Derrick Jensen On Dealing With Despair

So what I don't do with the anger is I don't push it away. That's a really, really important thing. About 15 years ago I was undergoing this sort of collapse where I just bursting into sobs all the time over the death of the salmon or just over how horrible this culture is. I called up this American Indian friend of mine, a writer and activist, and I said to her that this thing being an activist is breaking my heart. She said, “Yeah. It'll do that”. I said, “The dominant culture just hates everything, doesn't it?” and she said “Yeah it hates even itself.” I said, “It has a death urge, doesn't it?” and she said, “Yeah, it does.” I said, “Unless it's stopped it's going to kill everything on the planet. We're not going to make it to some great new glorious tomorrow, are we?” and her response was the best response she could give and it was, “I've been waiting for you to say that.” The reason why that was just a perfect response was because it let me know that it normalised my despair and that despair is an appropriate response to a desperate situation. It let me know that my sorrow is just sorrow and my pain is just pain and that I can feel it. It's not so much my sorrow or my pain that hurts, it's my resistance to it. The other thing is it let me feel all of these things and I knew it wouldn't kill me. There's this fear that if I recognise how bad things are then I'll just die. Well no. There's even a better thing that happens. When you recognise how bad things are, it does kill you and there's a wonderful thing about being dead and that's once your dead they can't touch you any more. They can't touch you with threats, they can't touch you with promises . . . . The point is that once that rage and sorrow really started to crystallize and once it started to go through me like I said, it killed me. The “me” it killed wasn't the animal me, wasn't the human me. The “me” it killed was the socially created me. What emerged was someone who no longer relies on hope and someone who is simply an animal who is going to defend those I love.

More, here.

If You're Already Powerful, You Don't Need Anyone To Empower You.

Twisty's back and better than ever!

Discussing the "empowered woman" that corporations use to sell stuff to women, Twisty notes: She was invented for precisely that purpose by the global corporatocracy, without whose tireless sponsorship of consumer feminine consciousness real-life women might have no clue how ugly and unfeminine they are. Femininity—that set of self-absorbed, self-defeating behaviors required of women by the dominant culture to ensure a ready-steady supply of submissive sexbot availability—is central to the empowerful woman narrative. Because there was never so hideous an abomination as a woman who can’t prove, through word, deed, and sportcorset, that she has successfully internalized the patriarchal message and is conversant in fulfilling male fantasy.

Peddaling While The World Burns

Michael Moore tells us how Bush is spending his long weekend at his parents' home in Kennebunkport:

For two days in a row, the president has taken his mountain bike to the Massabesic Experimental Forest, a stretch of woods about a half-hour from the Bush home that is owned by the U.S. Agriculture Department. Accompanied by companions recruited from a bike shop and elsewhere, the president has indulged in early morning rides of about an hour.

I fucking hate this fucking fucker.

The Question That G. Felix Allen, Jr. Refuses To Answer

The News Leader reports that G. Felix Allen, Jr., (R), hid from demonstrators today, preferring to hide rather than to keep a scheduled appearance.

The last-minute change in plans came minutes after a man identifying himself as a University of Virginia law school student broke in front of reporters at an event at Staunton’s Holiday Inn, forcefully asking the senator, “Have you ever used the word n-----?” He also questioned why Allen, a one-term Republican senator and former governor, had once displayed a noose in his office.

Allen, caught off-guard but still smiling, put his hands on the man’s shoulders and offered to speak to him later, but aides quickly led the man out of the room and Allen soon boarded his bus and left.

“Once in a while you get ambushed,” Allen said before leaving the event, a luncheon attended by a nearly all-white crowd of Greater Augusta Regional Chamber of Commerce members. “That’s OK. That’s part of it.”

Sounds as if G. Felix Allen, Jr. has some explaining to do.

The Force That Through The Green Fuse Drives The Flower By Dylan Thomas

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.

Party of the Gods

For Anne Johnson

How It's Done

Whoever is doing Bob Casey's ads is doing a good job. I hope Webb can afford them soon.

Here Comes The Sun

According to today's EEI newsletter:

Xcel Energy Says $1 Million in Solar Panels Installed Under New Program

Xcel Energy said the Solar Rewards rebate program has spent more than $1 million on solar panels for 90 homes and businesses, the Denver Business Journal reported. The Public Service Company of Colorado CEO Pat Vincent was quoted by the newspaper as saying: "We knew that customers were looking forward to the new Solar Rewards program in Colorado, but the response has been more than we could have hoped for to this point."
Denver Business Journal , Aug. 24.

"[T]he response [by consumers to solar energy] has been more than we could have hoped for to this point." I think consumers are eager to take steps to improve the environment. I think there's a shitload of money to be made by companies that sell products and services that help consumers to do that. And getting your energy provider to give you a rebate for taking sensible steps to improve the environment makes it even sweeter. Check out the webpage for your electricity company. More and more of them are providing, rebates, low-cost loans, and guaranteed buy-back of extra energy.

The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

What A Great Idea

Environmental News Network reports on Philippine's efforts to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records for planting the most trees.

Philippines Hopes to Break World Record with Mass Tree-Planting

August 25, 2006 — By Associated Press

MANILA, Philippines — President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo took part Friday in a massive tree-planting campaign aimed at improving air quality in the Philippines while breaking a world record.

The "Green Philippine Highways" project initially aimed to simultaneously plant 500,000 trees on 3,439 kilometers (2,137 miles) of roads across the sprawling archipelago, but Environment Undersecretary Francisco Bravo said the figure may have been higher.

Some 620,000 seedlings were distributed to government and civic groups and nearly a million participants signed up, including members of 4,414 organizations, he said.

"This morning, we planted trees all over the archipelago, the biggest number of trees planted at one time in the history of the world," Arroyo said in a speech after launching the project. "We will probably make it to the Guinness Book of Records for that."

The current record for most number of trees planted simultaneously is listed as 300,587 in 2005 by 16,317 people at 18 sites across India's Andhra Pradesh state.

There was no immediate word from Guinness on Friday's record attempt.

Bravo said participants were given a half-hour to plant, starting at 10 a.m., with each participant asked to sign a document for every tree planted.

The documents were to be verified by village officials, sent to a computer network at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and then checked by a leading auditing company.

The environment department said a recent study showed the Philippines has the second most polluted air among eight Southeast Asian countries polled, with vehicle emissions accounting for 70 percent of the pollution.

Experts say at least 10 trees are needed to absorb the carbon emissions of a single motor vehicle.

It gives me hope.

Hillary Sends E-Mails

Dear Hecate,

I want to send a personal note of thanks to all of you who joined me in our difficult fight to get the FDA to approve the use of Plan B without a prescription, at least for women over age 18.

Making Plan B available over the counter has the potential to prevent millions of unplanned pregnancies. This decision is long overdue: for years, the Bush administration and its ideological allies refused to recognize the scientific evidence that Plan B was both safe and effective.

Senator Patty Murray of Washington and I have agreed that we will lift our hold on the nomination of Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach to be FDA commissioner now that the FDA has made a decision. We hope he'll provide the strong scientific leadership the FDA needs and deserves.

But this three-year effort to make one more reproductive health option available to American women is another reminder that we have to insist that policy decisions should be made on the basis of science, not ideology.

We never would have succeeded if we had not held firm -- and if we had not been able to count on your support. This fight isn't over yet. There are questions about the age restriction and other conditions imposed by the FDA. We know that we have to keep working to support women’s reproductive health choices. Meanwhile, this decision is a victory for American women -- and that's something to celebrate!

Again, thank you so much for your invaluable support.

***********************************************************

I'm not at all expert on Plan B, but were I a woman of child-bearing age, I'd acquire several doses NOW and put them in my medicine cabinet, assuming that they have a shelf-life of even a year. That way, I wouldn't worry about whether or not some self-appointed morals policeman working behind a drug-store cash register would give me a hard time when I (or a friend of mine) desperately needed the medicine nor that I'd have to ride a bus to several different drug stores before finding one that stocked Plan B. Good on Hillary Clinton and good on Patty Murray for keeping the pressure on the Bush junta and the FDA.

Selling One Of Our Last Wildlife Refuges For A Penny

NRDC makes it easy to take action.

Wind

Today's EEI newsletter reports that:

Op-ed Says Wind Farming Soon May Be Most Affordable Energy Source

In an op-ed published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Wind Capital Group President Tom Carnahan wrote that the U.S. wind power industry has reached a "critical tipping point" in acceptance. Carnahan wrote that wind power as an alternative source of power "is beginning to make economic sense and soon may become the nation's most affordable energy source." This is linked to the fluctuating prices of fossil fuels, because "the cost of wind power remains constant over the 20-year life of a project."

Since most U.S. supplies of natural gas and oil are imported from unstable nations, and wind farms are local, "energy policy now is a national security issue." Carnahan also noted the positive impact of wind power on rural areas.

Wrote Carnahan: "Now is the time to invest in our communities and improve our national security through the development of locally-produced wind. We can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by supporting and promoting this completely clean source of power. The winds of change are blowing."
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, op-ed , Aug. 23.

Yes, the author is obviously an interested party, but I think that the points that he makes are valid. The price of wind energy doesn't suddenly go up due to world events and it's difficult to imagine us having to invade another country because we need "their" wind! As Carnahan notes, "energy policy is now a national security issue." If we'd had a sensible energy policy in place for the last thirty years, we surely wouldn't be killing people in the Middle East today. If they wanted to kill each other, well, that would be very unfortunate, but it would be their business.

Wind power will never be our only source of energy. I don't think any one magic bullet will fix our energy problems. And wind farm developers need to do lots more to ensure the safety of bird populations. But wind can be an important part of a better energy policy and a better foreign policy.

This May Be Jon Stewart's Finest Moment

Help us, Obi Wan. You're our only hope.

Black Death

There are, as I've noted on a few occasions, several ways to control the human population -- the easy way and the not so easy way. Maybe I've been wrong. Perhaps the choice is not so much between easy and not-easy so much as it's between clean and messy. Overpopulation is a huge part of the equation that is global climate change. If our population were half the current size -- which it would be in one generation if each couple would limit reproduction to one child -- we'd have far less greenhouse gas even without any conservation or shifts to green fuels. But the Bush junta is all about pushing for measures that make it almost impossible for couples to control their reproduction. So, I guess we're going for "messy." Here's what "messy" means:

BBC is reporting that:

Climatic changes could lead to more outbreaks of bubonic plague among human populations, a study suggests. Researchers found that the bacterium that caused the deadly disease became more widespread following warmer springs and wetter summers.

. . .

"The desert regions of Central Asia are known to contain natural foci of plague where the great gerbil (Rhombomys opimus) is the primary host. "Plague spread requires both a high abundance of hosts and a sufficient number of active fleas as vectors transmitting plague bacteria between hosts," the Norwegian scientist added. Fleas became active when the temperature exceeded 10C (50F), so a warm, frost-free spring led to an early start to breeding. Plague is passed to humans through flea bites The flea population continued to grow when the spring was followed by a wet, humid summer, the researcher wrote. The combination of the two seasons' climatic conditions led to an increase in the number of the insects feeding off the great gerbils, resulting in a greater transmission of plague. The study showed that just a 1C (1.8F) rise in the springtime temperature led to a 59% increase in the prevalence of the disease. The greater prevalence of plague in the region's wildlife increased the risk of local people becoming infected.

. . .

"Analyses of tree-ring proxy climate data shows that conditions during the period of the Black Death (1280-1350) were both warmer and increasingly wet.

"The same was true during the origin of the Third Pandemic (1855-1870) when the climate was wetter and underwent an increasingly warm trend," he added.
. . .

Professor Stenseth warned that recent changes to the region's climate suggested that warmer springs were becoming more frequent, increasing the risk of human infections.

Or, we could provide real sex education, free, effective birth control, abortion on demand, and incentives to have only one child. Apparently the "pro-family values" party prefers the Black Death. Go ahead and google to see how you die when you contract the Black Death. Ask yourself how "icky" abortion sounds after that.

By Any Means Necessary

You cannot be a witch of my generation and not be a bit in awe of Isaac Bonewitz, Druid though he is. i'm a member of his Spells for Democracy group. As he notes, there are (now, slightly less than) 13 Tuesdays until the election.

How We Know That Abortion Isn't Murder

This morning when I was eating breakfast, I was thinking about the fact that the fanatical level of insistence among certain members of the Bush cult that no one may dare to criticize Bush's Iraq debacle actually indicates that those who advocate this position understand how truly weak it is. No one who is sure that their position is correct is so horribly afraid of questions or criticism.

Now, along comes the Mad Melancholic Feminista to make the same point about those who run around frantically insisting that "abortion is murder." She points out that: if most people really believed that abortion was murder (which is the specific moral wrong that those who object to it from a religious standpoint assert), then abortion would quite simply be a non-issue. I mean, c'mon. No one tolerates or even likes a rapist or child pornographer. But, you can not only like, but love a woman who had an abortion. You might disagree with what she did. You might find it morally repugnant. But, except for a select few, you can't imagine people absolutely wanting to rip apart a woman who terminated a pregnancy.

. . .

Is abortion really killing? Would you need to advertise so strenuously this extreme view if most people thought it was killing? I mean, can you imagine bumper stickers on cars that said "Rapists Suck." Or "Rapists Destroy Women's Souls Every Day." No. Of course not.

I wish that I'd been half as smart as she is when I was her age. I wish that I wrote half as well as she writes. I think her insight is spot on.

Talk About Your No-Brainers!

The other week a friend and I were chatting about politics and he wondered why the environment is considered a "liberal" issue. When you think about it, there's really no clear reason, other than the fact that some big businesses (and one should emphasize the "some") fear that it will cut their profits (see, e.g., the oil companies who own the Bush junta). (Of course, other big businesses are realizing that (a) global climate change is cutting into their profits (see, e.g., insurance companies) and (b) that there's money to be made cleaning up the environment and providing green alternatives (see, e.g., producers of solar panels for homes, who literally can't produce their product fast enough to meet demand)). But beyond that, everyone suffers from, for example, air pollution and the effects of greenhouse gases and many conservatives enjoy spending time outdoors doing everything from fly fishing to sailing. So why shouldn't the environment be an issue that Democratic candidates could seize upon and generate broad support?

A new poll from Zogby indicates that my friend is probably on to something. Zogby finds that, "dramatically," concern about global climate change: is a sentiment shared by a majority of Democrats, Republicans, and political independents. While many more Democrats believe in global warming (87%), 56% of Republicans concur. Among independents, 82% think we are experiencing the effects of global warming. These numbers indicate a shift in the momentum of global warming believers. Those figures are worth repeating: A majority of Republicans and an overwhelming majority of Democrats and independents believe in global warming.


Further, Zogby found that: As Americans recover from this summer's heat wave and mark the first anniversary next week of Hurricane Katrina , an overwhelming majority say they are more convinced that global warming is happening than they were two years ago, and they are also connecting intense weather events like hurricane Katrina and heat waves to global warming. . . .

Asked what influence global warming has had on specific weather events, 65% said they believe it had an influence on this summer's heat wave that baked the U.S., and 68% said they think it was a factor in development of more intense hurricanes like Katrina. Similar numbers are seen for other weather phenomenon including droughts, wildfires and snowfall.

Finally, the Zogby poll shows how easy it would be for the Democrats to run on and, one assumes, push through, environmental measures: The survey also indicated there is strong support for measures to require major industries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to improve the environment without harming the economy: 72% of likely voters agreed such measures should be taken. That sentiment was consistent across a wide age spectrum of respondents, but there was some split along party lines. Among Democrats, 81% agreed major industries should be required to cut greenhouse gas emissions, while 61% of Republicans agreed. Among independents, 73% said major industries should be required to decrease certain emissions. I think, again, that those numbers bear repeating. A significant majority of Republicans and very large majorities of Democrats and independents agree that major industries should be required to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

I have trouble thinking of any other issue where I've seen such unity of opinon among Americans today. Why shouldn't the Democrats be pushing a very strong environmental agenda and, at the very least, forcing the Republicans to vote against measures that even 61% of their own party members want to see enacted?

Thank The Goddess

The NYT is reporting that a judge has put a permanent halt to Bush's plan to sell off the trees in the Giant Sequoia National Monument, "a soaring woods in central California," to logging companies.

That's right. The Bush junta has given so many tax breaks to Paris Hilton that it is now trying to sell off the trees -- many of which are hundreds of years old -- in our NATIONAL MONUMENTS to the logging companies. This will, in their bizzaro universe, fund the National Forest Service. Until, you know, there ARE NO MORE FORESTS and then, I guess, we won't need to fund a Forest Service at all.

How fucking outrageous does it have to get?

Witch

Well, he's right about one thing. The first woman president isn't going to be a witch.


~Sigh~

Some days I wonder why I even get up out of bed. The sexism and the religious bigotry just keep on coming.