried out in a way, which they know is likely to increase the threat of terror. The most obvious example is the Iraq invasion. That was undertaken with the anticipation that it would be very likely to increase the threat of terror and also nuclear proliferation. And, in fact, that's exactly what happened, according to the judgment of the CIA, National Intelligence Council, foreign intelligence agencies, independent specialists. They all point out that, yes, as anticipated, it increased the threat of terror. In fact, it did so in ways well beyond what was anticipated.

To mention just one, we commonly read that there were no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq. Well, it's not totally accurate. There were means to develop weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and known to be in Iraq. They were under guard by U.N. inspectors, who were dismantling them. When Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and the rest sent in their troops, they neglected to instruct them to guard these sites. The U.N. inspectors were expelled, the sites were left unguarded. The inspectors continued their work by satellite and reported that over a hundred sites had been looted, in fact, systematically looted, not just somebody walking in, but careful looting. That included dangerous biotoxins, means to hide precision equipment to be used to develop nuclear weapons and missiles, means to develop chemical weapons and so on. All of this has disappeared. One hates to imagine where it's disappeared to, but it could end up in New York.

JG: Professor Chomsky, in your book you also talk about how Iraq has become almost an incubator or a university now for advanced training for terrorists, who then are leaving the country there and going around the world, very much as what happened in the 1980s in Afghanistan. Could you talk about that somewhat?

NC: Actually, these are just quotes from the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies and analysts. Yes, they describe Iraq now as a training ground for highly professionalized terrorists skilled in urban contact. They do compare it to Afghanistan, but say that it's much more serious because of the high level of training and skill. These are almost entirely Iraqis. There's a small number of foreign fighters drawn to Iraq. Estimates are maybe 5 percent to 10 percent. And they are, as in the case of Afghanistan, expected to spread throughout many parts of the world and to carry out the kinds of terrorism that they're trained in, as a reaction to -- clearly a reaction to -- the invasion. Iraq was, whatever you thought about it, free from connections to terror prior to the invasion. It's now a major terror center.

It's not as President Bush says, that terrorists are being concentrated in Iraq so that we can kill them. These are terrorists who had no previous record of involvement in terrorism. The foreign fighters who have come in, mostly from Saudi Arabia, have been investigated extensively by Saudi and Israeli and U.S. intelligence, and what they conclude is that they were mobilized by the Iraq war, with no involvement in terrorist actions in the past. And undoubtedly, just as expected, the Iraq war has raised an enormous hostility throughout much of the world, and particularly the Muslim world.

It was the most -- probably the most unpopular war in history, and even before it was fought. Virtually no support for it anywhere, except the U.S. and Britain and a couple of other places. And since the war itself was perhaps one of the most incredible military catastrophes in history, has caused utter disaster in Iraq, and all of that has since simply intensified the strong opposition to the war of the kind that you heard from that Indonesian student of a few moments ago. But that's why it spread, and it increases the reservoir of potential support for the terrorists, who regard themselves as a vanguard, attempting to elicit support from others, to bring others to join with them. And the Bush administration is their leading ally in this. Again, not my words, the words of the leading U.S. specialists on terror, Michael Scheuer in this case. And definitely, that's happened.

And it's not the only case. I mean, in case after case, the Bush administration has simply downgraded the threat of terror. One example is the report of the 9/11 Commission. Here in the United States, the Bush administration didn't want the commission to be formed, tried to block it, but it was finally formed. The bipartisan commission gave many recommendations. The recommendations, to a large extent, were not carried out. The commission members, including the chair, were appalled by this, set up their own private commission after their own tenure was completed, and continued to report that the measures are simply not being carried out.

There are many other examples. One of the most striking is the Treasury Department has a branch, the Office of Financial Assets Control, which is supposed to monitor suspicious funding transfers around the world. Well, that's a core element of the so-called war on terror. They've given reports to Congress. It turns out that they have a few officials devoted to al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein, but about -- I think it was six times that many devoted to whether there are any evasions of the totally illegal U.S. embargo against Cuba.

There was an instance of that just a few months ago, when the U.S. infuriated even energy corporations by ordering a Sheraton Hotel in Mexico City to cancel a meeting between Cuban oil specialists and U.S. oil companies, including some big ones, seeking to explore the development of offshore Cuban oil resources. The government ordered -- this OFAC ordered the hotel, the U.S. hotel, to expel the Cubans and terminate the meeting. Mexico wasn't terribly happy about this. It's extraordinary arrogance. But it also reveals the hysterical fanaticism of the goal of strangling Cuba.

And we know why. It's a free country. We have records going from way back, and a rich source of them go back to the Kennedy-Johnson administrations. They had to carry out a terrorist war against Cuba, as they did, and try to strangle Cuba economically because of Cuba's -- what they called Cuba's successful defiance of U.S. policies, going back to the Monroe Doctrine. No Russians, but the Monroe Doctrine, 150 years back at that time. And the goal was, as was put very plainly by the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, to make the people of Cuba suffer. They are responsible for the fact that the government is in place. We therefore have to make them suffer and starve, so that they'll throw out the government. It's a policy which is pretty consistent. It's being applied right now in Palestine. It was applied under the Iraqi sanctions, plot in Chile, and so on. It's savage.

JG: Professor Chomsky, in your book you have a fascinating section, where you talk about the historical basis of the Bush doctrine of preemptive war, and also its relationship to empire or to the building of a U.S. empire. And you go back, you mention a historian, John Lewis Gaddis, who the Bush administration loves, because he's actually tried to find the historical rationalization for this use, going back to John Quincy Adams and as secretary of state in the invasion by Gen. Andrew Jackson of Florida in the Seminole Wars, and how this actually is a record of the use of this idea to continue the expansionist aims of the United States around the world.

NC: Yeah, that's a very interesting case, actually. John Lewis Gaddis was not only the favorite historian of the Reagan administration, but he's regarded as the dean of Cold War scholarship, the leading figure in the American Cold War scholarship, a professor at Yale. And he wrote the one, so far, book-length investigation into the roots of the Bush Doctrine, which he generally approves, the usual qualifications about style and so on. He traces it is back, as you say, to his hero, the great grand strategist, John Quincy Adams, who wrote a series of famous state papers back in 1818, in which he gave post facto justification to Andrew Jackson's invasion of Florida. And it's rather interesting.

Gaddis is a good historian. He knows the sources, cites all the right sources. But he doesn't tell you what they say. So what I did in the book is just add what they say, what he omitted. Well, what they describe is a shocking record of atrocities and crimes carried out against what were called runaway Negroes and lawless Indians. [They] devastated the Seminoles. There was another major Seminole war later -- [they] either exterminated them or drove them into the marshes, completely unprovoked. There were fabricated pretexts. Gaddis talks about the threat of England. There was no threat from England. England didn't do a thing. In fact, even Adams didn't claim that. But it established what Gaddis calls the thesis that expansion is the best guarantee of security. So you want to be secure? Just expand, conquer more. Then you'll be secure.

And he says, yes, that goes right through all American administrations -- he's correct about that -- and is the centerpiece of the Bush Doctrine. So he says the Bush Doctrine isn't all that new. Expansion is the key to security. So we just expand and expand, and then we become more secure. Well, you know, he doesn't mention the obvious precedents that come to mind, so I'll leave them out, but you can think of them. And there's some truth to that, except for what he ignores and, in fact, denies, namely the huge atrocities that are recorded in the various sources, the scholarly sources that he cites, which also point out that Adams, by giving this justification for Jackson's war -- he was alone in the administration to do it, but he managed to convince the president -- established the doctrine of executive wars without congressional authorization, in violation of the Constitution. Adams later recognized that and was sorry for it, and very sorry, but that established it and, yes, that's been consistent ever since then: executive wars without congressional authorization. We know of case after case. It doesn't seem to bother the so-called originalists who talk about original intent.

But that aside, he also -- the scholarship that Gaddis cites but doesn't quote also points out that Adams established other principles that are consistent from then until now, namely massive lying to the public, distortion, evoking hysterical fears, all kinds of deceitful efforts to mobilize the population in support of atrocities. And yes, that continues right up to the present as well. So there's very interesting historical record. What it shows is almost the opposite of what Gaddis claims and what the Bush administration likes. And it's right out of the very sources that he refers to, the right sources, the right scholarship. He simply ignores them. But, yes, the record is interesting.

AG: Noam Chomsky, I wanted to ask you a question. As many people know, you're perhaps one of the most cited sources of analysis in the world. And I thought this was an interesting reference to these citations. This was earlier this month -- Tim Russert, Meet the Press , questioning the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace.

TIM RUSSERT: Mr. Jaafari said that one of his favorite American writers is professor Noam Chomsky, someone who has written very, very strongly against the Iraq war and against most of the Bush administration foreign policy. Does that concern you?

GEN. PETER PACE: I hope he has more than one book on his nightstand.

TIM RUSSERT: So, it troubles you?

GEN. PETER PACE: I would be concerned if the only access to foreign ideas that the prime minister had was that one author. If, in fact, that's one of many, and he's digesting many different opinions, that's probably healthy.

AG: That's Gen. Peter Pace, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, being questioned by Tim Russert, talking about Jaafari, who at this very moment is struggling to hold on to his position as prime minister of Iraq. Your response, Noam Chomsky?

NC: Well, I, frankly, rather doubt that Gen. Pace recognized my name or knew what he was referring to, but maybe he did. The quote from Tim Russert, if I recall, was that this was a book that was highly critical of the Iraq war. Well, that shouldn't surprise a prime minister of Iraq. After all, according to U.S. polls, the latest ones I've seen reported, Brookings Institution, 87 percent of Iraqis want a timetable for withdrawal. That's an astonishing figure. If it really is all Iraqis, as was asserted. That means virtually everyone in Arab Iraq, the areas where the troops are deployed. I, frankly, doubt that you could have found figures like that in Vichy France or, you know, Poland under … when it was a Russian satellite.

What it means essentially is that virtually everyone wants a timetable for withdrawal. So, would it be surprising that a prime minister would read a book that's critical of the war and says the same thing? It's interesting that Bush and Blair, who are constantly preaching about their love of democracy, announce, declare that there will be no timetable for withdrawal. Well, that part probably reflects the contempt for democracy that both of them have continually demonstrated, them and their colleagues, virtually without exception.

But there are deeper reasons, and we ought to think about them. If we're talking about exit strategies from Iraq, we should bear in mind that for the U.S. to leave Iraq without establishing a subordinate client state would be a nightmare for Washington. All you have to do is think of the policies that an independent Iraq would be likely to pursue, if it was mildly democratic. It would almost surely strengthen its already developed relations with Shiite Iran right next door. Any degree of Iraqi autonomy stimulates autonomy pressures across the border in Saudi Arabia, where there's a substantial Shiite population that has been bitterly repressed by the U.S.-backed tyranny but is now calling for more autonomy. That happens to be where most of Saudi oil is.

JG: I would like to ask you, in terms of this whole issue of democracy -- in your book you talk about the democracy deficit. Obviously, the Bush administration is having all kinds of problems with their -- even their model of democracy around the world, given the election results in the Palestinian territories, the situation now in Iraq, where the president is trying to force out the prime minister of the winning coalition there, in Venezuela, even in Iran. Your concept of the democracy deficit, and why this administration is able to hold on in the United States itself?

NC: Well, there are two aspects of that. One is, the democracy deficit internal to the United States; that is, the enormous and growing gap between public opinion and public policy. Second is their so-called democracy-promotion mission elsewhere in the world. The latter is just pure fraud. The only evidence that they're interested in promoting democracy is that they say so. The evidence against it is just overwhelming, including the cases you mentioned and many others. I mean, the very fact that people are even willing to talk about this shows that we're kind of insisting on being North Koreans: If the dear leader has spoken, that establishes the truth; it doesn't matter what the facts are. I go into that in some detail in the book.

The democracy deficit at home is another matter. They have an extremely narrow hold on political power. Their policies are strongly opposed by most of the population. How do they carry this off? Well, that's been through an intriguing mixture of deceit, lying, fabrication, public relations. There's actually a pretty good study of it by two good political scientists, Hacker and Pearson, who just run through the tactics and how it works. And they have barely managed to hold on to political power and are attempting to use it to dismantle the institutional structure that has been built up over many years with enormous popular support -- the limited benefits system. They're trying to dismantle Social Security and are actually making progress on that. The tax cuts, overwhelmingly for the rich, are purposely creating a future situation -- first of all, a kind of fiscal train wreck in the future -- but also a situation in which it will be virtually impossible to carry out the kinds of social policies that the public overwhelmingly supports.

And to manage to carry this off has been an impressive feat of manipulation, deceit, lying and so on. No time to talk about it here, but actually my book gives a pretty good account. I do discuss it in the book. That's a democratic deficit at home and an extremely serious one. The problems of nuclear war, environmental disaster, those are issues of survival, the top issues and the highest priority for anyone sensible. Third issue is that the U.S. government is enhancing those threats. And a fourth issue is that the U.S. population is opposed, but is excluded from the political system. That's a democratic deficit. It's one we can deal with, too.

© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/34321/

Tuttu paikka III

Jeesuksen stripparit

31-vuotias entinen strippari on tehnyt parannuksen, ja ryhtynyt evankelioimaan toisia seksityontekijoita ja strippareita. Heather Veitch toimii kalifornialaisen kirkon evankelistana parin muun typykan kanssa - heidan ryhmansa nimi on JC's Girls Girls Girls [JC= Jesus Christ]. He kayvat strip klubeilla ja tilaavat poytatanssia yksityishuoneessa, mutta tanssin sijaan he kertovat tanssijalle Jeesuksesta. Heilla on myos oma nettisivu, jossa seksikkaat tiput kertovat kuinka he ovat loytaneet Jeesuksen, ja kehottavat katsomaan heita "toiminnassa". http://www.jcsgirls.com/

On hiukan vaikeaa ottaa typykoita tosissaan, kun he niin ilmeisesti kayttavat hyvakseen miesten "lihan himoa". Sopiiko kristinusko ja seksi yhteen? Luulen, etta meidat kristityt on kasvatettu niin hapean ja pelon varjossa, etta ei oikein sovi. Ehka parin sadan vuoden kuluttua...


Koko juttu loytyy sivulta:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002903581_stripper01.html

Oljyinen aamupala

Mita tankkaamme, kun istumme aamupalalle sunnuntaiaamuna? Jos olemme ymparistoystavallisia ja valveutuneita, syomme luultavasti luomupuuroa, ja juomme reilun kaupan kahvia. Kenties myos juomme luomutuoremehua tai syomme luomumansikoita. Tama kaikki suojelee luontoa - ainakin jonkin verran, mutta jos ruoka on pakattu ja tullut jostain kaukaa (kahvi Afrikasta tai Etela-Amerikasta, tuoremehu Floridasta), siihen on kulutettu aimo annos fossiilisia polttoaineita. Olemme niin rippuvaisia oljysta, kaasusta ja hiilesta ettemme edes huomaa paivittaista kulutusta, koska siita on tullut niin jokapaivaista.

Muistan viela 60-luvulla kun kavimme kaupassa, maito ostettiin putkesta suoraan 3-litran henttariin (tai paalariin). Sitten tulivat muovipussit ja lopulta tolkit. Kuinka mukavaa olikaan ostaa litra kerrallaan (ja kuinka tuottoisaa oljy-yhtioille ja pakkausten tuottajille)! Nyt tuskin voimme ostaa mitaan tukkuna, mutta kulutamme valtavat maarat fossiilisia pottoaineita pelkkiin pakkauksiin ja kuljetuksiin. Michiganin yliopistossa on laskettu, etta jokaista energiakaloria kohden poltamme seitseman kaloria polttoainetta! Mieletonta tuhlausta. Siksi olisikin tarkeaa tietaa tuotteen "ekologinen jalanjalki", joka kertoisi kuinka paljon on kulutettu energiaa ennen kuin tuote on saatu kaupan hyllylle. Parasta olisi aina ostaa oman maan ja paikallisten maatilojen tuotteita ja viela parempi jos saa suoraan torilta pakkaamatonta, tuoretta tavaraa. Tama on usein vahan kalliimpaa, mutta taatusti parempaa, ja yllapitaa myos paikallista maataloutta.

Fossil Fuel For Breakfast

By Chad Heeter, Tomdispatch.com
Posted on March 29, 2006, Printed on April 2, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/34073/

Please join me for breakfast. It's time to fuel up again.

On the table in my small Berkeley apartment this particular morning is a healthy looking little meal -- a bowl of imported McCann's Irish oatmeal topped with Cascadian Farms organic frozen raspberries, and a cup of Peet's Fair Trade Blend coffee. Like most of us, I prepare my breakfast at home and the ingredients for this one probably cost me about $1.25. (If I went to a cafe in downtown Berkeley, I'd likely have to add another $6, plus tip for the same.)

My breakfast fuels me up with about 400 calories, and it satisfies me. So, for just over a buck and half an hour spent reading the morning paper in my own kitchen, I'm energized for the next few hours. But before I put spoon to cereal, what if I consider this bowl of oatmeal porridge (to which I've just added a little butter, milk, and a shake of salt) from a different perspective. Say, a Saudi Arabian one.

Then, what you'd be likely to see -- what's really there, just hidden from our view (not to say our taste buds) -- is about four ounces of crude oil. Throw in those luscious red raspberries and that cup of java (another three ounces of crude), and don't forget those modest additions of butter, milk, and salt (another ounce), and you've got a tiny bit of the Middle East right here in my kitchen.

Now, let's drill a little deeper into this breakfast. Just where does this tiny gusher of oil actually come from? (We'll let this oil represent all fossil fuels in my breakfast, including natural gas and coal.)

Nearly 20% of this oil went into growing my raspberries on Chilean farms many thousands of miles away, those oats in the fields of County Kildare, Ireland, and that specially-raised coffee in Guatemala -- think tractors as well as petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides.

The next 40% of my breakfast fossil-fuel equation is burned up between the fields and the grocery store in processing, packaging, and shipping.

Take that box of McCann's oatmeal. On it is an inviting image of pure, healthy goodness -- a bowl of porridge, topped by two peach slices.

Scattered around the bowl are a handful of raw oats, what look to be four acorns, and three fresh raspberries. Those raw oats are actually a reminder that the flakes require a few steps twixt field and box. In fact, a visit to McCann's website illustrates each step in the cleaning, steaming, hulling, cutting, and rolling that turns the raw oats into edible flakes. Those five essential steps require significant energy costs.

Next, my oat flakes go into a plastic bag (made from oil), which is in turn inserted into an energy-intensive, pressed wood-pulp, printed paper box. Only then does my "breakfast" leave Ireland and travel over 5,000 fuel-gorging, CO2-emitting miles by ship and truck to my grocery store in California.

Coming from another hemisphere, my raspberries take an even longer fossil-fueled journey to my neighborhood. Though packaged in a plastic bag labeled Cascadian Farms (which perhaps hints at a birthplace in the good old Cascade mountains of northwest Washington), the small print on the back, stamped "Product of Chile" tells all -- and what it speaks of is a 5,800-mile journey to Northern California.

If you've been adding up percentages along the way, perhaps you've noticed that a few tablespoons of crude oil in my bowl have not been accounted for. That final 40% of the fossil fuel in my breakfast is used up by the simple acts of keeping food fresh and then preparing it. In home kitchens and restaurants, the chilling in refrigerators and the cooking on stoves using electricity or natural gas gobbles up more energy than you might imagine.

For decades, scientists have calculated how much fossil fuel goes into our food by measuring the amount of energy consumed in growing, packing, shipping, consuming, and finally disposing of it. The "caloric input" of fossil fuel is then compared to the energy available in the edible product, the "caloric output."

What they've discovered is astonishing. According to researchers at the University of Michigan's Center for Sustainable Agriculture, an average of over seven calories of fossil fuel is burned up for every calorie of energy we get from our food. This means that in eating my 400 calorie breakfast, I will, in effect, have "consumed" 2,800 calories of fossil-fuel energy. (Some researchers claim the ratio to be as high as ten to one.)

But this is only an average. My cup of coffee gives me only a few calories of energy, but to process just one pound of coffee requires over 8,000 calories of fossil-fuel energy -- the equivalent energy found in nearly a quart of crude oil, 30 cubic feet of natural gas, or around two and a half pounds of coal.

So how do you gauge how much oil went into your food?

First check out how far it traveled. The further it traveled, the more oil it required. Next, gauge how much processing went into the food. A fresh apple is not processed, but Kellogg's Apple Jacks cereal requires enormous amounts of energy to process. The more processed the food, the more oil it required. Then consider how much packaging is wrapped around your food. Buy fresh vegetables instead of canned, and buy bulk beans, grains, and flour if you want to reduce that packaging.

By now, you're thinking that you're in the clear, because you eat strictly organically-grown foods. When it comes to fossil-fuel calculations though, the manner in which food's grown is where differences stop. Whether conventionally-grown or organically-grown, a raspberry is shipped, packed, and chilled the same way.

Yes, there are some savings from growing organically, but possibly only of a slight nature. According to a study by David Pimentel at Cornell University, 30% of fossil-fuel expenditure on farms growing conventional (non-organic) crops is found in chemical fertilizer. This 30% is not consumed on organic farms, but only if the manure used as fertilizer is produced in very close proximity to the farm. Manure is a heavy, bulky product. If farms have to truck bulk manure for any distance over a few miles, the savings are eaten up in diesel-fuel consumption, according to Pimentel. One source of manure for organic farmers in California is the chicken producer Foster Farms. Organic farmers in Monterey County, for example, will have to truck tons of Foster's manure from their main plant in Livingston, Ca. to fields over 100 miles away.

So the next time we're at the grocer, do we now have to ask not only where and how this product was grown, but how far its manure was shipped?

Well, if you're in New York City picking out a California-grown tomato that was fertilized with organic compost made from kelp shipped from Nova Scotia, maybe it's not such a bad question. But should we give up on organic? If you're buying organic raspberries from Chile each week, then yes. The fuel cost is too great, as is the production of the greenhouse gases along with it. Buying locally-grown foods should be the first priority when it comes to saving fossil fuel.

But if there were really truth in packaging, on the back of my oatmeal box where it now tells me how many calories I get from each serving, it would also tell me how many calories of fossil fuels went into this product. On a scale from one to five -- with one being non-processed, locally-grown products and five being processed, packaged imports -- we could quickly average the numbers in our shopping cart to get a sense of the ecological footprint of our diet. From this we would gain a truer sense of the miles-per-gallon in our food.

What appeared to be a simple, healthy meal of oatmeal, berries, and coffee looks different now. I thought I was essentially driving a Toyota Prius hybrid -- by having a very fuel-efficient breakfast, but by the end of the week I've still eaten the equivalent of over two quarts of Valvoline. From the perspective of fossil-fuel consumption, I now look at my breakfast as a waste of precious resources. And what about the mornings that I head to Denny's for a Grand-Slam breakfast: eggs, pancakes, bacon, sausage? On those mornings -- forget about fuel efficiency -- I'm driving a Hummer.

What I eat for breakfast connects me to the planet, deep into its past with the fossilized remains of plants and animals which are now fuel, as well as into its future, when these non-renewable resources will likely be in scant supply. Maybe these thoughts are too grand to be having over breakfast, but I'm not the only one on the planet eating this morning.

My meal traveled thousands of miles around the world to reach my plate. But then there's the rise of perhaps 600 million middle-class Indians and Chinese. They're already demanding the convenience of packaged meals and the taste of foreign flavors. What happens when middle-class families in India or China decide they want their Irish oats for breakfast, topped by organic raspberries from Chile? They'll dip more and more into the planet's communal oil well. And someday soon, we'll all suck it dry.

Chad Heeter is a freelance writer, documentary filmmaker and former high school science teacher.

© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/34073/

Environmental Interdependence

"Many wars we witness around the world are over natural resources… Without a properly managed environment, all of our lives are threatened... In sustainable development, we plant the seeds of peace," declared Kenyan Waangari Maathai after winning the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the Green Belt movement in Kenya. By awarding the prestigious peace prize to a community activist and an environmentalist the Nobel Committee “…added a new dimension to the concept of peace… [emphasizing] the environment, democracy building, human rights and especially women’s rights” (Heuvel, Katrina vanden, 2004). Protecting and nurturing the environment is not merely an interesting political notion for the privileged white European or North American, it is essential for the survival of the human species and our blue-green planet.

We have alienated ourselves from Mother Nature in our desire to protect ourselves from nature’s fury, and in our need to control and exploit our living environment. Ironically in our modern, ultra-developed world, where it is becoming very difficult to find truly wild places or creatures, we seem to have become more vulnerable. Human activities in the last few decades may have altered the earth’s climate irreversibly (IPCC 2001); and nature’s ecosystems have been strained to such an extreme, that they are losing their resilience and the ability to maintain equilibrium (Hunter et al., 2002).

The world is changing very rapidly; not only because of globalization of trade and information technology, but because of industrialization’s global impact on the environment, with toxic waste, climate change and loss of biodiversity. What we do in the ‘developed’ North affects the ‘less developed’ South and vice versa. We, as citizens of nation-states, can no longer isolate ourselves from the rest of the world and only concern ourselves with local problems that can be solved within national boundaries, because the effects of pollution know no boundaries. “All life on earth is part of a dynamic, interdependent ecological system.” (Hunter et al., 2002)

I still remember vividly when the Chernobyl reactor exploded in the Soviet Union in 1986. The people of Europe, and especially Scandinavians became extremely alarmed, because they were in the direct path of a radioactive cloud blowing from the reactor. Thousands of reindeer were slaughtered and buried in Lapland because of fear of contamination. Scandinavians, who took great pride in a pristine environment and safe energy production, were helpless in the wake of a nuclear disaster coming from outside their national boundaries. It has since become a priority of the European Union to be actively involved in global co-operation on international agreements and processes in order to solve transboundary environmental challenges.

Globalisation acts as a powerful force for sustaining global growth and providing ways of dealing with international problems such as health, education, and the environment. However, left to develop unchecked market forces cause and exacerbate inequality and exclusion and can cause irreparable damage to the environment. Globalisation must therefore go hand in hand with measures designed to prevent or mitigate these effects. In the crucial spheres of trade, development financing, environmental management and combating poverty and crime, it is essential that efforts be made to draw up joint rules which are implemented and monitored effectively. It is also necessary to improve global governance, i.e. to promote more efficient management of interdependence. (EU, 2002)

The cumulative effects of the damage done to the environment by pollution, overpopulation and extreme exploitation of earth’s resources are quickly becoming the most prominent issues of today. The problems are global; we need to work together to solve them. We, as one species among millions inhabiting the earth, are mutually dependent on each other and must come together to create binding international laws and regulations to avert a crisis of apocalyptic proportions.

1) EU: Global Partnership for Sustainable Development. 2002.

2) Finland. Ministry of the Environment, 2005.

3) Heuvel, Katrina vanden. “A Woman of Firsts.” The Nation, 2004.

4) Hunter, David, Saltzman, James, and Durwood, Zaelke. International Environmental Law and Policy, 2002.

5) IPCC, Climate Change 2001: Working Group II .

Riippuvuussuhde

Ymparisto ei tunne rajoja. Ymparistosaasteet viela vahemman. Mita teemme oman valtiomme sisalla, vaikuttaa kaikkiin ymparoiviin maihin, ja koko maapalloon. Globalisaatio ulottuu myos ymparistotuhoihin; jos havitamme kalat "omasta" merestamme, se vaikuttaa kalastukseen maailman toisella puolella. Jos me pohjoisen rikkaat tuhlaamme energiaa, etelan koyhat maksavat siita kaksin verroin. Jos etelassa ei suojella sademetsia, me pohjoisessa hengitamme saastunutta ilmaa. Me luomakunnan asukkaat olemme kaikki toisistamme riippuvaisia: elaimet, ihmiset, linnut ja kalat, kedon kukkaset ja suonsilmat, puut, jarvet, joet, meri ja metsat - kaikki tarvitsemme toisiamme.