THE LOESS PLATEAU THE CRADLE OF CHINESE CIVILIZATION

Finding Sustainability in Ecosystem Restoration

Biodiversity, Community Projects, Conservation, Consumerism, Deforestation, Food Shortages,Global Warming/Climate Change, Plant Systems, Population, Regional Water Cycle,Rehabilitation, Soil Conservation, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Trees, Water Contaminaton & Loss, Water Harvesting — by John D. Liu November 17, 2012

In Rwanda, where relatively recent ecological degradation from over-farming in
the designated protected highland watersheds saw the near failure of the country’s
hydro-electricity supply, the government has undertaken a similar rehabilitation
project to China’s and experienced almost immediate improvements. Free ranging
goats are, however, still a problem. Gishwati Forest, Rwanda.

Above: Mongolia — high impact from herding too many animals.
Below: Mongolia — vast dry steppe landscape

John Dennis Liu
Senior Research Fellow, IUCN
Director, Environmental Education Media Project (EEMP)
+86-13911-565016

... by police taking photographs of police officers on a mobile phone during a protest in support of dissident republican prisoners as the Olympic torch was passing through Newry in June.

The court heard that when police raided his home last week they found two pellet guns, two black berets, three military style jumpers and three pairs of combat trousers.

The detective also said that a laptop computer containing images of police officers was also seized during the raid.

However, a defence solicitor said the images dated back years and contained no pictures of serving PSNI officers.

These spurious charges that have been laid against Stephen Murney are charges which could be pressed against any political activist, any human rights activist, or any photojournalist in the six counties.

These charges are a blatant but crude attempt at political censorship and the open suppression of legitimately held political opinions.

We believe that the PSNI have chosen to bring these charges against Stephen as a test case, which if successful, will open the floodgates for similar charges to be pressed against hundreds of people right across the six counties.

The wider implications of these charges are immense.

Eirigi subject of "Black Ops" and "joined up political policing" between the Gardai and the PSNI

THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD SAYS THIS NEVER HAPPENED AND THESE PEOPLE SIMPLY DO NOT EXIST

thousands of protesters in the industrial city of Mahalla al-Kubra were reported

 to have announced the city “independent”, and planned a “revolutionary council”. 

“We no longer belong to the Ikhwani [Brotherhood] state”. 

Most Westerners have probably never heard of Mahalla, or al-Mahallat al-Kubra, but it’s of the most important industrial cities in Egypt, the center of the country’s huge textile industry. You probably own some shirts or sheets or bathrobes made in Egypt; odds are,they were made in Mahalla.

It’s a big place. (In fact, that’s pretty much what “al-Mahallat al-Kubra” means: the Big Place. That may contribute to its anonymity.) Perhaps half a million people today. And for all those people who are arguing over whether the Egyptian Revolution is a revolution of Islamists led by the Muslim Brotherhood or a Revolution of liberal intellectuals led by a bunch of young folk with Facebook and Twitter accounts, the workers in the textile mills of Mahalla are convinced it’s a revolution of an oppressed proletariat. And what’s more, they think it started in 2006. And they sure don’t think it’s over.

Indeed from 2006 onward, and really picking up momentum in 2008, Mahalla has been wracked by labolr activism, general strikes, and worker-management and worker-security forces clashes, and some of the inspiration for the later Egyptian Revolution took spark from the Mahalla strikes, most notably the April 6 movement.

Throughout the post-fall-of-Mubarak era, Islamists and liberals have fought constantly over politics and religion, while the economy has drifted steadily downward. Many political forces give lip service to the plight of Egyptian industrial workers, but no one has done anything effective. The real revolution may be yet to come, and the powers in office whether Muslim Brothers or liberals, will be held responsible,

Not wanting to sound like a Marxist here, but the day may yet come when last Friday’s odd little declaration of an autonomous workers’ soviet in Mahalla may not seem quite so humorous.

TAKE A LAST LOOK

1. ↩ John Bellamy Foster and Robert W. McChesney, The Endless Crisis (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2012).
2. ↩ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Communist Manifesto (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1964), 2.
3. ↩ Robert Heilbroner, “Ecological Armageddon,” in Warren A. Johnson and John Hardesty, eds., Economic Growth vs. the Environment (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1971), 36–45.
4. ↩ Susan Solomon, et al., “Irreversible Climate Change Due to Carbon Dioxide Emissions,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106, no. 6 (February 10, 2009): 1704–9; Heidi Cullen, The Weather of the Future (New York: Harper, 2010), 261–71; James Hansen, “Tipping Point,” in Eva Fearn and Kent H. Redford, eds., State of the Wild 2008 (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2008), 7–8.
5. ↩ James Hansen, “Comments on Assertions of Pat Michaels at Grover Norquist’s ‘Wednesday’ Meeting,” September 5, 2012; http://www.columbia.edu.
6. ↩ Stefan Rahmstorf and Dim Coumou, “Increase of Extreme Events in a Warming World,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108, no. 44 (November 1, 2012): 17905–9; John Carey “Global Warming: Faster Than Expected?,” Scientific American 307, no. 5 (November 2012): 54; James E. Hansen, “Climate Change is Here—And Worse Than We Thought,” Washington Post, August 3, 2012; Mark Fischetti, “Did Climate Change Cause Hurricane Sandy?” Scientific American blog, October 30, 2012, http://blogs.scientificamerican.com.
7. ↩ Myles Allen, et al., “The Exit Strategy,” Nature Reports Climate Change, April 30, 2009, 56–58, and “Warming Caused by Cumulative Carbon Emissions Towards the Trillionth Tonne,” Nature 458 (April 20, 2009): 1163–66; Malte Meinshausen, et al., “Greenhouse-Gas Emission Targets for Limiting Global Warming to 2°C,” Nature 458 (April 30, 2009): 1158–62; TrillionthTonne.org; Catherine Brahic, “Humanity’s Carbon Budget Set at One Trillion Tons,” New Scientist, April 29, 2009; Katherine Richardson, Will Steffen, and Diana Liberman, Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges, and Decisions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 212.
   An increase in global average temperature of 2°C is equivalent to a carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere of 450 parts per million (ppm). This would be too much for long-term stabilization of the climate, which requires no more than 350 ppm. However, keeping below the trillionth metric ton in emission is regarded as a prior constraint, since it constitutes a point of no return in terms of the possibility for effective human action with regard to these processes. If carbon emissions could be stopped below a trillion metric tons, it would be possible to get back down over time to 350 ppm. See http://trillionthtonne.org/questions.html#5, accessed October 23, 2012.
8. ↩ Climate Central, Global Weirdness (New York: Pantheon Books, 2012), 165–67.
9. ↩ See Mark Lynas, Six Degrees (Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2008).
10. ↩“Ending Its Summer Melt, Arctic Sea Ice Sets a New Low that Leads to Warnings,” New York Times, September 19, 2012, http://nytimes.com; “Arctic Expert Predicts Final Collapse of Sea Ice Within Four Years,” Guardian, September 17, 2012, http://guardian.co.uk; Carey, “Global Warming: Faster Than Expected?”, 52.
11. ↩ See http://trillionthtonne.org, accessed September 7, 2012.
12. ↩ Nicholas Stern, The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 4–16, 95, 193, 220–34, 637–51; John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York, The Ecological Rift (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2010), 153–56.
13. ↩ Glen P. Peters, et al., “Rapid Growth in CO2 Emissions After the 2008–2009 Global Financial Crisis,” Nature Climate Change 2 (January 2012): 2–3.
14. ↩ Richard York, “Asymmetric Effects of Economic Growth and Decline on CO2 Emissions,” Nature Climate Change (October 7, 2012), http://nature.com; “Greenhouse Link to GDP Not Symmetric,” ABC Science, http://abc.net.au.
15. ↩ Pwc (Pricewaterhousecoopers), Counting the Cost of Carbon: Low Carbon Economy Index 2011, http://pwc.com, 2–7.
16. ↩ Charles H. Anderson, The Sociology of Survival (Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press, 1976), 122–23; Herman E. Daly, “Moving from a Failed Growth Economy to a Steady-State Economy,” in Julien-François Gerber and Rolf Seppacher, eds., Toward an Integrated Paradigm in Heterodox Economics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012): 176–89.
17. ↩ Carbon Tracker Initiative, Unburnable Carbon, 2, accessed October 24, 2012, http://longfinance.net.
18. ↩ Bill McKibben, “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math,” Rolling Stone (July 19, 2012): 55–60.
19. ↩ Johan Rockström, et al., “A Safe Operating Space for Humanity,” Nature 461, no. 24 (September 2009): 472–75.
20. ↩ President Barak Obama, “Interview of the President by the CBC,” February 17, 2009, http://whitehouse.gov.
21. ↩ Ecological modernization (green-capitalist) theorist, Arthur Mol, remarks: “In a number of cases (regarding countries and/or specific industrial sectors and/or specific environmental issues) environmental reform can even result in an absolute decline in the use of natural resources and discharge of emissions, regardless of economic growth in financial or material terms (product output).” See Arthur P.J. Mol, “Ecological Modernization and the Global Economy,” Global Environmental Politics 2, no. 2 (May 2002): 93. Yet, recent empirical analysis shows that such “absolute decoupling” is nonexistent at the global level, that is, to the extent that a decoupling exists within nations, it is due to the shifting of production and environmental effects from one part of the globe (usually the more powerful part) to another (the weaker part). See Andrew Jorgenson and Brett Clark, “Are the Economy and the Environment Decoupling?: A Comparative International Study, 1960–2005,” American Journal of Sociology 118, no. 1 (July 2012): 1–44.
22. ↩ On how the entropy law constrains technological solutions to environmental problems see Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, Energy and Economic Myths (New York: Pergamon, 1976), 12, 57.
23. ↩ On the Jevons paradox see Foster, Clark, and York, The Ecological Rift, 169–82; David Owen, The Conundrum (New York: Riverhead Books, 2011).
24. ↩ Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1 (London: Penguin, 1976), 492.
25. ↩ Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 247–57, 742. For the relation of M-C-M′ to the economic contradictions of capitalism see Paul M. Sweezy, Four Lectures on Marxism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1981), 26–45.
26. ↩ Foster, Clark, and York, The Ecological Rift, 207–11.
27. ↩ On the failure of absolute decoupling and even relative decoupling of the economy from the environment see Tim Jackson, Prosperity Without Growth (London: Earthscan, 2011), 67–86.
28. ↩ Solar energy is abundant but is “inherently dilute.” A great deal of energy is thus necessary to convert it into concentrated form and hence the net energy return on energy investment (EROI) is small. See Howard T. Odum, Environment, Power, and Society (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 207–9; Howard T. Odum and Elisabeth C. Odum, A Prosperous Way Down (Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, 2001), 163–68. Nuclear energy presents serious dangers and does not constitute a feasible overall alternative to fossil fuels. See Kozo Mayumi and John Polimeni, “Uranium Reserve, Nuclear Fuel Cycle Delusion, CO2 Emissions from the Sea, and Electricity Supply: Reflections After the Fuel Meltdown of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Units,” Ecological Economics 73 (2012): 1-6.
29. ↩ Harry Magdoff and Paul M. Sweezy, “Notes on Watergate One Year Later,” Monthly Review 26, no. 1 (May 1974): 8–10.
30. ↩ Paul M. Sweezy, “Capitalism and the Environment,” Monthly Review 41, no. 2 (June 1989): 6.
31. ↩ Murray Bookchin, Remaking Society (Boston: South End Press, 1990), 93–94.
32. ↩ This was famously highlighted by Barry Commoner, The Closing Circle (New York: Knopf, 1971), 138-75.
33. ↩ Howard T. Odum and David Scienceman, “An Energy Systems View of Karl Marx’s Concepts of Production and Labor Power,” in Emergy Synthesis 3 (Proceedings from the Third Biennial Emergy Conference, Gainesville, Florida Center for Economic Policy, 2005), 41; Odum and Odum, A Prosperous Way Down.
34. ↩ The argument in the following pages develops on an earlier analysis in John Bellamy Foster, “The Ecology of Marxian Political Economy,” Monthly Review 63, no. 4 (September 2011): 1–16.
35. ↩ Thorstein Veblen, Absentee Ownership and Business Enterprise in Modern Times (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1964), 300-301.
36. ↩ See especially K. William Kapp, Social Costs of Private Enterprise (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950); Scott Nearing, The Economics of the Power Age (East Palatka, FL: World Events Committee, 1952); John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (New York: New American Library, 1958); and Vance Packard, The Waste Makers (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960).
37. ↩ See Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy, “The Last Letters,” Monthly Review 64, no. 3 (July–August 2012), 68, 73; Franklin M. Fisher, Zvi Grilliches, and Carl Kaysen, “The Costs of Automobile Changes Since 1949,” The Journal of Political Economy 70, no. 5 (October 1962): 433–51; Baran and Sweezy, Monopoly Capital, 131–38.
38. ↩ Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (New York: New American Library, 1953), 78–80.
39. ↩ Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy, “Some Theoretical Implications,” Monthly Review 64, no. 3 (July–August 2012), 57.
40. ↩ The issue of “specifically capitalist use value” was addressed in a commentary on Baran and Sweezy’s analysis by Henryk Slajfer, “Waste, Marxian Theory, and Monopoly Capital,” in John Bellamy Foster and Henryk Slajfer, eds., The Faltering Economy (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1984), 302–13. The concept was carried forward in John Bellamy Foster, The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1986), 39–42. The explanation of this as a transformation of Marx’s general formula of capital under monopoly capitalism, in terms of the emergence of M-CK-M′, was first introduced in Foster, “The Ecology of Marxian Political Economy.” Unbeknownst to the author at that time, a similar reformulation of Marx’s general formula as M-W-M′ had been introduced a number of years before in Patrick Brantlinger and Richard Higgins, “Waste and Value: Thorstein Veblen and H.G. Wells,” Criticism 48, no. 4 (Fall 2006): 466. For how this concept of waste (unproductive labor) influenced Baran and Sweezy’s analysis see Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy, “Some Theoretical Implications,” Monthly Review 64, no. 3 (July–August 2012): 45–58; John Bellamy Foster, “A Missing Chapter of Monopoly Capital,” Monthly Review 64, no. 3 (July–August 2012): 17–21.
41. ↩ The case for Marx’s theory of socialism as one of sustainable human development is made in Paul Burkett, “Marx’s Vision of Sustainable Human Development,” Monthly Review 57, no. 5 (October 2005): 34–62.
42. ↩ Vance Packard, The Waste Makers (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960), 46.
43. ↩ John Ruskin, Unto This Last (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1967), 73.
44. ↩ Herman E. Daly and John B. Cobb, Jr., For the Common Good (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994), 463.
45. ↩ See Frederik Berend Blauwhof, “Overcoming Accumulation,” in Ecological Economics (forthcoming).
46. ↩ Captain Charles Moore, Plastic Ocean (New York: Penguin, 2011), 129.
47. ↩ Diana Wicks, “Packaging Sales Goals and Strategies,” Chron, http://smallbusiness.chron.com, accessed October 16, 2012; “Product Packaging Can Cost Three Times as Much as What’s Inside,” Daily Mail, July 13, 2007, http://dailymail.co.uk.
48. ↩“Global Hunger for Plastic Packaging Leaves Waste Solution a Long Way Off,” Guardian, December 29, 2011, http://guardian.co.uk; Moore, Plastic Ocean, 41; Hannah Holleman, Inger L. Stole, John Bellamy Foster, and Robert W. McChesney, “The Sales Effort and Monopoly Capital,” Monthly Review 60, no. 11 (April 2009): 6.
49. ↩ Kevin C. Clancy and Robert S. Shulman, “Marketing with Blinders On,” Across the Board 30, no. 8 (October 1993): 33-38; and their Marketing Myths That Are Killing Business (New York: McGraw Hill, 1994), 140, 171–72, 221.
50. ↩“U.S. Marketing Spending Exceeded $1 Trillion in 2005,” Metrics Business and Market Intelligence, June 26, 2006, http://metrics2.com.
51. ↩ Galbraith, The Affluent Society, 121-28. The one in every twelve dollars figure for marketing is based on the Blackfriars 2005 marketing estimate, representing roughly that portion of GDP that year. See note 50. On the role of marketing in the maintenance of monopoly capital, see Michael Dawson, The Consumer Trap (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005).
52. ↩ Robert S. Lynd, “The People as Consumers,” in President’s Research Committee on Social Trends, Recent Social Trends in the United States, vol. 2 (New York: McGraw Hill, 1933), 858, 867–88.
53. ↩ Juliet Schor, Plenitude (New York: Penguin, 2010), 40–41.
54. ↩ Schor, Plenitude, 38.
55. ↩ Marc Perton, “Jobs: ‘You Have to Buy a New iPod at Least Once a Year,’” May 26, 2006, http://endgadget.com.
56. ↩“Paper or Plastic—Abstract,” Watershed Media, http://watershedmedia.org, accessed October 24, 2012; “Environmental Facts,” Ecocycle, http://ecocycle.org, accessed October 24, 2012; Annie Leonard, The Story of Stuff (New York: Free Press, 2010), 195; “Beverage Containers,” Report Buyer, http://www.reportbuyer.com, accessed October 24, 2012.
57. ↩ Bianca Mugyenyi and Yves Engler, Stop Signs: Cars and Capitalism (Vancouver, BC: Red Publishing, 2011), 13, 108, 115–16; U.S. Department of Transportation, “Nation’s Highway Traffic Reaches Highest Level Since 2007,” March 2011, http://fhwa.dot.gov; “Your Big Car is Killing Me,” June 27, 2011, http://slate.com; Arbitron Inc., The Arbitron National In-Car Study, 2009, http://arbitron.com, 2–5; Office of Department of Transportation, Office of Highway Transportation Information, “Our Nations Highways: 2011,” http://fhwa.dot.gov, accessed October 30, 2012; Lester R. Brown, Outgrowing the Earth (New York: W.W. Norton, 2004), 92. The reference to a “car-first” transportation system is from Michael Dawson, “Electric Evasion,” Counterpunch, October 15–17, 2010, http://counterpunch.org.
58. ↩ See Baran and Sweezy, Monopoly Capital, 389; Michael Kidron, Capitalism and Theory (London: Pluto Press, 1974), 53; Michael Dawson and John Bellamy Foster, “The Tendency of Surplus to Rise, 1963–1988,” in John B. Davis, ed., The Economic Surplus in the Advanced Economies (Brookfield, VT: Edward Elgar, 1992): 63.
59. ↩ Kapp, The Social Costs of Private Enterprise, 231.
60. ↩ Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 3(London: Penguin, 1981), 180.
61. ↩ To our knowledge the term “ecological debt” first appeared in Anderson, The Sociology of Survival, 143. The direct inspiration, however, was Commoner, who had employed the concept of “environmental debt.” See Commoner, The Closing Circle, 295; Odum and Odum, A Prosperous Way Down, 139, 173, 175, 179. Odum used the concept of “emergy,” which reduced all forms of energy to energy of one kind (measured in solar emjoules) as a means of analyzing embodied energy; Odum, Environment, Power, and Society, 278.
62. ↩ Odum and Odum, A Prosperous Way Down, 149.
63. ↩ Odum and Odum, A Prosperous Way Down, 183; Odum, Environment, Power, and Society, 58, 276, 389–91.
64. ↩ Howard T. Odum, “Energy, Ecology and Economics,” Ambio 2, no. 6 (1973): 222.
65. ↩ Global Footprint Network, “World Footprint,” http://footprintnetwork.org, accessed October 16, 2012; Robynne Boyd, “One Footprint at a Time,” Scientific American, July 14, 2011, http://blogs.scientificamerican.com.
66. ↩ Howard T. Odum and J.E. Arding, Emergy Analysis of Shrimp Mariculture in Ecuador (Narrangansett, RI: Coastal Research Center, University of Rhode Island, 1991), 33–39.
67. ↩ Tom Atthanasiou and Paul Baer, Dead Heat (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2002).
68. ↩ Foster, Clark, and York, The Ecological Rift, 439–40.
69. ↩ This was true of the Soviet Union as well, the analysis of which, however, does not concern us here. See John Bellamy Foster, The Vulnerable Planet (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1999), 96–101.
70. ↩ Odum, Environment, Power and Society, 274.
71. ↩ Simon Kuznets, “National Income and Industrial Structure,” Econometrica 17, supplement (1949): 217.
72. ↩ Ibid, 212–14, 229.
73. ↩ Ibid, 216–19, 227.
74. ↩“Environmental Cost of Shipping Groceries Around the World,” New York Times, April 26, 2008, http://nytimes.com; Sally Deneen, “Food Miles,” The Daily Green, http://thedailygreen.com, accessed October 16, 2012.
75. ↩ Report Buyer, The Food Miles Challenge (2006), http://reportbuyer.com, 2; Daniel Imhoff, “Thinking Outside of the Box,” Whole Earth (Winter 2002): 12.
76. ↩ See in particular Amory B. Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins, and Marty Bender, “Energy and Agriculture,” in Wes Jackson, Wendell Berry, and Bruce Coleman, eds., Meeting the Expectations of the Land (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1984), 68–69; Michael A. Altieri, “Agroecology, Small Farms, and Food Sovereignty,” David Pimentel, “Reducing Energy Inputs in the Agricultural Production System,” and Jules Pretty, “Can Ecological Agriculture Feed Nine Billion People,” in Fred Magdoff and Brian Tokar, eds., Agriculture and Food in Crisis (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2010).
77. ↩ Marx, Capital, vol. 3, 216.
78. ↩ Mindi Schneider and Philip McMichael, “Deepening and Repairing, the Metabolic Rift,” Journal of Peasant Studies 37, no. 3 (2010): 461.
79. ↩ Odum, Environment, Power, and Society, 189–90.
80. ↩ Odum and Odum, A Prosperous Way Down, 87. For a discussion of how Cuba has transformed food production, see Richard Levins, “How Cuba is Going Ecological,” Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 16, no. 3 (2005): 7–25; Sinan Koont, “Food Security in Cuba,” Monthly Review 55, no. 8 (2004): 11–20.
81. ↩ Samir Amin, “World Poverty, Pauperization and Capital Accumulation,” Monthly Review 55, no. 5 (October 2003): 1–9; Prabhat Patnaik, “The Myths of Capitalism,” MRZine, July 4, 2011, http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org; UK House of Commons, A Century of Trends in UK Statistics Since 1900 (House of Commons Library Research Paper 99/111), December 21, 1999, http://parliament.uk, 13; U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2012, Tables 28 and 29, http://census.gov, accessed October 30, 2012.
82. ↩ Wen Tiejun, et. al., “Ecological Civilization, Indigenous Culture, and Rural Reconstruction in China,” Monthly Review 63, no. 9 (February 2012): 29–35; Wen Tiejun, “Deconstructing Modernization,” Chinese Sociology and Anthropology 49, no. 4 (Summer 2007): 10–25.
83. ↩ Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 283.
84. ↩ On the scale of today’s planetary rift see Foster, Clark, and York, The Ecological Rift.
85. ↩ On the relation between capitalism’s internal economic contradictions and its external ecological ones see Kent A. Klitgaard and Lisi Krall, “Ecological Economics, Degrowth, and Institutional Change,” Ecological Economics (forthcoming).
86. ↩ Herman E. Daly, “Further Commentary,” in Jackson, Prosperity Without Growth, 267–68.
87. ↩ Marx, Capital, vol. 3, 959.
88. ↩ Max Weber was quite likely the first major thinker to stress that modern industrial capitalism was predicated on a fossil-fuel-based environmental regime. See John Bellamy Foster and Hannah Holleman, “Weber and the Environment,” American Journal of Sociology 117, no. 6 (May 2012): 1636, 1646–50.
89. ↩ On the nature of planning for a socialism for the twenty-first century see Harry Magdoff and Fred Magdoff, “Approaching Socialism,” Monthly Review 57, no. 3 (July-August 2005): 19–61.
90. ↩ On the important concept of plenitude see Schor, Plenitude, 4–7.
91. ↩ Minqi Li, The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World-Economy (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2008), 187.
92. ↩ István Mészáros, Beyond Capital (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1995), 174, 893–94.
93. ↩ Baran and Sweezy, Monopoly Capital, 141.

PETE O'NEAL SURROUNDED BY LEADERS OF TOMORROW

United African Alliance Community Center: An African Renaissance

{liberatormagazine.com exclusive feature}

Justin Dunnavant is a member of the Kwame Ture Society (KTS), a student organization founded to further the development, dissemination of knowledge, and the advancement of the Africana studies discipline. Members of KTS will be regularly contributing to The Liberator.

The Black Panther Party is said to have deteriorated nearly three decades ago however some of its original members continue to operate thousands of miles across the Atlantic. This summer a handful of Howard students had the opportunity to travel to Arusha, Tanzania for a three-week intensive Kiswahili language course. Between the 8-hour lectures and weekend Safaris the students managed to set aside time to pay homage to political activists and former members of the Black Panther Party, Mzee Pete O’Neal and Mama Charlotte O’Neal. Their compelling story serves as a testimony of the continued international legacy of the Black Panther Party.



In the fall of 1969 Pete O’Neal, the chairman and a founding member of the Kansas City chapter of the Black Panther Party, was arrested and charged with transporting a shotgun across state lines without a license. After repeated verbal threats from local police it became clear that a prison sentence would result in certain death.



O’Neal was tried and sentenced to four years in prison. While out on bail, armed with little more than the ideology of the Black Panther Party, Mzee O’Neal and his wife, Mama Charlotte O’Neal, fled to Algeria with their two children where they remained for two years before relocating to Tanzania in 1972, once a hotbed for Pan-African activity. During their time in Tanzania, they became actively involved in community development and in 1991 officially transformed their home into the United African Alliance Community Center.



Today the organization serves a community of more than 200 people. The single room dwelling that once served as their home has since been turned into a recording studio for local artists. In addition, the UAACC houses a dining hall, dormitory, classrooms, art studio, and computer lab where various English, art, and computer classes are taught all free of charge.

Aside from its various cultural and community events, the Center completed a major community water project, providing a continuous supply of fresh water to the surrounding community. The Center also facilitates student exchanges between Tanzanian and American university and high school students.



When asked about his and Mama Charlotte’s work in Tanzania Mzee O’Neal stated, "It's 100% a continuation of the work we were doing as members of the Black Panther Party without the politics - I never hesitate to tell people that. I am very proud of that history . . . We have taken it to another level by providing opportunities for education and enlightenment here in this setting. But it's the same spirit."

For the Howard University students, witnessing the impact of the O’Neal’s work in Arusha demonstrated the continued relevance of the Black Panther Party. One student noted, “It showed me you don’t need to be a high ranking USAID official or UN aid worker to make a difference. All you need is a solid ideological foundation rooted in the development of the community."



Almost 31 years later, Mzee O’Neal, still considered a U.S. fugitive, is unable to travel back to the United States. He continues to maintain his innocence and work with lawyers in hopes of being granted a repeal. 

For more information on the United African Alliance Community Center and ways you can make a contribution visit the website at www.uaacc.habari.co.tz

Images and History

The Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home is an important part of the United African Alliance Community Center in Imbaseni Village between Mt. Meru and Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. It was started in 1991 by Pete O’Neal and Charlotte Hill O’Neal of the Kansas City, MO chapter of the Black Panther Party. From the ground up, it has grown into a thriving free school for community members, and a flourishing arts and politically conscious community for the children, students, volunteers, and visiting school groups.

A view of United African Alliance Community Center from the road with English and art classrooms in back.

“Imbaseni Village Water Project, a partnership effort by The Kuji Foundation and the United African Alliance Community Center.” This partnership has brought a community water tap to hundreds of families in the area surrounding the UAACC.

And this, in many ways, says it all (and is also from Leaders of Tomorrow Children's Home)

About the Leaders

Agape Kanankira is a standard one student raised at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home at Imbaseni Village in Arusha Tanzania. Agape was born in 2004. She is Tanzanian. Agape has no parents so she lived together with her grandmother in Arusha at a village called Ngurdoto before she came to live at the Children’s Home. When she was four years old Agape went to live with her fellow children at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home. She is in standard two and she is interested in studying. She performs well in school due to the fact that she attends other classes at the Children’ Home.

Ayubu Charles was born in 2004. He lived in an extended family in Arusha at a village called Kiwawa before he went to live at the Children’s Home. His parents are both Tanzanian, they are still living together at the same village. When he was four years old Ayubu went to live with his fellow children at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home. Now he is in standard two. Studying, playing football and basketball are his interests. From the time he moved to the Children’s Home, his school performance got better and this is because of opportunities like extra time to study and tuition classes in the evening.

Baraka Laizer is among the twenty three children raised at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home at Imbaseni Village in Arusha Tanzania. Baraka was born in 2002. He lived together with his parents in Arusha at a village called Ngwanekoli before he went to live at the Children’s Home. His parents are both Tanzanian, they are still living together at the same village. He went to live with his fellow children at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home in 2008. Studying is one of his interests. From the moment he moved to the Children’s Home, his school performance got better and this is because of opportunities like extra time to study and tuition classes in the evening. The boy is so curious. He encourages young people especially boys and girls to study hard.

Cresious is a five year old boy from Imbaseni Village. We have no further

information on him at this point.

Elia Privatus is a standard three boy raised at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home at Imbaseni Village in Arusha Tanzania. Elia Privatus was born in 2002. He lived together with his parents in Arusha at a village called Maji ya Chai before he went to live at the Children’s Home. His parents are both Tanzanian, they are still living together at the same village. When he was six years old Elia went to live with his fellow children at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home. He is interested in studying and mathematics is his favorite subject. His Performance in school got better ever since she moved to the Children’s Home, and this is due to the fact that he attends tuition classes in the evening at the Children Home. Today, No matter how young he is, he encourages his fellow children especially at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children Home to study hard.

Ennead Frank is among the twenty three children raised at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home at Imbaseni Village in Arusha Tanzania. Ennead was born in 2005. She lived together with her Uncle in Arusha at a village called Maji ya Chai before she went to live at the Children’s Home. Her parents are both Tanzanian, Unfortunately they are separated and one couldn’t provide Ennead with all the basic needs. Ennead and Perris Frank are twins. When they were three years old they went to live with their fellow children at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home. Now she is in standard one, studying is one of her interest. She performs well in school because she studies hard and she attends tuition class at the Center.

Faraja Yona is a standard one student raised at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home at Imbaseni Village in Arusha Tanzania. Faraja was born in 2005. She is Tanzanian, her father passed away so she lived together with her mother in Arusha at a village called Napoko before she went to live at the Children’s Home. When she was four years old Faraja went to live with her fellow children at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home. Her mother is so thankful that the Center takes good care of Faraja. She is interested in Studying. She Performs well in school due to the fact that she attends other classes at the Children’ Home. Today, Faraja encourages young people, especially boys and girls at the Children’s Home to study hard.

Halima Omar is a standard three student raised at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home at Imbaseni Village in Arusha Tanzania. Halima was born in 2003. She lived together with her parents in Arusha at a village called Napoko before she went to live at the Children’s Home. Her parents are both Tanzanian, they are still living together at the same village. When she was five years old Halima went to live with her fellow children at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home. Studying is one of her interest. She Performs well in school due to the fact that she attend other classes at the Children’s Home. Her parents are so happy that the center provides Halima with all the basic needs. Today, Halima encourages young people, especially boys and girls at the Children’s Home to study hard. Her life example teaches us to follow our dreams, no matter how great.

Hamisi Maulid is a standard three student raised at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home at Imbaseni Village in Arusha Tanzania. Hamisi was born in 2003. He lived together with his father in Arusha at a village called Imbaseni before he went to live at the Children’s Home. His parents are both Tanzanian, Unfortunately they are separated. When he was five years old Hamisi went to live with his fellow children at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home. His father is so thankful that the Center takes good care of his son. Hamisi is interested in Studying and playing football. His Performance in school is getting better due to the fact that he attends other classes at the Children’s Home.

Happiness Joshua was born in 2003. She lived together with her parents in Arusha at a village called Ngongongare before she went to live at the Children’s Home. Her parents are both Tanzanian, they are still living together at the same village. When she was five years old Happiness went to live with her fellow children at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home. Now she is in standard three, studying is one of her interest. From the moment she moved to the Children’s Home, her school performance got better and this is because of opportunities like extra time to study and tuition classes in the evening.

Hawa Ally is among the twenty three children raised at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home at Imbaseni Village in Arusha Tanzania. Hawa was born in 2003. She lived together with her mother in Arusha at a village called Ngongongare before she went to live at the Children’s Home. Her parents are both Tanzanian, they are separated. Hawa went to live with her fellow children at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home at the age of six. Now she is in standard two, studying is one of her interest. Ever since she moved to the Children’s Home, her school performance got better and this is because of opportunities like extra time to study and tuition classes in the evening.

Irene Thomas was born in 2000. She lived together with her parents in Arusha at a village called Napoko before she went to live at the Children’s Home. Her parents are both Tanzanian, they are still living together at the same village. When she was eight years old Irene went to live with her fellow children at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home. Now she is in standard six, studying is one of her interest. Ever since she moved to the Children’s Home, her school performance got better and this is because of opportunities like extra time to study and tuition classes in the evening. She is the oldest of all the Children at the Center. She encourages young people especially boys and girls to study hard.

Jacqueline Kanankira is a standard three student raised at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home at Imbaseni Village in Arusha Tanzania. Jacqueline was born in 2003. She lived together with her aunt in Arusha at a village called Ngongongare before she went to live at the Children’s Home. Her parents are both Tanzanian. When she was five years old Jacqueline went to live with her fellow children at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home. Her aunt is so thankful that the Center takes good care of Jacqueline. Jacqueline is interested in Studying. Today, her Performance in school is getting better due to the fact that she attend other classes at the Children’ Home.

Joshua Emmanuel is a standard two student raised at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home at Imbaseni Village in Arusha Tanzania. Joshua was born in 2005. He lived together in an extended family in Arusha at a village called Kiwawa before he went to live at the Children’s Home. His parents are both Tanzanian. When he was three years old Joshua went to live with his fellow children at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home. His mother is so thankful that Joshua is now provided with all the basic needs. Joshua is interested in Studying. His Performance in school is getting better due to the fact that he attend other classes at the Children’ Home.

Joyce Matthew is a standard three student raised at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home at Imbaseni Village in Arusha Tanzania. Joyce was born in 2003. She lived together with her parents in Arusha at a village called Napoko before she went to live at the Children’s Home. Her parents are both Tanzanian, they are still living together at the same village. When she was five years old Joyce went to live with her fellow children at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home. Studying is one of her interest. She Performs well in school due to the fact that she attend other classes at the Children’s Home.

Mage Elias was born in 2006. Maria lived together with her grandmother and grandfather in Arusha at a village called Sangananu before she went to live at the Children’s Home. Mage and Maria Elias are twins and they are both Tanzanian, now they are living together at the center. Mage came to live at the center when she was three years old. Now she is in kindergarten. She enjoys life in the Center and her grandpa and grandma are so happy that the center takes good care of Mage and Maria.

Maria Elias is among the twenty three children raised at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home at Imbaseni Village in Arusha Tanzania. She was born in 2006. Maria lived together with her grandmother and grandfather in Arusha at a village called Sangananu before she went to live at the Children’s Home. Maria and Mage Elias are twins and they are both Tanzanian, now they are living together at the center. Maria came to live at the center when she was three years old. Now she is in kindergarten. She enjoys life in the Center and her grandpa and grandma are so happy that the center takes good care of Maria and Mage.

Miriam Bakari is among the twenty three children raised at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home at Imbaseni Village in Arusha Tanzania. Miriam was born in 2005. She lived together with her grandfather in Arusha at a village called Imbaseni before she went to live at the Children’s Home. Her parents are both Tanzanian. When she was three years old Miriam went to live with her fellow children at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home. She is interested in studying.  From the moment she moved to the Children’s Home, her school performance got better and this is because of opportunities like extra time to study and tuition classes in the evening.

Omar Athumani is a standard two student raised at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home at Imbaseni Village in Arusha Tanzania. Omar was born in 2004. He lived together with his mother in Arusha at a village called Maji ya Chai before he went to live at the Children’s Home. His parents are both Tanzanian. When he was four years old Omar went to live with his fellow children at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home. His mother is so thankful that Omar is now provided with all the basic needs. Omar is interested in Studying. His Performance in school is getting better due to the fact that he attend other classes at the Children’ Home.

Perris Frank is among the twenty three children raised at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home at Imbaseni Village in Arusha Tanzania. Perris was born in 2005. She lived together with her Uncle in Arusha at a village called Maji ya Chai before she went to live at the Children’s Home. Her parents are both Tanzanian, Unfortunately they are separated and one couldn’t provide Ennead with all the basic needs. Perris and Ennead Frank are twins. When they were three years old they went to live with their fellow children at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home. Now she is in standard one, she is interested in studying and watching cartoons. She performs well in school because she studies hard and she attends tuition class at the Center.

Queen Sadiki is a standard three student raised at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home at Imbaseni Village in Arusha Tanzania. Queen was born in 2003. She lived together with her parents in Arusha at a village called Napoko before she went to live at the Children’s Home. Her parents are both Tanzanian, they are still living together at the same village. When she was five years old Queen went to live with her fellow children at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home. Studying is one of her interest. Today, her Performance in school is getting better due to the fact that she attend other classes at the Children’s Home.

Suleiman Mohamed is a standard two student raised at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home at Imbaseni Village in Arusha Tanzania. Suleiman was born in 2004. He lived in an extended family in Arusha at a village called Napoko before he went to live at the Children’s Home. His parents are both Tanzanian. When he was four years old Suleiman went to live with his fellow children at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home. His family is so thankful that Suleiman is now provided with all the basic needs. Suleiman is interested in studying. His performance in school is getting better due to the fact that he attend other classes at the Children’ Home.

Winnie Charles is among the twenty three children raised at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home at Imbaseni Village in Arusha Tanzania. Winnie was born in 2005. She lived together with her mother in Arusha at a village called Imbaseni before she went to live at the Children’s Home. Her parents are both Tanzanian, they are not living together at the village. When she was four years old Winnie went to live with her fellow children at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home. Now she is in standard two, she is interested in studying. From the time she came to the Children’s Home, her school performance got better and this is because of opportunities like extra time to study and tuition classes in the evening.

Share this:

HAWK HIMSELF, GRACING THE COVER OF THIS YEAR'S KANSAS CITY REGAP CALENDAR (AVAILABLE AT KCREGAP)

The Difference Between Greyhound Racing’s
Propaganda and Reality is like:
NIGHT AND DAY

Racing Industry Promotional Claims..

The Reality..

Where Do All Those Puppies Go..

Struggling to Survive….

"At its very core, all of these movements have very common threads and are born from common issues facing people everywhere. Those who represent financial interests that value money over life itself, that are devoid of basic respect for human decency, and for nature have dictated the future for too long and people everywhere are standing up to say, "No more." This non-violent social uprising is viral in the minds and hearts of everyone across the planet determined to bring healing to our troubled communities, our planet, and the corruption that is eroding the highest places of governments around the world."

"After generations of genocide, political slight-of-hand, segregation and degradation, after being tossed empty words and shoved with broken promises, broken homes, broken lives, suicides, dead food and contaminated water – thousands upon thousands of indigenous people are gathering in cities, towns, villages, malls, plazas, galleries, roads and railways across Canada, the US – all around the planet – to dance, sing and stand up for human rights and human decency..."

" Idle No More presents a challenge to the old colonial order that forms the basis of Canadian society. This movement has been about challenging oppression in very real and very meaningful ways. It has meant questioning the legitimacy and authority of colonial laws by pushing the limits of these laws. Idle No More means not only speaking of Indigenous sovereignty, but living out our inherent sovereignty as nations. This is especially important in the case of Omnibus Bill C-45, where our fundamental human rights to clean water, lands and foods are at risk. Essentially, Harper and the Conservative government of Canada are legislating the extinguishment of our Indigenous nationhood.  Our response has been two-fold: to re-situate ourselves as nations, and to rejuvenate the commitment of our people and Settler society to the Treaty relationship."

" Society and nature work in similar ways to our own body’s immune system. We are given a symptom that causes us to be aware that there is an illness that needs to be addressed. We can try to suppress the symptom, but that does not heal the illness. Popular uprisings with very core commonalities are spreading all over the planet. Exploitation of our environment, as well as the exploitation of people and cultures for the sake of financial gain is immoral and must be stopped at the highest levels of our governments."

"...continue to be part of the cancer that slowly destroys our water, our air and the resources that are the fabric of life by staying unconscious, or become the conscious antidote that slowly kills the cancerous disease which threatens the existence of life on the planet..."

"A factory producing monkey wrenches for the gears of the machine which is at the center of our collective demise."

Idle No More, Indeed

BY: WINONA LADUKE

JANUARY 03, 2013

NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH OFFICER FRIENDLY

Electroshock torture handcuffs now patented: Deliver shocking torture, ‘gas injections’ and ‘chemical restraints’ to prisoners via remote control

by Mike Adams

It’s like something ripped right out of a dystopian futuristic sci-fi novel: A U.S. patent has been uncovered that describes electronic handcuffs capable of delivering torturous electroshocks, “gas injections” and injectable “chemical restraints” to prisoners who wear them. The cuffs can be remote-controlled by prison guards, cops or MPs to deliver stronger or weaker electroshocks as desired… or even chemical injections.

Photo courtesy of PatentBolt.com, which originally discovered this patent

The device is described inU.S. patent application number 20120298119, and the three people behind its invention are Corbin Reese of Scottsdale, Ariz., Donald L.Pegg of Chandler, Ariz., and Lucius L. Lockwood of Phoenix, Ariz.

As described in the patent application: “Embodiments of the restraining device of the present invention includes a restraint for physically constraining movement of at least a portion of a detainee’s body; an electric shock component coupled to the restraint; and a control system coupled to the electric shock component, the control system configured to cause the electric shock component to deliver a shock to the detainee when a predetermined condition occurs. The restraining device may be any device capable of being attached to a detainee and restraining at least a portion of the detainee’s body, and in various implementations may include at least one of: a handcuff; an ankle cuff; a restraining belt; a straightjacket; a harness; a facial restraint; a helmet; and a neck collar; and combinations thereof.

Combined with RFID to deliver proximity electroshocks

The handcuffs are able to deliver electroshock torture in combination with RFID chips that determine the distance between prisoners and weapons or other objects. If the prisoner wearing the cuffs approaches too closely to an RFID-equipped object, they are electro-shocked.

As the patent describes, “if a weapon is equipped with an RFID or other identification device, sensors in the restraining device may transmit a signal and receive a response signal indicating that a weapon is in a predetermined proximity, and if the detainee does not move away from the weapon to cause the response signal to fall below a predetermined threshold, a shock will be administered.”

If you fail to verbally acknowledge, you will be electroshocked

The cuffs can also be configured to deliver electroshocks to prisoners upon their failure to verbally acknowledge something. As described in the patent: “In yet another embodiment, an unauthorized activity occurs when the detainee fails to provide a predetermined verbal acknowledgement.”

If you do not answer, “Yes, sir!” in other words, you will be tortured for your silence.

‘Gas injection’ system medicates prisoner with government chemicals

It’s not enough to merely electroshock torture prisoners who are wearing these cuffs, by the way. The invention also includes microscopic needles and a “gas injection system” to inject the prisoner with whatever drugs or chemicals the government desires.

As described in the patent: “Various embodiments of the restraining device of the present invention also comprise a substance delivery system in communication with the control system, wherein the control system is configured to cause the substance delivery system to expose the detainee to the substance. The substance may include any substance capable of being stored or delivered by the restraining device to achieve any desired result, and may be a least one of a liquid, a gas, a dye, an irritant, a medication, a sedative, a transdermal medication or transdermal enhancers such as dimethyl sulfoxide, a chemical restraint, a paralytic, a medication prescribed to the detainee, and combinations thereof. In some embodiments, the restraining device may be configured to inject the substance through a movable needle or gas injection system. Administration of such substances may be in addition to or in place of any electric shocks delivered by the restraining device, and substances may be delivered to achieve any desired goal such as providing a needed medication to a patient, preventing occurrence of uncontrollable psychotic episodes or seizures, suppression of undesirable behavior, chemical restraint when electrical restraint is insufficient (such as in the case if an energy storage device in the restraining device has insufficient charge state) or any other desired reason.”

Can you get any more police state than this?

Brought to you by the same company that manufactures S&M sex toys

This picture, taken from the home page of the inventors of electroshock handcuffs, depicts some of the sex bondage cuffs that their company promotes at FunCuffs.com.

Natural News has learned that the inventors of these electroshock torture handcuffs are the same people involved in the manufacture and marketing of S&M sex toy handcuffs. As their home page explains, Fun Cuffs are electroshock sex toys that deliver “naughty” shocks to whatever perverted sex partner you might be toying with at the moment

Digging Up Autonomia

An environmental activist holds a picture of a dead and finned shark next to shark fins drying in the sun covering the roof of a factory building in Hong Kong on January 2, 2013.

Every year tens of millions of sharks die a slow death because of finning. Finning is the inhumane practice of hacking off the shark's fins and throwing its still living body back into the sea. The sharks either starve to death, are eaten alive by other fish, or drown (if they are not in constant movement their gills cannot extract oxygen from the water). Shark fins are being "harvested" in ever greater numbers to feed the growing demand for shark fin soup, an Asian "delicacy".

Not only is the finning of sharks barbaric, but their indiscriminate slaughter at an unsustainable rate is pushing many species to the brink of extinction. Since the 1970s the populations of several species have been decimated by over 95%. Due to the clandestine nature of finning, records are rarely kept of the numbers of sharks and species caught. Estimates are based on declared imports to shark fin markets such as Hong Kong and China.

Shark fins are the main ingredient of a soup that is widely regarded a status symbol in Chinese culture and a must-serve at important events and celebrations like weddings. As I have reported in the past, the dried fins sell for several hundred dollars a pound. Often they are sliced from sharks that are then thrown back into the sea to die.

 A shark is caught, pulled onboard a boat, its fins are cut off, and the still-living shark is tossed back overboard to drown or bleed to death.  The wasteful, inhumane practice is done to satisfy a demand for shark fins, which can fetch as much as $300 per pound. The meat, on the other hand, is far less valuable, so fishermen toss it overboard to save space for more fins.

How Serious A Threat is Shark Finning?

Finning is responsible for the death of between 88 million to 100 million sharks every year. Exact numbers are unknown because the practice is illegal in many places and hauls aren't accurately counted. Because sharks are at the top of the food chain and have few predators, they reproduce and mature slowly. That means their numbers are slow to replenish when a population is overfished. At the rate humans are going, we're set to wipe out sharks entirely in as little as 10-20 years.

What Happens If Sharks Die Out?

Sharks are an apex predator. Apex predators are invaluable for keeping the populations of everything else in the food chain in balance. The oceans depend on them to keep the numbers of other fish and mammal species in check and weed out the sick, injured and dying so that populations of fish stay strong and healthy. Without sharks -- from bottom feeders all the way up to Great Whites -- the balance of the ocean's food chain is in danger.

This is not just a guessing game, either. We've already seen the impact a loss of sharks can have on an ecosystem. According to Shark Savers, a scientific study conducted in the mid-Atlantic part of the United States showed that when 11 species of sharks were nearly eliminated, 12 of the 14 species those sharks once fed on became so plentiful that they damaged the ecosystem, including wiping out the species farther down the food chain on which they preyed. The negative effects trickle out as the ecosystem gets thrown out of balance.

Shark finning is not only cruel, it is irresponsible and unsustainable fishing at its highest degree. In spite of this, it has been close to impossible to attain any international binding management and conservation measures to curtail this practice.

Thousands of shark fins found drying on rooftop in Hong Kong

Tom Levitt

04.01.2013

comments

0

.. the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity (MPJD), Sicilia united a vast group of drug war victims-families who had lost innocent loved ones in the crossfire of Mexico's escalating conflict. They filled dozens of caravan buses and traveled across Mexico telling their stories and drawing attention not only to the heavy hand of state security forces but also to the corruption of the court system, police forces, and politicians who were unable to hold killers and traffickers accountable.

Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity Responds to the EZLN

México D.F. on January 3, 2013.

Our struggle is for life, and the evil government offers death as the future.

Our struggle is for justice, and the evil government is filled with criminals and assassins.

Our struggle is for peace, and the evil government announces war and destruction.

CCRI-CG of the EZLN

To the Zapatista Army of National Liberation

Brothers and sisters

First, we send you a fraternal embrace for your 29 years as EZLN and for the 19 years since you appeared publically. We congratulate you because we, in our short existence as a movement, know full well how difficult it is to build and sustain an organization. And above all, for your steadfastness, for showing us that morals, ethics and truth are the most powerful tools to build a world with peace, justice, dignity and democracy.

We also use this letter to thank you for the many lessons you have given to Mexican society and the solidarity you gave to the victims of May 7, 2011, when, making our cry yours, We’ve Had It Up to Here! [¡Estamos hasta la madre!], you came out to march in silence to demand an end to the war and justice for the victims. We will never forget that great mobilization and message as well as the fraternal reception that the Good Government of Oventic gave to the Caravan to the South.

Since then, the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity diagnosed the national emergency that you had already foreseen. With our walk in sorrow, we confirmed that this world is indeed crumbling and, facing this, we recuperated the fundamental elements of our humanness and life to begin building another world.

Just like you, we have taken on the struggle in the terrain of the symbolic to show the breadth of the transcendence of our causes. That’s why we have put the testimony of the victims before the discourse of politics. However, the deafening system – in which the political class and organized crime have satiated their ambition for power and wealth, imposing a criminal economy where life and death are interchangeable products – has blocked all understanding of the gravity of the situation in which we are submerged: 80,000 dead, 20,000 disappeared, hundreds of thousands displaced and families and bodies destroyed. This new face of war is nothing more than the extension of the long night of the 500 years, which the dictatorship of the State party has taken charge of redressing in paramilitarism and repression against the people and social movements.

In spite of the foregoing, we walked to raise up the voice and testimony of the victims throughout the width and breadth of the country, as well as across the United States of North America, publically calling for accountability from those above, all political parties and all the powers that be, exposing the ethical and moral degradation of the political class, the criminals and the institutions. In our walk we have also seen dignified peoples and persons who are confronting this reality, breaking with the dynamics of the system and putting down the bases for the construction of other worlds, almost always with youth, victims and indigenous peoples as the main social subjects. We also identify as the indigenous peoples those who can be found heading up the construction of alternatives: Cherán, Santa María Ostula and Tiripetío in Michoacán; the peoples of the mountain and coast of Guerrero who bringing to life the Community Police; the defense of the sacred lands of the Wirrárikas and hundreds of communities that resist the megaprojects, the extraction economy and the accumulation of wealth by plunder.

Since May 8, 2011, before thousands of people in main plaza of Mexico City, we proposed the necessity of setting the minimum bases needed to begin the reconstruction of the country. In that sense, we believe that one of the first necessary minimum measures is the signing and fulfillment of the San Andrés Larráinzar Accords, a project that would be the first step, not only to begin to pay off the historic debt that the Mexican nation has with her first peoples but so that the State keeps its word and, above all, to begin the construction of a model of democracy and justice through which true peace with dignity can be consolidated. That’s why, and responding to your most recent communiqués, we want to let you know that we are ready to begin walking at your side and at the side of all Mexicans who are committed to this demand. That we believe that a Mexico with Peace, Justice and Dignity is only possible with Democracy and Liberty. That Mexico cannot be a complete nation with her peoples.

Dear Zapatista sisters and brothers,

We say from our hearts, which have been hurt by war and that struggle so that other families don’t have to live the sorrow of losing or having a family member disappeared: we embrace your struggle the way you have embraced ours. We will struggle for a Mexico for all, a country that truly includes and recognizes her indigenous peoples, for a country where there are no dead or disappeared due to the ambition and opulence of a few and one in which, as your communities have already begun doing so, life that has been violently taken away can begin to flower again.

In the construction of a Mexico with Peace, Justice, Democracy and Dignity. All together!

Yours,

Movimiento por la Paz con Justicia y Dignidad

(Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity)

IN HIS DREAMS

James Yeager 

James Yeager is currently the CEO of Tactical Response which provides tactical training worldwide as well as being CEO of Tactical Response Gear an industry leader in products and service to the tactical community.

From July 2004 until May 2005 James Yeager was on Protective Security Details in Baghdad Iraq. His Team was responsible for the protection of the 8 Iraqi Election Commissioners during the violent pre-election, election, and post election. His Team was also in charge of the physical security of their offices at the Interim Iraqi Government Building and we worked closely with the Gurkhan guard force there. Yeager’s duties as I.C. (on-site supervisor) included acting as a media liaison, coordinating the security force for the building (Contractors and Iraqi), coordinating with the security force for the compound (Global Risk and US Army), and coordinating with the two U.S. Army Force Protection groups for the area (82nd ABN). He also assisted with the planning, advances, coordination, and execution of the many meetings, plane rides, helicopter shuttles, conferences, and trips around turbulent Iraq that the 8 commissions took to set up and complete the electoral process.

May 1996 through September 1998 he worked as a Patrolman and K-9 handler for the Big Sandy Police Department. In the fall of 1998 he was asked to be the Chief of Police. It was during this time he trained and led the County’s first Tactical Team. He held the position of Chief until a new Mayor fired him in May of 2000. He was hired as a Deputy at the Benton County Sheriff’s Office in May of 2000. His duties at BCSO included patrol, Tactical Team leader, and trainer for the Multi-Agency Crisis Response Team. September of 2002 after a new Sheriff came into office Yeager decided the political strife of full-time Law Enforcement was too much for him and he went into private training full-time until July of 2004 when he turned his company over to his Board of Directors to go to Iraq.

January 1992 through May 1996 James Yeager worked with various Drug Task Force units as well as many local Departments’ Narcotics squads buying and selling illegal narcotics in an undercover capacity. He specialized in deep cover operations, used fictitious names, and moved frequently. The agencies he worked for included, but were not limited to, the 24th Drug Task Force, 23rd D.T.F., 27th D.T.F., Paris Police Department, the Henry County Sheriff’s Department, and the DEA. He made hundreds narcotics buys and sales during this period and still continues to work in short duration operations as needed.

James Yeager is a member of the National Rifle Association (NRA) – Life Member, the Southern States Police Benevolent Association, the Tennessee Tactical Police and Paramedic Association (TTPPA) and is a member of I.L.E.E.T.A.

• TN P.O.S.T. Certified to Instruct Less Lethal Munitions #00040S - inactive
• TN P.O.S.T. Certified to Instruct Firearms #00041S - inactive
• TN P.O.S.T. Certified to Instruct Chemical Weapons #00042S - inactive
• TN P.O.S.T. Certified to Instruct Expandable Baton #00043S - inactive
• TN P.O.S.T. Certified Police Officer and K-9 handler #97276 - inactive
* Louisiana State Police Firearms Instructor Number #0259
* F.B.I. Certified Firearms Instructor
* TN Department of Safety Certified Firearms Instructor
* FAA certified to instruct Law Enforcement “Flying Armed” courses
* A.L.S. Master Instructor (Less Lethal, Flashbangs, Chemical Weapons)
* Expandable Baton Instructor – Monadanock
* Bushmaster Certified Patrol Rifle/Carbine Instructor
* Aerosol O.C. Instructor – Fox Labs International
* Armor Holding - Gas Mask Instructor
* Armor Holdings - Pyrotechnic Munitions Instructor
* Armor Holdings - Distraction Device Instructor
* Armor Holdings – Chemical Weapons Instructor
* Armor Holdings - Less Lethal Munitions Instructor
* NRA Certified Handgun Instructor #11973397
* NRA Personal Protection Instructor #11973397
* Glock Certified Armorer
* Rangemaster Handgun Instructor Development
* Knife Defense Instructor
* Over 200 hours of DSS training for EP/PSD/BG
* Scientific Combat Method American Combat Masters 20 hour
* S.D.S.I. Tactical Rifle Course 16hours
* Tactical Knife Instruction- American Combat Masters 20 hour
* Black Water Lodge 32 hour Tactical Police and Military Shotgun Course
* Completed various 40 hour Officer Survival schools
* Attended Snipercraft 40 hour
* OPS - Advanced Low Light Shooting Instructor Course 40 hour
* OPS - Advanced Tactical Handgun Instructor Course 40 hour
* OPS - Handgun Instructor Course 40 hour
* OPS - Patrol Rifle Instructor Course 40 hour
* OPS -Shotgun Instructor Course 40 hour
* Jim Crews - Tactical Handgun 20 hour
* Halo Group - Advanced Tactical Handgun 18 hour
* Rangemaster - High Risk Personnel 16 hour
* Rangemaster - Crisis Response Team Training 80 hour
* S.W.A.T. UTM / Chief Tom Long 40 hour
* D.E.A. - Clandestine Lab Investigations 40 hour
* Criminal Investigation School UTM 40 hour
* Patrol Interdiction 40 hour
* Basic SWAT-Jackson SWAT Team 40 hour
* John Farnam Advanced Tactical Handgun Instructor Course 20 hour
* Military Counter Drug SRT course 48 Hour
* SWAT by Smyrna S.T.O.R.M. Team 40 hour
* 40 hours in-service 1996-through present
* Active Shooter Instructor Course / TTPPA 24 hrs
* 40 Hr Police Sniper School by Smyrna S.T.O.R.M.
* 28 Hour Carbine Instructor / Jim Crews
* 40 Hour F.B.I. SWAT course
* 5 day Strategos Spec-Ops Low-Light Team Tactics 50+ Hours
* Personal Security Course from Armor Group International (I.T.I. in VA)
* Pat Rogers 3-Day Carbine Operator Course
* Caliber Press - Street Survival 2 days
* Glock 2.5 day Instructor Workshop
* NRA Patrol Rifle Instructor
* Rogers Shooting School - Pistol / Intermediate
* Rogers Shooting School - Rifle / Advanced
* Surefire Tactical Technology Specialist Course
* Larry Vickers' AK Operator Course

James Yeager a certified expert witness in TN for firearms, tactical training and use of force. He has been a firearms trainer since 1994 and has taught literally thousands of students with several individuals, tactical teams, and Special Forces teams being successful in lethal force confrontations both domestically and abroad. Yeager has taught multiple classes all over the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Central America and South America. He has extensive experience teaching in austere environments.

James Yeager is also a professional writer and has been published in magazines such as S.W.A.T. (Staff Writer), Southern Lawman, and STUFF. He wrote foreword for the book “Surgical Speed Shooting” as well as being on the cover of that book. He has written a book on High Risk Civilian Contracting. Yeager has also produced a series of instructional DVDs.
He was featured on the cover of the September 2005 SWAT magazine and the December 2005 and June 2009 issues of SWAT had a full length review of our training. His companies have also been featured in the “Barrett Annual”, “Shotgun News”, “The book of the AR-15”, and several other periodicals. Kiplinger’s financial magazine also did an article on Yeager in the June 2007 issue. He was also featured on “SWAT Magazine TV” on the Outdoor channel in January 2010.
Email: JamesYeager@TacticalResponse.com

Weapons Instructor for Police Threatens to ‘Start Killing People’

Posted in Extremist Propaganda by Mark Potok on January 10, 2013

 Print This Post

The CEO of two companies that provide tactical weapons training and supplies to the military and police — and who is a former Tennessee police chief — said yesterday that if President Obama uses executive orders to ban assault rifles, “I’m going to start killing people.”

James Yeager, CEO of Tactical Response and also of Tactical Response Gear Inc. of Camden, Tenn., made the statement as part of a furious, one-minute rant posted yesterday to YouTube. Today, after Yeager apparently thought better of his death threats, the video was pulled down. Hatewatch captured it, however, and it can be viewed here.

Staring into the camera and showing biceps tattooed with numerous spent shell casings, Yeager said that he’d learned that Vice President Joe Biden had asked Obama to bypass Congress and use executive powers to ban assault rifles and impose other gun control measures. And then he let loose.

“Fuck that,” he said. “I’m telling you that if that happens, it’s going to spark a civil war, and I’ll be glad to fire the first shot. I’m not putting up with it, you shouldn’t put up with it, and I need all you patriots to start thinking about what you’re going to do. Load your damn mags, make sure your rifle’s clean, pack a backpack with some food in it, and get ready to fight.

“I’m not fucking putting up with this, I am not letting my country be ruled by a dictator, I am not letting anybody take my guns,” he said, his voice rising. “If this goes one inch further, I’m going to start killing people.”

In his company biography at the website for Tactical Response, Yeager said that he was a patrolman, K-9 handler and, ultimately, police chief of the Big Sandy, Tenn., Police Department in the 1990s. He also was a deputy sheriff with the Benton County Sheriff’s Office. In 2002, he says, he went into private-sector tactical weapons training full time, even while serving as the firearms and tactics instructor for the Camden Police Department. He says he worked as a civilian working in protective security in Iraq in 2004 and 2005.

Yeager said he had been featured in numerous publications, including being on the cover of S.W.A.T. Magazine,  Kiplinger’s financial magazine and other publications. He also says he has written for a variety of gun magazines and been featured on TV shows including the Discovery Channel’s “One Man Army” and National Geographic’s “Snipers Inc.”

“I have taught multiple classes all over the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Central America and South America,” Yeager wrote. “I have extensive experience teaching in austere environments and I am a certified witness for firearms, tactical training and use of force.”

And that is precisely what is so scary about James Yeager.