Forget Earth Day, apparently we have to save science, without which we wouldn’t have our environmental mess.

Posted on April 24, 2017 by Eric Verlo

My sign read WE HAVE A POLITICAL SCIENCE PROBLEM because “science” is doing what it’s supposed to, serving its masters. By which I don’t mean politicians have coopted science. Repurposing science and technology to serve the people means an ideological challenge. Of course to anyone who’s attended a US college, “political science” means nothing. It’s a department that may as well be teaching underwater basket weaving to spiders. Absolutely useless and contrived. As neoclassical economics is to economics, which is all the US economics departments teach as well. To overcome capitalism will require a revolution first in US education, not genuflecting before the altar of science. Our “March For Science” felt like an evangelical revival, everyone sharing testimonies of how they’ve been saved by science, or the imperative to put our faith in science. As if it wasn’t science that delivered us into the dire circumstances that require the human community to mark Earth Day. Conservation, not science, is the only recourse we have for better stewardship of the environment. That went unsaid. Also left unsaid by everyone except the socialists: scientists need to spend less energy making weapons.

Confederate flag still flies over Denver

Posted on August 5, 2015 by Eric Verlo

DENVER, COLORADO- All eyes have been on South Carolina, Bree Newsome, and the White Supremacist rallies which have percolated since, but Colorado indignants could note that a Confederate battle flag does still fly over Denver. The historic Riverside Cemetery commemorates Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and notable Civil War anniversaries with flags honoring American soldiers. They don’t fly Old Glory over the Confederate vets and the manager assured me they don’t plan to dishonor the Rebels with a Union flag anytime soon. On the graveyard’s Northwest side, nearest to the Evans crypt there’s a cobblestone patch where the bricks are engraved with the names of Colorado veterans who served the Confederacy. Over the gathering is a flag pole which was dedicated in 2003. It’s a discrete affair visible to only visitors touring the cemetery’s historic tombstones or dog-walkers heading out to the Riverside’s wetland conservation area.

This Is Nuts: Colorado Springs Public Input Gagged On Gas and Oil Fracking

Posted on June 21, 2012 by NMT

Just in from Lotus: This is nuts. Not only is it nuts to allow a mostly unregulated, major polluting industry inside a city of half a million people, but also citizens are being largely gagged on this issue. Oil and gas drilling is dangerous! 60% of well casings in Pennsylvania leaked over a 20 year time span. A new study indicates that fluid migration into aquifers will occur, and faster than almost anyone thought. An increasing number of scientists are now coming forward with similar warnings.

The Health Impact Assessment for Battlement Mesa, Garfield County Colorado concluded that people living within half a mile of fracked wells have a 66 percent greater chance of developing cancer.

A presentation by the Sierra Club called Fracking in Colorado What are the impacts? says that the dangerous chemicals used pose a long term health risk to workers and local communities.

The oil and gas industry has been exempted from most of the Safe Drinking Water Act and is not typically covered under the Clean Air Act. See Affirming Gasland. The Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission is understaffed and very weak on regulation.

Public officials are often afraid to pass strong regulations for fear of a law suit. However, whatever has been used to regulate the oil and gas companies previously is legal now, and at least two important Colorado court cases were won by local governments. An example of a local Colorado government with very strong regulations is Saguache County; and Saguache has NO oil and gas drilling! Another local government with strong regulations located in Texas is Flower Mound.

City Council’s Oil and Gas Committee during its 13 meetings allowed no public input. The May 24 “town hall meeting” was very controlled except toward the end of the meeting. There will be NO hearing on what may be the most important decision this community will ever face.

Council President Scott Hente said in an email recently in reference to the June 26 Council Meeting, “I plan to limit comments to 3 minutes.” It also appears that comments will only be allowed on what the Committee has recommended.

At the May 24 meeting when a member of the audience said he was tired of hearing people say we cannot regulate this or that or we might be sued, and that he thought our health, water, air, and soil are worth suing over, there was a very loud ovation far louder than any other.

At least 7 communities across the US, including Pittsburgh, have avoided a court battle and yet prevented oil and gas drilling by the use of an ordinance based on civil and community rights to health, clean water, air, soil etc. See CELDF, Ben Price.

A C S Gazzette poll on 5-25-12 asked: Will windmills, solar gadgets and other non-traditional energy sources wean us off fossil fuels in the next 30 years? A whopping 68% said yes! Surveys done by our local utility have had similar results. The fact is that we could save trillions of dollars and transition to a solar, wind and other renewables economy fairly quickly. But we do need to stop the massive subsidies to fossil fuels and nuclear power. See Scientific American, Nov, 2009; ; and Reinventing Fire by Amory Lovins ; and Renewable Communities.

Are Colorado Springs Citizens Being Gagged On Fracking Issue?

Posted on May 16, 2012 by NMT

Our colleague Lotus has initiated some fruitful correspondence on the subject of the still-impending fracking of the Pikes Peak region. In light of the City’s abrupt cancellation of the May 17 public hearing, we’ll present excerpts of his emails and telephone notes here.

Are Colorado Springs Citizens Being Gagged On Fracking Issue?

The fracking hearing was cancelled. The more I learn about how the fracking issue is being dealt with in Colorado Springs, the more it looks like citizens have very little room for input. This even seems to be true of the way the City Council Advisory Committee on fracking was run – very little room for public input.

The letter from Councilman Val Snider below seems to be saying that the public will only be allowed to respond to the recommendations of the advisory committee, will not be allowed general input concerning the issue of fracking.

It appears that 4-5 people from Huerfano/Las Animas Counties, who have been harmed by fracking, may be willing to speak to the city council and the public here in Colorado Springs. But the process seems to be so closed that it does not appear likely that these people who were harmed will be allowed to speak, allowed to warn people here in Colorado Springs what may be in store for them if they allow fracking in Colorado Springs. The informal Council meetings do not allow for public input. The formal meeting only allow for 3 minutes of input on subjects not on the agenda. And what will be on the agenda may not allow for general input, will be limited to discussion of the recommendations of the committee.

I read articles about how the El Paso County Commission dealt with fracking, and they ignored the recommendations of their own planning commission when they watered down their regulations. Where is the protection of our water, land and air when it comes to fracking? There does not seem to be much of any.

Lotus

From Colorado Springs City Councilman Val Snyder:

Hi Lotus,

The city will not be having any public meetings on fracking. The city will have public meetings on the recommendations of the Oil and Gas Committee on areas of potential regulation for oil and gas activities. The first public meeting on this is May 24, 6-8pm, at the City Administration Building.

There will be opportunities for public comment before City Council, as the potential oil and gas regulations work their way through the process. The first is tentatively scheduled for June 12, a formal Council meeting.

…

Thank you for your writing.

Val

From a telephone conversation with May Jensen:

Anti-Fracking Info From Mary Jensen & Other Info
(From my notes, so hope is accurate.)

I have been wondering why people from other communities who have been harmed by fracking (their land, water, personally, etc) have not been asked to speak to the local Colorado Springs City Council, El Paso County Commissioners, etc. So I finally located the author of a letter to the editor of the CS Independent, Mary Jensen, who has a doctorate in applied clinical nutrition.

Mary Jensen’s March 8-14, 2012 email:

Fracking concoction by Mary Jensen:

Across the state and the country, there is documented evidence of wells being contaminated by chemicals used in oil and gas fracking. Yet Gov. John Hickenlooper recently demonstrated how supposedly safe fracked water is by taking “a swig of it.”

I am incensed at the example he’s setting — playing Russian roulette by drinking water that may or may not have been sanitized for a cheap publicity stunt. He need only look as far as his own state to see the irreparable harm done to our people, our livestock, our air, our water and our lands.
Here are some materials Hickenlooper might have ingested in his fracked beverage:

• Benzene, a powerful bone-marrow poison (aplastic anemia) associated with leukemia, breast and uterine cancer. It may also cause fatigue, skin and mucous membrane irritation, and narcotic behavior including lightheadedness, disorientation, loss of consciousness and coma.

• Styrene, which may cause eye and mucous membrane irritation, neurotoxic effects in the central and peripheral nervous systems, loss of consciousness and death.

• Toluene, which may cause muscular incoordination, tremors, hearing loss, dizziness, vertigo, emotional instability and delusions, liver and kidney damage, and anemia — besides potential harm to developing fetuses.

• Xylene, with cancer-causing and neurotoxic effects, which can cause reproductive abnormalities and death through respiratory or cardiac arrest. More toxic than benzene and toluene!

• Methylene chloride, which may cause cancer, liver and kidney damage, central nervous system disorders and worse.

• Or any of more than 1,000 other safe “food additives” used by the oil and gas industry.

Hickenlooper is welcome to come down to Huerfano and Las Animas counties to talk with the ranchers and other folks who have been irreparably damaged by these poisons.

— Mary Jensen, Ph.D.

From telephone conversation with Mary Jensen on 5-12-12:

Mary especially emphasized that we should get Josh Joswick to speak to our elected leaders. Josh Joswick: commissioner in southern Colorado’s La Plata County, which successfully fought state regulators and companies in court for a say in oil and gas production.

http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Drilling-threatens-nature-Colorado-residents-say-1968302.php

Josh Joswick is now a Staff Organizer, Oil and Gas Issues the San Juan Citizens Alliance Staff Organizer, Colorado Energy Issues [email protected] Josh brings nearly 20 years of experience in dealing with the oil and gas industry to the position of Oil and Gas Issues Organizer. He served three terms as a La Plata County Commissioner from January 1993 to January 2005; in that capacity, locally he worked to see that La Plata County’s oil and gas land use regulations were not only enforced but expanded to protect surface owners’ rights. Josh has dealt with numerous agencies, and legislative and Congressional elected officials, to uphold the rights of local governments to exercise their land use authority as it pertained to oil and gas development, and to assert the right of local government to address with the environmental impacts of oil and gas development.

http://www.sanjuancitizens.org/otherpages/contact.shtml

http://www.spoke.com/people/josh-joswick-3e1429c09e597c10008191b9

Mary Jensen said there are probably at least 4-5 people who have been adversely affected by fracking that would be willing to travel to Colorado Springs in order to speak to the Council. Many people have gone to court and signed a settlement that they later learned prevents them from speaking to the press. Many of these people have spent everything they have fighting the fracking companies in court.

Silencing Communities: How the Fracking Industry Keeps Its Secrets
http://truth-out.org/news/item/9004-silencing-communities-how-the-fracking-industry-keeps-its- secrets

See attached two page fracking information add that was run in the LaVeta Signature and Huerfano County Journal. Organizers paid over $2,000 for these adds.

Mary mentioned that 6 people in her area have died of brain cancer, and another person has brain cancer.

Mary Jensen went on to say that she had heard that drilling down around Trinidad was disastrous in terms of contaminating many wells, but she did not have specifics. Her understanding is that the gas company declared bankruptcy and walked away from it all. (Contaminated wells are not likely to be usable for 100 years.)

In one of the Gazette articles, see below, it said that the Colorado Springs moratorium on fracking ends May 31, 2012. (A reason to extend the moratorium would be in order to provide more time to revise the regulatory structure.)

Mary said that fracking, this dangerous method of oil and gas extraction, is not more effective than simply drilling for oil and gas. Read: Deborah Rogers Transcript of “In Their Own Words: Examining Shale Gas Hype”

http://preservethefingerlakes.org/?p=127

Mary said that there is now a network of 14 anti-fracking organizations. The contact for getting on the Grassroots EnErgy activist Network (GREEN) is Citizens for Huerfano County, Kelly Kringel, [email protected]

The CHC website is http://www.huerfanofrack.com/.

Also there is going to be a Colorado Grassroots Fractivist Summit, Jun 9, 2012

Mary stated that it was important that I visit the website TEDX http://www.endocrinedisruption.com/home.php and learn about the 600+ chemical used in fracking hundreds of which adversely affect the endocrine system.

http://www.endocrinedisruption.com/home.php

Mary said another important resource on fracking is A Primer for Local Governments on Environmental Liability

http://www.mrsc.org/subjects/environment/envliabprim.pdf

She said that the president of Citizens for Huerfano County, Kelly Kringel, [email protected] , would be able to provide me with access to this document. The CHC website is
http://www.huerfanofrack.com/

On http://www.huerfanofrack.com/ I located POW: Protect Our Wells appears to be a mainly Colorado Springs based group. The president is Sandy Martin, 719-351-1640, [email protected] .

Other board members also seem to have CS area phone numbers

http://www.protectourwells.org/ ,
http://www.protectourwells.org/BOD.html .
http://www.huerfanofrack.com/
also listed the Sierra Club
http://rmc.sierraclub.org/ppg/
and Green Cities Coalition, which I am already familiar with.
http://www.greencitiescoalition.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=88&Itemid=30

Both of these organizations have people on the committee advising the Colorado Springs City Council on fracking.

Mary said that Perry Cabot from Colorado State University in Pueblo was helping people in her area with base line water studies. These are needed in order to later prove well contamination.

Mary said the Land Owner’s Guide To Oil and Gas Development by the Oil and Gas Accountability Project was another important document. And also the book Oil and Gas At Your Door: 970-259-3353.

Citizens for Huerfano County President, Kelly Kringel, [email protected], asked in an email if I knew Mary Talbott. I do not, so I did a search and came up with:

Mary Talbott & fracking issue:

Commissioner to energy company: ‘We’re scared of you’

http://www.gazette.com/articles/drilling-127253-county-approved.html

Citizens, county respond to frack attack

(Talbott, who is retired from the El Paso County Department of Health and Environment and does not live near prospective drill sites)

County, city leaders to get a present on Tuesday

(She plans to hand them a copy of “Split Estate,” a 75-minute DVD about drilling issues in Rifle, Colo. )

http://thecountyseat.freedomblogging.com/tag/el-paso-county-commissioners/

Talbott presented fracking report to El Paso County Board of Health (bottom p 3)

http://www.elpasocountyhealth.org/sites/default/files/11_14_11_Minutes.pdf

What has happened in El Paso County…Majority of Commissioners Ignored head of own planning commission, and the recommendations of the Commission!

Gazette article:

County adopts slimmed-down oil and gas regulations

ANDREW WINEKE
THE GAZETTE

http://www.gazette.com/articles/talbott-129368-denver-citizens.html

El Paso County commissioners on Tuesday narrowly approved a basic set of regulations to govern oil and gas drilling in the county.

The Board of County Commissioners voted 3-2 to approve a proposal that was significantly scaled down from what the county’s planning commission approved earlier this month. The regulations govern transportation, emergency response, noxious weeds and, controversially, water quality issues related to drilling.

Commissioners Peggy Littleton and Darryl Glenn objected to the water quality regulations, arguing that the county was overstepping its authority because the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission also regulates drilling-related water issues.

“I think it would be irresponsible for us to open ourselves up to lawsuits,” Littleton said.
The Attorney General’s Office and oil and gas commission director Dave Neslin have expressed concern over the county’s proposed rules, both in the version approved by the planning commission and a trimmed-down version the county’s planning staff developed last week, arguing that the county can’t regulate areas where the state has its rules in place.

However, commissioners Amy Lathen, Sallie Clark and Dennis Hisey said that water quality was too important to leave up to the state.

“I really don’t mind pushing the envelope when it comes to our water quality,” Hisey said.
The water quality monitoring regulations adopted by the county are similar to what the oil and gas commission has agreed to in other counties, requiring wells to be monitored initially for a baseline measurement and then at one, three, and six-year intervals after drilling begins.

The commissioners scrapped most of the rules proposed by the planning commission, including measures that would have governed setbacks from structures and property lines, mitigation of visual impacts and noise and impacts to wildlife. The commissioners will instead try to address those issues by working with the oil and gas commission on an intergovernmental agreement.

Getting some kind of oil and gas regulations in place was vitally important for the county, since a moratorium on oil and gas permits expired at midnight Tuesday and the county had no other regulations in place. Houston-based Ultra Resources has applied to drill six wells in El Paso County, four in unincorporated parts of the county and two more in Banning Lewis Ranch, inside the Colorado Springs city limits. The city imposed its own moratorium and set up a task force to study oil and gas regulations. The task force plans to make a recommendation to City Council by early May.
All of this was decided in a meeting that stretched nearly nine hours Tuesday. Several dozen speakers weighed in on the proposed regulations on each side of the issue.

Jeff Cahill, who lives near the Corral Bluffs Open Space, said that the proposed drilling has already hurt his property values and made it difficult for he and his wife to sell their home.
“They say they’re not going to impact us,” he told the commission. “Well, they’ve already impacted me.”

Steve Hicks, chairman of the El Paso County planning commission, urged the commission to pass more stringent regulations such as those approved by the planning commission.

“At times, there needs to be extra regulation where the state doesn’t go far enough, and this is one of them,” he said.

Other speakers praised the economic potential of expanded oil and gas development in the county.
Bob Stovall recounted his experience as an oil and gas lawyer and a city attorney in Farmington, N.M.

“Air is pretty clean there. Water is pretty clean there – and that’s after 100 years of oil and gas,” he said. “If oil and gas is around in this county, it could be good for us and it can be done well.”

Tisha Conoly Schuller, president and CEO of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, said the county’s new regulations were a good framework to build on.

“The El Paso County commissioners made significant progress today,” she said. “The rules passed are 90 percent within the guidance provided by the Attorney General. There are still a couple of important issues to work through, but I am confident that the county is serious about finding common ground, and after seeing the progress made today, we will continue to work toward county regulations that are protective of the environment and within the scope of the county’s jurisdiction.”

Read more:

http://www.gazette.com/articles/county-132696-water-quality.html#ixzz1ujNiqAjK

Split Estate: an eye-opening examination of the consequences and conflicts that can arise between surface land owners in the western United States, and those who own and extract the energy and mineral rights below. http://splitestate.com/

http://www.splitestate.com/video_clips.html
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?rh=n%3A2625373011%2Ck%3Asplit+estate+dvd&k eywords=split+estate+dvd&ie=UTF8

“split estate,” in which landowners have surface rights but someone else owns the rights to the underground minerals. Josh Joswick : commissioner in southern Colorado’s La Plata County, which successfully fought state regulators and companies in court for a say in oil and gas production.

http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Drilling-threatens-nature-Colorado-residents-say- 1968302.php ;

http://www.spoke.com/people/josh-joswick-3e1429c09e597c10008191b9

Gasland, a documentary on fracking.
http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/whats- fracking/affirming-gasland ,
http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/
http://gizmodo.com/5905909/gasland-the-definitive-documentary-on-fracking

Frack-happy Ultra Petroleum is the city’s largest private landowner. What kind of neighbor might it be?

Ultra Petroleum Corp., which owns subsidiary Ultra Resources…has most of the leases and permits in El Paso County and Colorado Springs

http://www.csindy.com/coloradosprings/close-up/Content?oid=2422410

The Lakota saw six grandfathers where Mt Rushmore fests expansionist four

Posted on July 8, 2010 by Eric Verlo

A recurring discussion at the base of Mount Rushmore is whose face next belongs alongside America’s fantastic four. There’s room for more obviously, as the mountain’s Lakota name was the Six Grandfathers. They saw resemblance enough in the rocks without the Denver Mint faces. Visitors can be excused not recognizing Theodore Roosevelt, the only cameo without a coin –he lacks a DC monument too, but Teddy most certainly belongs here. To determine who else might qualify, we have to wonder at what exactly Mt Rushmore means to memorialize.

Mount Rushmore immortalizes above all a New York lawyer who persevered for half a century to assure the not inobscure landmark was named after him. The government approved carve-up was intended to draw visitors to South Dakota. Concurrent tourist spot projects included the cement dinosaurs of Rapid City and Wall Drug. The icon-fashioned mountain became its own icon, casting a Cliff Notes summary of American History into stone. Whatever posterity would have to say about their legacy, these presidents would remain an unscalable height above reproach.

George Washington was father of our country, if not what today we hold as our ideals. Washington wanted to liberate colonial profits from the tiers owed its royal investors. He fought only for the independence of the American propertied class, and faced revolt from the common soldiery who bore the brunt of fighting off the British.

Thomas Jefferson pushed us west and invented the facade of democracy based on an illusory “all men created equal” utopian agrarian society. Jefferson would have known that no farms can operate without farmhands, and that peasant revolts have never sparked revolution. Above all, who was Jefferson to pretend that you can keep everyone down on the farm once they’d seen Paree? A farmer can imbibe education and culture only if he’s got slaves doing the work.

Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and held the union together. An America divided would have been vulnerable to resorption by the European powers. More important, the engine of our export economy was the South. Cotton and tobacco dwarfed fur.

Theodore Roosevelt championed conservation, like the national parks, but he’s on the mountain because he took America’s Manifest Destiny international. Roosevelt oversaw industry extend its empire-building offshore in search of cheap labor, resources and markets.

When conversation turns to whose face should adorn the pantheon of American expansionists, we are not lacking for capitalist do-gooders. I overheard “Obama”, “Henry Ford” or “Bill Gates,” perfectly in keeping with the theme.

In chronological order after the Rough Rider, to my mind, JP Morgan could be the beginning and the end, as father of the malevolent banking monopoly which has fated the world to Potterville.

Improving Rushmore would naturally be to efface it. How much longer really are the sculpted heads going to look like a “feat of engineering” and not simply a defilement of nature? Already what’s praised as a “work of art” looks more like a bad tattoo. Native American voices oppose the nearby Affirmative Action Crazy Horse Monument because no Indian they say would want his image superimposed on landscape.

If we can’t take it down, I have a suggestion for an additional face that neither perpetuates the enshrinement of our patronizing leadership, nor pretends to reflect a rehabilitated self-awareness. I propose we conduct an essay contest among American school children. From the dead-last, dumbest entry we select a child’s face to represent our nation’s failed intellectual promise, product of poor schooling, propaganda and poisoned spirit. That would be the face to commemorate America’s hard-headed, dumb as a brick, jackboot future.

What you CAN do about the gulf oil spil

Posted on June 25, 2010 by Eric Verlo

We may be powerless to advise the experts or force the perps to walk the plank. And we are not to blame for the industrial orgy of consumerism foisted on our modern livestyles. But turning this around is up to us; not heading to the Gulf, or saving oiled birds. This disaster spills over our pitiful remedies. We’ll have our hands full battling the attack it presents on human survival and biodiversity. For the right now: stop using oil. Impossible? Well then we’re spilt milk.

BP is entirely right to ignore better efforts to protect the coast from contamination. No amount of boom will insulate us from the oil barrage receiving continuous reinforcement from the blown well. Like paper towels to clean a bathtub, it’s make-work window dressing. There’s a perfectly apt Titanic idiom, but here’s another: are you really going to worry about passengers putting their wet shoes on the deck chairs?

MV Rachel Corrie to run Gaza blockade

Posted on April 21, 2010 by Eric Verlo

Final preparations are underway at Brown’s Quay in Dundalk, Ireland, to launch the Free Gaza Movement‘s next run against Israel’s blockade of Gaza. FGM were able to acquire the 1,800 ton MV Linda impounded by the ITF for failure to pay its Latvian crew. Anyone who wishes to embark on the freighter’s urgent relief mission to Palestine is enjoined to submit an application. Supporters with deeper pockets could consider adding tonnage to the flotilla. Riga’s bankrupt Forestry Shipping abandoned two similar ships in Holland, the MV Defender and MV Fairland, available for the cost of the back-wages due their sailors.

There are of course an already unending list of activists, journalists, victims and martyrs of the Palestinian struggle for whom additional ships could be named, but I like the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society model of christening ships after benefactors, Steve Irwin, Bob Barker and Ady Gil. But the best example to follow is the Whale Warriors’ TV contract. If any edge could tip the balance in the maritime face-off with the Israeli destroyers, it will be the prospect of an attack being televised. At least that’s what we used to think would deter the IDF.

This next attempt to break the siege follows eight previous efforts, five of which were successful. I am curious how so little footage reaches the independent media, even after the fact. Boats have been rammed, forced back, or impounded, even with luminaries like Cynthia McKinney aboard, with very little incriminating video, and certainly without raising real time internet alarm.

The warnings which FGM provides about conditions for participation are fairly direct as to the risks posed by Israel’s armed responses, here is the background information required to apply:

Background Information

Please list your experience working in Palestine, and with Palestinian organizations or campaigns in your local community

What is your profession?

What are your areas of expertise? (please be specific)

Please list all the languages you speak

Please list all your affiliations (political, professional, or activist-based)

Please provide us with a one paragraph biography of you that we can post on our website in the event you travel with us to Gaza

Do you have a preference for which dates you would like to travel to Gaza on?

Are you applying as part of a delegation? (preference will be given to delegations, such as doctors, lawyers, students, teachers, musicians, labor activists, et al, who are traveling to Gaza for a specific purpose, such as do an assessment, consult with colleagues in Gaza, or build on solidarity campaigns)

If yes, who is the primary contact person for your delegation?

Are you planning on staying in Gaza long-term?

If you are planning to remain in Gaza, then you MUST have already made contact with organizations working in Gaza and have a clear plan for what you will be doing there. Please describe the contacts and plans you have already made.

Do you have health insurance that will cover you during your trip to Gaza?

Please provide us with your insurance information, in case of a medical emergency (policy name, number, and insurance contact information)

Please list any physical disabilities you may have (artificial knee or hip, for example)

Please list all medications you are currently taking

Can you swim?

Please also provide us with two, written recommendations from people who have been involved in working with Palestinians and Palestinian organizations. We require their names, telephone numbers and email addresses.

CS Indy turns to cruel IFES deceiver to voice cautionary best hope for Haiti

Posted on January 31, 2010 by Eric Verlo

When it came to coverage of the Haiti earthquake disaster, the CS Indy left it to their Your Turn column, and by “your” they meant YOUR MASSAH. What caught my eye was the headline “Time for a new Haiti” accompanied by the excerpt blurb “Aristide’s return would be a disaster,” written by a pasty diplomat who had a personal hand in Haiti’s ongoing misery. Here is our allegedly progressive newsweekly giving the podium to IFES criminal Richard Soudriette instead of bundling him off to Port Au Prince for a well deserved drubbing.

Mr. Soudriette presided over the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) from 1988 to 2007, the period which saw two US coups in Haiti, where twice the democratically elected Bertrand Aristide was removed from office by our hands. Who better to have blown the whistle on the US interference than someone observing, even advising and conducting, the elections? That’s ignoring of course that the IFES is actually a private agency which does the CIA’s work, created in the 80s when Congress moved to limit the CIA’s official role destabilizing democracies. Through the IFES, through the National Endowment for Democracy, the CIA continues its intelligence wars subverting foreign governments who threaten America’s corporate rule.

If you want to believe that enterprises like IFES might be serving some good, consider this: if democratic ideals were really being advanced, the US State Department would be proud to do the work. These aren’t subcontracted jobs that wouldn’t benefit from official diplomatic networks. The IFES and ilk are as disreputable cretins as ever wore stuffed shirts, designed to separate people from legitimate representation.

And don’t think all the pitchfork bearing victims of its election racketeering are overseas. The IFES has been an adversary of the American people as Americans have tried to rescue their elections from Diebold and the stolen votes of 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006.

When will traitorous, undemocratic Neocons like Richard Soudriette meet the wrath they have so richly courted? The Haitians are suffering, there are countless stories of Americans helping in the effort, instead the Indy gives people of Haiti more of the same malignant spin. How did Soudriette explain his expertise on Aristide? He didn’t:

“Unfortunately Aristide is hinting at a comeback despite his two failed terms. Aristide’s return to Haitian politics would be a disaster for the country. His many political allies in the U.S. and abroad would best serve Haiti’s interests by encouraging Aristide to permanently step aside from politics.”

Rather, Soudriette says, we need to back efforts to amend Haiti’s constitution to allow America’s man Preval serve additional terms. Oh, and give more responsibility to USAID, another CIA arm. Why is Soudriette spinning this message to Colorado Springs I wonder?

It’s not enough that Soudriette lent his villainy to Haiti’s disastrous last decades, now two years removed from the job, on the occasion of its most recent natural calamity, Soudriette resurfaces to damn the Haitian people with the same lies, lest they ever catch a break. That’s what makes this brand of conservative bureaucrat so damnable.

And why is the Indy propagating this venomous neo-liberal drivel? It could be highlighting the truly hopeful opportunities which locals have been taking to help the earthquake victims. Tired of watching the US military bureaucracy monopolize and bungle the aid efforts, a Springs surgical team enlisted a local businessman’s private turboprop to spend a week in Port Au Prince effecting miracles. Let’s hear about that story.

To pick up where we left off with scoundrel Soudriette, he of the many Haitian crony friends in DC, the careerist democracy-thief has moved to Colorado Springs, to lecture for El Pomar, and head the Center for Diplomacy and Democracy, which may be just another shell to which the CIA funnels funding. While stationed in DC for the IFES, Soudriette was also billing from an M Street address for the Conservation International Foundation. The good news is that apart from a CFDD franchise opened in Northern Iraq, no doubt to milk from Iraq reconstruction funds, the headquarters here appears to be merely a residence with a walkout on the golf course of the Country Club of Colorado.

It’s a picture worth a thousand ships

Posted on January 12, 2010 by Eric Verlo

At first the story read like diplomatic sensitivities ruffled by no more than your typical office power feng shui: the Turkish ambassador to Israel was not seated at a height commensurate with his host, the flag of his nation was not displayed, the Israeli deputy minister would not shake his hand. Rather it was Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon himself who called the reporters’ attentions to the intentional affronts, lest it was not obvious enough from the photograph. To what do the Turks owe Israel’s displeasure? Turkey’s PM has been criticizing Israel’s crimes in Gaza, to no greater degree than has been confirmed by the UN Goldstone Report. Here’s to hoping that Turkish pride will answer appropriately.

It’s been a traditional role of ambassadors to suffer their host’s anger at a perceived provocation. Didn’t Ivan the Terrible once send emissaries packing after he’d nailed their hats to their heads? Often in less diplomatic times, envoys were beheaded, to usually ruinous result. In modern times, suffering indignity to foreign dignitaries is enough to send your message. But today too, media images have come to have a greater reach across the world. I’m thinking in particular the Muslim populaces. Let’s see what kind of posture of subservience Israel can expect of Turkey.

Said one Turkish parliamentarian: “The word scandal is not enough to describe this move.” And it seems unlikely that Israel will apologize, Ayalon already responding: “In terms of the diplomatic tactics available, this was the minimum that was warranted given the repeated provocations by political and other players in Turkey.”

Perhaps Israel was emboldened by Egypt’s recent display of obedience to the mission of starving Gaza. Israel’s violent repression of the people of Gaza is meeting with growing criticism, and perhaps they expect Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to heel dutifully.

What might the minimum of responses be from Turkey, given the sway the US holds over its actions, in light too of its aspiration to rise through the EU?

With Egypt’s intention to fortify its Gaza border to curtail tunneling, and its announcement to permit no further aid from reaching the besieged Palestinians, the path remains only for someone to reach Gaza by sea. I’m hoping it will be the Turks.

Why couldn’t a Sea Shepherd Conservation Society type flotilla mount a seaborne rescue of Gaza? I’d bet televising such an adventure would find a bigger audience than Whale Wars.

Aid groups have been trying, with sporadic success, to breach Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza coast. Perhaps it’s time for a nation to lend some military vessels to the task. Why not? The United Nations considers Israel’s embargo of Gaza to be illegal. Why shouldn’t a local power sail right before the Israeli warships to escort relief supplies to the Gazans? Let’s see whose ships will look down on whose.

UPDATE: Here it is, the Free Gaza Movement is putting together a flotilla!

Japan owes somebody A NEW BOAT!

Posted on January 7, 2010 by Eric Verlo

The Japanese whaling fleet, whose inhumane hunts pretend to serve the Institute for Cetacean Research, have deliberately rammed the high-tech trimaran Ady Gil, formerly the Earthrace, operated by their arch nemesis the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Pseudo-science spokesman Glenn Innwood was quick to declare the footage showed otherwise, saying the accusation “is just not vindicated by the video.” Obviously the Japanese need a cover who speaks better English. It’s a Freudian slip to seek to be not vindicated.

Au contraire for Kiwi Innwood-sen, the videos from both ships show the Ady Gil floating idle to the Shonan Maru’s starboard side before the whaler turns straight for it. The whalers are perhaps counting on not enough people seeing the video. That might have worked before YouTube.

If the Japanese believe “The obstructionist activities of the Sea Shepherd threaten the lives and property of those involved in our research, are very dangerous and cannot be forgiven” then aiming to ram the smaller vessel must constitute attempted murder, however unpremeditated the crime of passion may be.

Whether or not the action is ruled a crime, it’s without any doubt a violation of maritime code. The Ady Gil had right of way both by its position, and by being stationary.

Here’s the collision from the perspective of the whaler Shonan Maru 2, a highly maneuverable harpoon chase ship, as broadcast on Al Jazeera:

And here is the footage released by Paul Watson’s Sea Shepherd Conservation Society:

UPDATE: I’d say this footage clinches it, from the Animal Planet Whale Wars cameraman aboard the Ady Gil. Read a detailed description from NZ.

The war on Christmas they worry about

Posted on December 7, 2009 by Eric Verlo

What it’s going to take to revisit 350ppm, to reverse climate change, is not carbon trading, wind turbines, miraculous scientific leaps, or a COP15 conference. The anti-technology has been known to us since sustainable times, when mankind didn’t have to transcend his wants, because it was challenge enough to seek for his needs. Conservation.

350ppm means energy conservation

Posted on October 25, 2009 by Eric Verlo

What was the environmental palaver yesterday about “350” and the Oct. 24th day of action to focus on global warming, as the international community prepares for talks in Copenhagen. Addressing Global Warming is no longer about slowing the effects of pollution, but rolling back; not an about face, but backing up; not new energy, but conservation.

High Country Earth First Denver Meeting

Posted on May 20, 2009 by NMT

High Country Earth First is hosting the EF! ROADSHOW, in DENVER, May 25-26: Monday 2pm in Cheesman Park, and Tuesday 6pm at the Gypsy House.

Four ongoing EF! projects in Colorado: DENVER: Stop I-70 Expansion through North Denver; SAN LUIS VALLEY: Halt gas drilling in Baca National Wildlife Refuge: and WESTERN SLOPE: Red Cliff mine campaign and Feral Futures (May 24 – June 7).

From “Rockslide,” High Country Earth First!

The need for resistance in solidarity with the wild has never been louder or clearer than it is today; the EF! roadshow is a great tool for growing that resistance. There are countless examples to draw from in the story of radical movements before us: militant labor organizing tours, anti-fascist resistance recruitment and international speaking tours to build cross-border solidarity. The origin of Earth First! itself is credited to a few roadshows that kicked it all off in the early 1980s. We are building on this tradition; akin to a fellowship crossing Middle Earth to amass insurgents to face Mordor head-on.

List-serves and websites aren’t enough
This Roadshow’s primary intention is to strengthen our radical grassroots ecological network. For almost 30 years, we have been an organized voice bridging conservation biology with grassroots community organizing, road blockading and eco-sabotage. In the past 5 years we have seen numbers and experience-level in the EF! movement decline drastically. Yet, our place has never been more urgent. New groups are popping up across the country, but they are detached from many of the groups, history, and skills that came before them. We can’t afford to stumble and make the same mistakes over again.

We are at the tail end of a decade where corporate globalization rooted itself in the US and spread across the planet like a plague. And now that the reality of climate change is finally sinking into the mainstream consciousness, the same superpowers that pushed so-called ‘free trade’ policies to exploit wild nature more efficiently are promoting carbon trading in attempt to make a profitable industry out of the disasters they’ve created. The spineless Big Green environmental NGOs are scrambling for crumbs and cutting deals with the industry for shallow public relations victories. Earth First! must rise and recognize that it’s presence is a strong component of making the broader environmental movement truly effective. We are its spine, or as an EF! co-founder, Howie Wolke, has put it, we are the lions of a movement ‘ecosystem’. Our niche is critical, and its presence (or absence) is felt deeply by our surroundings.

We need to reconnect the multi-generational aspect of Earth First! that has fallen by the wayside in recent years. We need to broaden our network’s base—from radical rural grandparents to revolutionary urban youth. We need re-establish lost relationships with scholars and scientists who resonate with us. We need to re-inspire musicians and artists to contribute their passion to our battles.

When it comes down to it, solid movements are based on strong personal relationships; and real relationships don’t go very far over the internet. We need face-to-face interaction to build trust with—and support for—each other.

From EF! Here is a glimpse of ongoing local and national campaigns and projects related to EF!. They could all use your support in a variety of ways—from fundraising to showing up in person. Please contact the organizing groups directly to find out what they need most:

Northern California Redwood Defense
Since the fall of Maxxam/Pacific Lumber, forest defenders in the Redwoods have been directing attention on another logging empire: Green Diamond Resource Company (formerly Simpson). In the last 10 years they have clear-cut 52,000 acres of Northern California forests. They are killing off endangered Spotted Owls and have aspirations to sell off thousands of acres in Humboldt County for Salmon killing suburban development. We have set up multiple treesit villages to oppose the destruction, and we need your help TODAY.
www.efhumboldt.org

Appalachian Anti-Mountain Top Removal
The presence of coal plants are threats to the lives within both the human community and the mountain ecosystem. One of the most biologically flourishing areas of the world is being environmentally and socially impoverished by companies practicing mountain top removal. Mountain top removal clogs streams, destroys forests, threatens biodiversity and forces coalfield residents into the unjust choice between income and well-being.
www.blueridgeef.com

Stop I-69 in Indiana
I-69 is a NAFTA superhighway, already constructed from Canada to Indianapolis and projected to extend down into Mexico. This highway is intended for the mass transportation of goods and resources, to further exploit workers and the land, and to lessen companies’ accountability in terms of human and environmental rights. In 2008, they began construction of this road through southwestern Indiana, which will evict hundreds of rural families, destroy hundreds of acres of land, and devastate the habitats of countless species of animals, including the endangered Indiana Bat. www.stopi69.wordpress.com

Fight Development in the North Woods of Maine
The largest piece of undeveloped land east of the Mississippi is under attack. Plum Creek, the nation’s largest corporate landowner, is in the process of rezoning 20,000 acres of the Moosehead Lake region in Maine for luxury house and resorts, while trying to balance it off with a fraudulent conservation easement plan. This plan would still allow timber harvesting, commercial water extraction and the building of new infrastructure, among many other ecologically devastating practices. www.maineearthfirst.wordpress.com

Defend the Last Free-Roaming Wild Buffalo in Montana
The Buffalo Field Campaign (BFC) is the only group working in the field, everyday, to stop the slaughter and harassment of Yellowstone’s wild buffalo. Volunteers from around the world defend buffalo on their traditional winter habitat and advocate for their protection. Our daily patrols stand with the buffalo on the ground they choose to be on, and document every move made against them. Tactics range from video documentation to nonviolent civil disobedience. www.buffalofieldcampaign.org

Fight new Copper Mines and Roads in the Deserts of Arizona
Chuk’shon Earth First! is fighting the proposed Rosemont Copper Mine in the Santa Rita Mountains, which is greenwashing itself by claiming a need for increased copper extraction for the solar panel industry. The group is also opposing the expansion of I-10, part of the Department of Transportation’s “Corridors of the Future” program to increase capacity of global industrial commerce. The proposed I-10 Bypass would bisect wild/rural lands and facilitate more sprawl between Tucson and Phoenix. www.chukshonef.wordpress.com

Blue Mountain Biodiversity Project in eastern Oregon
Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project (BMBP) formed in 1991 to increase regional and national awareness of the Blue Mountains ecosystems, to ensure the protection for and reintroduction of diverse native wildlife species, to promote ecologically sound restoration and address the root causes of ecological and community instability. They have trained countless EF!ers is forest monitoring. They are one of the country’s premier grassroots ‘paper-wrenchers’, filing legal challenges that help make our blockades successful. They can be reached at 541-385-9167

Stop Florida Power & Light from trashing the Everglades
Everglades Earth First! (EEF!) have been battling FPL’s plans to build the country’s largest fossil fuel power plant in the Loxahatchee Basin; a headwaters to the remaining Everglades ecosystem. EEF! Is also challenging over 500 miles of new gas pipelines and 2 new Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) facilities. Get more details: www.evergladesearthfirst.org

Stop Gas Drilling in Western New York
There is a proposal on the table to begin one of the largest fossil fuel exploration projects in the country. This project would result hundreds of millions of tons of CO2 emissions, along with the impacts of pipelines, power plants, and new LNG storage facilities. Get in touch with Shale Shock: www.shaleshock.org

Bank of America, Stop Funding Coal!
A national campaign is well underway to stop Bank of America (BoA), who is the largest investor to Mountain Top Removal coal mining. The company recently offered lip-service to address their support for the coal industry, but have made no real steps towards cutting ties with King Coal. With BoA locations in cities across the U.S., this campaign can easily be supported in a decentralized fashion. Give ‘em hell! For more info: www.ran.org

No 2010 Olympics
The Native Youth Movement and other First Nations groups in occupied Canada have called for full-scale resistance to the Winter Olympics proposed in British Colombia. The Olympics proposal includes a mess of development, ski-resorts and infrastructure on indigenous land. Learn more at: www.no2010.com

Root Force
This project is a research database and strategic think tank for direct action intended to target corporate/colonial infrastructure, such as: roads, dams, power plants, and mines. Their website offers background information on transnational companies, government agencies and their local affiliations across the United States. www.rootforce.org

Colorado Springs own cloud maker

Posted on March 5, 2009 by Eric Verlo

Last week’s POWER SHIFT 09, where 12,000 student environmentalists converged on Washington, culminated with a protest of a DC power plant which still produced 40% of its electricity from coal. A threatened largest act of mass civil disobedience pushed Washington legislators to order the plant converted completely to natural gas. What a contrast to the awareness level in our own Colorado Springs, where the city wraps around a single coal power plant which consumes two coal train loads a day, its billowing stacks, local moms describe to their kids, give it the name “cloud maker.”

From a Capitol Climate Action PDF:

Ten Problems with Coal

1. Coal Fuels Global Warming
Coal is the largest single source of global warming pollution in the United States. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has reported that global warming threatens human populations and the world’s ecosystems with intensifying heat waves, floods, drought, extreme weather, and by spreading infectious diseases. Furthermore, it is conservatively estimated that the climate crisis will place a $271 billion annual drag on the U.S. economy alone by 2025. According to the IPCC, the United States and other industrialized countries need to reduce global warming pollution by 25–40 percent by 2025 to avoid the most severe impacts of the climate crisis.

2. Coal Kills People and Causes Disease
According to the American Lung Association, pollution from coal-fired power plants causes 23,600 premature deaths, 21,850 hospital admissions, 554,000 asthma attacks, and 38,200 heart attacks every year. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that 12,000 coal miners died from black lung disease between 1992 and 2002.

3. Coal Kills Jobs
The coal industry is one of the least job-intensive industries in America. Every dollar we invest in coal is a dollar we can’t spend creating jobs in the clean energy economy. In fact, the country’s wind sector now employs more workers than the coal industry. Investing in wind and solar power would create 2.8 times as many jobs as the same investment in coal; mass transit and conservation would create 3.8 times as many jobs as coal.

4. Coal Costs Billions in Taxpayer Subsidies
The U.S. government continues to subsidize coal-related projects despite its impact on health, climate and the economy.

5. Coal Destroys Mountains
Many coal companies now use mountaintop removal to extract coal. The process involves clear-cutting forests, using dynamite to blast away as much as 800–1000 feet of mountaintop and dumping the waste into nearby valleys and streams. Mountain-top removal has leveled more than 450 mountains across Appalachia. Mountain-top removal destroys ecosystems, stripping away topsoil, trees, and understory habitats, filling streams and valleys with rubble, poisoning water supplies, and generating massive impoundments that can cause catastrophic floods.

6. Burning Coal Emits Mercury
Coal-fired power plants are the largest source of man-made mercury pollution. Mercury can interfere with the development of babies’ brains and neurological systems. Elevated levels of mercury in Americans’ blood puts one in six babies born in the United States at elevated risk of learning disabilities, developmental delays, and problems with fine motor coordination. Already 49 U.S. states have issued fish consumption advisories due to high mercury concentrations in freshwater bodies throughout the country, largely due to coal emissions.

7. There’s No Such Thing as “Clean Coal”
Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), or what the coal industry is marketing as “clean coal,” is a hypothetical technology that may one day capture carbon dioxide from power plants and store it underground. However, the scheme has never been successfully demonstrated at a commercial scale, is wildly expensive, and can’t deliver in time to help with the climate crisis. Nationwide, approximately $5.2 billion in taxpayer and ratepayer money has been invested in the technology, but a recent government report found that of 13 projects examined, eight had serious delays or financial problems, six were years behind schedule, and two were bankrupt. Even if engineers are able to overcome the chemical and geological challenges of separating and safely storing massive quantities of CO2, a study published recently shows that CCS requires so much energy that it would increase emissions by up to 40 percent of smog, soot, and other dangerous pollution.

8. Coal Kills Rivers
Last December, a billion gallons of toxic coal sludge broke through a dike at the Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee and flooded the Emory and Clinch Rivers, tributaries of the massive Tennessee River system. Within hours, ash laden with mercury, lead, arsenic, benzene, and other toxic chemicals had contaminated the river and fish were washing up dead on the shore. The spill, which was followed days later by another coal ash spill at a TVA facility in Alabama, soon became a national symbol of the reality of “clean coal” and led to hearings in Congress; legislation is pending to regulate coal ash as a hazardous waste. The TVA recently estimated the clean-up costs from this one spill to be up to $825 million, with higher costs possible as a result of a variety of pending civil suits against the TVA.

9. Coal Plants Are Expensive
Communities considering construction of new coal-fired power plants are seeing these impacts first-hand. During a recent debate over building a new coal-fired power plant in southwest Virginia, state officials estimated that building a new plant (which would employ just 75 people permanently), would cost 1,474 jobs as businesses laid people off to pay the higher electricity costs from a new coal plant. With the United States running a huge deficit, we’ve got to make sure that whatever investments we do make pack the biggest job-creation bang for the buck.

10. Acid Rain
Acid rain, a byproduct of burning coal, destroys ecosystems, including streams and lakes, by changing their delicate pH balance. It can destroy forests, devastate plant and animal life, and eat away at man-made monuments and buildings.

Doomed to repeat internment camps

Posted on January 5, 2009 by Eric Verlo

Several miles north of Moab, Utah, on Highway 191, there’s an Historical Interest marker to commemorate the Civilian Conservation Corps work camp at Dalton Wells. According to the plaque on the site, Camp DG-32 was used for public works through the Great Depression, and converted in 1943 into a concentration camp for Japanese Americans accused of being troublemakers at the civilian internment camps. The plaque offered an apology for the “total violation their civil rights,” and this admonition:

After which someone added in parentheses: “(Patriot Act, 2001)” and then as if to make the point, a next somebody scratched it out.

Full text of the marker:

Civilian Conservation Corps Camp DG-32 (Co. 234)
1935-1942

During the Great Depression of the 1930’s, CCC Camps were scattered all over the USA. They provided gainful employment to youth of the nation with work on public service projects. Between 1933 and 1942, four camps were located near Moab. Each camp worked on various natural resource project for the Soil Conservation Service, the National Park Service, and the forerunner of the Bureau of Land Management.

DG-32 was a long-lasting camp and typical of most with wooden, tar-paper covered barracks and buildings housing some 200 young men between the ages of 18 and 25. Enrollees came from the eastern states, and leadership was provided by the Army, Grazing Service, and local men experienced in construction and stock grazing needs.

Under spartan conditions, clothing, food, and housing were provided in the primitive camp. Pay was $30 per month with $25 sent home.

DG-32 projects included many range improvements: stock trails down the precipitous sandstone cliffs, spring developments, wells and stock ponds, eradication of rodents that competed with stock for feed, fences for corrals and pastures, reservoir dams, roads and bridges. These projects provided on the job training for the enrollees, besides the benefits they brought to the local economy. Many of these works are still in use today. The value of the camp and its works to Grand County is beyond estimation. It was a significant milestone that greatly influenced the economic history of the county.

All that remains of the camp today are the cottonwood trees planted by the enrollees that you see fronting this site, concrete slabs for buildings, graveled roads and rock-outlined walkways, the remains of an old windmill and a rock masonry water storage tank. These remnants signify the moving history of a time when America valiantly struggled to restore its economic stability and provide its young people with meaningful employment.

Japanese-American World War II Concentration Camp
1943

On January 11, 1943, a train pulled into Thompson Station north of here with armed Military Police guarding sixteen male American citizens of Japanese ancestry. While the locals of the town waited to cross the tracks, the entourage was loaded and transferred to the old abandoned “CCC” camp located here at Dalton Wells.

Their crime? They were classified as “troublemakers” in the Manzanar, California Relocation Center where they and their families had been forcibly located at the start of World War II. Removed from their homes and lands in California under a Presidential Executive Order, they were subject to the whim and mercy of poorly-trained bureaucrats and military personnel in the center. This Executive Presidential Order was the result of wartime hysteria, racial bigotry, and greed.

The original sixteen men were removed from Manzanar and brought here without the benefit of council. They did not have a formal hearing or proper arrest proceedings, and the action was in total violation of their civil rights. It was a process more compatible with fascism than democracy.

The inmates troubles worsened when and informer and confidant of the administration was beaten. An organizer of the mess hall workers was thrown into jail as a suspect. A meeting was held in the camp to protest the jailing and a riot resulted. Two inmates were killed by trigger-happy soldiers.

Other Japanese-American men were soon brought to the camp. Thirteen came from Gila River, Arizona, having been charged as being members of an organization which was fully sanctioned by camp officials. Ten more came from Manzanar as “suspected troublemakers.” Fifteen came from the Tule Lake, California, charged with refusing to register their availability for the draft and their loyalty to the U.S. under a set of confusing, denigrating requirements.

All these men were U.S. citizens; some were veterans of Work War I, others were family men, college graduates, and responsible U.S. citizens. Their incarceration here is a vivid example of how our Japanese-American citizens were treated during World War II. May this sad, low point in the history of our democracy never be forgotten, in the hope that it will never happen again.

The group was transferred by truck to an abandoned Indian school at Leupp, Arizona, on April 27, 1943. As those involved began to realize the inequality of the situation, the inmates were released back to relocation centers later that year. Thus, a black mark in the history of liberty and justice in the United States was ended.

Unsustainably powered lights on parade

Posted on December 7, 2008 by Eric Verlo

COLORADO SPRINGS- There used to be a float in the PARADE OF LIGHTS which set an example for energy conservation. The lights were generator-driven and the admittedly un-flashy vehicle moved along entirely under pedal power. Did it look out of place between the commercial affairs shellacked in Christmas light?

Cutting edge technology of wind power

Posted on October 29, 2008 by Eric Verlo

You gotta love how wind power is the poster child for alternative energy. News segments about energy self-reliance begin with a depiction of wind turbines. Election ads about the imperative to invest in other energies, more wind turbines. Is energy from the wind a new technology? I’m not sure it isn’t actually the oldest, next to kindling wood. Wind might tie with the water wheel, another energy they’re lauding as alternative.

We’ve had windmills since man needed energy to push water against the tendencies of gravity. Man reversed the scheme when he needed to moving water to put muscle into his mechanical devices. Both came many millennium before steam and oil.

So what is the technology we need to invest in wind power, beside optimization of process, storage and transmission? Hahaha. The hurdle to overcome with wind power is the will to surround ourselves with windmills. Even if it means the quaint windmills of the Dutch lowlands, I’m not sure the public is prepared to despoil its open space, its peripheral view-shed, with lumbering omniscient propeller blades, squeaking when they need oiling.

What kind of landscape maintains its serenity with the constant grinding of wingless, flightless single-prop stick-planes going forever nowhere?

The call for alternative sources of energy is less about inaccessible technology. It’s about making compromises which we’ve already declined. Off-shore platform oil spills, no thank you. Nuclear reactors courting unthinkable cataclysm? No. Ungainly wind machines generating unceasing turbulence? Nimby. Coal. Choke. Clean Coal. Gag me with oxymoronic insolence.

The least palatable of all the unfortunate last resorts is the energy alternative never mentioned because it means less investment and fewer jobs. It’s the only remedy that doesn’t resemble a hammer to our environmental coffin nail, and it counters our consumer culture. Energy conservation. It may cast a cold shadow like a windmill, but isn’t it the only sustainable solution of the bunch?

If you don’t want a nuclear meltdown, nor large bird-slashing knives spinning your thinking space, nor toxin spewing coal, nor combustibles cooking the earth, why not invest your efforts in being personally energy independent. The logo for alternative energy should be a smart smiling face.

DEAD

Posted on October 7, 2008 by Tony Logan

One in four mammals risks extinction for now, but it will be a much worse forecast 50 years from now. The problem is not too many people, but how those people we actually have organize their economic activity on Planet Earth.

Seas turn to acid as they soak up CO2 The problem is not too many people, it is what the people do to the oceans when organized in a destructive world economy.

Vanishing forest: a northern forest is disappearing at a rapid pace—that spells trouble for billions of animals Do you have an American or Canadian flag waving from your house? Why are you so proud and defensive about all this destruction? Don’t you know what is happening? Stop celebrating this culture, this economy, this spirit of DEAD.

Factory farming leads to ‘Destruction of biodiversity — A tendency towards using single adapted breeds (a mono-culture) in factory farming, both in arable and animal farming, gives uniform product designed for high yields, at the risk of increased susceptibility to disease. The loss of locally adapted breeds reduces the resilience of the agricultural system. The issue is not limited to factory farming and historically the problem is reflected in the rapid adoption of one or two strains of crops across a wide area as seen in the Irish potato famine of 1854 and the Bengal rice famine in 1942.[58] The loss of the gene pool of domesticated animals limits the ability to adapt to future problems. This issue exists in all types of farming practices.’ from wikipedia

The Factory Model simply is not the solution at all to anything, whether it be economic or agricultural production, whether it be the production of ‘services’ or the production of ‘education’. Factories run top down by rich owners is DEAD. Factory buffalo hunting is DEAD. Factory fishing is DEAD. Factory logging is DEAD. Factory mining is DEAD. Factory living in shopping mallandia is DEAD.

No fishing

Posted on September 10, 2008 by Tony Logan

Everywhere life is under attack despite our sweet little Colorado license plates urging us to ‘respect life’. Unfortunately though, there is little in capitalism that does respect life much, whether it be human life or other. If we did respect life, then we wouldn’t have allowed our world wilderness areas to be reduced to ashes and ruins. We would not have allowed our oceans, rivers, and lakes to be degraded. We would not have allowed THEM to degrade US, since how can a degraded population really not turn around and degrade other forms of life, too?

One form of life we are in increasing danger of losing is fish. Fish may soon become a thing of the past for most of us in our food chain. The day of the cheap tuna or cheap sardine may be soon gone for good. Many of our water ways may soon become dead zones, as many already are. Just how bad is the situation now?

‘Only 50 years left’ for sea fish says it all, and the situation in fresh water is no better. See Silent Streams? Escalating Endangerment For North American Freshwater Fish We take no action to stop this destruction of fish life simply because most people are too busy defending the society they live in rather than trying to change it.

But look what is being defended here? Our neighbors are defending the extermination of life by their defense of the status quo. Soon there will be no fishing and it will be because most of us played stupid for so very long. I will miss the fish, as so too will your children and their children, too. Destruction of life is permanent, and this will be the legacy of the capitalist system on our planet. The legacy will be dead zones and desolation. Time is about out.

Support your junior proto-fascists

Posted on March 18, 2008 by Eric Verlo

What are the Girl Scouts exactly? Like Boy Scouts, they wear uniforms; and not Catholic school uniforms, or sports team uniforms, but military uniforms, of colors made to camouflage a wearer in nature. We know Baden-Powell was about well-behaved boys, kept off the street, appreciating conservationism. Did he have to dress them like soldiers?

Couldn’t girl scouts, for example, dress like girls? Probably the images of Hilter Youth would not be so stigmatized if they hadn’t looked like uniformed Nazis in training.

Republican Youth Scouts of today seem to be about the same unquestioning patriotism: duty, honor, ratting on their parents, and dressing like Fascists. In a not unrelated exploitation of youth, Girl Scouts are made to peddle cookies of a quality Keeblers wouldn’t feed a pet hobbit, hyped by the urban-mythical Thin Mints, surely viral marketing if ever there was a poor cookie

Creeping inanity

Posted on March 8, 2008 by Eric Verlo

Giving the Grand Canyon its due

This week Glen Canyon Dam engineers deigned to turn on their taps for the benefit of the Grand Canyon ecosystem. Environmentalists and academics call for the simulated flash flood to be conducted yearly, but the hydroelectric folk want to wait another several years to study the results. Relinquishing water to the Grand Canyon costs them millions in lost energy revenue. Can you bet that when the dam was first conceived, there would have been no question of threatening the health of the Grand Canyon.

Today conservationists have to beg for scraps where originally there was no businessman at the table. How many assumptions must we safeguard in anticipation that bean counters will eventually challenge the cost, regardless the original parameters?

It could no doubt be decided that ambulances would operate more cheaply if they waited for patients to expire before transporting them. No EMT training would be necessary, and insurance rates and gas consumption would be lower because with a deceased passenger there’s no need to hurry. Soon enough we’ll have accountants weighing in, not about whether to adopt a dead-body-only policy, but asking us to justify how live-bodies would merit the extra expense.

We think Communism came up against the harsh reality of human nature, look where Capitalism is hitting the wall. Inanity hath no rival like greed unglued. Smart people can build an institution, but if they don’t chains the managers to a strict constitution, heavy on the ethics and what to smart people would have been common sense, you can expect antithetical calamity.

Look at the rationalizations being made for global warming, toxins, inhumanity, disparity, war, torture. You could tell Alberto Gonzalez to his face, excuse me, but he’s got his boot on your foot, and he’ll respond impassively that it’s neither your, nor his, concern.

Lighting the fire within

Posted on February 12, 2008 by Marie Walden

Mother Nature Orange Nipple
Most Americans exist completely apart from the natural order. We live in artificial dwellings, are transported by artificial means and “nourished” by artificial foods. We wear high heels, mask all body odors, prepare meals in toxic cookware, wrap our bodies in synthetic materials. We pop pills to feel better and lose ourselves in electronic black holes to assuage boredom. Many of us live lives of isolation, like lone wolves, instead of in community with our fellow human beings.

Some of the more visionary among us provide suggestions for improvement. No more plastic bags! Wear hemp clothing! Eat organic! Bike to work! Use crystals to deodorize! Give free hugs! Such solutions are mere band-aids on a gaping wound. They are unable to stem the flow of blood, but they somehow make us feel better.

My children are learning about the benefits of recycling. Period. The conversation should be expanded. Instead of taking our cans to the curb, why not vow never again to drink anything that comes in a can? Or, even better, any beverage besides water. Let’s teach our kids that canned and bottled beverages are inherently unhealthy for the body, as well as detrimental to the environment. With a more holistic approach, the need to recycle would become less urgent, and the children would be better educated and healthier.

A holistic solution to energy conservation and national obesity can be found in the home thermostat. Many of us have turned down the heat to conserve energy. Good for the planet, no question. From a more holistic perspective, is it natural for man to live in a tightly climate-controlled environment? It isn’t. But our bodies have adapted to this artificial reality over time and we feel impelled to preserve it. So while we may turn down the thermostat, we bundle ourselves up to maintain the status quo.

I like to keep my house cool, about 60 degrees. I wear t-shirts and drink ice water and my little kids, with barely an ounce of body fat amongst them, play in their underwear, completely impervious to the cold. Remember that human beings are not dependent on the environment to determine body temperature. It is set biologically and will be maintained naturally in nearly all situations. If the outside temperature is hot, we sweat and our metabolism slows down so our bodies don’t overheat. This makes us feel sluggish; hence, the lazy summer day and dog days of summer weather characterizations. If the outer temperature is cooler, the body maintains heat by increasing the rate of metabolism and converting fat to energy. We build a fire within. Not only do we get warmer, we get thinner and more energetic to boot! Over time our metabolic rates are reset at a higher level, and we no longer feel the cold. We are warmed by our own energy source, not by a polyester sweatshirt.

Think about what it means to live naturally, like cave men. Get familiar with the workings of the body. Ponder what the planet was before man imposed his artificial intelligence upon it. Then attempt to conform to that which is natural wherever you can. What is good for the body will be good for the mind and the spirit, and is bound to be good for the environment.

The Woolsey’s track record

Posted on January 14, 2008 by Tony Logan

James Woolsey and wife, Sue, are big players in the Colorado Springs area. Susan Woolsey makes policies over at Colorado College, where she sits on the Board of Regents and James is a bigwig neocon player nationally, where his position as ex CIA head gives him some big name power and recognition.

So what exactly is the Woolsey track record like? See James Woolsey: Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind for some idea of what the patriarch is really like. Our last encounter with him was where he was trying to spread the idea in the local area that bio-fuels was an ecological dream that our government should be pushing night and day, (he has companies pushing just that, too.) He was given a forum at the campus chapel by his wife over at Colorado College to spout what the Woolsey’s would like to see become a big family money maker…. biofuels… and specifically government promotion of them.

The Woolseys are a local group of aristocracy that operates with the complicity of the local press in keeping their activities and backgrounds well hidden from the general public. You won’t see either The Independent or The Gazette giving out much info about this family, but rather they will print pieces of parallel propaganda in support of their neocon agendas. Example in point was how The Indy only printed a puffy happy piece about Bio Fuels Evolving priorities Ex-CIA head James Woolsey feels conservation helps battle terror as well as climate change when they interviewed James Woolsey for his bio fuels promotion tour.

Is The Independent scared of the guy and intimidated by him? Well, they have reason to feel that way since he is a thug who wields quite a lot of power nationally and locally. It is much easier to play along with the Woolsey family than to cross them.

Similarly, with wife Susan running the show over at Colorado College, it is much easier to play along with the idea that the local privileged college for elites is a bastion of liberalism, though it is not even close to being that. KRCC, the local radio station run by Colorado College, also helps promote that desired liberal image though its programming in actuality is quite conservative, the program ‘Democracy Now’ being the exception that proves the rule. The rest of the programming is quite white bread though.

Yes, we have close encounters of ‘the Fourth Kind’ in Colorado Springs with the Woolsey family. This is another group of bigwig aristocracy that pushes the Christian Right Wing agenda here combined with constantly pushing ‘defense contract’ militarism. They help set some of the political agendas at Colorado College, The city hall, The Independent, and The Gazette in a way that goes quite under noticed and never commented on.

We’ll try to keep an eye on them in the days ahead, since Colorado no longer needs agendas being set by the likes of the Woolseys and Coors families.

Tar sands are not a solution

Posted on September 18, 2007 by Tony Logan

Canada to the rescue! That has been the message given out by many a Right Wing hyper-pro-capitalist when confronted with diminishing world oil supplies. These eco-crisis deniers are in love with the tar sands of Alberta. See tar sands basics for some basic info

In their minds, the world can just go own expanding production for an eternity, and some nuts even believe that the earth has an endless supply of oil being made in oodles from inside the earth even as we speak. No past vegetation at all is needed in their weird ‘scientific’ belief system mixed with ‘free market’ enthusiasm. But lets peek some at the more sane folk who think that oil can be extracted in large enough amounts form tar sands. Are they right?

Forget the environmental costs. Nobody cares about that anyway, right? But these tar sands today only contribute about 1 million barrels a day in output. That’s not much since the world is increasing consumption and the US alone uses over 20 million barrels a day.

In just 4 years, the price of a barrel of oil has gone from about $25 to $80, and yet large scale removal of oil from tar sands is still nowhere close to being a viable solution. How high would the price of oil have to go before the capitalist world would starvingly go after the oil in tar sands big time?

One thing is for sure, the oil companies will never try to institute conservation in place instead of over consumption. That would not be in line for their idea of what FREEDOM means to them. FREEDOM means making money, not anything else. Even so, there’s just little profit there for them to make off tar sands trapped oil. It’s too costly to produce in much quantity, even if they tore the hell out of Alberta. If you have some figures that appear to show otherwise, I’d like to see them?

The Department of Energy and Environmental Sustainability

Posted on February 4, 2007 by Tony Logan

There are 15 Departments of the federal government, but there is no Department of Energy and Environmental Sustainability. We do without, but the question is WHY? Both our national and planetary environment are headed towards providing only a hellish future for our children, even as we run into the advancing depletion of the world fossil fuel deposits that have been so central to the development of industrialized society.

Plus, our corporate and government misleaders are bankrupting our country in pursuit of a war to seize major world oil supplies, yet we have no Federal Executive Department that would or could formulate a strategy to deal with these related problems in any coordinated and purposeful manner other than war, and erecting a police state worldwide.

We do have a Department of Energy, and there are several other semi-related Federal Executive Departments, too. All are run by the corporate section of our society, and conservation is a minimal concern to these folk. Making profits is what gets them motivated. For example, Mobil Exxon is a big player with the Department of Energy bureaucracy, and as we all know by now, this huge company has been spending a small fortune in trying to misinform the public about the reality that humans are heating the planet up. We just cannot expect a government strategy that mandates less use of gas and petroleum coming from these people.

A simple strategy to reduce energy consumption in the US is simply to lower the speed limits. Yet neither the Departments of ‘Defense’, National Security, Energy, nor Transportation seem to have the willpower to come up with this simple energy saving remedy! These are not stupid people, so it is not brain power that is lacking, but willpower.

Similarly, there is no willpower to zone and design our streets and thoroughfares in a more energy efficient manner. How many times do we enter into neighborhoods, shopping malls, and highways that are so designed to make us drive many extra miles than what is actually necessary? Everywhere we drive, it seems, incomprehensibly bad planning and zoning by developers has put into place cul-de-sac after cul-de-sac that force us into wasting energy. Nobody cares. especially not the corporate sector of our wasteful capitalist world. Would it take so much effort to achieve savings of energy by having a federal department in charge of enforcing some much needed planning and zoning regulations? The answer is NO.

How about a simple regulation requiring fast food places to serve the food in less than one minute while the cars idle, or have their customers come inside and order? Millions of barrels of oil could be saved easily enough by such a simple measure, but the political willpower is not there by the corporate sector. The government can make individuals do all sorts of burdensome measures, but when it comes to asking for some small changes from the corporations, the government is paralyzed. Look at the lack of implementation, by the corporate and government sectors, of bottle laws and paper recycling projects for examples of their behavior. But now, we are actually struggling for survival of the human race when it comes to energy conservation worldwide.

Much stricter measures of conservation are actually needed, and this is what paralyzes the corporate controlled governmental sections from blocking even the most easily done and painless measures from being proposed and started. To implement them would alert the public to how much more is actually necessary to do to deal with these major problems that are beginning to crush world civilization at this moment. So instead of doing at least a little, they do nothing.

Energy and environment conservation now combine with pure support for justice for the working class to be reasons to look for something other than a capitalist society in the future. Profit making and corporate greed are just not going to get the jobs done that the world needs done. Meanwhile, we at least need to push out American government to add a 16 th Federal Executive Department of Energy and Environmental Sustainability. Or better yet, defund and eliminate entirely the Department of Homeland Stupidity and Hysteria, and replace it with what is actually needed, a Department of Energy and Environmental Sustainability.

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The Myth of Middle Ground

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