ALASKA PROGRESSIVE REVIEW

WHAT'S STOPPING US

2012-01-27T00:38:00.000-08:00

Law Professor Bill Quigley, who teaches at Loyola University, in New Orleans published this beautiful essay a few days ago. The Alaska Progressive review found it quite moving, and is in complete agreement with everything he's laid out here.

http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/13284

BILL QUIGLEY FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

"I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values."

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 1967

ne. Human rights must be taken absolutely seriously. Every single person is entitled to dignity and human rights. No application needed. No exclusions at all. This is our highest priority.

Two. We must radically reinvent contemporary democracy. Current systems are deeply corrupt and not responsive to the needs of people. Representatives chosen by money and influence govern by money and influence. This is unacceptable. Direct democracy by the people is now technologically possible and should be the rule. Communities must be protected whenever they advocate for self-determination, self-development and human rights. Dissent is essential to democracy; we pledge to help it flourish.

Three. Corporations are not people and are not entitled to human rights. Amend the US Constitution so it is clear corporations do not have constitutional or human rights. We the people must cut them down to size and so democracy can regulate their size, scope and actions.

Four. Leave the rest of the world alone. Cut US military spending by 75 percent and bring all troops outside the US home now. Defense of the US is a human right. Global offense and global police force by US military are not. Eliminate all nuclear and chemical and biological weapons. Stop allowing scare tactics to build up the national security forces at home. Stop the myth that the US is somehow special or exceptional and is entitled to act differently than all other nations. The US must re-join the global family of nations as a respectful partner. USA is one of many nations in the world. We must start acting like it.

Five. Property rights, privilege, and money-making are not as important as human rights. When current property and privilege arrangements are not just they must yield to the demands of human rights. Money-making can only be allowed when human rights are respected. Exploitation is unacceptable. There are national and global poverty lines. We must establish national and global excess lines so that people and businesses with extra houses, cars, luxuries, and incomes share much more to help everyone else be able to exercise their basic human rights to shelter, food, education and healthcare. If that disrupts current property, privilege and money-making, so be it.

Six. Defend our earth. Stop pollution, stop pipelines, stop new interstates, and stop destroying the land, sea, and air by extracting resources from them. Rebuild what we have destroyed. If corporations will not stop voluntarily, people must stop them. The very existence of life is at stake.

Seven. Dramatically expand public spaces and reverse the privatization of public services. Quality public education, health and safety for all must be provided by transparent accountable public systems. Starving the state is a recipe for destroying social and economic human rights for everyone but the rich.

Eight. Pull the criminal legal prison system up and out by its roots and start over. Cease the criminalization of drugs, immigrants, poor people and people of color. We are all entitled to be safe but the current system makes us less so and ruins millions of lives. Start over.

Nine. The US was created based on two original crimes that must be confessed and made right. Reparations are owed to Native Americans because their land was stolen and they were uprooted and slaughtered. Reparations are owed to African Americans because they were kidnapped, enslaved and abused. The US has profited widely from these injustices and must make amends.

Ten. Everyone who wants to work should have the right to work and earn a living wage. Any workers who want to organize and advocate for change in solidarity with others must be absolutely protected from recriminations from their employer and from their government.

Finally, if those in government and those in power do not help the people do what is right, people seeking change must together exercise our human rights and bring about these changes directly. Dr. King and millions of others lived and worked for a radical revolution of values. We will as well. We respect the human rights and human dignity of others and work for a world where love and wisdom and solidarity and respect prevail. We expect those for whom the current unjust system works just fine will object and oppose and accuse people seeking dramatic change of being divisive and worse. That is to be expected because that is what happens to all groups which work for serious social change. Despite that, people will continue to go forward with determination and purpose to bring about a radical revolution of values in the USA.

Bill Quigley is Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. You can reach Bill at quigley77@gmail.com.

These are the basic aims we support and work for, here at the Alaska Progressive Review. There are a few countries still in existence, that have the highest standards of living, highest life expectancies, most educated populace, most generous national healthcare systems, and employment benefits (minimum wages, vacation, parental leave, etc...). The Nordic countries, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland. And, countries which we feel quite attracted to, because of their similar environment and climate, to ours, here in South-Central Alaska. How were they able to develop these countries in which every worker, no matter how new or uneducated, receives a month vacation every year. With minimum wages that are actually liveable, albeit simply. Where if you are unemployed and jobs scarce or non-existent, benefits don't run out, while training for other vocations can be undertaken. Where national health care programmes profide all citizens the best quality and quantity necessary of the most modern health care, without causing people to become bankrupt, even those with insurance, as happens frequently in the U.S.

How did the people of these countries do it? After all, they weren't always this way, at the top of all the World's countries in most measures of quality of life. This article explains how they did, quite some time ago, before World War II, in the 1920s and 1930s.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/26-3

How Swedes and Norwegians Broke the Power of the ‘1 Percent’

by George Lakey

While many of us are working to ensure that the Occupy movement will have a lasting impact, it’s worthwhile to consider other countries where masses of people succeeded in nonviolently bringing about a high degree of democracy and economic justice. Sweden and Norway, for example, both experienced a major power shift in the 1930s after prolonged nonviolent struggle. They “fired” the top 1 percent of people who set the direction for society and created the basis for something different.A march in Ådalen, Sweden, in 1931.

Both countries had a history of horrendous poverty. When the 1 percent was in charge, hundreds of thousands of people emigrated to avoid starvation. Under the leadership of the working class, however, both countries built robust and successful economies that nearly eliminated poverty, expanded free university education, abolished slums, provided excellent health care available to all as a matter of right and created a system of full employment. Unlike the Norwegians, the Swedes didn’t find oil, but that didn’t stop them from building what the latest CIA World Factbook calls “an enviable standard of living.”

Neither country is a utopia, as readers of the crime novels by Stieg Larsson, Kurt Wallender and Jo Nesbro will know. Critical left-wing authors such as these try to push Sweden and Norway to continue on the path toward more fully just societies. However, as an American activist who first encountered Norway as a student in 1959 and learned some of its language and culture, the achievements I found amazed me. I remember, for example, bicycling for hours through a small industrial city, looking in vain for substandard housing. Sometimes resisting the evidence of my eyes, I made up stories that “accounted for” the differences I saw: “small country,” “homogeneous,” “a value consensus.” I finally gave up imposing my frameworks on these countries and learned the real reason: their own histories.

Then I began to learn that the Swedes and Norwegians paid a price for their standards of living through nonviolent struggle. There was a time when Scandinavian workers didn’t expect that the electoral arena could deliver the change they believed in. They realized that, with the 1 percent in charge, electoral “democracy” was stacked against them, so nonviolent direct action was needed to exert the power for change.

In both countries, the troops were called out to defend the 1 percent; people died. Award-winning Swedish filmmaker Bo Widerberg told the Swedish story vividly in Ådalen 31, which depicts the strikers killed in 1931 and the sparking of a nationwide general strike. (You can read more about this case in an entry by Max Rennebohm in the Global Nonviolent Action Database.)

The Norwegians had a harder time organizing a cohesive people’s movement because Norway’s small population—about three million—was spread out over a territory the size of Britain. People were divided by mountains and fjords, and they spoke regional dialects in isolated valleys. In the nineteenth century, Norway was ruled by Denmark and then by Sweden; in the context of Europe Norwegians were the “country rubes,” of little consequence. Not until 1905 did Norway finally become independent.

When workers formed unions in the early 1900s, they generally turned to Marxism, organizing for revolution as well as immediate gains. They were overjoyed by the overthrow of the czar in Russia, and the Norwegian Labor Party joined the Communist International organized by Lenin. Labor didn’t stay long, however. One way in which most Norwegians parted ways with Leninist strategy was on the role of violence: Norwegians wanted to win their revolution through collective nonviolent struggle, along with establishing co-ops and using the electoral arena.

In the 1920s strikes increased in intensity. The town of Hammerfest formed a commune in 1921, led by workers councils; the army intervened to crush it. The workers’ response verged toward a national general strike. The employers, backed by the state, beat back that strike, but workers erupted again in the ironworkers’ strike of 1923–24.

The Norwegian 1 percent decided not to rely simply on the army; in 1926 they formed a social movement called the Patriotic League, recruiting mainly from the middle class. By the 1930s, the League included as many as 100,000 people for armed protection of strike breakers—this in a country of only 3 million!

The Labor Party, in the meantime, opened its membership to anyone, whether or not in a unionized workplace. Middle-class Marxists and some reformers joined the party. Many rural farm workers joined the Labor Party, as well as some small landholders. Labor leadership understood that in a protracted struggle, constant outreach and organizing was needed to a nonviolent campaign. In the midst of the growing polarization, Norway’s workers launched another wave of strikes and boycotts in 1928.

The Depression hit bottom in 1931. More people were jobless there than in any other Nordic country. Unlike in the U.S., the Norwegian union movement kept the people thrown out of work as members, even though they couldn’t pay dues. This decision paid off in mass mobilizations. When the employers’ federation locked employees out of the factories to try to force a reduction of wages, the workers fought back with massive demonstrations.

Many people then found that their mortgages were in jeopardy. (Sound familiar?) The Depression continued, and farmers were unable to keep up payment on their debts. As turbulence hit the rural sector, crowds gathered nonviolently to prevent the eviction of families from their farms. The Agrarian Party, which included larger farmers and had previously been allied with the Conservative Party, began to distance itself from the 1 percent; some could see that the ability of the few to rule the many was in doubt.

By 1935, Norway was on the brink. The Conservative-led government was losing legitimacy daily; the 1 percent became increasingly desperate as militancy grew among workers and farmers. A complete overthrow might be just a couple years away, radical workers thought. However, the misery of the poor became more urgent daily, and the Labor Party felt increasing pressure from its members to alleviate their suffering, which it could do only if it took charge of the government in a compromise agreement with the other side.

This it did. In a compromise that allowed owners to retain the right to own and manage their firms, Labor in 1935 took the reins of government in coalition with the Agrarian Party. They expanded the economy and started public works projects to head toward a policy of full employment that became the keystone of Norwegian economic policy. Labor’s success and the continued militancy of workers enabled steady inroads against the privileges of the 1 percent, to the point that majority ownership of all large firms was taken by the public interest. (There is an entry on this case as well at the Global Nonviolent Action Database.)

The 1 percent thereby lost its historic power to dominate the economy and society. Not until three decades later could the Conservatives return to a governing coalition, having by then accepted the new rules of the game, including a high degree of public ownership of the means of production, extremely progressive taxation, strong business regulation for the public good and the virtual abolition of poverty. When Conservatives eventually tried a fling with neoliberal policies, the economy generated a bubble and headed for disaster. (Sound familiar?)

Labor stepped in, seized the three largest banks, fired the top management, left the stockholders without a dime and refused to bail out any of the smaller banks. The well-purged Norwegian financial sector was not one of those countries that lurched into crisis in 2008; carefully regulated and much of it publicly owned, the sector was solid.

Although Norwegians may not tell you about this the first time you meet them, the fact remains that their society’s high level of freedom and broadly-shared prosperity began when workers and farmers, along with middle class allies, waged a nonviolent struggle that empowered the people to govern for the common good.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

George Lakey is Visiting Professor at Swarthmore College and a Quaker. He has led 1,500 workshops on five continents and led activist projects on local, national, and international levels. Among many other books and articles, he is author of “Strategizing for a Living Revolution” in David Solnit’s book Globalize Liberation (City Lights, 2004). His first arrest was for a civil rights sit-in and most recent was with Earth Quaker Action Team while protesting mountain top removal coal mining.

That's a very inspiring description of what the people of Norway and Sweden went through, to obtain their "enviable" lifestyles and standards of living, which could be extended to any or all nations on Earth, if the peoples of them so desired (with modifications for environmental concerns and sustainability, which will have to be undertaken by every nation in the coming decades).

So what's stopping us, here in the United States, from being able to come together in a strong unified majority of people, to force beneficial changes (to this and all nations) like the ones that occurred in the Nordic countries, as well as other social democracies like Australia, New Zealand, and all of Western Europe?

Racism. Pure and simple. It's quite obvious when you look objectively at how the Republican Party has managed to continue to compel caucasian U.S. citizens to continually vote against their interests, especially in the Southeastern states and rural areas throughout the nation. The legacy of slavery and the destruction of the Indigenous peoples on this continent still haunts this country, and must be acknowledged and dealt with.

When you look at those other countries that have social democracies, they all developed them when they were unified culturally, so that they had more in common, and felt more empathy overall, to each other.

The U.S. still as a whole, that is, enough of it's citizens, are not able to trust and empathise with those that they perceive as different. And thus, the Republican politicians use that, not quite overtly (but increasingly so), to manipulate them. And, in the past 20 years especially, have forced the Democratic ones to move right-ward politically. So much so, that the Obama Administration is more conservative than Nixon's. The EPA was established during the Nixon Administration, do you think that could happen now, under the current one?

What it will eventually have to come down to, if this nation is to either evolve into a healthier one in it's current structure, or non-violently (hopefully!) separate into smaller, more culturally cohesive but still more sustainable ones, is a spiritual revolution.

That is, we all have to ask ourselves and those around us, do we accept all the other people in the nation, and World as a whole, as equal to ourselves, and worthy of everything we desire for ourselves and families? Are other cultures present, such as even the most "simple" or "undeveloped" ones, say, in the Amazon or African rain forests just as valid and worthy of existence as ours? What can we learn from these other cultures? If the majority of people in the United States can't get to that point within 10 or at the most 20 years, there will be some very hard times. Cheers.

HALF A LEGACY

2012-01-19T20:06:00.000-08:00

It is a wonderful thing that MLK's monument on the National Mall in Washington DC has been dedicated, and that every year, the closest monday to his birthdate, 15 JAN, is a federal holiday. Yet in all the "official" recognition his legacy (for his role in this country's civil rights struggles) receives, the other half is ignored.

The last year of his life, before he was murdered for speaking out against the war in Vietnam, and US militarism in general, he was involved in what he felt was his most urgent campaign. And which of course, cost him his life. A campaign not just for ending the Vietnam War, but for true social and economic justice and equality for all people and races in the US, and throughout the World.

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2010/01/remembering-what-he-died-for.html

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2009_01_11_archive.html

It is this legacy that we so urgently need to remember and reflect upon in these uncertain times, when more war clouds are already gathering. As the "corporatocracy"/military-industrial complex sets its sights on fomenting war with Iran, a country which has never threatened or invaded it's neighbours. With the illegal/immoral invasion/occupation of Iraq winding down, and a slow trend toward the same in Afghanistan, the powers that be, feel they need another to keep up their corporate profit margins. And politically, it is thought that this will also help distract attention from the other pressing problems this and all other countries are facing, with their economies, and the global environment.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/11-9

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/01/12-5

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/01/14

These speeches MLK gave are some of the most powerful, and so very sadly still relevant ones any prominent figure in this country has ever given.

4 April, 1967
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm

"...It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered...

...A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death...

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and, through their misguided passions, urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. We must not engage in a negative anticommunism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice, which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops.

...These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions.

It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch antirevolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores, and thereby speed the day when "every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain."

...A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.

This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: "Let us love one another, for love is God. And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love." "If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us." Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.

We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. And history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says: "Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word" (unquote).

We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood -- it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam is right: "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on."

We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight."

3 April, 1968

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm

"...Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation. And I want to thank God, once more, for allowing me to be here with you.

You know, several years ago, I was in New York City autographing the first book that I had written. And while sitting there autographing books, a demented black woman came up. The only question I heard from her was, "Are you Martin Luther King?" And I was looking down writing, and I said, "Yes." And the next minute I felt something beating on my chest. Before I knew it I had been stabbed by this demented woman. I was rushed to Harlem Hospital. It was a dark Saturday afternoon. And that blade had gone through, and the X-rays revealed that the tip of the blade was on the edge of my aorta, the main artery. And once that's punctured, your drowned in your own blood -- that's the end of you.

It came out in the New York Times the next morning, that if I had merely sneezed, I would have died. Well, about four days later, they allowed me, after the operation, after my chest had been opened, and the blade had been taken out, to move around in the wheel chair in the hospital. They allowed me to read some of the mail that came in, and from all over the states and the world, kind letters came in. I read a few, but one of them I will never forget. I had received one from the President and the Vice-President. I've forgotten what those telegrams said. I'd received a visit and a letter from the Governor of New York, but I've forgotten what that letter said. But there was another letter that came from a little girl, a young girl who was a student at the White Plains High School. And I looked at that letter, and I'll never forget it. It said simply,

Dear Dr. King,

I am a ninth-grade student at the White Plains High School."

And she said,

While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I'm a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died. And I'm simply writing you to say that I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze.

And I want to say tonight -- I want to say tonight that I too am happy that I didn't sneeze. Because if I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1960, when students all over the South started sitting-in at lunch counters. And I knew that as they were sitting in, they were really standing up for the best in the American dream, and taking the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1961, when we decided to take a ride for freedom and ended segregation in inter-state travel.

If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1962, when Negroes in Albany, Georgia, decided to straighten their backs up. And whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can't ride your back unless it is bent.

If I had sneezed -- If I had sneezed I wouldn't have been here in 1963, when the black people of Birmingham, Alabama, aroused the conscience of this nation, and brought into being the Civil Rights Bill.

If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have had a chance later that year, in August, to try to tell America about a dream that I had had.

If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been down in Selma, Alabama, to see the great Movement there.

If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been in Memphis to see a community rally around those brothers and sisters who are suffering.

I'm so happy that I didn't sneeze.

And they were telling me --. Now, it doesn't matter, now. It really doesn't matter what happens now. I left Atlanta this morning, and as we got started on the plane, there were six of us. The pilot said over the public address system, "We are sorry for the delay, but we have Dr. Martin Luther King on the plane. And to be sure that all of the bags were checked, and to be sure that nothing would be wrong with on the plane, we had to check out everything carefully. And we've had the plane protected and guarded all night."

And then I got into Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.

And I don't mind.

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

And so I'm happy, tonight.

I'm not worried about anything.

I'm not fearing any man!

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!!"

Let's remember the other half of MLK's legacy, and what he died for. And act on it. Support or get involved with your local Occupy movements or any others working for peace and social/economic justice. Withdraw all support from the large criminal banks responsible for destroying our economy through their greed and recklessness, and deal only with credit unions. Support your local economies whenever possible by purchasing goods made nearby, used goods, and relying on farmer's markets and/or community supported agriculture. There are so many things we can all do to make a better future, in line with the other half of MLK's legacy. For if we don't, the future of this and other countries, and humanity in general will be very dark and uncertain. Cheers.

FOR EVERY ACTION...(Ridge)

2012-01-15T21:40:00.000-08:00

THERE IS AN EQUAL AND OPPOSITE REACTION (Trough)

Isaac Newton's third law of motion can in a sense describe what has been going in this winter, in Alaska, and downstream, over the western U.S.

This winter so far in south-central Alaska has been quite turbulent: heavy snow and colder than normal temperatures in November, then 5 strong (of which 2 were especially) damaging windstorms with very warm temperatures bringing heavy rain and snow over the area, including Anchorage from 04-20 December, and finally back to colder temperatures and very heavy snowfall until just two days previous. It's safe to say that many people here are really wondering about what is going on, and there is some apprehension.

Meanwhile, downstream, in California, there was this from 10 Jan. :

".DISCUSSION...SUNNY SKIES AND MILD TEMPERATURES PREVAIL ACROSS THE CENTRAL CA INTERIOR THIS AFTERNOON. THE WEATHER DOES NOT GET MUCH BETTER THAN THIS IN JANUARY...UNLESS YOU LIKE RAIN AND MOUNTAIN SNOW. LITTLE IF ANY PRECIPITATION HAS FALLEN IN THE CENTRAL CA INTERIOR SINCE THE 20TH OF NOVEMBER. SADLY...THE WEATHER LOOKS AS   THOUGH IT WILL REMAIN DRY AS A BONE FOR AT LEAST ANOTHER 7 DAYS. AN UPPER LEVEL RIDGE OF HIGH PRESSURE SITUATED ALONG THE WEST COAST IS TO BLAME...AND IT WILL DOMINATE OUR PATTERN THROUGH SATURDAY. DURING THIS TIME...A WEAK TO MODERATE OFFSHORE FLOW WILL PREVAIL ACROSS CENTRAL CA AND SKIES WILL BE MOSTLY CLEAR.

AFTERNOON TEMPERATURES THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS WILL BE MORE LIKE
THE MIDDLE OF MARCH THAN THE MIDDLE OF JANUARY. THE RECORD HIGHS FOR TOMORROW AND SATURDAY IN FRESNO AND BAKERSFIELD WILL BE WITHIN   REACH…

…AFTER NEXT THURSDAY...THE MODELS FORECAST A GRADUAL SHIFT SOUTHWARD  OF THE STORM TRACK AND THE POTENTIAL FOR WET WEATHER...PERHAPS AS EARLY AS NEXT FRIDAY NORTH OF FRESNO COUNTY THEN POSSIBLY SOUTHWARD INTO KERN COUNTY NEXT WEEKEND. ALTHOUGH THE PAST FEW RUNS OF THE MODELS HAVE SIGNALLED A SIGNIFICANT CHANGE TO A WET PATTERN...EACH RUN SEEMS TO BACK OFF A LITTLE BIT THIS FAR SOUTH. HENCE...FORECAST CONFIDENCE IS TOO LOW AT THIS TIME TO MAKE ANY GUARANTEES. THE FACT IS...IF FRESNO DOES NOT RECEIVE MEASURABLE RAIN BEFORE THE 25TH OF JANUARY...IT WILL BE THE LONGEST STRETCH OF DRY WEATHER EVER RECORDED BETWEEN THE MONTHS OF NOVEMBER AND MAY SINCE THE LATE 1800S [when records there began, eds]. TODAY IS DAY 53 IN THAT STRING AND WE ARE STILL COUNTING."

This was what is called the Area Forecast Discussion from the NOAA/National Weather Service office in Hanford, CA, which covers the San Joaquin Valley, Central Coast, and central Sierra Nevada mountains. Twice daily, the meteorologists on duty describe the weather pattern(s) of the day, how the different numerical weather prediction models are handling them, and what the prognosis is for the next several days. A great way to get a thorough picture of the weather, in whatever area you may find yourself in. http://www.nws.noaa.gov/organization.php

http://yosemiteblog.com/2012/01/06/more-bad-news-sierra-snow-pack-only-19-of-average/

The Sierra Nevada snowpack, which almost all the population of California relies upon for it's domestic, industrial, and agricultural irrigation water, as of two weeks ago (and it's been dry since), was only at 19 % of average. Which does not bode well for the coming year, if it doesn't start building up soon.

The most recent graphic of snowdepths there, shows the story. It's actually bare around Lake Tahoe! And snowdepths which should be in the multiple metres over the higher elevations, are not even reaching 50 cm across most of the region!

The snow drought situation is a little better further north, in the Cascades of Oregon and Washington.

http://wsunews.wsu.edu/pages/publications.asp?Action=Detail&PublicationID=29499

"Despite the presence of La Niña, which favors wetter and snowier than normal winter conditions, December was unusually dry and calm across Washington. Low clouds and poor air quality were the most notable weather concerns of the month.

"Normally, December is one of the more active weather months of the year,” said Washington State University AgWeatherNet meteorologist Nic Loyd. "However, a strong ridge of high pressure blocked the storms that might have otherwise reached the Northwest.

"The high-pressure system persisted over the region from the end of November through Christmas,” he said. "As a result, Washington experienced very little interesting winter weather until the final week of the year.”

Mountain snowfall was very low in December, and the Cascade snowpack remains below normal at the beginning of 2012. Northwest Avalanche Center data indicate that mountain snow depths ranged from 55 to 103 percent of normal on Jan. 1. Paradise and White Pass snow depths were at record low levels for a La Niña winter.

"If the mountain snowpack remains below normal, it could have a negative impact on available water for irrigation during the summer,” said AgWeatherNet Director Gerrit Hoogenboom. Even so, there is still a chance to recover from the snow deficit if heavy snows materialize during the later part of winter.

At year’s end, increasingly unsettled weather brought heavy rain to the coast and strong wind and unseasonable warmth to eastern Washington. Prosser experienced its warmest December day on record on the 28th, and the daily low temperature of 52 degrees smashed the old December record by four degrees. Long Beach recorded 2 1/2 inches of rain Dec. 28-29, winds at St. John gusted to more than 50 mph and, in the Walla Walla area, temperatures jumped to around 60 degrees."

As the latest graphic of Cascade snowpack depth shows, there is quite a bit more here than in the Sierra, as you might expect, since they are further north, but, still well below average.

Meanwhile, to the north, here in Alaska:

http://www.adn.com/2012/01/14/2264389/valdez-digs-out-from-a-world-class.html

Valdez digs out from under a world class snowfall

By CASEY GROVE
Anchorage Daily News

Published: January 15th, 2012 05:21 PM

"VALDEZ -- This city feels like a hamster maze.

WINTER WALLOP
The 322 inches of snow in Valdez as of Saturday was:
• 44.3 inches more than the same date in 1990, the year Valdez set its seasonal snowfall record

• An average depth of 78 inches, or 61/2 feet

• Weighing an average of 112 pounds per square feet

• 168.1 inches more than the seasonal average for the same date

• About even with the average total snowfall for an entire winter

Eight-foot-tall walls of snow border icy, scraped-clean streets. Around every corner, a piece of heavy equipment is pushing, carrying or blowing snow. An army of workers on rooftops wields shovels against the thick blanket of white, tearing off one massive chunk at a time.

The word "snow" has become just another four-letter expletive uttered in this Prince William Sound hub.

Valdez is known as the snowiest place in Alaska and one of the snowiest in the world, a longtime source of local pride and a basis for well-earned bragging rights.

But with half a winter still to come and history-making accumulation already for this point in the season -- 322.1 inches as of Saturday -- the snow has begun to take a toll on the mental and physical well-being of the hardy residents here.

"Many of us can't see out of our windows," said Sheri Pierce, the city clerk. "My house, when you look at it from the street, it's completely covered. It's a little like living in a cave. It's dark inside."

"This kind of snow season puts stress on people," said Mayor Dave Cobb. "It's easy to get cabin fever."

After 31 straight days of snowfall, the dumping stopped Wednesday. By Friday, the sky was clear and windy, and the nearby mountains shone with sun. The break in the weather is expected to last about another week, allowing the city to catch up.

Some weary residents reported 18- and 20-hour-long days between work and shoveling snow. A local massage therapist says his calendar is filled with appointments due to back and muscle pain -- and because he's had to take time off for the snow at his own home. Local stores are sold out of shovels and snow scoops, so people brought stacks of them from Anchorage and Fairbanks...

...Day-to-day life has been more difficult lately in Valdez, to be sure. The stories are often downright wacky. But then there are the frightening tales that residents tell, some of them bordering on near-death experiences.

There's the one about the electrician who ran to escape a warehouse on the edge of town when the roof collapsed and the corrugated walls folded in on him. Or the man partially buried in snow that sloughed off his neighbor's roof, crashed through a door and inundated his bedroom while he slept. And his other neighbor, across the street, who just a few minutes later was knocked off her feet when her own roof avalanched.

"It's been crazy, and from what I understand, it's the next two months we have to worry about," said Doug Mason while taking a short break from shoveling a church roof.

The overload forced what is likely the first-ever school closure in Valdez from snow buildup, said Cobb, the mayor, who's lived here for about 40 years. Technicians were measuring the weight on local buildings, and a structural engineer from Anchorage was looking for damage Saturday.

The city put out a call last week for temporary shovelers to first clear the school roofs, then other city buildings, and raised the standard pay from about $16 to a little more than $20 an hour. About 160 laborers, some from Interior and Southcentral communities, had signed up by Saturday.

"People take pride in being able to say they live in 'the snow capital of the world,' and bucking up and doing what they need to do to deal with something like this," said John Hozey, the city manager. "Just the thought of considering asking for help from outside didn't sit well with a lot of people."..."

In Anchorage, while only 89 inches of snow has fallen since the season began, this is more than double the average for the season up to mid-January, and several inches greater than the entire winter average amount.

This has left our back-streets clogged as well, as large piles from people's driveways kept growing and growing, then bulging out into the road, as this view near the Chugach Front Research Centre attests.

Even our intrepid assistant editor Mattie is wearying of the deep snow. Here she is swimming in deep powder yesterday as I broke open our favourite running trail on snowshoes, heading up to 1424 metre (4670') Konoya Point.

She got quite tired plowing/swimming her way through a metre of thick, deep powder, ascending 600 metres uphill, in temperatures ranging from -25 to -30C (-11 to -22F). Although it was just a 16 km trip, it took us 4 1/2 hours. Last winter we were able to run on this trail all through the winter season, but since heavier snowfalls began during this one in Mid-November, no one has been in on it.

This graphic tells the story of our winter here, and in the western Lower 48 quite succinctly. This is the "Composite Mean" for the month of December, 2011, of the 500 millibar height field. Remember, these values, in metres, are the height at which atmospheric pressure equals 500 millibars, which is about half of sea level pressure. The lower these heights are, the colder the airmass, and higher values, those bulging northward, just off the lower 48 coastline, represent an "upper level ridge", whilst the very low values over the Bering Sea, an "upper-level trough". Warm, dry weather is to be found adjacent to, and under these ridges, generally speaking. This chart then is a mean of all 31 days of the month of Decembers' 500 millibar heights and shows that strong ridging was generally present there all month, keeping California warm and dry, and preventing any snowpack development in the Sierra Nevada.

Needless to say, with this "blocking ridge" in place more strongly than average, the mean pattern for Alaska then, was for low pressure systems moving in the colder onshore flow ahead of the very deep, cold Bering Sea trough to move into the Gulf of Alaska and move ashore there between Kodiak and Yakutat, bringing strong winds and rain initially, then heavy snow in their wakes. In fact, when this ridging pattern off of California was at it's most amplified, the flow onto the Gulf Coast and South-Central Alaska was more southerly, and warmer. And this is what occurred during that memorable 04-20 December period, when Anchorage was subjected to the five consecutive low pressure systems/frontal passages, which brought strong winds (up to 200 kph in one case!), and heavy/rain snow.

The pattern finally began to change with the last heavy snowfall event, on the 11th-12th of this month.

This low, which initially looked as though it might behave similarly to the December ones, ended up tracking inland a little further east, and spared Anchorage from receiving any rain, and kept the strongest winds higher up on the Chugach hillsides, instead of descending into the city. Temperatures did warm up for several hours above freezing in some parts of the Anchorage "Bowl", but this was not accompanied by any rain. Then, on the back-side of this low, as it tracked inland, 20-32 additional cm of snow (8-12") fell. This was the last heavy-snowfall producing system for the beleaguered communities of Cordova and Valdez as well, fortunately. The pattern has since changed in the last few days. The ridging along the west coast has weakened, and an upper-level low is now centred just off the OR/WA coast, bringing them cool, showery weather with light snow, even at the lower elevations. Leaving Alaska on its back side, under a cold, dry, northerly flow. The prognosis for this pattern by the long range numerical weather prediction models is for it to persist at least another week, possibly longer. Let's hope so, so that at least the Cascades, and northern Rockies, if not the Sierra Nevada, can begin to build their much-needed snowpacks again.

So to sum up then, during a La Nina winter, http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/lanina.html, cooler and wetter than normal conditions tend to occur over the Pacific Northwest, and colder conditions, overall in Alaska.

In spite of this, strong and persistent upper-ridging along the west coast of the U.S., brought just the opposite, and forced the majority of low pressure systems to move into Alaska, with just the weaker remnants affecting British Columbia and Washington/Oregon. Whilst California remained high and dry.

We've been warning you for some time, here at the Alaska Progressive Review, that strong, persistent upper-ridging weather patterns have been increasing and amplifying, over the past ten years especially. Because high pressure ridging, when the jet stream expands further northward, carrying heat from the tropics and subtropics northward into the mid-latitudes and sub-arctic, is how the atmospheric circulation maintains a global energy balance. So that the Tropics don't overheat, and the poles chill to levels that would allow semi-persistent snow/ice cover in place to expand (at least in the Northern Hemisphere, Antarctica remains frozen because it is a high-elevation land/ice mass). Since more heat is now available, and increasing, this pattern is amplifying.

Now that global heating is accelerating, these are the kind of patterns we will continue to see amplify, over the coming decades. Remember, the Earth overall has warmed about 0.8C (1.44F) over the past 100 years, as atmospheric CO2 concentrations from fossil fuel combustion and deforestation increased from about 300 ppm to 392 ppm. Since it is now expected that CO2 levels will reach 550-600 ppm in the next 40 years, and along with that, global average temperatures to rise a minimum of 2C, think about what that will mean for the weather patterns that will be occurring here in Alaska, and in the Western US. To say nothing of the rest of the World. Cheers.

LOGICAL PROGRESSION

2011-12-23T15:45:00.000-08:00

We came across this article recently, and were very moved by it. Just because the "Iraq War has been declared over", does not mean that we should forget what happened there. And, there still will be thousands of mercenaries, privatised soldiers with all manner of weapons, still in place in Iraq, for some time to come. As well as the most heavily fortified, and largest US embassy complex, in any country. Why?

Remember, the aggressive war waged upon the essentially defenseless country of Iraq in 2003, was done to enhance corporate profits, re-make that country into a "free-market" paradise, and wrest control of it's oil from Sadam Hussein's government, which was threatening to discontinue marketing it in US Dollars, which would have then encouraged other countries to do so. With deleterious effects upon US energy corporations profit margins.

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2011/03/apr-exclusive-interview-with-john.html

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/10/capitalisms-dirty-warssecrets.html

Thus, the perpetrators of this illegal and immoral war, waged for greed and power, are guilty of genocide/murder, and waging aggressive warfare, in violation of national and international law, and must be prosecuted. And perhaps some day, that will occur, when more people in the US become educated to what has been, and is happening, in our political and economic system.

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2011/08/its-about-time.html

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/12/23-5
I Am Sorry for the Role I Played in Fallujah

As a US marine who lost close friends in the siege of Fallujah in Iraq seven years ago, I understand that we were the aggressors

by Ross Caputi

It has been seven years since the end of the second siege of Fallujah – the US assault that left the city in ruins, killed thousands of civilians, and displaced hundreds of thousands more; the assault that poisoned a generation, plaguing the people who live there with cancers and their children with birth defects.

It has been seven years and the lies that justified the assault still perpetuate false beliefs about what we did.

The US veterans who fought there still do not understand who they fought against, or what they were fighting for.
US soldiers return to their barracks at a military base outside Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004. Photograph: Stefan Zaklin/EPA
I know, because I am one of those American veterans.

In the eyes of many of the people I "served" with, the people of Fallujah remain dehumanized and their resistance fighters are still believed to be terrorists. But unlike most of my counterparts, I understand that I was the aggressor, and that the resistance fighters in Fallujah were defending their city.

It is also the seventh anniversary of the deaths of two close friends of mine, Travis Desiato and Bradley Faircloth, who were killed in the siege. Their deaths were not heroic or glorious. Their deaths were tragic, but not unjust.

How can I begrudge the resistance in Fallujah for killing my friends, when I know that I would have done the same thing if I were in their place? How can I blame them when we were the aggressors?
It could have been me instead of Travis or Brad. I carried a radio on my back that dropped the bombs that killed civilians and reduced Fallujah to rubble. If I were a Fallujan, I would have killed anyone like me. I would have had no choice. The fate of my city and my family would have depended on it. I would have killed the foreign invaders.

Travis and Brad are both victims and perpetrators. They were killed and they killed others because of a political agenda in which they were just pawns. They were the iron fist of American empire, and an expendable loss in the eyes of their leaders.

I do not see any contradiction in feeling sympathy for the dead US Marines and soldiers and at the same time feeling sympathy for the Fallujans who fell to their guns. The contradiction lies in believing that we were liberators, when in fact we oppressed the freedoms and wishes of Fallujans. The contradiction lies in believing that we were heroes, when the definition of "hero" bares no relation to our actions in Fallujah.

What we did to Fallujah cannot be undone, and I see no point in attacking the people in my former unit. What I want to attack are the lies and false beliefs. I want to destroy the prejudices that prevented us from putting ourselves in the other's shoes and asking ourselves what we would have done if a foreign army invaded our country and laid siege to our city.

I understand the psychology that causes the aggressors to blame their victims. I understand the justifications and defence mechanisms. I understand the emotional urge to want to hate the people who killed someone dear to you. But to describe the psychology that preserves such false beliefs is not to ignore the objective moral truth that no attacker can ever justly blame their victims for defending themselves.

The same distorted morality has been used to justify attacks against the native Americans, the Vietnamese, El Salvadorans, and the Afghans. It is the same story over and over again. These people have been dehumanized, their God-given right to self-defense has been delegitimized, their resistance has been reframed as terrorism, and US soldiers have been sent to kill them.

History has preserved these lies, normalized them, and socialised them into our culture: so much so that legitimate resistance against US aggression is incomprehensible to most, and to even raise this question is seen as un-American.

History has defined the US veteran as a hero, and in doing so it has automatically defined anyone who fights against him as the bad guy. It has reversed the roles of aggressor and defender, moralized the immoral, and shaped our societies' present understanding of war.

I cannot imagine a more necessary step towards justice than to put an end to these lies, and achieve some moral clarity on this issue. I see no issue more important than to clearly understand the difference between aggression and self-defense, and to support legitimate struggles. I cannot hate, blame, begrudge, or resent Fallujans for fighting back against us. I am sincerely sorry for the role I played in the second siege of Fallujah, and I hope that some day not just Fallujans but all Iraqis will win their struggle.

Ross Caputi, 27, served as a US marine from 2003 to 2006. He took part in the second battle of Fallujah in November 2004, which made him question the morality and the justice of the Iraq war. He says he "came out of Fallujah feeling like a terrorist". He became openly critical of the military and was discharged from the army in 2006. He is currently a student at Boston University. He is a co-founder of the Justice for Fallujah Project. In October 2011, he signed a soldiers' declaration with 21 other US and British military veterans, which was delivered to David Cameron in Downing Street, calling for the 'war on terror' to be ended and all foreign troops to come home.

What an incredibly courageous man, to come out openly with this. The Alaska Progressive Review wishes him all the best and supports his efforts wholeheartedly. We like to think that someday, in the not too distant future, more politicians, and other federal employees, will take their oaths seriously. That is, when they are hired, they must swear to "uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States, and to defend it against all enemies, foreign, and DOMESTIC".

Well, as it turns out, the majority of the US Senate, House of Representatives, and Obama Administration, are domestic enemies of the Constitution. Because they all approved legislation that "mandates — don't glide too easily past that word — that all accused terrorists be indefinitely imprisoned by the military rather than in the civilian court system; this includes U.S. citizens within the borders of the United States."

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/12/23-2

Many progressives think this was ram-rodded through at the behest of the large financial institutions and other "1 percent" corporations. That when the Occupy Movement regains strength and activity in spring, this legislation can be used to repress it. I urge everyone to read up on the "Levin/McCain Detention Bill" and see what you think. If it's not declared unconstitutional through lawsuits filed by the ACLU or others (as it should and must be), the US will formally be a military dictatorship, no different than Chile was from 1973-1990, or Argentina, from 1972-1983. And we've written quite a bit, about what happened in those poor countries, to people who were brave enough to struggle for human rights in them. This is a logical progression for unregulated capitalism, consolidation of wealth and power, and then repression to maintain it, as increasing poverty, caused by the destruction of social safety nets and massive unemployment, leads to increasing unrest. Is this the kind of country we want to live in?
http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2010/09/victor-jaras-hands.html

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/10/capitalisms-dirty-warssecrets.html

Cheers.

FOULING THE NEST [or] NORTH IS THE FUTURE?

2011-12-18T21:59:00.000-08:00

No less than in our own corporate media for Anchorage, the Anchorage Daily News, did we see this heartbreaking story today about what has been going on in Russia, with their oil/gas industries over the last several decades. It was distributed by the U.S.'s corporate-owned Associated Press, so it may have gotten published in many other U.S. city's newspapers as well.

http://www.adn.com/2011/12/17/2223143/toxic-legacy-russian-oil-spills.html
Russian oil spills spread devastation

By NATALIYA VASILYEVA
Associated Press

Published: December 18th, 2011 04:35 PM
Last Modified: December 18th, 2011 04:44 PM

USINSK, Russia --

This is the face of Russia's oil country, a sprawling, inhospitable zone that experts say represents the world's worst ecological oil catastrophe.

Environmentalists estimate at least 1 percent of Russia's annual oil production, or 5 million tons, is spilled every year. That is equivalent to one Deepwater Horizon-scale leak about every two months. Crumbling infrastructure and a harsh climate combine to spell disaster in the world's largest oil producer, responsible for 13 percent of global output.

Oil, stubbornly seeping through rusty pipelines and old wells, contaminates soil, kills all plants that grow on it and destroys habitats for mammals and birds. Half a million tons every year get into rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean, the government says, upsetting the delicate environmental balance in those waters.

It's part of a legacy of environmental tragedy that has plagued Russia and the countries of its former Soviet empire for decades, from the nuclear horrors of Chernobyl in Ukraine to lethal chemical waste in the Russian city of Dzerzhinsk and paper mill pollution seeping into Siberia's Lake Baikal, which holds one-fifth of the world's supply of fresh water.

WORST IN THE WORLD

Oil spills in Russia are less dramatic than disasters in the Gulf of Mexico or the North Sea, more the result of a drip-drip of leaked crude than a sudden explosion. But they're more numerous than in any other oil-producing nation, including insurgency-hit Nigeria, and combined they spill far more than anywhere else in the world, scientists say.

"Oil and oil products get spilled literally every day," said Dr. Grigory Barenboim, senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Water Problems.

No hard figures on the scope of oil spills in Russia are available but Greenpeace estimates that at least 5 million tons leak every year in a country producing about 500 million tons a year.

Dr. Irina Ivshina of the government-financed Institute of the Environment and Genetics of Microorganisms supports the 5 million ton estimate, as does the World Wildlife Fund. The figure is derived from two sources: Russian state-funded research that shows 10 percent to 15 percent of Russian oil leakage enters rivers, and a 2010 report commissioned by the Natural Resources Ministry that shows nearly 500,000 tons slips into northern Russian rivers every year and flows into the Arctic.

'INCIDENTS' UNREPORTED

The estimate is considered conservative: The Russian Economic Development Ministry in a report last year estimated spills at up to 20 million tons per year.

That astonishing number, for which the ministry offered no elaboration, appears to be based partly on the fact most small leaks in Russia go unreported. Under Russian law, leaks of less than 8 tons are classified only as "incidents" and carry no penalties.

Russian oil spills also elude detection because most happen in the vast swaths of unpopulated tundra and conifer forest in the north, caused either by ruptured pipes or leakage from decommissioned wells.

Weather conditions in most oil provinces are brutal, with temperatures routinely dropping below minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit in winter. That makes pipelines brittle and prone to rupture unless they are regularly replaced and their condition monitored.

Asked by The Associated Press to comment, the Natural Resources Ministry and the Energy Ministry said they have no data on oil spills and each referred to the other ministry for further inquiries.

BLACK-HAT AWARD

Even counting only the 500,000 tons officially reported to be leaking into northern rivers every year, Russia is by far the worst oil polluter in the world.

• Nigeria, which produces one-fifth as much oil as Russia, logged 110,000 tons spilled in 2009, much of that due to rebel attacks on pipelines.

• The U.S., the world's third-largest oil producer, logged 341 pipeline ruptures in 2010 -- compared with Russia's 18,000 -- with 17,600 tons of oil leaking as a result, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Spills have averaged 14,900 tons a year between 2001 and 2010.

• Canada, which produces oil in weather conditions as harsh as Russia's, [hold it, this is not quite so...average winter temps. in nrn/ern Siberia are the coldest in the northern hemisphere, significantly colder than nrn Canada's, eds.. ] does not see anything near Russia's scale of disaster. Eleven pipeline accidents were reported to Canada's Transport Safety Board last year, while media reports of leaks, ranging from sizable spills to a tiny leak in a farmer's backyard, come to a total of 7,700 tons a year.

• In Norway, Russia's northwestern oil neighbor, spills amounted to some 3,000 tons a year in the past few years, said Hanne Marie Oeren, head of the oil and gas section at Norway's Climate and Pollution Agency.

MOVING INTO THE ARCTIC

Now that Russian companies are moving to the Arctic to tap vast but hard-to-get oil and gas riches, scientists voice concerns that Russia's outdated technologies and shoddy safety record make for a potential environmental calamity there.

[ahh...but then this just happened, very sad...worse in fatalities than the Deepwater Horizon...

http://www.adn.com/2011/12/17/2223193/russian-oil-platform-capsizes.html eds]

Gazpromneft, an oil subsidiary of the gas giant Gazprom, is preparing to drill for oil in the Arctic's Pechora Sea, even as environmentalists complain that the drilling platform is outdated and the company is not ready to deal with potential accidents.

Government scientists acknowledge that Russia does not currently have the required technology to develop Arctic fields but say it will be years before the country actually starts drilling.

"We must start the work now, do the exploration and develop the technology so that we would be able to ... start pumping oil from the Arctic in the middle of this century," Alexei Kontorovich, chairman of the council on geology, oil and gas fields at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told a recent news conference.

The same academy's Barenboim said, however, that Russian technology is developing too slowly to make it a safe bet for Arctic exploration.

"Over the past years, environmental risks have increased more sharply compared to how far our technologies, funds, equipment and skills to deal with them have advanced," he said.

RUSSIA'S BIGGEST SPILL

In 1994, the republic of Komi, where Usinsk lies 40 miles south of the Arctic Circle, became the scene of Russia's largest oil spill when an estimated 100,000 tons splashed from an aging pipeline.

It killed plants and animals, and polluted up to 25 miles of two local rivers, killing thousands of fish. In villages most affected, respiratory diseases rose by 28 percent in the year after the leak.

Seen from a helicopter, the oil production area is dotted with pitch-black ponds. Fresh leaks are easy to find once you step into the tundra north of Usinsk. To spot a leak, find a dying tree. Fir trees with drooping gray, dry branches look as though scorched by a wildfire. They are growing in soil polluted by oil.

Usinsk spokeswoman Tatyana Khimichuk said the city administration had no powers to influence oil company operations.

"Everything that happens at the oil fields is Lukoil's responsibility," she said, referring to Russia's second largest oil company, which owns a network of pipelines in the region.

Komi's environmental protection officials also blamed oil companies. The local prosecutor's office said in a report this year that the main problem is "that companies that extract hydrocarbons focus on making profits rather than how to use the resources rationally."

REPAIRS COST MONEY

Valery Bratenkov works as a foreman at oil fields outside Usinsk.

After hours, he is with a local environmental group. [he's lucky to be alive! he would've been murdered long ago in Colombia or Nigeria, environmental/labour activists are murdered there frequently, this is a slightly positive reflection on Russia, at least, eds.] Bratenkov used to point out to his Lukoil bosses that oil spills routinely happen under their noses and asked them to repair the pipelines. "They were offended and said that costs too much money," he said.

Activists like Bratenkov find it hard if not impossible to hold authorities to account in the area since some 90 percent of the local population comprises oil workers and their families who have moved from other regions of Russia, and depend on the industry for their livelihood.

Representatives of Lukoil denied claims that they try to conceal spills and leaks, and said that no more than 2.7 tons leaked last year from its production areas in Komi.

Ivan Blokov, campaign director at Greenpeace Russia, who studies oil spills, said the situation in Komi is replicated across Russia's oil-producing regions, which stretch from the Black Sea in the southwest to the Chinese border in Russia's Far East.

"It is happening everywhere," Blokov said. "It's typical of any oil field in Russia. The system is old and it is not being replaced in time by any oil company in the country."

NO MORE FISHING, HUNTING

What also worries scientists and environmentalists is that oil spills are not confined to abandoned or aging fields. Alarmingly, accidents happen at brand new pipelines, said Barenboim.

At least 400 tons leaked from a new pipeline in two separate accidents in Russia's Far East last year, according to media reports and oil companies. Transneft's pipeline that brings Russian oil from Eastern Siberia to China was put into operation just months before the two spills happened.

The oil industry in Komi has been sapping nature for decades, killing or forcing out reindeer and fish. Locals like the 63-year-old Bratenkov are afraid that when big oil departs, only poisoned terrain will be left in its wake.

"Fishing, hunting -- it's all gone," Bratenkov said.

Bjoern H. Amland contributed to this report from Oslo, Norway.

What an amazing story, just think about the devastation going on in Russia/Siberia every year. And which we will be seeing in this country too, if current political trends continue. Alaska's own esteemed Senator, Ms. Lisa Murkowski, is introducing legislation to shift air quality monitoring/enforcement of our oil industry's exploration and production operations from the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) to the Department of the Interior. Why? Because the DOI is headed by former oil industry people and is not an independent government entity, in the sense that we would like to think. It routinely responds to oil industry requests and withdraws, delays, or refuses to consider regulatory action upon those it is chartered to monitor. We think it would be reasonable to assume that oil industry lobbyists/executives, wrote this legislation for her.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg, as the overtly-corporate owned/fascist Congressional Republicans continue to push for the idea to actually gut/eliminate the EPA altogether! It must be that they think they can have clean/safe air/water/food in their gated communities, or else eventually live underground or in space, after destroying the Earth's ecosystems.

And then there's this, also ocurring in Russia/Siberia:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/shock-as-retreat-of-arctic-sea-ice-releases-deadly-greenhouse-gas-6276134.html

Dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane – a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide – have been seen bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean by scientists undertaking an extensive survey of the region.

This is the scenario we have been reporting on as a future possibility previously.

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/08/ac-cu-iii-update-it-gets-worse-and-can.html

To put this in perspective though, other researchers are saying that this is not the start of the "methane time bomb" i.e., melting of frozen underwater and permafrost-encased methane deposits which would lead to runaway greenhouse warming. That the Independent newspaper is engaging in tabloid-style journalism. The jury is still out, as the following shows.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011EO490014.shtml

Siberian shelf methane emissions not tied to modern warming

Colin Schultz

American Geophysical Union, Washington, D. C., USA

Eight thousand years ago, a rising sea inundated the vast permafrost regions off the northern coast of Siberia. Comprising the modern east Siberian shelf, the region holds enormous quantities of methane hydrates bottled up in remnant subterranean permafrost zones that are, in turn, trapped beneath the ocean waters. Records of seafloor water temperature showing a 2.1°C rise since 1985, coupled with recent observations of methane emissions from the seabed, have led some scientists to speculate that the rising temperatures have thawed some of the subsurface permafrost, liberating the trapped methane. The connection is compelling, but an investigation by Dmitrenko et al. into the sensitivity of permafrost to rising temperatures suggests the two observations are not connected. Using a permafrost model forced with paleoclimate data to analyze changes in the depth of frozen bottom sediments, the authors found that roughly 1 meter of the subsurface permafrost thawed in the past 25 years, adding to the 25 meters of already thawed soil. Forecasting the expected future permafrost thaw, the authors found that even under the most extreme climatic scenario tested this thawed soil growth will not exceed 10 meters by 2100 or 50 meters by the turn of the next millennium. The authors note that the bulk of the methane stores in the east Siberian shelf are trapped roughly 200 meters below the seafloor, indicating that the recent methane emissions observations were likely not connected to the modest modern permafrost thaw. Instead, they suggest that the current methane emissions are the result of the permafrost's still adjusting to its new aquatic conditions, even after 8000 years. (Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans, doi:10.1029/2011JC007218, 2011)

Published 6 December 2011.

Citation: Schultz, C. (2011), Siberian shelf methane emissions not tied to modern warming, Eos Trans. AGU, 92(49), 464, doi:10.1029/2011EO490014.

We certainly would like to believe the researchers who wrote this paper, and presented it at this year's American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco. Since this is such an important topic, the Alaska Progressive Review will be sure to continually review the latest research regarding these Arctic methane releases, and report on it to you.

Meanwhile, here in South-Central Alaska, we are enduring our fourth "chinook" windstorm in three weeks, with one more expected, this coming wed/thu! Since the staff of the Alaska Progressive Review has only spent one winter here previously, we solicited long-time residents about this. None of them can ever remember having this many in a winter, and certainly not consecutively. There have been much stronger ones, but two of the four have been quite potent, and have had some effect on the local environment. Let's look at that.

This is a "POES" infrared image from 04 DEC, when we had our strongest storm of this series. POES are polar-orbiting satellites that rotate quickly around the earth roughly 600-800 KM above, and take image swaths. Since they are so close to the Earth, they offer better resolution, the downside being the swaths have to be stitched together, and they only pass over the same area twice daily. There is a deep low pressure system in the Bering Sea with a strong front ahead of it, just beginning to move over South-Central Alaska. All of our storms have followed similar trajectories, some a little further east, some further west. But all bringing strong winds and warming. Why? Because strong persistent high pressure ridging along the West Coast of North America has been forcing these lows along these paths, right into the eastern Bering Sea or Gulf of Alaska.

The corresponding 500 millibar analysis (which meteorologists use to track the major weather features in the "jet stream" flow) is rather interesting. A very strong high pressure ridge to the south of Alaska has forced a long trajectory of south-southwest flow into Alaska, a pattern we have been seeing alot more of in the past 10-20 years here. This is how more heat is transported northward from the subtropics into the Arctic, and is occurring more frequently in winter especially. When the right factors come together, low pressure systems in this flow can deepen rapidly as they move north, feeding on the contrast of the colder air coming off Siberia or mainland Alaska, while moving over the warmer ice-free waters of the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska.

This particular storm brought wind gusts as high as 192 KPH (120 mph) over the higher elevations of the Anchorage hillsides, and at least 128 KPH (80 mph) here at the Chugach Front Research Centre. The following three have been somewhat weaker, but two have brought winds to the CFRC in excess of 112 KPH (70 mph), damaging some roofs in our neighbourhood, amongst other things.

This large dead cottonwood came down across the bridge of the N. Fork of Campbell Creek, along one of our primary running/skiing/hiking access routes with the strong 04 DEC storm. It took us a couple hours of chain-sawing to clear it.

Our latest storm, earlier today, brought more trees down throughout the area, including many large spruce like these, right behind our neighbourhood.

In addition, many roofs in the streets around the CFRC are missing shingles, and some fences have blown down.

It has also been a very difficult time for air travel during these storms. The Anchorage "Bowl", is prone to severe turbulence and low level wind shear because of it's unique geography, sheltered by the southwest-northeast oriented Chugach Mtns., but with two passes through this barrier on it's northern/southern ends, Knik Arm, and Turnagain Arm.

When strong winds are forced up and over the Chugach Mtns., and through the Knik and Turnagain Arms, as during these storms, they mix and mingle over the Anchorage Bowl and are quite gusty, erratic, and turbulent, especially along the Chugach Mtn. hillsides. With the most powerful of our storms, many flights to Anchorage couldn't land, and had to divert to Fairbanks, and many couldn't take off, and were canceled. There have even been a few pilot reports of turbulence unprecedented in their decades of experience, causing momentary losses of control of the aircraft.

We mentioned in our future climate projections for Anchorage, fourty years hence, in the year 2051, that there would be an increasing trend for these kind of storms here.

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2011/05/fahrenheit-2051.html

As with all global-warming related changes so far, this seems to be occurring faster and sooner than expected. Global annual CO2 emissions have actually increased over the past few years, and show no signs of leveling off. And the latest attempts for global agreements/treaties to limit them, have been complete failures, since now all the major governments of the industrialised nations are controlled by corporate interests, the so-called 1%. The Earth is now on course for a 2C average warming by the year 2050 (but which will be much greater here in the Arctic) as a result. We shudder to think what our storm seasons/patterns will be like then here at the Chugach Front. Cheers.

CONCRETE EXAMPLE [and] FOX NEWS CALLS FOR MURDER OF PROGRESSIVES!

2011-11-29T22:32:00.001-08:00

CONCRETE EXAMPLE

Every once in awhile, we'll see something actually newsworthy and inspiring, in the mainstream media. It doesn't happen very often, but it is always nice to see when it does. This article from the Los Angeles Times, describes the economically depressed small San Francisco Bay Area city of Richmond's efforts to support and develop worker-owned cooperative businesses. Concrete examples of ways to create sustainable and well-paying jobs that would enhance and benefit local communities. Something we whole-heartedly support, here at the Alaska Progressive Review, providing as it does a healthy alternative to the current predatory, sociopathic, and greed-based traditional business models currently dominating our culture and government. Very inspiring. Give it a read, and see what you think. We'll provide some commentary afterward.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-richmond-20111128%2C0%2C464542%2Cfull.story
They're owning this cooperation

Taking a cue from a Spanish hill town, the mayor of Richmond, Calif., is recognizing worker-owned co-ops as a possible path out of the poverty and unemployment that plague her city.

Concetta Abraham, a member of the Liberty Ship Cafe co-op in Richmond, Calif., dances while testing recipes at St. Luke Methodist Church. The 76-year-old native of Italy provides much of the cooking magic for the co-op, whose seven owners were drawn together while taking a class on developing cooperatives at the Richmond library. (Dean Coppola, Bay Area Newspaper Group / February 19, 2008)

Reporting from Richmond, Calif.—

Where a hot dog stand now is the main lunchtime option for city workers in this distressed Bay Area town, soon they'll be able to choose from steel-cut oatmeal, goat cheese empanadas and white bean and kale stew, prepared in a mobile cafe. Its owners will share in the decision-making — and any profits.

Richmond Solar has trained needy residents to work as green-energy installers and now aims to transform some into bosses by forming a worker-owned cooperative.

The city's first bicycle shop has opened with similar dreams: Young men who have volunteered to learn the repair trade soon may be elevated to co-owners.

"I'm just gonna ride it out with everyone to get where we need to go," Mercedes Burnell, 19, said as he prepared to replace a crankshaft and pedals at Richmond SPOKES.

The flurry of democratic enterprise has been guided by Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, a former schoolteacher who visited Mondragon, Spain, and recognized a possible path out of the poverty and unemployment that plague her city.

The Basque hill town is dominated by Mondragon Corp., a web of cooperatives that employ 83,000 workers and together represent Spain's seventh-largest business. Co-op clusters based on Mondragon's model have emerged in Cleveland and the Bronx, N.Y., among other cities.
Richmond, with a 16% unemployment rate, hopes to follow suit.

The city's industrial roots date back more than a century, when it was home to the Santa Fe Railroad terminus and a Standard Oil refinery. World War II shipyards swelled the population to nearly its current 103,000. But Richmond has struggled since and is regularly listed among the nation's 25 most dangerous cities.

Since August, Bay Area co-op veteran Terry Baird — a burly man with a gray beard and a penchant for South African freedom songs — has been on the city payroll, helping to piece together cooperative ventures in Richmond's economically barren pockets.

Mondragon Corp. was created in 1956 and fine-tuned over half a century, McLaughlin said, "but you have to start somewhere. One of the prerequisites of starting a co-op is need, and that is something that we have in Richmond."

Demand matters too. Baird aims to start small, with food and service co-ops such as a plumber's collective that won't require hefty upfront investment. Then the city hopes to bring government and other big employers on board, setting up ventures to meet their buying needs.

McLaughlin, a Green Party member who's been mayor since 2006, visited Mondragon last year and was dazzled by the scale of the worker-driven enterprises.

"My understanding of co-ops from the 1960s and 1970s was that they were small and interesting," said McLaughlin, who was immediately sold on the idea of replicating the formula in Richmond.
The Mondragon story began with a Catholic priest.

In 1943, Father Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta — who had narrowly escaped death by firing squad during the Spanish Civil War — started a technical school for working-class boys. By 1956, graduates had helped form the first cooperative to make kerosene stoves. A cooperative bank followed in 1959.

The corporation, which reported a $242-million profit last year, now includes 255 industrial, retail and financial cooperatives, with others focusing on education and research. Manufacturing co-ops churn out metal-cutting tools, washing machines and bicycles. A retail co-op runs Spain's third-largest grocery chain. A Mondragon construction venture built Bilbao's Guggenheim Museum. About 85% of the corporation's employees are co-op members.

But the original edict of one-worker/one vote remains, through an elected general assembly with representatives from each cooperative. Recently, the assembly voted to cut everyone's pay rather than risk layoffs at any one co-op. The compensation of the highest-paid worker is capped at seven times that of the lowest. Some of the corporation's overall profits go toward offsetting losses at any individual enterprise. Workers also receive a share in the corporation, based on their contributions, every year, with more money flowing into interest-bearing accounts disbursed at retirement.

The U.S. has a history of cooperative movements, beginning with enterprises organized in the late 19th century by the Knights of Labor and highlighted by the burst of food co-ops and consumer buying clubs of the 1960s. Recent years have seen a resurgence.

"It's less counterculture utopian," said Melissa Hoover, executive director of the San Francisco-based U.S. Federation of Worker Owned Cooperatives, "and more engaged with people in the economy."
Some of the growth is sector-based: Green-cleaning ventures launched by immigrant women, for example, are common. But philanthropists and community developers increasingly have focused their attention on the co-op model as a way to revitalize urban areas.

No city experiment has made more of a splash than Cleveland's. With support from universities and medical centers that border the downtown area targeted for development, the Cleveland Foundation — a donor-based organization dedicated to bettering the city — has channeled millions of dollars into the Mondragon-inspired Evergreen Cooperatives.

A solar panel installation-and-weatherization company and a green commercial laundry are up and running with a combined 50 worker-owners, said Lillian Kuri, program director of the Cleveland Foundation. An urban farming co-op is scheduled to open in the spring.

In addition to providing financing for co-op ventures, Evergreen Cooperatives makes services such as child care available to the workers and provides no-cost healthcare.

Ted Howard, an architect of Cleveland's experiment and founder of the University of Maryland's Democracy Collaborative, said worker-ownership is supplanting other forms of inner-city revival.
"When you're hiring people even in a decent job that pays a living wage — if they … have no retirement account, no rainy day savings — a job alone is not enough," Howard said.

In addition to offering the chance to share in profits, worker-owned companies are rooted in the community and won't "pack up and move," he said.

The co-op model has found interest among government officials in Washington D.C., Amarillo, Texas, and Atlanta, Howard said, but Richmond stands alone in hiring a coordinator. "I don't know any city in America that's done that," he said.

Enter Baird, a Richmond resident who in 1997 helped found the worker-owned Arizmendi Bakery cooperative in Oakland. The Arizmendi Assn. of Cooperatives now includes six Bay Area bakeries. All workers earn the same pay rate. Profits are distributed at year's end in proportion to hours worked.

Though he may be a co-op evangelist, Baird knows the model won't work without a product or service consumers will pay for, a decent location and a group of people who are able to work together.

During a recent tour of Richmond, Baird pointed out candidates for cooperative ventures: A vacant 5,000-square-foot building is under consideration for a handyman's cooperative. A faded onetime coin laundry near a city park could become a bakery or restaurant. Then there's the weedy lot that one woman hopes to transform into a cooperative garden and farm stand.

In the heart of the old downtown sits Richmond SPOKES.

Brian Drayton, once a junior zookeeper in Baltimore, spent years developing youth programs for a range of nonprofits, stressing art and environmental sustainability.

When he opened the community space and "bike lounge" as a nonprofit last month, young men from the neighborhood poured in to find out what he was doing. Then they rolled up their sleeves and helped lay gleaming wood flooring. As a local artist covered the walls in vivid murals, they stuck around to learn the bike trade. Baird has been meeting with a group of five or so men to discuss a worker-owned collective.

Richmond Solar Executive Director Michelle McGeoy has secured funds for her co-op from, among others, Chevron (formerly Standard Oil and now the city's largest employer) and the California Endowment — a private foundation that seeks to promote healthy communities. The company has set an initial target of having 10 worker-owners by next spring.

Then there's the Liberty Ship Cafe, whose seven owners were drawn together while taking a class on developing cooperatives at the Richmond library. The California Endowment has helped fund this project as well. On Dec. 1, the collective will start selling its breakfast and lunch fare at a farmers market near the civic center. The plan is to begin deliveries to government office workers soon after.

Julio Chavez, 40, studied communications in his native Guatemala before coming to the U.S. and working as an electrician. In recent months, he has joined the other Liberty Ship Cafe partners in testing recipes for sancocho — a traditional Latin American soup — and other delicacies in a rented church kitchen.

"It's a difficult time, so one has to do different things, to search for options," Chavez said.
Challenges remain.

While Mondragon is united by its Basque culture, Baird noted, Richmond is fragmented by race and class and shadowed by chronic violence.

On top of the usual cost of business, cooperatives require training — not just in job-specific skills but on how to manage a business and make sure everyone's voice is heard. "The real thing that can take a [cooperative] business down," Hoover said, "is a group that's not prepared to make decisions together."

On a recent rainy day, the Liberty Ship Cafe workers met to discuss just that. Concetta Abraham, a 76-year-old native of Italy, provides much of the group's cooking magic. While tasting her savory pozole, the collective determined how long each member should be allowed to speak on agenda items and discussed the importance of not interrupting one another.

"We're from different countries, different cultures and are different ages," said 68-year-old Carlos Ruiller, who was born in Peru. "There's a period where we'll have to suffer and adapt. But I'm hopeful. We're all equals starting out — like soldiers."

JUST A GODDAMNED PIECE OF PAPER

2011-11-20T18:27:00.001-08:00

There seems to be some contention as to whether or not former U.S. president George W. Bush said "Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!".

http://www.factcheck.org/2007/12/bush-the-constitution-a-goddamned-piece-of-paper/

But the fact of the matter is, it might as well be considered in those terms by former and current U.S. administrations. And ever more so now, under the Democratic Obama administration.

The brutal repression of Occupy Wall Street protestors in NYC, Portland, OR, Oakland, and of University of California Berkeley and Davis students reached a pinnacle last week. When peacefully protesting students at your lead editor's formerly beloved alma mater, the University of California, Davis, were tortured by the campus police with pepper spray because they linked arms and would not get to their feet. Not just spraying at them, but in their faces and mouths. In the words of one witness:

Additionally, Nathan Brown, an assistant English professor at UC Davis issued a scathing open letter to Chancellor Katehi asking on behalf of The Davis Faculty Association that she step down.
Brown details the pepper spraying incident:

Without any provocation whatsoever, other than the bodies of these students sitting where they were on the ground, with their arms linked, police pepper-sprayed students. Students remained on the ground, now writhing in pain, with their arms linked.What happened next?

Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.

http://sfist.com/2011/11/19/video_uc_davis_chancellors_eerily_s.php

I was fortunate enough to have attended this University in the 1980s, when it was still relatively affordable, and the state of California was able to provide generous assistance to serious students in attendance there. It was, and is a very prestigious University, internationally recognised for the strength of it's scientific research in many disciplines. And set in the quiet, peaceful agricultural area of the lower Sacramento Valley. Up until now, UC Berkeley was always considered the "activist" university, whilst Davis was looked upon as a very serious, disciplined, and in some ways, boring campus. That was never my impression though, there were alot of counter-culture influences when I attended, and still are.

Starting in the late 1980s, continued state and federal budget cuts, combined with skyrocketing fees/tuition, and corruption/collusion between the University of California system and student loan lenders, has left many students holding debts in the tens of thousands of dollars upon graduation. And, with fewer and fewer jobs available, no real way to even begin repaying that burden. Which is why many students at campuses all over the country are joining the Occupy Wall Street movement.

This kind of brutal and inhuman treatment of peaceful protestors is a direct result of the increasing militarisation of the police forces in the U.S., which has occurred since the 1980s. Former civil rights attorney and constitutional scholar Glenn Greenwald wrote an exceptionally thorough and important article documenting the brutality at UC Davis, and it's greater meaning. We think it's highly worthy of reading in its entirety:

http://www.salon.com/2011/11/20/the_roots_of_the_uc_davis_pepper_spraying/singleton/

The roots of the UC-Davis pepper-spraying
By Glenn Greenwald

(updated below)

The now-viral video of police officers in their Robocop costumes sadistically pepper-spraying peaceful, sitting protesters at UC-Davis (details here) shows a police state in its pure form. It’s easy to be outraged by this incident as though it’s some sort of shocking aberration, but that is exactly what it is not. The Atlantic‘s Garance Franke-Ruta adeptly demonstrates with an assemblage of video how common such excessive police force has been in response to the Occupy protests. Along those lines, there are several points to note about this incident and what it reflects:

November 20, 2011

Dear Alumni and Friends,

Friday was not a day that would make anyone on our campus proud; indeed the events of the day need to guide us forward as we try to make our campus a better place of inquiry, debate, and even dissent. This past week our campus was a site of week-long peaceful demonstrations during which students were able to express their concerns about many issues facing higher education, the University of California, our campus, our nation, and the world as a whole. Those events involved multiple rallies in the Quad and an occupation of Mrak Hall which ended peacefully a day later.

However, the events on Friday were a major deviation from that trend. In the aftermath of the troubling events we experienced, I will attempt to provide a summary of the incident with the information now available to me and the steps we will follow going forward.

After a week of peaceful exchange and debate, on Thursday a group of protestors including UC Davis students and other non-UC Davis affiliated individuals established an encampment of about 25 tents on the Quad. The group was reminded that while the university provides an environment for students to participate in rallies and express their concerns and frustrations through different forums, university policy does not allow such encampments on university grounds.

On Thursday, the group stayed overnight despite repeated reminders by university staff that their encampment violated university policies and they were requested to disperse. On Friday morning, the protestors were provided with a letter explaining university policies and reminding them of the opportunities the university provides for expression. Driven by our concern for the safety and health of the students involved in the protest, as well as other students on our campus, I made the decision not to allow encampments on the Quad during the weekend, when the general campus facilities are locked and the university staff is not widely available to provide support.

During the early afternoon hours and because of the request to take down the tents, many students decided to dismantle their tents, a decision for which we are very thankful. However, a group of students and non-campus affiliates decided to stay. The university police then came to dismantle the encampment. The events of this intervention have been videotaped and widely distributed. As indicated in various videos, the police used pepper spray against the students who were blocking the way. The use of pepper spray as shown on the video is chilling to us all and raises many questions about how best to handle situations like this.

To this effect, I am forming a task force comprised of faculty, students and staff to review the events and provide to me a thorough report within 30 days. The task force will be chosen this week and convene immediately to begin their work. As part of this, a process will be designed that allows members of the community to express their views on this matter. In addition, I will hold a series of meetings and forums with students, faculty and staff to listen to their concerns and hear their ideas for restoring civil discourse to the campus. In the interim, two UC Davis police officers involved in the incident have been placed on administrative leave following their use of pepper spray.

Related to current policies, I am asking the office of Administrative and Resource Management and the office of Student Affairs to review our policies in relation to encampments of this nature and consider whether our existing policies reflect the needs of the students at this point in time. If our policies do not allow our students enough flexibility to express themselves, then we need to find a way to improve these policies and make them more effective and appropriate.

Our campus is committed to providing a safe environment for all to learn freely and practice their civil rights of freedom of speech and expression. [really? tell that to the tortured students and their families, eds.] At the same time, our campus has the responsibility to ensure the safety of all others who use the same spaces and rely on the same facilities, tools, environments and processes to practice their freedoms to work and study. [a classic fascist response, blame the victims-they had it coming, to protect public safety! just like the fascists used to say in Chile, 1973-1990, as they tortured/murdered/disappeared people with US support. eds.]

I wrote back to the UC Davis Alumni Association, and told them I am renouncing my membership and any ties to the university, unless the Chancellor steps down, and the police who tortured the students are arrested and prosecuted on assault charges. That if were able, I and as many others as I could persuade, would join further protests at UC Davis, and offer whatever assistance we could to their movement. I also made sure to mention that I will be offering assistance and support to the courageous members of the Davis Faculty Association, who are endangering their livelihoods by standing with, supporting, and trying to protect their students. Is the US Constitution just a "Goddamn Piece of Paper"? Cheers.

MALASPINA ENCOUNTER

2011-11-09T23:25:00.000-08:00

Greetings all, forgive us for the delay in writing about my trip to the Malaspina Glacier last month, where your lead editor met with our friends in Ground-Truth Trekking, and joined them in their "Life on Ice" expedition for eight days. http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/Journeys/LifeOnIce.html

Hig and Erin invited me last summer for part of this trip, in which they hope to document climate change in action, on the largest "Piedmont" glacier in Alaska, spreading out as it does on the coastal plain from it's sources in the high St. Elias mountains inland. I was honoured to accept, since they are such knowledgeable and experienced wilderness-experts and scientists. So after a few months of planning, and then two weeks of feverish preparation, during which I was working in my other position as an operational meteorologist, I left Mattie to hold down the fort at the Chugach Front Research Centre, and boarded Alaska Airlines, to head to Yakutat, on the morning of 21 October. The jumping-off point for the charter flight with Alsek Air, a local outfit in Yakutat, whose pilot Les Hartley was to take me to our meeting site with Hig and Erin, on the beach at "Alder Stream", a wider less-rocky area that at low tide, afforded enough room for Les's Cessna 185 4-seat plane on tundra tires to land and take off safely from the beach.

Hig and Erin's friend Sam Vivang also accompanied me, he is their web-designer, for the Ground Truth Site, and lives in Madison, WI. A town we admire, being as it is, one of the ultimate, and largest, progressive college towns in the country.

Sam and I met in the Juneau airport, and I re-lived to him all my good memories of living there, Juneau is a beautiful place, and culturally, very diverse and interesting. But the often wretched weather and lack of consistent winter snow, led me to move on from there in 2001. I still miss it though.

We made it to Yakutat at 1130, and were immediately met by Alsek Air, and loaded up on Les's Cessna 185. It's a small 4-6 seat plane that can take off and land in very short order, needing only 200 metres or so of a suitable stretch. Sam and I, and our gear were loaded in, and we quickly took off by 1230, and headed to the Alder Stream landing site.

Yakutat, here from the air as we departed, started as a Tlingit village, and is now home to a mixed population, making their living mainly from fishing, tourism, and some government jobs. It has the distinction of being one of the wetter sites in Alaska, receiving 343 cm of precipitation annually. On this day, we actually had dry weather, rare for October, as fall is the wettest season along the Gulf of Alaska.

We only flew at around 300 metres altitude, just very high clouds were present, and winds were relatively light, underneath high pressure ridging, which promised to hold for a few more days. Looking to the north, the huge mass of Hubbard Glacier came into view, up Yakutat Bay, whose source lies far inland in Kluane National Park in Canada, part of which is 5959 metre (19,850 ft) Mt. Logan, the second highest peak in North America.

After just a short 30 min., 55 km flight, we landed on the beach at the Alder Stream site, and quickly unloaded. Our plane to Yakutat from Juneau had been late, and so we arrived at the beach late, as the tide was quickly rising. This left Les with just a few minutes to be on the beach, before having to take off again. We rapidly shuttled our gear and supplies up onto the higher ground behind the beach, and then met with Hig, Erin, and their friend Carl Donohue, a professional wilderness guide and photographer, who had already been with them a week, and would be for at least another.

Here, Sam, on the left, Hig (in the blue vest), and Erin are inspecting the supplies while 2 year old Katmai, and 9 month old baby Lituya relax on the beach. My 34 kg (75lb) pack, in the blue, was awaiting me, which I was not looking forward to. But I had to have my Alpacka pack raft/paddle (3kg), in addition to my best weatherproof tent, clothing, and 9 days of food/fuel, so that was the best I could do.

It was just a short 6.5 km jaunt up to our first camp, where we spent two nights, west up the coastline. Walking along the beach, punctuated by two stream crossings, which Hig ferried us all across with our supplies individually in his larger two-person packraft. This was faster than all of us individually inflating/deflating our rafts, etc...

The ocean here is very powerful and turbulent, as you would expect, being the northern margin of the Gulf of Alaska, where low pressure systems are almost always present. Even though on this day, Friday the 21st of October, winds were light, underneath high pressure ridging, swells coming off the Gulf still produced powerful surf with 1.5-2 metre or more high waves, that break close in to shore, due to the steeply dropping land margin. In fact, we really needed to be on our guard, so we wouldn't get too close to any of these "shore breaks", and get swept off our feet, and into the icy cold 4C (39F) water.

We arrived to our first camp site set about 200 metres back from the beach in a Sitka Spruce forest, around 1730. After quickly setting up camp, we all had dinner, then hung out and made plans for the following few days. We decided to stay there the next day, Saturday, so all of us could get to know each other better, and see that site better. Just another 100 metres or so behind our forest camp, the Sitka Spruce were all dead standing, some kind of flood had killed them in the past few years. Behind that, one of the many streams coming off the Malaspina glacier flowed east-west. After a relaxing night (though the sound of the booming, crashing surf was very loud, even 200 metres in), the next day, Saturday, dawned dry with some sun. After a lazy breakfast, we all decided to go hiking inland, behind camp, and then around to the beach, further west, then back, to camp.

Heading just inland from camp, we quickly came into the dead spruce area. Some of these were very large and had been old, at least 100 years or more, judging by their 30-40 metre heights.

Hig thinks that multiple flooding episodes led to the demise of this area of trees, which seemed to extend several km up and down along the adjacent stream, which overran it's banks. We surmised warm, high-freezing-level storms in late summer or fall, which would have melted snows and glacier ice on the higher grounds inland, would have been the mechanism to raise the waterways so high here (and which are occurring more frequently now, especially in the last 10 years). From the looks of these standing dead trees, it was no more than five years ago, that this happened.

Heading further inland, toward the banks of the river/stream, we began to get vistas of the high St.Elias mountains, that are the source region for the Malaspina, and other glaciers around.

These 3000-4500 metre peaks are fully encased in permanent snow and glacier ice, and form about a 200 km long NW-SE oriented wall just 15-40 km inland from the Gulf of Alaska. The amount of precipitation that these mountains receive annually is hard to even fathom, easily two to three times the 343 cm that Yakutat receives, most of it snow, above 2000 metres. We hiked around this area for a few hours, while we all talked about the stunning scenery and made our surmises about the causes of all the flooding disturbances we saw. Since Hig has a PhD in geology, and is very interested in meteorology and climatology, our discussions were very interesting and detailed.

Little two year-old Katmai was having fun just walking around, picking up things, and chattering away, as most two year-olds do. Erin was carrying baby Lituya in a pack behind her back, and she was mostly snoozing in the mild 6C (43F) afternoon. Hig and Erin took alot of precautions and care for their children. They had a large tepee-style tent, which has a wood-stove, the whole setup weighs less than 4 kg packed up. This keeps everyone warm and dry while it's raining, and allows wet clothing/gear to dry out. They had food caches set-up beforehand, and a satellite phone to rely on, in case of any emergencies. So the children were in good hands, and always able to stay warm and dry. And I was too, on the rainiest of my days there, when I would hang out with them, next to that nice little stove!

After a few hours of hiking and beach-combing, as evening began to set in, majestic 5489 metre (18,008 ft) Mt. St. Elias was out in it's full glory. This mountain is rarely climbed, due to it's treacherous weather and highly dangerous avalanches and icefalls, from the tremendous volumes of snow and ice on it. It is the third highest peak north of Mexico, after Denali, and Mt. Logan just to the north, in Canada.

The next day, Sunday the 23rd, was still dry and sunny. It was below freezing that morning, about -2C (28F), judging by the crunchy moss, but not a real deep/hard freeze. We packed up camp, and then set off around 1100 for our next base, Sitkagi "lagoon", a feature that did not exist ten years ago.

The first few km we were able to packraft down the stream behind camp, behind which we had our mountain views. This just took an hour or so. Then on the other side of that, about a km of beach walking on sand/pebbles. Then another stream/packraft crossing. On the other side of that, Hig, Erin, and Carl had come across a large dead sea lion a few days before, and we made sure to make lots of noise, staying all together, before venturing up to it. In case any bears were eating from and guarding it. But we saw none, or even any signs of some.

We weren't sure of the cause of this large creature's demise, no bullet holes or large wounds were in evidence, so perhaps it was disease, or some other natural cause. We didn't spend too much time here though, just to be on the safe side. From here, it was about another 5 km or so to the "lagoon". The first 3 km were nice beach-walking, like that seen by the dead sea lion, a mix of sand and small rocks. But after that, the sandy beach turned into boulder fields, requiring hopping across/through all of them.

With our heavy packs on, this slowed us down considerably. I felt quite uneasy as well, with my 34 kg pack on, since I had broken my left knee in 2007 by falling onto a boulder near the Gulkana Glacier, in the Alaska Range, and desperately wished not to repeat that experience.

We finally go to Sitkagi at 1730, by which time we only had another hour of light to set up camp. Hig and Carl set out to try and find a suitable camp spot, but were not able to. So we had to set up in an exposed spot at the foot of the "lagoon" just behind logs and rocks thrown up by the last big storms, which you can see, above. A rather precarious spot, to be sure, but we figured we could always move camp the next day, if need be. I was completely soaked in sweat then, from lugging that heavy pack, but some time that evening in Hig and Erin's warm tent by the fire, helped dry me out.

The next day, Monday the 25th of October, the weather began changing. The day started out cloudy with light rain, but not too windy, just 20-40 kph, out of the east. Hig, Erin, and the kids set out to explore the lagoon entrance, and raft further up the lagoon, which extends about a km inland. Sam and I stayed behind to walk along the beach, and then raft a little later, we were hoping the weather would improve a little. It never did, so I put my raft in around 1300, and paddled up and around the lagoon. It was raining lightly with that 20-40 kph east wind. I didn't get too close to the "lagoon" entrance though, high tide for the day was coming through, and making it rather turbulent there with strong currents and eddies. And I did not want to get caught up in one, and possibly swept back out to sea.

What Sitkagi "Lagoon" is, is an opening in the coastline formed by the melting of the glacier from seawater incursions pushed in by high storm tides. It extends back about 1.5 km from the opening, and is growing constantly, as can be seen by the falls of dirt/trees/shrubs at the base of the glacier. The Malaspina glacier is vegetated on its outer margins here because it had been so slow-moving and stable, until relatively recently, but you can see the ice just underneath. Hig thinks that this lagoon is less than ten years old, and that the at the rate the glacier is melting, combined with ever-higher storm tides pushing into the lagoon from stronger, more frequent storms, that it could end up extending back another 40-50 km within 20 years! That would be a huge change to the topography of this coastline.

That night, Monday night, rain became a little heavier and steady. Then, when we awoke Tuesday, we knew we were going to have a situation on our hands. It should be said, that 5 days previously, during the past week, both the European and American long-range numerical weather prediction models forecast a strong front to come into the area on this day, Tuesday, 10/26, with 60-100 kph winds and several cm of rain. I had texted Hig and Erin to that effect the evening before I flew in. And we had been receiving updates from my NWS colleague Dave, by text messages on Hig and Erin's satellite phone, with that forecast holding.

Above, is the surface map for Tuesday afternoon, the 26 of October. A 968 millibar surface low, with an occluded front, lay just to west of the Malaspina area, in the Northern Gulf of Alaska. This is a fairly strong low any time of the year, in this area. Note how "tightly-packed" the lines, or isobars, of pressure are, there is a very strong pressure gradient with a low that deep, meaning that strong winds will be occurring as it approaches, then passes, with strongest winds just ahead of, and with the front.

Here is the corrresponding infrared satellite image for this time, you can see the centre of the low just off the southern tip of the Kenai Peninsula, when the frontal band was moving through the Malaspina area. When extra-tropical low pressure systems have that distinct "eye" looking centre, it means that they are very deep and strong, and are not to be taken lightly!

The rain had been steady all the previous night, and the winds, moderate, perhaps 30-50 kph (18-30 mph), nothing our tents couldn't handle. There was a brief let-up, even, in the morning, whilst we had breakfast, between 0800-0900. But by 0930, the storm we had been waiting for/worrying about, came in full-on.

At this time, around 0930, the winds came up easily to 70-90 kph sustained (42-55 mph) with gusts easily as high as 120 kph (75 mph). We all, Carl, Sam, Hig, Erin, the kids, and I rotated duties over the next 7 hours, continually monitoring the tents, staking/tying them down more when some of the tie-outs would come loose with the stronger gusts, and checking the log/rock jam above us, to make sure no high seas were breaking over it, which could flood us. High tide that day was around 1400. If you've never spent a day in a storm, in tents, in strong winds, may you never have to! The sound was deafening. I spent much of the day helping Erin continually brace up the inside of their taller tepee-tent, as strong wind gusts were continually trying to bring it down. The kids were surprisingly calm, considering how worried we all were. Some of the most powerful gusts, that could have been 135 kph (80 mph) were like explosions, and it was all we could do to brace it up, inside. We had to keep that woodstove going too, everyone was getting soaked, coming in and out of the howling wind and heavy rain, bracing their tents. Picture-taking was impossible, in these conditions, we didn't even try, we had other things to worry about! At one point, after some particularly strong and worrisome gusts, Erin asked if I could call the NWS on their satellite phone. I called the NWS Anchorage Forecast Office, where I used to work, and my ex-colleague Bill L., told us to expect 2-3 more hours of the strong winds. We were somewhat relieved, as it was around 1300, and were all getting tired, hoping for the best, that all our tents would survive.

Sure enough, right around 1530, the winds suddenly dropped off, almost to calm! The front was passing, and as it did, in a period of just 10 min., a burst of very heavy rain, then hail, and then snow occurred. Once that ended, we all rushed out relieved. During the strong winds, my Mountain Hardwear 3-season tent, with an extra-heavy duty rain fly, would flatten in the strongest gusts. Yet, it held, one of the poles was bent, but it was in good form. And, only a small 15 cm or so diameter little puddle of water was on the tent floor, blown in from the upwind wall. My sleeping bag and pack were dry! That was a relief. We all had a relaxing evening recovering our energy and warming up by the little woodstove, after our dinner.

We briefly checked out the beach. It was still raining/misting overall, it looked like the high tide came just up to the foot of the log/rock barrier, above us, but did not crash or flood through, another thing to be thankful for. I was fairly wet though from my times staking out my tent in the foul weather, bending over and working, the wind drove the rain right up inside my layers. All my other ones were damp from the exertion of the last several days. Hence, I went to bed with damp wool base-layers on, which I was not crazy about. But my -9C (15F) down bag, which was dry, kept me warm enough, and by morning, my body-heat had dried out my base layers.

That was also an interesting night, as when the low itself came through, all night long, heavy showers of rain and hail occurred, along with at least three thunderstorms! I slept very fitfully. When these lows, with very cold air aloft in them, are over warmer ocean waters, the airmass in their centres becomes very unstable, and these scattered, "post-frontal" heavy showers/thundershowers occur.

The next day, Wednesday, dawned cloudy and misty, and after all the heavy showers overnight, little drifts of hail and snow were on the ground, in wind-protected areas. The winds were much lighter overnight however, from the west, less than a third the strength of the strong east to southeast winds ahead of the front the afternoon before.

After breakfast and fire warm-up (it was probably only +1C or so, 34F, cold in that damp breezy weather), we all ventured out to see what changes the storm had wrought, in our local landscape. One very prominent thing, is that during rough weather, foam is generated by the higher seas crashing on the rocky shoreline, which marks the previous high tide level. This was in the late morning on Wednesday. Hig and Erin had studied the tides before coming out, and the highest, high tides of the year, were occurring this very week. In fact, the highest, high tide of the whole year, was to be on this afternoon, around 1530. After walking the beach and up to the lagoon entrance, checking out all the changes, logs thrown about, piles of debris, etc.. we came back to camp by 1400. One other thing we noticed, were large ice chunks from the glacier, which fell into the "lagoon", and then were carried out by the strong tidal surges, the previous day.

Carl then announced he was moving his tent, and quickly. He was worried we'd all be flooded out by that highest tide, by the lagoon rising. At first, the rest of us were a little dubious, but sure enough, we could see surges of water coming into the lagoon, and the level was rising quickly!

Carl is a wilderness guide with many years of experience, and his knowledge proved invaluable here. We quickly followed suit and rapidly packed up. Here Hig and Erin are packing up their large tent, and you can see water flooding in, right in front of it. We found some suitable dry clear areas in the spruce woods, just in from this picture, and were able to all get in there, just as the entire area we had been in, went under. Where Carl and I had our tents just flooded about 10-20 cm deep, but it was a little deeper where Hig and Erin's large tent had been. These new camp sites were much better than the old exposed ones, sheltered and wind-protected, we would have been much better off there the previous day, had we been in there! That took us the rest of that day, to re-settle camp. During a quick beach excursion though, as the high tide began going out, we were all thankful for the drier, calm weather, especially when we could watch the sunset!

We had a conference that evening, to come up with our plans for the rest of the trip. Sam and I were to be picked up at the 0930 low-tide that Saturday, the 29th, where we flew in, at the Alder Stream landing site, about 16 km back.

No big storms were expected, but due to the roughness of the beach, and the multiple stream crossings we would have to packraft across, Sam and I decided we should leave the next afternoon, after the high tide, Thursday, and at least get past the very rough 4 km or so boulder-beach section, and camp there. So we would then have a shorter 12 km hike friday to the Alder Stream site, where we could set up a nice camp, and have a relaxed final evening before departing the next day. Carl decided to accompany us back as well, for which we were grateful. He wanted to be flown out with us, and over to Icy Bay, where he would stay for several days, to try and get some good photos of Mt. St. Elias, and all around that amazing area.

That next day, Thursday, started dry, but it began to rain off and on. We all went down to the lagoon entrance in late morning, between showers, and before the high tide, to watch the waves break over the entrance.

This is how Sitkagi "Lagoon" is forming, high tides and surf break through these rocks, and push ever more water into it. This water helps to faster melt the dirt/vegetation-covered glacier ice behind it.

We couldn't stay all day though. We had to pack up, and then get moving by 1600, just after high tide, so we'd have a little more room to walk the boulder-covered beach section, but also arrive to an area to set up camp by 1800, so we'd have a little daylight left. We quickly packed, and were on our way, after saying goodbye to Hig, Erin, Katmai, and Lituya. They also offered to take any extra food we might not need. I jumped at that chance, and was able to offload at least 2 kg. Thus, my pack was much lighter, also from the food I'd eaten the past week. So now, instead of 34.1 kg (75 lbs.), my pack was down to about 27.3 kg (60 lbs.), which made a big difference in how comfortable I was, and how deftly I could manoeuver on the boulders.

As we began packing though, around 1500, steady rain set in, a real downer. Packing everything up in that, made all our gear wet. Then, as we left at 1600, the rain continued. The surf along the beach though was very beautiful.

Although the winds were relatively light, no more than 20-40 kph, large swells in the Gulf were kicking up these 2-3 metre pounders, which were incredibly loud as they boomed into the beach. The rain continued during our two hour march across the boulder beach. It took that long to just go 4 km because hopping across those wet rocks with a heavy pack is not something to do quickly, any accidents, and help will be a long time coming.

It was quite a relief to get through those by 1800, and find a nice wooded site to set up camp. However, it was raining even harder as we unpacked. What followed was my least favourite evening of the trip, setting up camp wet and sweaty (from the exertion of the walk with the heavy pack), then eating a quick meal without the heat of the woodstove from Hig and Erin' tent, got me chilled very quickly, and I had no dry layers to change into. My sleeping bag was still mostly dry, so right after dinner, in damp layers, I crawled into my tent and bag, very dispirited. It took me some time to get to sleep, being so cold/damp. But my down bag and body heat eventually dried me out at least partially, by morning.

The next day, Friday the 28th, dawned dry with just high clouds, and the forecast we'd gotten the day before was for it to stay dry the entire day and that night. What a relief! After a nice dry breakfast, we quickly were packed and on our way by 1030. And the day just kept getting nicer. By 1300, it was entirely sunny, as were all of our moods. We approached the area where the dead sea lion had been, in early afternoon, slowly, in case of bear activity. But, the sea lion had been washed away in the big storm Tuesday. For which we were relieved, one less thing to worry about. We had two quick pack-raft crossings to do, then a nice 4 km section through the woods, where our first camp had been after our arrival. We made good time through those areas.

One interesting thing we noticed, was that a small area of higher ground which separated the beach, from the small river behind, which flowed out from the glacier, had been breached during the Tuesday storm. Another few storms like that (there are always several every fall/winter), and it will become much bigger. Eventually eroding enough that the river mouth may then shift to this area, about 1.5 km upstream from the current one. Which will then allow high tides to enter into the river that much further in, hastening erosion there, etc... You can see how dynamic the terrain here is, and how quickly things can change.

After coming out of the spruce woods, the beach was so littered with debris, and it was high tide. So we had to go through Alder thickets just inland, and cross two streams on logs, which was quite dicey with our heavy packs on. Fortunately Carl helped both Sam and I across these, first by testing them out without his pack on, then by crossing first, and assisting us.

Our last major obstacle of the day was the river crossing just 1.5 km from the Alder Stream landing site. We hit it around 1700 in the waning light of the day. It was a nice gentle current, and fun to get across. But we were eager to deflate the rafts, and head down the beach to find a good camp site. That last part of the hike was quite nice, a real, wide, sandy beach, easy walking with our heavy packs, in the evening sun. We got to the edge of the woods by 1800 and found a nice camp site, had a good dinner in dry weather, and were able to hang out together without worrying about having to stay dry. Carl always had a lightweight portable shelter he'd set up, where we would store our food, well away from camp, and eat our meals in. Then after we ate, we'd join Hig and Erin in their heated tent, to warm up/dry out, and hang out.

It began raining though, after we got in our tents for our final night. I didn't mind, knowing we'd be picked up on the beach tomorrow, and then heading back to the comforts we all take for granted. Les, from Alsek Air was scheduled to fly in at 0930 Saturday morning, at low tide, to pick us up. So we were all up by 0730 and packed by 0900 and on the beach. It was raining, though the visibility was still at least 8-10 km, and the wind 20-40 kph, so we knew Les would make it. Sure enough, exactly at 0930 he buzzed by us, landed, and taxied right up to our feet! Great flying, and great service. It was raining harder as we packed up and got into the plane. Unfortunately, Carl had to stay behind, to be picked up the next day. Les's scheduling was too tight for him to take Carl to Icy Bay. During the short 30 min. flight back to Yakutat, the rain became much heavier, and it was obviously much windier. We got out just in time.

All in all, I had an amazing and interesting time on this trip. Getting to know Hig and Erin better, learning from them about all the different kinds of treks they do, and also talking about the changes we were seeing there, around the Malaspina Glacier. It was also a great pleasure spending time with Carl, and benefitting from his vast wilderness experience, as well as with Sam, who was very eager to learn all about Alaska, in this, his first trip to the state. When Hig and Erin return from their trip next week, and then begin writing it up on their web-site, and putting on videos, I encourage you to check them out, they will be very interesting, and enlightening. For now, they have done a few blog posts, which they've had to give to their visitors, to take out with them.

http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/blog/

I'd love to return to this area some day, during a gentler time, with longer days, such as in May or June (April/May/June are the driest months there), and explore more, and see the continuing rapid changes there. And bring Mattie, and our new A.P.R. intern, Kluane. Perhaps you'd like to join us?

AVENIDA REVOLUCION [y] EL PROYECTO MALASPINA

2011-10-18T23:46:00.000-07:00

No, were not talking about the Avenida Revolucion, in Tijuana, B.C., Mexico, the world-famous introduction to Mexico visitors receive when they cross over the World's busiest border crossing from San Diego, CA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avenida_Revoluci%C3%B3n

An avenue that as a child, opened my eyes up to the shocking poverty and hopelessness of life in the "Third World". The state of Baja California Norte, and the city of Tijuana have taken great pains over the last 25 years or so to "clean up" and improve the image of the central core area of the city, yet you still only have to walk a few blocks off Revolucion or the other main drag, Avenida Constitucion, to understand what the "Third World" really means.

But the Avenida Revolucion we're talking about now is Wall Street. Because there is a revolution now occurring, and spreading across the World, from and because of it.

And which is very inspiring, and if it continues to grow and spread, will bring about meaningful changes toward building a more sane and just society in this and other countries. This is a revolution in spirit, and non-violent direct action, inspired by those which started in Tunisia and Egypt, not a violent overthrow of an existing regime, as say occurred in Russia in 1917, or France, in 1789. Though if the "corporatocracy" which continues, so far, in it's unabated sociopathic path of greed, and destruction of lives, hope, and the environment, across the World, is not checked, it will eventually be. Fortunately, "practising idealists", thousands and thousands of them (and hopefully soon, millions!), who realise in the core of their beings, that "ends do not justify means", are working cooperatively to bring to light and change the destructive, unjust aspects of our current predatory Capitalistic socio-political and economic system.

Corporate media sources have been criticising the movement as being filled with lazy, shiftless, unemployable "hippie" types, just coming together to party. And wondering why there have been no demands stated. Yet there are, this is a declaration issued by the main "Occupy Wall Street" working group. https://sites.google.com/site/the99percentdeclaration/ The #OWS movement started over the past year, as a loose coalition of different working groups, with no central authority and leadership, and continues to evolve that way, now with increasing support from organised labour, and a few politicians. Though great care is being taken not to allow the movement to be subverted or strangled by partisan politicians, because they know that by doing so, it's great power will be lost. None of the great changes in U.S. society since the country's inception, the end of slavery, woman's suffrage, labour reforms, civil rights, etc.., came about through the ballot box, but from direct action and civil disobedience, often at great sacrifice, and so it must be again.

Once again, one of our favourite authors, Chris Hedges, who lives in New York City, and is a part of the movement, wrote an inspiring piece about the movement, which we'd like to share part of:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/10/17

A Movement Too Big to Fail
by Chris Hedges

"There is no danger that the protesters who have occupied squares, parks and plazas across the nation in defiance of the corporate state will be co-opted by the Democratic Party or groups like MoveOn. The faux liberal reformers, whose abject failure to stand up for the rights of the poor and the working class, have signed on to this movement because they fear becoming irrelevant. Union leaders, who pull down salaries five times that of the rank and file as they bargain away rights and benefits, know the foundations are shaking. So do Democratic politicians from Barack Obama to Nancy Pelosi. So do the array of “liberal” groups and institutions, including the press, that have worked to funnel discontented voters back into the swamp of electoral politics and mocked those who called for profound structural reform.

Resistance, real resistance, to the corporate state was displayed when a couple of thousand protesters, clutching mops and brooms, early Friday morning forced the owners of Zuccotti Park and the New York City police to back down from a proposed attempt to expel them in order to “clean” the premises. These protesters in that one glorious moment did what the traditional “liberal” establishment has steadily refused to do—fight back. And it was deeply moving to watch the corporate rats scamper back to their holes on Wall Street. It lent a whole new meaning to the phrase “too big to fail.”

photo: Daniel OliverioTinkering with the corporate state will not work. We will either be plunged into neo-feudalism and environmental catastrophe or we will wrest power from corporate hands. This radical message, one that demands a reversal of the corporate coup, is one the power elite, including the liberal class, is desperately trying to thwart. But the liberal class has no credibility left. It collaborated with corporate lobbyists to neglect the rights of tens of millions of Americans, as well as the innocents in our imperial wars. The best that liberals can do is sheepishly pretend this is what they wanted all along. Groups such as MoveOn and organized labor will find themselves without a constituency unless they at least pay lip service to the protests. The Teamsters’ arrival Friday morning to help defend the park signaled an infusion of this new radicalism into moribund unions rather than a co-opting of the protest movement by the traditional liberal establishment. The union bosses, in short, had no choice.

The Occupy Wall Street movement, like all radical movements, has obliterated the narrow political parameters. It proposes something new. It will not make concessions with corrupt systems of corporate power. It holds fast to moral imperatives regardless of the cost. It confronts authority out of a sense of responsibility. It is not interested in formal positions of power. It is not seeking office. It is not trying to get people to vote. It has no resources. It can’t carry suitcases of money to congressional offices or run millions of dollars of advertisements. All it can do is ask us to use our bodies and voices, often at personal risk, to fight back. It has no other way of defying the corporate state. This rebellion creates a real community instead of a managed or virtual one. It affirms our dignity. It permits us to become free and independent human beings.
Martin Luther King was repeatedly betrayed by liberal supporters, especially when he began to challenge economic forms of discrimination, which demanded that liberals, rather than simply white Southern racists, begin to make sacrifices. King too was a radical. He would not compromise on nonviolence, racism or justice. He understood that movements—such as the Liberty Party, which fought slavery, the suffragists, who fought for women’s rights, the labor movement and the civil rights movement—have always been the true correctives in American democracy. None of those movements achieved formal political power. But by holding fast to moral imperatives they made the powerful fear them. King knew that racial equality was impossible without economic justice and an end to militarism. And he had no intention of ceding to the demands of the liberal establishment that called on him to be calm and patience. “For years, I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions in the South, a little change here, a little change there,” King said shortly before he was assassinated. “Now I feel quite differently. I think you’ve got to have a reconstruction of the entire system, a revolution of values.”

King was killed in 1968 when he was in Memphis to support a strike by sanitation workers. By then he had begun to say that his dream, the one that the corporate state has frozen into a few safe clichés from his 1963 speech in Washington, had turned into a nightmare. King called at the end of his life for massive federal funds to rebuild inner cities, what he called “a radical redistribution of economic and political power,” a complete restructuring of “the architecture of American society.” He grasped that the inequities of capitalism had become the instrument by which the poor would always remain poor. “Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism,” King said, “but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all of God’s children.” On the eve of King’s murder he was preparing to organize a poor people’s march on Washington, D.C., designed to cause “major, massive dislocations,” a nonviolent demand by the poor, including the white underclass, for a system of economic equality. It would be 43 years before his vision was realized by an eclectic group of protesters who gathered before the gates of Wall Street.

The truth of America is understood only when you listen to voices in our impoverished rural enclaves, prisons and the urban slums, when you hear the words of our unemployed, those who have lost their homes or cannot pay their medical bills, our elderly and our children, especially the quarter of the nation’s children who depend on food stamps to eat, and all who are marginalized. There is more reality expressed about the American experience by the debt-burdened young men and women protesting in the parks than by all the chatter of the well-paid pundits and experts that pollutes the airwaves.

What kind of nation is it that spends far more to kill enemy combatants and Afghan and Iraqi civilians than it does to help its own citizens who live below the poverty line? What kind of nation is it that permits corporations to hold sick children hostage while their parents frantically bankrupt themselves to save their sons and daughters? What kind of nation is it that tosses its mentally ill onto urban heating grates? What kind of nation is it that abandons its unemployed while it loots its treasury on behalf of speculators? What kind of nation is it that ignores due process to torture and assassinate its own citizens? What kind of nation is it that refuses to halt the destruction of the ecosystem by the fossil fuel industry, dooming our children and our children’s children?

“America,” Langston Hughes wrote, “never was America to me.”

“The black vote mean [nothing],” the rapper Nas intones. “Who you gunna elect/ Satan or Satan? In the hood nothing is changing,/ We aint got no choices.”

Or listen to hip-hop artist Talib Kweli: “Back in the ’60s, there was a big push for black … politicians, and now we have more than we ever had before, but our communities are so much worse. A lot of people died for us to vote, I’m aware of that history, but these politicians are not in touch with people at all. Politics is not the truth to me, it’s an illusion.”...

The liberal class functions in a traditional, capitalist democracy as a safety valve. It lets off enough steam to keep the system intact. It makes piecemeal and incremental reform possible. This is what happened during the Great Depression and the New Deal. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s greatest achievement was that he saved capitalism. Liberals in a functioning capitalist democracy are at the same time tasked with discrediting radicals, whether it is King, especially after he denounced the war in Vietnam, or later Noam Chomsky or Ralph Nader.

...The stupidity of the corporate state is that it thought it could dispense with the liberal class. It thought it could shut off that safety valve in order to loot and pillage with no impediments. Corporate power forgot that the liberal class, when it functions, gives legitimacy to the power elite. And the reduction of the liberal class to silly courtiers, who have nothing to offer but empty rhetoric, meant that the growing discontent found other mechanisms and outlets. Liberals were reduced to stick figures, part of an elaborate pantomime, as they acted in preordained roles to give legitimacy to meaningless and useless political theater. But that game is over."

Here in Anchorage, we have our own "Occupy" movement. The last two Saturday's have seen a few hundred people marching and carrying signs representing the movement around the central part of downtown, near our swank Performing Arts Centre and Museum. This past Saturday Mattie and I were able to attend and get a feel for the strength of it, and meet a few people. We arrived around 1500 in the afternoon.

The park square where the movement gathers is bounded by the two busiests streets coming in and out of Downtown Anchorage, 5th and 6th, which form the Glenn Highway, the only route north out of the city. There were people on both streets holding signs, above, and we were very heartened to hear and see nothing but support from the passing cars, honks and waves. Not a single disparaging comment. And, there were no police in evidence, either! It was a cool, drizzly day, about 4C (39F), but at least, not raining hard.

In the square between the two streets, about 150-200 people were gathered round, and some tents were set up, providing food, a library, and information about the "occupation". The plans are not to continuously occupy the square, as in NYC and other cities, but to keep returning on evenings and weekends. http://www.facebook.com/OccupyAnchorage

Non-violent civil disobedience training was offered shortly after we arrived, and we took part, as the basics were explained, which we were familiar with.

This lasted about a half-hour, then that was it for the organised events for the day. A planning meeting was set up for later in the week, for other events to follow.

We thought this young man's sign was interesting, and we checked out these links. They are worth looking into, check them out, see what you think. www.opensourceeocology.org www.verticalfarm.com www.windowfarms.org That's one neat thing about when idealistic, progressive people come together, we all can learn quite a bit from each other.

We were very encouraged by the support of the passing people, both on the street, and in their cars, for the movement, and by the lack of police presence. And we look forward to reporting on Occupy Anchorage's activities, as they develop. Our climate, obviously, isn't very encouraging of outdoor protests and civil disobedience type activities, at least for half the year, all the more reason to support them in their efforts, and join in when we can. Please join us. Viva La Revolucion!

EL PROYECTO MALASPINA

Your lead editor will not be able to attend any of the Occupy Anchorage activities the next few Saturday's, due to our long-planned trip to the Malaspina Glacier, the largest tidewater glacier in Alaska, on the Gulf of Alaska coast near Yakutat.

Our friends at Ground Truth Trekking, http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/About/, Hig and Erin, and their two small children, Lituya (9 months old), and Katmai (three years), are engaging in a remarkable journey, which started last 15 September, and which will end on 15 November. During which they are hiking/pack-rafting the edge of the Malaspina glacier from northwest to southeast, in about a 110 KM traverse, utilising a few pre-set caches of food and supplies. To document changes in this amazing glacial system of the last several decades, re-occupying sites, which in some cases, haven't been visited in 100 years.

http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/Journeys/LifeOnIce.html

Global warming is causing most of the glaciers in Alaska to rapidly recede, especially the lower-elevation source-region ones.

http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/Issues/ClimateChange/GlacierRetreatInAlaska.html

The Malaspina, though it's source region is in the highest elevations of the St. Elias mountains, is still receding, and in very interesting ways, which we'll be discussing when we return. And since global warming will be accelerating in the coming decades, the changes we'll show you, will be as well.

I am fortunate enough to be able to join them, for just 8 days, beginning this friday, with a couple other of their friends. We'll all be surveying the southern part of the glacier, taking photos and video. We won't be moving camp every day, probably just once or twice in the 8 days I'll be there, but doing day trips up onto the ice and around the edges and along the coast. Here are some scenes from their passage through the area in 2007:

http://groundtruthtrekking.org/PhotoGroups/Malaspina/.

Our intrepid assistant editor Mattie will have to remain here at the Chugach Front Research Centre unfortunately, but she will be in good hands and ready for action, when I return.

Needless to say, this is during the peak of the Gulf of Alaska fall storm season, which can offer up storms at any time with 80-160 kph winds (50-100 mph), along with heavy rain/snow. There haven't been any this strong yet, during Hig and Erin's time there, and hopefully the worst we'll see are ones half that strength. Between 1-2 day storms though, there are usually at least 1-2 nice days, where beautiful views of the wild coast, glacier, and St. Elias mountains come out. And which will enable us to work more, and move camp, when needed. This will be a good test of my best outdoor gear. Because we are right on the coast, temperatures will be fairly mild, -10C to +10C (18F to 50F), so the main issue will just be keeping dry in our tent, and outside, while we are working.

So forgive us for dropping out of contact for a few weeks. We'll be back on the 29th, and will share with you as quickly as possible, what transpired there, and our findings, in this amazing place. Cheers.

PRACTISING IDEALISTS [and] WHAT COMES NEXT...

2011-10-07T00:07:00.000-07:00

The following excerpts are from one of the A.P.R.'s favourite "New Age" library books. The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, by Jane Roberts.

http://www.amazon.com/Individual-Nature-Mass-Events-Seth/dp/1878424211/ref=sr_1_17?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317966180&sr=1-17

These paragraphs, though written in 1979, are exceptionally timely now, in light of the fast-growing and spreading "Occupy Wall Street" movement, taking hold across the U.S. And which we find greatly inspiring, and hopeful, for if the movement continues to grow, real and meaningful changes could occur. Labour unions are beginning to get involved, and even a few politicians, liberal Democrats of course, like Dennis Kucinich, and Bernie Sanders, are offering encouragement.

http://www.alternet.org/story/152622/this_is_only_getting_bigger%3A_20%2C000_rally_in_new_york_to_support_occupy_wall_street/?page=entire

"...Most readers of this book can be considered idealists in one way or another by themselves or others. Yet certainly in these pages we have presented several pictures of social and political realities that are far from ideal. We have tried to outline for you many beliefs that undermine your private integrity as individuals, and contribute to the very definite troubles in the current mass world.
   Very few people really act, again, from an evil intent. Any unfortunate situations in the fields of medicine, science, or religion result not from any determined effort to sabotage the "idea", but instead happen because men often believe that any means is justified in the pursuit of the ideal.

   When science seems to betray you, in your society, it does so because its methods are unworthy of its intent-so unworthy and so out of line with science's prime purpose that the methods themselves almost amount to an insidious antiscientific attitude that goes all unrecognised. The same applies to medicine, of course, when in its worthy purpose to save life, its methods often lead to quite unworthy experimentation, so that life is destroyed for the sake of saving, say, a greater number of lives. On the surface level, such methods appear sometimes regrettable but necessary, but the deeper implications far outdo any temporary benefits, for through such methods men lose sight of life's sacredness, and begin to treat it contemptuously.

   You will often condone quite reprehensible acts if you think they were committed for the sake of a greater good. You have a tendency to look for outright evil, to think in terms of "the powers of good and evil", and I am quite sure that many of my readers are convinced of evil's force. Evil does not exist in those terms, and that is why so many seemingly idealistic people can be partners in quite reprehensible actions, while telling themselves that such acts are justified, since they are methods toward a good end.

That is why fanatics feel justified in their actions. When you indulge in such black-and-white thinking, you treat your ideals shabbily. Each act that is not in keeping with that ideal begins to unravel the idea at its very core. As I have stated [several times], if you feel unworthy, or powerless to act, and if you are idealistic, you may begin to feel that the ideal exists so far in the future that it is necessary to take steps you might not otherwise take to achieve it. And when this happens, the ideal is always eroded. If you want to be a true practising idealist, then each step that you take along the way must be worthy of your goal.

In your country [the U.S.], the free enterprise system originated-change the word to "immersed"-is immersed in strange origins. It is based upon the democratic belief in each individual's right to pursue a worthy and equitable life. But that also [became] bound up with Darwinian ideas of survival of the fittest, and with the belief then, that each individual must seek his or her own good at the expense of others, and by the quite erroneous conception that all of the members of a given species are in competition with each other, and that each species is in further competition with each other species.

The "laws" of supply and demand are misconceptions based upon a quite uncomplimentary belief in man's basic greedy nature. In the past you treated the land in your country as if your species, being the "fittest", had the right to survive at the expense of all other species [and cultures, eds.], and at the expense of the land itself.

The ideal of the country was and is an excellent one: the right of each individual to pursue an equitable, worthy existence, with dignity. The means, however, have helped erode that ideal, and the public interpretation of Darwin's principles was, quite unfortunately, transferred to the economic area, and to the image of man as a political animal.

Religion and science alike denied other species any real consciousness.When man spoke of the sacredness of life-in his more expansive moods-he referred to human life alone. You are not in competition with other species, nor are you in any natural competition with yourselves. Nor is the natural world in any way the result of competitiveness among species. If that were the case you would have no world at all.

Individually, you exist physically because of the unsurpassed cooperation that exists just biologically between your species and all others, and on deeper levels because of the cellular affiliations that exist among the cells of all species.

...While you believed in competition, then competition became not only a reality, but an ideal. Children are taught to compete against each other. The child naturally "competes" against himself or herself in an urge to outdo old performance with new. Competition however, has been promoted as the ideal at all levels of activity. It is as if you must look to others to see how you are doing-and when you are taught not to trust your own abilities, then of course you need the opinions of others overmuch. I am not speaking of any playful competition, obviously, but of a determined, rigorous, desperate, sometimes almost deadly competition, in which a person's value is determined according to the number of individuals he or she has shunted aside.

   This is carried through in economics, politics, medicine, the sciences, and even the religions. So I would like to reinforce the fact that life is indeed a cooperative venture, and that all the steps taken toward the ideal must of themselves be life-promoting.

...In a manner of speaking, you must be a practising idealist if you are to remain a true idealist for long. You must take small practical steps, often when you would prefer to take giant ones-but you must move in the direction of your ideals through action. Otherwise you will feel disillusioned, or powerless, or sure, again, that only drastic, highly unideal methods will ever bring about the achievement of given ideal state or situation.

   ...It is not enough to meditate, or to imagine in your mind some desired goal being accomplished, if you are afraid to act upon the very impulses to which your meditations and imaginings give rise. When you do not take any steps forward toward an ideal position, then your life does lack excitement. You become depressed. You might become an idealist in reverse, so that you find a certain excitement in contemplating the occurrence of natural disasters, such as earthquakes. You may begin to concentrate your attention on such activities. You may contemplate the end of the world instead, but in either case you are propelled by a sense of personal frustration, and perhaps by some degree of vengeance, seeing in your mind the destruction of a world that fell so far beneath your idealised expectations.

   None of the unfortunate situations discussed in this book [Jonestown suicides, Three Mile Island, eds.] have any power over you, however, if you understand that events do not by themselves. All events and situations exist first within the mind. At the deepest levels of communication no news is secret, whether or not you receive it by way of your technological gadgets.

Your thoughts and beliefs and desires form the events that you view on television. If you want to change your world, you must first change your thoughts, expectations, and beliefs. If every reader of this book changed his or her attitudes, even though not one law was rewritten, tomorrow the world would have changed for the better. The new laws would follow.

Any new law always follows the change in belief. It is not the other way around.

...There is no civilisation, no system of science, art, or philosophy, that did not originate in the mind. When you give lip service to ideas with which you do not agree, you are betraying your own ideals, harming yourself to some extent, and society as well, insofar as you are denying yourself and society the benefit of your own understanding. Each person is an idealist. I simply want to help you practise your idealism in the acts of your daily life.

   Each person alive helps paint the living picture of civilisation as at exists at any given time, in your terms. Be your own artist. Your thoughts, feelings, and expectations are like the living brush strokes with which you paint your corner of life's landscape. If you do your best in your own life, then you are indeed helping to improve the quality of all life. Your thoughts are as real as snowflakes or raindrops or clouds. They mix and merge with the thoughts of others, to form man's livingscape, providing the vast mental elements from which physical events will be formed.

   ...You are involved in a cooperative venture, in which your slightest impulse has a greater meaning, and is intimately connected with all other actions. You have the power to change your life and the world for the better, but in doing so you must, again, reevaluate what your ideals are, and the methods that are worthy of them. Science and religion have each contributed much to man's development. They must also reevaluate their ideals and methods, however.

In larger terms, there are only scientific and religious men and women, however, and fields of science and religion would be meaningless without those individuals who believe in their positions. As those men and women enlarge their definitions of reality, the fields of science and religion must expand. You must be reckless in the pursuit of the ideal-reckless enough to insist that each step you take along the way is worthy of that ideal.

   You will understand, if you are a practising idealist, that you cannot kill in the name of peace, for if you do so your methods will automatically undermine your ideal. The sacredness of life and spirit are one and the same. You cannot condemn the body without ultimately condemning the soul. You cannot condemn the soul without ultimately condemning the body.

   I would like each of my readers to be a practising idealist, and, if you are then you will automatically be tolerant of the beliefs of others. You will not be unkind in the pursuit of your ideals. You will look upon the world with a sane compassion, with some humour, and you will look for man's basic good intent. You will find it. It has always been there. You will discover your own basic good intent, and see that it has been behind all of your actions-even in those least fitted to the pursuit of your private ideals.

The end does not justify the means. If you learn that lesson, then your good intent will allow you to act effectively and creatively in your private experience, and in your relationships with others. Your changed beliefs will affect the mental atmosphere of your nation and of the world.

   ...There is no event upon the face of the earth in which each of you has not played some part, however minute, because of the nature of your thoughts, beliefs, and expectations.

    There is no public act in which your are not in that same manner involved. You are intimately connected with all of the historic events of your time.

   To some extent you participated in putting a man on the moon, whether or not you had any connection at all with the physical occurrence itself. Your thoughts put a man on the moon as surely as any rocket did. You can become involved now in a new exploration, one in which man's civilisations and and organisations change their course, reflecting his good intents and his ideals. You can do this by seeing to it that each step you personally take is "ideally suited" to the ends you hope to achieve. You will see to it that your methods are ideal.

If you do this, your life will automatically be provided with excitement, natural zest and creativity, and those characteristics will be reflected outward into the social, politicial, economic, and scientific worlds. This is a challenge more than worth the effort. It is a challenge that I hope each reader will accept. The practising idealist...Give us a moment...When all is said and done, there is no other kind."

The "Occupy Wall Street" Movement began in earnest just a few weeks ago, with small demonstrations around Wall Street in New York City, and have quickly grown, and spread, and are meant to continue indefinitely, until, through direct action, politicians will be forced to begin acting on meaningful changes. Explicit demands of the movement are still evolving, but start with re-regulating the banking and financial industries, as they were before the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act in 1999 (by the Clinton Administration), investigation and prosecution of criminals in those "industries" who deliberately created and spread "toxic" investment programmes which nearly de-railed the global economy, investment by the federal government in massive public works/jobs programmes, to relieve the growing, crushing unemployment levels in the U.S., and very importantly, the revocation of "Corporate Personhood", by which means a coup has occurred, leaving the U.S. under a dangerous, sociopathic, corporatist government. Concerned only with corporate profits at the expense of other countries/peoples, and the environment, leading to aggressive warfare, massive unemployment/impoverishment across the globe, and accelerating environmental destruction.

One of our favourite authors, ex-New York Times reporter Chris Hedges, had this to say about the movement, in it's early stages:

http://www.truth-out.org/best-among-us/1317389455

The Best Among Us

Friday 30 September 2011

by: Chris Hedges, Truthdig | Op-Ed

An activist from the Occupy Wall Street movement is shown being arrested by police in New York on September 24, 2011. (Photo: Brennan Cavanaugh / Flickr)

There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history. Either you obstruct, in the only form left to us, which is civil disobedience, the plundering by the criminal class on Wall Street and accelerated destruction of the ecosystem that sustains the human species, or become the passive enabler of a monstrous evil. Either you taste, feel and smell the intoxication of freedom and revolt or sink into the miasma of despair and apathy. Either you are a rebel or a slave.

To be declared innocent in a country where the rule of law means nothing, where we have undergone a corporate coup, where the poor and working men and women are reduced to joblessness and hunger, where war, financial speculation and internal surveillance are the only real business of the state, where even habeas corpus no longer exists [and now can be murdered by a secret panel, with no due process, as a US citizen, eds], where you, as a citizen, are nothing more than a commodity to corporate systems of power, one to be used and discarded, is to be complicit in this radical evil. To stand on the sidelines and say “I am innocent” is to bear the mark of Cain; it is to do nothing to reach out and help the weak, the oppressed and the suffering, to save the planet. To be innocent in times like these is to be a criminal. Ask Tim DeChristopher.

Choose. But choose fast. The state and corporate forces are determined to crush this. They are not going to wait for you. They are terrified this will spread. They have their long phalanxes of police on motorcycles, their rows of white paddy wagons, their foot soldiers hunting for you on the streets with pepper spray and orange plastic nets. They have their metal barricades set up on every single street leading into the New York financial district, where the mandarins in Brooks Brothers suits use your money, money they stole from you, to gamble and speculate and gorge themselves while one in four children outside those barricades depend on food stamps to eat. Speculation in the 17th century was a crime. Speculators were hanged. Today they run the state and the financial markets. They disseminate the lies that pollute our airwaves. They know, even better than you, how pervasive the corruption and theft have become, how gamed the system is against you, how corporations have cemented into place a thin oligarchic class and an obsequious cadre of politicians, judges and journalists who live in their little gated Versailles while 6 million Americans are thrown out of their homes, a number soon to rise to 10 million, where a million people a year go bankrupt because they cannot pay their medical bills and 45,000 die from lack of proper care, where real joblessness is spiraling to over 20 percent, where the citizens, including students, spend lives toiling in debt peonage, working dead-end jobs, when they have jobs, a world devoid of hope, a world of masters and serfs.

The only word these corporations know is more. They are disemboweling every last social service program funded by the taxpayers, from education to Social Security, because they want that money themselves. Let the sick die. Let the poor go hungry. Let families be tossed in the street. Let the unemployed rot. Let children in the inner city or rural wastelands learn nothing and live in misery and fear. Let the students finish school with no jobs and no prospects of jobs. Let the prison system, the largest in the industrial world, expand to swallow up all potential dissenters. Let torture continue. Let teachers, police, firefighters, postal employees and social workers join the ranks of the unemployed. Let the roads, bridges, dams, levees, power grids, rail lines, subways, bus services, schools and libraries crumble or close. Let the rising temperatures of the planet, the freak weather patterns, the hurricanes, the droughts, the flooding, the tornadoes, the melting polar ice caps, the poisoned water systems, the polluted air increase until the species dies.

Who the hell cares? If the stocks of ExxonMobil or the coal industry or Goldman Sachs are high, life is good. Profit. Profit. Profit. That is what they chant behind those metal barricades. They have their fangs deep into your necks. If you do not shake them off very, very soon they will kill you. And they will kill the ecosystem, dooming your children and your children’s children. They are too stupid and too blind to see that they will perish with the rest of us. So either you rise up and supplant them, either you dismantle the corporate state, for a world of sanity, a world where we no longer kneel before the absurd idea that the demands of financial markets should govern human behavior, or we are frog-marched toward self-annihilation.

Those on the streets around Wall Street are the physical embodiment of hope. They know that hope has a cost, that it is not easy or comfortable, that it requires self-sacrifice and discomfort and finally faith. They sleep on concrete every night. Their clothes are soiled. They have eaten more bagels and peanut butter than they ever thought possible. They have tasted fear, been beaten, gone to jail, been blinded by pepper spray, cried, hugged each other, laughed, sung, talked too long in general assemblies, seen their chants drift upward to the office towers above them, wondered if it is worth it, if anyone cares, if they will win. But as long as they remain steadfast they point the way out of the corporate labyrinth. This is what it means to be alive. They are the best among us.

Click here to access OCCUPY TOGETHER, a hub for all of the events springing up across the country in solidarity with Occupy Wall St.

This is a hopeful time now in U.S. history, but also a dangerous one. The corporate elite who run the U.S. government are going to try every possibility to discredit and neutralise the Occupy movement. Beyond just the usual police harrassment and break-up of demonstrations, other tactics will be having undercover provocateurs trying to instigate acts of violence and/or vandalism, co-opting parts of it into larger, more "mainstream" groups, where it will slowly be strangled, or, in worst-case scenarios, a "false-flag" event of some sort, will be staged, a "terrorist" attack perhaps. Which will then, it is thought, lend more support to a real crack-down on activists. That is why it is so vitally important that everyone who is engaged in, and/or in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement always keep in mind that the means must remain worthy of the goals, i.e., using non-violent methods of non-cooperation and protest, to build a more sane and just society, and constantly articulate, feel, and visualise the kind of changes we wish to see. It has been very heartening to see lately, as well, that many of the protestors have been appealing to the NYPD, chanting sayings like "you NYPD are part of the 99% too!", and the police, some of them, have expressed solidarity. As they should, because all public employees are threatened by our current Corporate Regime.

Many in the news media have been critical of the movement for not being more specific with their demands, but as we wrote previously, there are basic ones that have been presented. To these, we here at the Alaska Progressive Review would like to add the following, and many others have suggested similarly:

1. Immediate revocation of the "Patriot Act", re-instatement of Habeus Corpus, investigation and prosecution for waging aggressive warfare, torture, and genocide, of officials from the Bush, and current Obama Administrations.

2. Immediate end to the wars and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, immediate cessation of the illegal and immoral drone attacks throughout the Middle East, and reparations to the countries affected.

3. Cutting the U.S. defense budget by 2/3, dismantling all of the 1000+ overseas military installations, and then involving current active duty military personnel in national and global infra-structure and disaster-relief projects (along with the newly-developed civilian programmes of a like nature).

4. Instituting fair and balanced taxation on all income tax levels, with a negative income tax at the lowest income levels to guarantee those who can't work, life (this was actually proposed in 1971 by then pres. Nixon, we kid you not!). A 0.5% financial speculation tax on all stock and investment trades.

5. A national health care system similar to all the other industrialised nations in Europe and Canada, which would save the U.S. government hundreds of billions of dollars.

6. Aggressive promotion and investment on alternative energy research, development, and rapid implementation, before runaway global warming causes irreverisible global sea level rises from the melting of Greenland's ice sheets.

7. Ending the "Drug War", legalisation of all drugs, combined with strict management of them, and investment in treatment programmes for addicts. Countries that have done/or doing this have seen great results in decreased addiction levels and lowering of crime rates.

8. Expropriation of (at fair market value) privately-run prisons back to the public sector, ending corruption and illegal/unfair imprisonment of vast numbers of people.

9. Changing federal tax codes to favour worker-owned business, businesses that will manufacture in the U.S., with living wages/benefits, cooperatives, and credit unions.

Many more could be articulated, but these are some things that if done, could truly make this country a just, sane, and inspirational one to the rest of the World.

WHAT COMES NEXT...

In case you missed it, a few days ago, the U.S. government murdered one of it's own citizens in another country, without any due process or court procedures, using a "drone" aircraft in Yemen, and in which, as with all these attacks, many innocent civilians were murdered. That means that the U.S. government, through a secret panel, answering to the president, has declared it legal to murder, not just civilians in any country, but U.S. citizens as well. Just how long do you think it will be then, if the current system is left unchecked, before progressive people/activists, will be targeted? Just as they were in Chile and throughout South and Central America in the 1970s-early 1990s.

Paul Craig Roberts, who used to be the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, in the Reagan Administration, and who has since become a strong progressive voice, wrote a very good summation of what this means, you can read it here:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/04/the-day-america-died/

However, we here at the A.P.R., are more hopeful now, that this can be stopped, and must, if we are to still have a supposedly "democratic" country, with our Constitution as our legal bound. Paul's recommendation that young people flee the country is unduly pessimistic at this point, and impractical. Do you think Canada, with a population of 30 million, could take in 10 million U.S. refugees, much less want to? Very improbable. All the more reason the Occupy Wall Street Movement must continue to grow and spread, and why we here at the A.P.R. fully support it, all of our very survival and well-being is at stake. Cheers.

A HIGHER PLAIN?

2011-09-29T21:37:00.000-07:00

It's common in "New Age" circles to refer to traveling into other states of consciousness, whether through focused trance-work using music, chanting, dance, or even psycho-active plants (which many cultures still use effectively, though they are not necessary), as visiting "higher planes".

As dedicated New Age beings ourselves, here at the A.P.R., we certainly agree, though we prefer to use "other" instead of "higher", as we feel that there are no "better", or "worse" states of being, they are all just parts of the whole, and it is our individual judgement and beliefs that may make them seem so.

In any event, it does seem to be the case, that high elevation land areas, on every continent, tend to foster more spiritually-based cultures, that most of the World accepts as so. Places like Tibet, and throughout the Himalayas and the mountains of Central Asia, the Altai Mountains of Siberia, the Andes in South America. And on this continent, the high desert regions of the southwestern U.S., home to the Pueblo, Hopi, and Dineh cultures.

[Laguna Verde, 4420 metres, Bolivia, M. Richmond, 10/2008]

What is it about these places, that seems to make us feel and think instinctively in more spiritual terms? And that tends to support cultures that seem to be more spiritually focused, than that of the "developed nations"?

When your lead author visited the Andes of Bolivia and Peru three years ago, it was not just with the intention of seeing these incredible landscapes, but also to gain inspiration, and learn from the cultures there. People with thousands of years of oral histories, who are only now just beginning to take charge of their political and economic destinies, after centuries of oppression, first from the Spaniards from 1520-1820, roughly, and then from their descendents in repressive oligarchies, usually with U.S. government support.

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2008/11/evo-si.html

[Volcan Illimani, Bolivia, 6520 metres, taken from 4900 metres, M. Richmond, 10,2008]

And so it was, that I was greatly inspired by the landscapes, and people of the Andes, especially Bolivia, in their struggles to re-make their societies in a more just and sustainable manner, reflective of the beliefs of their Indigenous majority population.

Here at home in Alaska, we have close at hand landscapes equally as spectacular as those I was so fortunate to have visited, in the Andes. And, that help inspire, and nurture us, spiritually, and physically, in our efforts to help foster and develop a politically and socio-economically more just and sustainable society. Which is not easy, given that the culture of Alaska, since the oil boom of the 1970s, has been changed, to what many people, ourselves included, feel to be one more similar to that found in Texas, or Louisiana.

At times, we feel despair of the trends we are seeing in U.S., and even global society to a certain extent, of the increased militarism, sociopathic greed, and hostility toward education and science. And the rise/support/use of fanatical fundamentalist cults/sects, to divide society, whether they are "Christian", as in the U.S., or Muslim, in the Middle East, by the "global elite", or "corporatocracy". It is at these times, that we flee into our local mountains, directly from our Chugach Front Research Centre, on bike, then foot, to restore our balance, and gain peace and inspiration.

We were fortunate enough to have a nice weather day this Tuesday past, and the company of our great friend Erik Skye, as we tried a new route, from the CFRC, "up" to the Middle Fork of Campbell Creek drainage, the Williwaw Lakes, and then back. 15 KM of biking, and 34 KM of hiking, which took us a total of just under 9 hours. Little did we know at the start, just how fortunate we were to be, on this day.

Leaving the front door at 1045 after some unexpected delays, the biking went very quickly. We stashed our bikes in a secret spot of the Spencer Loop, on the Hillside Park trail system, where brush and tall grass hid them from sight. Quickly ascending a secret cutoff, we then got onto the beginning of the Powerline Trail, and then to the Middle Fork Loop Trail. This goes through about 6-8 KM of prime bear habitat, tall grass/brush, near tree-line, but our intrepid assistant editor Mattie was there for our protection. We never did see or hear any in this area, but did come across a large pile of brown bear scat, as a trail marker/reminder, letting us know whose trail this really was. We then accessed the Williwaw Lakes Trail, which none of us had been on before, and headed in.

We saw about a dozen sheep grazing on the fall-coloured grass and tundra vegetation higher up on the northern wall slopes of the 800 metre deep canyon. They were too far away for Mattie to give chase, fortunately, as we did not want her to expend too much energy, this early, as we had much more distance and elevation to contend with. As it was, she was often flushing half-white ptarmigan from the grass and brush, who are in the process of changing their plumage to winter-white.

It was a rather moody day at first, with heavier clouds obscuring the higher peaks, still retaining their first heavy snowfall from the week before. The clouds would briefly part at times, allowing us to glimpse the semi-veiled higher heights. It was quite cool even here at the head of the canyon, at only around 762 metres (2500 ft) elevation, about 1-2C (34-36F). Smaller puddles on the trail were partially frozen, as was the ground underneath a top coat of thin mud, making for very treacherous footing at times. And also slowing our progress somewhat.

After about 90 minutes of hiking up the canyon, we hit the first of the small lakes in the Williwaw Lakes chain, and took a break for lunch. It was even colder here, right about 0C, with a few snow flurries. Whilst eating, and gazing at this little lake, we realised, this was an exceptional day!

Because there was no wind on this day, not even the slightest of a breeze that would ruffle the surface of these lakes. And hence, they were all, perfect mirrors! Because they are so cold and clean, with crystal-clear water. Previous experiences in these higher plains/canyons in the Chugach Mountains were always punctuated by gale and even storm force winds throughout the year, and one look at these flagged hemlock trees confirms just how windy of places these are. Because when low pressure systems are located to our south, in the Gulf of Alaska, which is a favoured place for them, the northeast-east-southeast flow around them funnels and whips through these similarly-oriented drainages. But on this day, a large upper-level low pressure system was covering all of South-Central Alaska, with almost zero wind-flow from the surface even up to 3000 metres or more. So there was some instability for light snow-showers, but also some breaks between. There are very few days like this in the Chugach mountains, probably less than ten per year.

We were quickly entranced and inspired, that we should be so lucky to experience this, and set about to a frenzy of photo-shooting, before any wind might come up and ruffle the lake surfaces.

The views up to the head of canyon, walled by the 1525-1662 metre (5000-5450') peaks behind were just as beautiful, the partially veiled, snowy crags reminded me of some the higher peaks in the Andes, or pictures I've seen from the Himalayas. And yet, here we were, just four hours in by bike and foot, from the CFRC.

The clarity of these waters, this is the largest of the lakes, Williwaw, was absolutely astounding, never equalled in my experience. Combined with the mirrorring of the surrounding terrain and vegetation in them, it left me in a deeply contemplative, almost trance-like state. Is this what we are always seeking, in our "higher plains/planes"?

Looking toward the northwest, down-canyon, there was more clearing, and hence, the reflections in the larger Williwaw Lake, from it's southeast side, had mixes of cloud and sun.

We spent about an hour and a half here, transfixed, inspired, renewed, and amazed, before we came to the realisation, that we had a long trek ahead of us back, and would need to leave, if we wished to regain our bikes for that part of the trip, in daylight.

There is a side-route, up a steep notch in the valley of the Middle Fork of the Campbell Creek canyon, that leads past another beautiful mirror lake, at the base of 1556 metre (5105') O'Malley Peak. This route goes past the lake then up a very steep 150 metre wall, which then takes you to the "ballfield", an interesting, almost-level, glacially scoured 1-2 KM wide plain, above 1000 metres elevation. This very steep route proved quite challenging, and left us all quite winded when we reached the top. But we were continually inspired by views like this:

The steep rock walls of O'Malley peak, whose snow-covered top was still sheathed in the mists of light snow showers, in the early evening sun. We were moving quickly now though, to stay warm, and to make sure we reached our bikes in the mild, forested lowlands below, in daylight, so we could bike back to the CFRC with the ability to see any moose or bear that may be present.

Up on "the ballfield' it was still practically calm, and the evening light was very beautiful, looking back east, to O'Malley Peak, it's rocky crags now mostly in the clear.

We made quick work of the last 20 KM of our day though, heading down from "the ballfield", over to the Powerline Trail, then down that, to the Spencer Loop and our bikes. From there, it was just a quick 20 minutes zipping mostly downhill on those, to the CFRC. It has to be said, that our assistant editor Mattie, is possessed of incredible speed and endurance. During this last part of the trek, whilst we were biking, sometimes at 45 KPH downhill, she was running just as fresh, as earlier during the day. All told, with all of her side-trips, bird flushings, and other excursions, she must have easily covered 150-200 KM, versus our 49. Now that is inspiring!

This trek, with it's incredible views and conditions, right from our door, ranks among our most refreshing and inspiring we've ever undertaken. Helping us to regain some balance in our lives, without requiring us to drive or fly long distances, and carry/pack large amounts of gear. We truly are fortunate to be able to do this. Come join us, if you are ever able, we will be happy to lead you, to "higher plains". Cheers.

SIX METRES UNDER [and] HEADING UP THE PASS

2011-09-11T22:07:00.000-07:00

SIX METRES UNDER

No, we are not writing about the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, and Pentagon, in the US. Terrible, murderous tragedies, and crimes they were, with devastating consequences for the people there, and eventually, throughout the Middle East. There have been many good articles written these last few days about this anniversary, so here are a few, if you are so inclined.

This one, below, by Chris Hedges, sums the situation up quite nicely. He was actually there in NYC and a witness to World Trade Center attacks.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/11-7

In addition, this article, by Noam Chomsky, below, offers his always insightful analysis on the bigger geopolitical picture, of the events.

http://www.truth-out.org/after-911-was-war-only-option/1315582873
No folks, what we are writing about today is of much more significance to us all, than what happened in New York City and Washington DC ten years ago. And yet, you won't be hearing much about it in the US corporate media. This is from a French news agency. The Arctic ocean sea ice concentration, as of today, has reached a new record low, since accurate measurements began, in 1972. This is a very serious trend/occurrence, which we'll be discussing in more detail, after the article. Note especially the title of it. It would almost be funny, but really, tragic, to listen to the crackpot GOP/Fascist party presidential candidates, if they were asked to comment on the findings presented here (which they won't be).

Published on Sunday, September 11, 2011 by Agence France-Presse

Arctic Ice Cover Hits Historic Low, Due to Global Warming Says Scientists

The area covered by Arctic sea ice reached its lowest point this week since the start of satellite observations in 1972, German researchers announced.

"On September 8, the extent of the Arctic sea ice was 4.240 million square kilometers. This is a new historic minimum," said Georg Heygster, head of the Physical Analysis of Remote Sensing Images unit at the University of Bremen's Institute of Environmental Physics.

The new mark is about half-a-per cent under his team's measurements of the previous record, which occurred on September 16, 2007, he said.

According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), the record set on that date was 4.1 million sq km. The discrepancy, Heygster explained by phone, was due to slightly different data sets and algorithms.

"But the results are internally consistent in both cases," he said.
Arctic ice cover plays a critical role in regulating Earth's climate by reflecting sunlight and keeping the polar region cool. Retreating summer sea ice - 50 per cent smaller in area than four decades ago - is described by scientists as both a measure and a driver of global warming, with negative impacts on a local and planetary scale.It is also further evidence of a strong human imprint on climate patterns in recent decades, the researchers said.

"The sea ice retreat can no more be explained with the natural variability from one year to the next, caused by weather influence," Heygster said in an statement released by the university.

"Climate models show, rather, that the reduction is related to the man-made global warming which, due to the albedo effect, is particularly pronounced in the Arctic."

Albedo increases when an area once covered by reflective snow or ice - which bounces 80 per cent of the Sun's radiative force back into space - is replaced by deep blue sea, which absorbs the heat instead.

Temperatures in the Arctic region have risen more than twice as fast as the global average over the last half century.

The Arctic ice cover has also become significantly thinner in recent decades, though it is not possible to measure the shrinkage in thickness as precisely as for surface area, the statement said.

Satellite tracking since 1972 shows that the extent of Arctic sea ice is dropping at about 11 per cent per decade.

NSIDC director Mark Serreze has said that summer ice cover could disappear entirely by 2030, leaving nothing but heat-trapping "blue ocean."

The NSIDC likewise monitors Arctic ice cover on a daily basis, but has not announced record-low ice cover. Data posted on its website as of Saturday only covered the period through September 6.
By last week, it said, sea ice is almost completely gone from the channels of the Northwest Passage. The southern route - also known as Amunden's Route - was also ice free, as was the Northern Sea Route along Siberia.

But even as the thaw opens shipping lanes, it disrupts the lives and livelihoods of indigenous peoples, and poses a severe threat to fauna, including polar bears, ice seals and walruses, conservation groups say.

"This stunning loss of Arctic sea ice is yet another wake-up call that climate change is here now and is having devastating effects around the world," said Shaye Wolf, climate science director at the Center for Biological Diversity in San Francisco.

The last time the Arctic was incontestably free of summertime ice was 125,000 years ago, during the height of the last major interglacial period, known as the Eemian. Air temperatures in the Arctic were warmer than today, and sea level was also four to six meters higher because the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets had partly melted. Global average temperatures today are close to the maximum warmth seen during the Eemian.

Ok folks, here's the bad news. As we've documented in previous articles on Global Warming,

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/12/what-seems-likely-based-on-what-weve.html

and,

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2010/08/how-close-are-we-now.html

and, as the above article reminds us, the last time atmospheric CO2 levels were as high as they are now, 390 ppm, global sea levels were up to six metres (that's about 20 feet) higher. That would put a sizable chunk of Florida under, much of the Gulf of Mexico coastal margins, all the access routes here into Anchorage, and worst of all, low-lying areas in Asia home to billions of people (portions of India, Bangladesh, Indo-China, Malaysia, Thailand, etc..).

Also remember, in 40 more years, since nothing is being done to limit CO2 and methane emissions from fossil-fuel combustion, and indeed, with the development of the Alberta Tar Sands, an incredibly destructive and massive CO2-releasing project,

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/24-3

global atmospheric CO2 concentrations will have reached 510-550 ppm. It's clear now from researchers studying the geologic record, and measuring CO2 levels in the atmosphere from 100,000 to 250,000 years ago (from trapped air frozen in glaciers, core samples from all over the World have been analysed), that global sea-levels rise in lock-step with CO2 concentrations. And that the ancient CO2 increases were likely due to naturally occurring volcanism. These sea-level rises were caused by the melting of parts of the Greenland Ice Sheet, due to the warming from the increased CO2 concentrations.

The key question is, how long will it take for the Greenland melting to occur, which will then cause sea levels to "catch up" with the increased CO2 levels we've been, and will be seeing. This is why the decreasing Arctic sea ice is so crucial to the picture. Because more open water now in the Arctic is a "positive feedback". Open water absorbs tremendous amounts of heat from the sun, and slowly releases it through the course of the year. This also means, it becomes more difficult, if not impossible, for the ensuing season(s) ice cover in the Arctic to become as thick, and long-lasting, as previously. It takes longer to freeze in the fall, freezes thinner over the winter, and then is able to melt off faster in spring and summer. Allowing more solar radiation to be absorbed, continuing/amplifying the cycle. In addition, frozen methane deposits still present in the Arctic permafrost, and underwater in the shallower waters of the Arctic ocean, are vulnerable to melting with the increasing warming occurring in the Arctic. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, 22X more powerful than CO2. Uncontrolled emissions of this would be catastrophic to the global climate system. There are signs that this is beginning to occur. http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/31-9

More heat from the Arctic ocean then, will be able to melt the glaciers/ice sheets in Greenland faster, which will then bring about the six metre or more (because remember, we'll be at 550 ppm CO2 by 2051) sea level rises. This is why we came up with the projections we did, from our scenario from the year 2045. http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2010/06/run.html

A very interesting web-site, The Cryosphere Today, allows you to extract global sea ice imagery/data, and even look at side-by-side comparisons, from different dates.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

Here is a side-by-side comparison of the Arctic sea ice, 30 years apart, as measured by polar-orbiting satellites. It doesn't take a physicist to see the trend here. Note how much more open water is now present along the Alaskan, Canadian, and Eastern Siberian coastlines. This greater extent of open water not only absorbs more heat, but also transfers more moisture to the atmosphere, affecting global weather patterns and causing more frequent heavy-precipitation events and flooding.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2011/2011-03-02-02.html

Will humanity be able to adapt to these coming changes quickly enough? If sea level rises of six metres or more were to occur in 20-40 years, would the different countries affected be able to re-build infra-structure, ports, terminals, etc.., in time to keep up with this? Because what we take for granted as "civilisation" is dependent upon the global transfer of resources, food, oil, timber, minerals/ores/metals, manufactured products, almost all by shipping. What will happen if that is disrupted? This is the future we will be facing, 30-50 years from now. Even if massive full-scale efforts were undertaken by all the "developed" countries of the World to limit greenhouse gas emissions, and transition to renewable, non-emitting energy sources immediately, this is still going to happen. But since the current global predatory capitalistic structure, epitomised by the U.S. socio-political-economic system, is so entrenched, and continually being spread by force of arms throughout the World due to multi-national corporate greed, this is not going to happen for at least 15 to 20 more years. That's how we see it here at the Alaska Progressive Review.

HEADING UP THE PASS

Friday last, the staff of the Alaska Progressive Review decided we needed a fast-pack, one of our 40-65 KM one-day hikes, to enjoy a rare, dry, sunny fall day. We had two goals in mind, to do it all on foot/bike from the Chugach Front Research Centre, and, to reach a spot where we could spread the ashes of our departed former research assistant Homer, in a place he used to enjoy.

We started the day at 0830 in the company of our friend Celine Van Breukelen, who wished to accompany us, at least part of the way. We biked the first 3 km or so to the base of the Konoya Point trail, which is also our daily running trail. Stashing the bikes here, we started up the steep, but beautiful forested route. Unfortunately, at about the 400 metre level, we came upon a large pile of very fresh brown bear scat. No more than a few hours old.

This was bad news. Several hikers had been charged by a brown bear near here over three weeks ago. Since Celine was going to turn back early, she would have had to come back through here by herself, without the protection from our intrepid assistant editor Mattie. We decided it was not worth the risk, and headed back down.

All was not lost. We then biked down to the Spencer Loop, in the Hillside Park ski trail network. Stashing our bikes halfway up the largest hill on the loop, we then started walking up the "secret cutoff" from it, that connects to the beginning of the Powerline Trail.

From here, it was fast and easy hiking, we quickly jumped on to the Middle Fork Loop Trail, which angles back on the north side of the South Fork of Campbell Creek Canyon, toward the Powerline Trail, on the other side, eventually re-connecting. After a few hours, Celine had to turn back, but at least she didn't have to worry so much about potential brown bear encounters. Heading further in up the Middle Fork Loop Trail, we could see the beautiful fall colours on the adjacent hillsides.

This trail eventually crosses the South Fork of Campbell Creek, and then connects with the Powerline Trail.

By the time Mattie and I got a few more KM in on this, it was already 2pm, and time for lunch. But we were seeing some nice sights already, like this coyote prowling around.

I always love seeing wild canids when we travel, so this was a treat.

Even Mattie was interested, but not threatened, she didn't try and give chase.

We decided to head up the trail to Ship Lake Pass. A place we all loved, and which Homer really enjoyed being in, he'd been with us there on four different expeditions. Just before heading in on this trail, the fall colours on 1433 metre "The Wedge" were particularly beautiful, with the mountain hemlock trees in the foreground.

It took another 90 min. to ascend the 8 KM up to the 1268 metre pass. It was quite cool and windy up there, easily 50-70 kph winds, with a temperature of 5-6C (39-41F). But the views up here are always stunning, and the fact that we could reach this in six hours on foot/bike from the CFRC, was even better.

Before I could do anything else, after reaching the top of the pass, Mattie was off, racing after these sheep. They are way too fast for her though, so she had no way of catching them. She came back very winded after just a half KM of that!

After putting on extra layers and warming up, it was time to release Homer's ashes back into the environment, in this incredibly beautiful place he loved. Now he's at home here.

This is the view looking east, toward the highest peaks in the Chugach. We've been here in every season now, and still can't get enough.

At the bottom of the pass, jewel-like Ship Lake gleams in the cool autumn sunshine. This is our backyard, and we will always make trips in here every year, on foot and bike, from the Chugach Front Research Centre. How fortunate we are.

Mattie, of course, is completely at home and in her element here in these settings. Always "on it", that is, on alert for the approach of other animals, or people, completely fearless and ready to protect your lead editor, and whoever else might be along on our trips. Thank you Mattie!

After spending about a half-hour up on the pass, enjoying the view, and remembering the wonderful times we had with Homer here, it was time for the long trek back.

About halfway back to the Powerline trail, we spied three moose off to the side. I asked Mattie not to bother them, and she listened, staying by my side, while we enjoyed watching them browse in the fall sun. But not for too long, we still had a good 20 KM or more of hiking, and then some biking, to do.

By the time we made it back to the CFRC, 12 hours had passed, and we reckon that I had walked about 48 KM, and biked about 13. Mattie, with all her side trips, and detours, easily must have done two to three times that. But she can't help herself, with her abundant, exuberant energy, and it always inspires me, just watching her. We were very happy we accomplished our goals and were able to put Homer to rest, in his beautiful Pass. Cheers.

LOVE IS

2011-08-31T00:33:00.000-07:00

HOMER ca. 1996-2011

    "Like had been replaced by love. And love was the plummet dropped down into the deeps of him
where like he had never gone. And responsive, out his deeps, had come the new thing-love. That which he was given unto him did he return. This was a god indeed, a love god, a warm and radiant god, in whose nature White Fang expanded as a flower expanded under the sun.
     But White Fang was not demonstrative. He was too old, too firmly molded, to become expressing himself in new ways. He was too self-possessed, too strongly poised in his isolation. Too long he had cultivated reticence, aloofness, and moroseness. He had never barked in his life, and he could not now learn to bark a welcome when his master approached. He was never in the way, never extravagant nor foolish in the expression of his love. He never ran to meet his god. He waited at a distance, but he always waited, was always there. His love partook of the nature of worship, dumb, inarticulate, a silent adoration. Only by the steady regard of his eyes did he express his love, and by the unceasing following of his eyes, of his god's every movement. Also at times, when his god looked at him, and spoke to him, he betrayed an awkward self-consciousness, caused by the struggle of his love to express itself and his physical inability to express it.
    He learned to adjust himself in many ways to his new mode of life. It was borne in upon him that he must let his master's dogs alone. Yet his dominant nature asserted itself, and he had first to thrash them into an acknowledgement of his superiority and leadership. This accomplished, he had little trouble with them. They gave trail to him when he came and went or walked among them, and when he asserted his will, they obeyed.
   In the same way, he came tolerate Matt-as a possession of his master. His master rarely fed him; Matt did that, it was his business; yet White Fang divined that it was his master's food he ate, and that it was his master who thus fed him vicariously. Matt it was who tried to put him into the harness and make him haul sled with the other dogs. But Matt failed. It was not until Weedon Scott put the harness on White Fang, and worked him, that he understood. He took it as his master's will that Matt should drive him and work him just as he worked and drove the master's other dogs.
   Different from the Mackenzie toboggans were the Klondike sleds with runners under them. And different was the method of driving the dogs. There was no fan-formation of the team. The dogs worked in single-file, one behind the other, hauling on double traces. And here, in the Klondike, the leader was indeed the leader, and the team obeyed him and feared him; the wisest, as well as the strongest dog was the leader. That White Fang should quickly gain the post was inevitable. He could not be satisfied with less, after Matt learned with much inconvenience and trouble. White Fang picked out the post for himself, and Matt backed his judgement with strong language after the experiment had been tried. But, though he worked in the sled during the day, White Fang did not forego the guarding of his master's property in the night. Thus he was on duty all of the time, ever vigilant and faithful, the most valuable of the dogs." Jack London, WHITE FANG, 1906.

The Alaska Progressive Review, and our friends and family, were saddened by the passage of our enduring, warm, and gentle research assistant, Homer, earlier this week. He lost his will to live after suffering through great arthritis pain, and looming incapacitation. But he was always an inspiration to us, with his strong presence, quiet dignity, and great courage.

Very little is known about Homer's childhood. It was said by my friend Rebecca Chandler's ex-husband, Eric Nicolier, who was a musher, that he had been obtained from the Athabascan village of Tanana, northeast of Fairbanks, at an early age. Which probably explains his wolfiness, some wolves must have mingled in those Tanana sled dogs at some point, and bred with them. Which can happen anywhere in the state, where there are large open mushing kennels.

Homer served as Erik's lead dog on their team, when they completed the grueling 13-day Yukon Quest, sled dog race, the toughest in the World, in 2000. Much colder, with steeper terrain at times, from Fairbanks to Whitehorse, in Mid-February, than the Iditarod in western Alaska, which is in March. Temperatures of -25 to -45C are common most of the time, most years. Eric made another attempt in 2004 with Homer as lead, but complications from four female team-mates coming into heat simultaneously, interrupted their bid.
http://www.yukonquest.com/site/about-yukon-quest/

I first met Homer in 2001, when I befriended Rebecca Chandler, in Fairbanks that year. I immediately was captivated, he was truly imposing, in his role as alpha male of all the 34 dogs her husband Eric had. He enforced a harsh discipline from the other dogs, but never unfairly, or excessively. When Eric and Rebecca split up in 2005, Homer became Rebecca and 5-year old daughter Isabel's family dog, and guardian.
I always looked forward to seeing him those years, when he was in charge of their security. He still retained more of his wolfish craftiness then, often getting in trouble for getting into or stealing things. Rebecca and Isabel left Fairbanks for better opportunities in Oregon, in 2008, and Homer wound up at a new home. When Rebecca came back to visit Fairbanks in June, 2009, she took him back. He wasn't getting any attention, just tied up out back most of the time. She brought him over to me, he was about 6-7 kg overweight, had no real spark, and was seemingly becoming disconnected from life.
Rebecca asked if I could take him in. I jumped at the chance, I've always admired him. This is what he looked like just a week after that, while we were dipnetting for salmon on the Copper River with our friend Erik. Homer was still overweight, and a little distant. But after a few more weeks of slowly increasing runs, good food, and lots of attention, he lost the weight, and, his spark returned.

From that point on, he was fully engaged as the beautiful, gentle, and protective companion he became to us for the next two years.

He loved our pack trips to places like the weird ancient weathered outcroppings on 1610 metre Mt. Prindle, 120 KM east of Fairbanks in September, 2009. Probably his most interesting trip, and one of our most enjoyable, was our Labour Day weekend 2009 canoe/packraft float a few weeks before, from the Tangle Lakes west of Paxson, out through the Delta River, onto the Richardson Highway, near Black Rapids.

About 48 km of canoeing, with Erik and his son Shane, and daughter Megan, over three days. Homer had never been in a canoe, and behaved admirably. Never moving or causing any instability. Mattie was not so well-behaved, and was escorted out of the canoe occasionally, where she instead swam with her lifejacket on. While I followed behind in my packraft. I was amazed. But he is very intelligent. I only ever had to go to a place once with him, and the second time, he always would remember where we were.

He loved all our winter expeditions, no matter how cold, always happy and healthy all day in temperatures down to -35C.

Once we moved to Anchorage in May, 2010, he quickly grew to enjoy our runs and hikes in our adjoining Chugach mountains, where he was completely at home and in his element.

He started to slow down a little this past winter, and had to have two operations, to have leg tumors removed, in February, and June. But he never wanted to stop or slow down.

He even made it to the top of 1620 metre The Ramp, in July, a steep, rocky trek up in the fog across loose talus. In all our trips, he was very wise in his decisions and encounters, with traps, snares, porcupines, moose, and black and brown bears. Which Mattie was still learning, but has, under his guidance.

Just over three weeks ago, as we were running down our daily trail, the trail to Konoya Point, a sow black bear and two cubs came strolling up. He and Mattie immediately got between us, and escorted the bears away from the trail, with him in front! They came back a minute later in perfect shape.

His last pack trip with us, three weeks ago, in the Talkeetna mountains, enabled him for one last time to be out in his element, free to do as wished, completely unfettered. He greatly enjoyed this, for which we are all greatful.

We know he is now happy, pain-free, and running again, as long and as far as he can, in the Next World. We will always remember his over two years of loyal, affectionate presence with us as our research assistant, as he helped us in all our daily endeavours, and helped protect us from all the hazards we face here. Run in Peace Homer!

TALKEETNA'S TASTER [and] WHO KNEW?

2011-08-22T00:31:00.000-07:00

TALKEETNA'S TASTER

This past week the A.P.R. staff felt the need to get out on at least a short pack trip, in the waning days of our ephemeral sub-arctic summer, in a somewhat lesser-traveled area. Namely, in the Talkeetna mountains, north of the Matanuska Valley. These mountains cover a large area, and are completely roadless, and hence, as close to true wilderness, as we have here south of the Alaska Range. They range in elevation from 1800 to 2700 metres (6000-8870 ft), with some glaciers on the highest peaks. On our trip though, in the eastern part of the Talkeetna range, from the Hicks Lake trail, they are sheltered to the south by the 3000-4017 metre (10000-13176 ft) highest peaks of the Chugach Range, and so are completely unglaciated, even up to elevations of 2140 metres (7020 ft).

We fled the urban madness of Los Anchorage, as we call it, early last Tuesday afternoon, and arrived at the trailhead around 1700, it was a 160 km drive from the Chugach Front Research Centre. We quickly realised that this “trail”, which is really a 4-wheeler route for hunters going in here, was going to be a mess. Full of huge holes filled with water and very slippery mud.

It’s only about 6.5 km (4.1 miles), from the trailhead, to a 960 metre (3150 ft) pass. So it’s a little steep after the first couple km in.

Looking back south, just before the pass though, the higher 2500+ metre peaks of the Chugach range come into view, with quite a bit of new snow on them, above about the 2000 metre level (not unusual for this time of year). That’s one thing people in the lower 48 need to realise about trekking in Alaska. 2000 metres here (6560 ft) is like 4000+ metres (13,100 ft) in the Rockies or Sierra, in terms of weather conditions and duration of snow cover, so caution and careful preparation is necessary any time we venture above even 1000 metres, in Alaska, all through the year.

We got in about 10 km in two hours, just over the pass, and decided to set up camp for the night. Even here, as you can see, at 980 metres, it’s essentially above tree-line, with just grass and small shrubs. The trail was even worse in this area, than from the start, since it’s north-facing, and hence, dries very slowly, if at all, from the rains of summer. The wettest time in this part of Alaska is from about mid-July through September, when weak low pressure systems from the Gulf of Alaska, or the Bering Sea, come inland, before the jet stream starts to drop a little further south during the fall. Our veteran research assistant Homer was completely at home here, enjoying his time free from the constraints of life at the urban edge, where the CFRC is perched.

One nice thing about mid-August though, which helps make up for the muddy, wet conditions, is that the mosquitoes and gnats are almost completely gone by this time. We were able to sit out comfortably in the evening, reading, and enjoying the scenery, without having to wear a head-net, or keep swatting.

The next day, Wednesday, we broke camp, and were on the trail by 1000. We noticed though, that the skies were darkening to our south, and some weather would soon be moving in. However, we also knew that the higher peaks of the Chugach, to our south, would block much of the worst of the incoming system.

By 1200, we had gone in about another 6.5 km, and reached the south end of Hicks Lake. The trail from last night’s camp to this point was even worse, if that were possible. Endless dodging around huge water-holes in jello-like mud, with three stream-crossings to boot. But there was a nice dry flat spot, near the lake, which had good water for cooking/drinking, so we wanted to set up a base camp here, then hit the high country with just a lighter pack containing all the food and water, and do some ridge-hopping. But first, we waited for the weather to come through. Just about an hour, of rain and wind, and then skies cleared, and it became quite nice. I was able to dry out all my sweaty clothes from the day before after setting up camp. By 1400, we headed up an old 4-wheeler track that went straight up a ridge to almost the 1830 metre (6000 ft) level, in nice gentle sunshine, with a temperature near 15C (60F).

From down below at the 950 metre valley level, the 2000 metre summit of Chitna peak beckoned, and was our objective. We didn’t quite make it though, just about 100 metres shy of the summit. A steep rocky gulch separated us from the ridge we were on, to it, and Homer was still recovering from his leg surgery, so I didn’t want him to overdo it.

But as we ascended up the steep old route, and then struck out on our own across the tundra, above 1524 metres (5000 ft), we saw some caribou, and lots of other interesting sights. Our favourite, by far, time of this whole trip, was our few hours spent up on the 1830 metre (6000 ft) ridge, where we had incredible views, which were not possible, from down below.

Up around 1700 metres (5576 ft), we came across the biggest marmot, I have ever seen. Fortunately Mattie didn’t see it before I did, so I could get a few pictures. She was off after it though, as soon as she saw it. It just did it’s unique long one-note whistle to warn it’s compadres around, then dove underground. Mattie has some hunting instincts, but she’s never yet caught anything.

The ridgetop we made it up to at 1890 metres (6200 ft.) was beautiful, high and exposed on three sides. We spent about 30 minutes up here enjoying the view, before another shot of showers and cold wind approached.

The view to the east was our favourite, the following ridges over had colors reminiscent of areas in Denali NP like Polychrome Pass, with the nice green velvet tundra below and clear alpine ponds. Even better, was that we could just barely see sheep in the bottom of that beautiful little valley, 150 metres below us.

But when I zoomed all the way in on my camera to 16X, they all came clearly into view. There were about 20 of them scattered around different areas.

It's very safe in there for them. No one can even see this valley unless you get on these ridges, or come in from it’s north entrance, which requires negotiating about 30 km of muddy, wet trail from the Glenn Highway.

Looking north, you can see how this little valley’s entrance is in that direction. And how vast this treeless terrain stretches. Other than just a few lower drainages with shrubs and black spruce in them, it’s mostly tundra or rock all the way north to the Alaska Range. With no roads, visitors are scarce in this large area, since access would be very difficult and time-consuming, unless they were flown in.

Another band of showers was approaching by 1630 in the afternoon, so we decided to head back. It was getting quite chilly there, probably around 6-7C (43-45F), with a good 30-40 kph breeze. It was raining by the time we descended a few hundred metres.

We got back to camp in a light rain around 1800, and had our dinner. Unfortunately, it was too cold and windy and showery to stay out that night, so I was mostly in my tiny ultra-light Big Agnes SL-1 tent, it only weighs 0.9 kg packed! Yet is big enough for a full-sized person, and their pack. It kept me dry in gale force winds and moderate rain all night last year, in our pack trip up into the Chugach mtns. behind the CFRC.

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2010/08/going-neutral.html

The next day though, the weather dawned dry and mostly sunny. So we had a nice leisurely morning packing up, and then heading back out. This time, I remembered all the worst areas along that sloppy, muddy trail, and was able to find some shortcuts and remember what to do. So it went faster, and easier, than on the way in. We saw a few moose in the distance, but no bears, that day, or the previous two. We see more in our neighbourhood! We just had in fact, our favourite running trail from the CFRC, up to Konoya point, closed last week due to a brown bear charging hikers near a moose kill. That was on our regular, daily running route. Now we have to use an alternate for a few weeks.

It only took us about 4 ½ hours to negotiate the 13 km back to the trailhead. The route down from the pass on the south side was quite steep, so it was a lot faster, than on the way in. All in all, we certainly got what we needed on this trip, and the wet, muddy, slippery trail in and out, while difficult, was worth the effort. Because once you can get on the drier ridges, the views are incredible, and the conditions much easier. It might be worth coming in much earlier in summer, before the heavier rains, say June to early July. The bugs would be much worse, and some snow on the ridges could be a problem, but the going on the main Hicks Lake trail, would likely be much easier.

WHO KNEW?

We sure didn’t here at the A.P.R. About this really interesting article, which saws essentially that the U.S. government is breaking the law, by not guaranteeing full employment! Give this fascinating article a read, you’ll be amazed, as we were.

http://warisacrime.org/content/lost-debt-ceiling-debate-legal-duty-create-jobs

Lost in the Debt Ceiling Debate: The Legal Duty to Create Jobs

By Jeanne Mirer and Marjorie Cohn



The debate about the debt ceiling should have been a conversation

about how to create jobs. It is time for progressives to remind the

government that it has a legal duty to create jobs, and must act

immediately – if not through Congress, then through the Federal

Reserve.



With official unemployment reaching over 9%, the unofficial rate in

double digits, and the unemployment rate for people of color more than

double that of whites, it is nerve wracking to hear right wing

political pundits say the government cannot create jobs. Do people

really believe this canard? On “Real Time with Bill Maher” a few weeks

ago, Chris Hayes of The Nation stated that the government should

create and has in the past created jobs, but he was put down  by that

intellectual giant Ann Coulter who said, ”but they (WPA jobs) were

only temporary jobs.” No one challenged her.



 Most of the jobs created under the Works Progress Administration

(WPA) - and there were millions of them - lasted for many years, or

until those employed found other gainful employment. They provided a

high enough income to allow the worker’s family to meet basic needs,

and they created demand for goods in an economy that was suffering,

like today’s economy, from lack of demand. The WPA program succeeded

in sustaining and creating many more jobs in the private sector due to

the demand for goods that more people with incomes generated.



The most galling thing about pundits stating with such certainty that

the government cannot create jobs is the implication that the

government has no business employing people. In actuality, however,

the law requires the government, in particular the President and the

Federal Reserve, to create jobs. This legal duty comes from three

sources: (1) full employment legislation including the Humphrey

Hawkins Full Employment Act of 1978, (2) the 1977 Federal Reserve Act,

and (3) the global consensus based on customary international law that

all people have a right to a job with favorable remuneration to

provide an adequate standard of living.   



1.      Full Employment Legislation



The first full employment law in the United States was passed in 1946.

It required the country to make its goal one of full employment. It

was motivated in part by the fear that after World War II, returning

veterans would not find work, and this would provoke further economic

dislocation. With the Keynesian consensus that government spending was

necessary to stimulate the economy and the depression still fresh in

the nation’s mind, this legislation contained a firm statement that

full employment was the policy of the country. As originally written,

the bill required the federal government do everything in its

authority to achieve full employment, which was established as a right

guaranteed to the American people.  Pushback by conservative business

interests, however, watered down the bill. While it created the

Council of Economic Advisors to the President and the Joint Economic

Committee as a Congressional standing committee to advise the

government on economic policy, the guarantee of full employment was

removed from the bill.



In the aftermath of the rise in unemployment which followed the “oil

crisis” of 1975, Congress addressed the weaknesses of the 1946 act

through the passage of the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act of

1978. The purpose of this bill as described in its title is:



"An Act to translate into practical reality the right of all Americans

who are able, willing, and seeking to work to full opportunity for

useful paid employment at fair rates of compensation; to assert the

responsibility of the Federal Government to use all practicable

programs and policies to promote full employment, production, and real

income, balanced growth, adequate productivity growth, proper

attention to national priorities."



The Act sets goals for the President. By 1983, unemployment rates

should be not more than 3% for persons age 20 or over and not more

than 4% for persons age 16 or over, and inflation rates should not be

over 4%. By 1988, inflation rates should be 0%. The Act allows

Congress to revise these goals over time.



If private enterprise appears not to be meeting these goals, the Act

expressly calls for the government to create a "reservoir of public

employment." These jobs are required to be in the lower ranges of

skill and pay to minimize competition with the private sector.



The Act directly prohibits discrimination on account of gender,

religion, race, age or national origin in any program created under

the Act.

Humphey-Hawkins has not been repealed.  Both the language and the

spirit of this law require the government to bring unemployment down

to 3% from over 9%. The time for action is now.



2.      Federal Reserve



The Federal Reserve has among its mandates to "promote maximum

employment.”  The origin of this mandate is the Full Employment Act of

1946, which committed the federal government to pursue the goals of

"maximum employment, production and purchasing power."  This mandate

was reinforced in the 1977 reforms which called on the Fed to conduct

monetary policy so as to "promote effectively the goals of maximum

employment, stable prices and moderate long term interest rates."

These goals are substantially equivalent to the long-standing goals

contained in the 1946 Full Employment Act. The goals of the 1977 act

were further affirmed in the Humphrey-Hawkins Act the following year.



3.      The global consensus based on customary international law that all

people have a right to a job with favorable remuneration and an

adequate standard of living



In the aftermath of World War II, and for the short time between the

end of the war and the beginning of the Cold War, there was an

international consensus that one of the causes of the Second World War

was the failure of governments to address the major unemployment

crisis in the late 20’s and early 30’s, and that massive worldwide

unemployment led to the rise of Nazism/facism. The United Nations

Charter was created specifically to “save succeeding generations from

the scourge of war.”

To do so the drafters stated that promoting

social progress and better standards of life were the necessary

conditions “under which justice and respect for obligations arising

under treaties and respect for international law can be maintained.”



It is no accident that one of the first actions of the UN was to draft

the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (UDHR or the Declaration).

The Declaration was ratified by all then members of the United Nations

on December 10, 1948. It is an extremely important document because it

not only recognized the connection between the respect for human

dignity and rights, and conditions necessary to maintain peace and

security. The Declaration is the first international document to

recognize the indivisibility between civil and political rights (like

those enshrined in the Bill of Rights) on the one hand, and economic,

social and cultural rights on the other.   The UDHR is the first

document to acknowledge that both civil and political rights are

necessary to create conditions under which human dignity is respected

and through which a person’s full potential may be realized. Stated

another way, without political and civil rights, there is no real

ability for people to demand full realization of their economic

rights. And without economic rights, peoples’ ability to exercise

their civil rights and express their political will is replaced by the

daily struggle for survival.

[but that's what the corporatocracy wants, struggling desperate people who

will fight for scraps of low-paying jobs, so their profits will be maximised,

eds.]

The Declaration, although not a treaty, first articulated the norms to which all countries should aspire. It stated that everyone has the right to an adequate standard of living. This includes the rights to: work for favorable remuneration, (including the right to form unions), health, food, clothing, housing, medical care, necessary social services, and social insurances in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability or old age.

There has been a conspiracy of silence surrounding these rights. In fact, most people have never heard of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Similarly, most Americans do not know that the UN drafted treaties which put flesh on the broad principles contained in the Declaration. One of the treaties enshrines Civil and Political Rights; the other guarantees Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

These treaties were released for ratification in 1966. The United States ratified the treaty on civil and political rights and has signed but not ratified the economic, social and cultural rights treaty. The latter treaty requires the countries which have ratified it to take positive steps to “progressively realize” basic economic rights including the right to a job.

Almost all countries of the world have either signed or ratified this treaty. When most countries become party a treaty, they do so not because they think they are morally bound to follow it but because they know they are legally bound. Once an overwhelming number of countries agree to be legally bound, outliers cannot hide behind lack of ratification. The global consensus gives that particular norm the status of binding customary law, which requires even countries that have not ratified a treaty to comply with its mandate. The conspiracy of silence With the duty to create jobs required by U.S. legislation, monetary policy and customary law, why has the government allowed pundits to reframe the debate and state with certainty the government cannot do what it has a legal obligation to do?

We allow it because of the conspiracy of silence which has prevented most people from knowing that the full employment laws exist, that the Federal Reserve has a job-creating mandate, and that economic human rights law has become binding on the United States as customary international law.

Congressman John Conyers of Michigan knows about the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act, and he has introduced legislation that would fund the job creation aspects of that Act in the “The Humphrey-Hawkins 21st Century Full Employment and Training Act,” HR 870. It would create specific funds for job training and creation paid for almost exclusively by taxes on financial transactions, with the more speculative transactions paying a higher tax. If Congress refuses to enact this legislation, the President must demand that the Federal Reserve use all the tools relating to controlling the money supply at its disposal to create the funds called for by HR 870, and to start putting people back to work through direct funding of a reservoir of public jobs as Humphrey-Hawkins mandates.

There is nothing that would prevent the Federal Reserve from creating a fund for job training and a federal jobs program as HR 870 would require, and selling billions of treasury bonds for infrastructure improvement and jobs associated with it. The growth in jobs would stimulate the economy to the point that the interest on these bonds would be raised through increased revenue.

There is no reason the Fed on its own could not add a surcharge on inter-bank loans to fund these jobs. These actions could be done without Congressional approval and would represent a major boost to employment and grow the economy. If the Federal Reserve is going to abide by its mandate to promote maximum employment, and comply with the Humphrey Hawkins Act, and the global consensus it must take these steps.

Failure of the Fed and the President to take these affirmative steps is not only illegal, it is also economically unwise. The stock market losses after the debt ceiling deal is in part based on taking almost 2 million more jobs out of the economy and will only further depress demand creating further contraction in the economy. This is not an outcome any of us can afford.

Jeanne Mirer, who practices labor and employment law in New York, is president of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and past president of the National Lawyers Guild.

Of course, the corporate-controlled mainstream media does not want this information publicised, but it must be! Lawyers need to get involved to file legal actions against the government, to force it to comply to it’s own laws. And to do that, there needs to be pressure put on politicians by the public, to remind them. And to support ones who will agree to live up to the laws in place, that would greatly benefit this nation, by returning stability and hope, to millions of people. The US's crumbling infra-structurem needs repairing, and new and improved methods of transportation like high-speed and intra-city light rail systems could be developed.

The WPA in the 1930s brought us these beautiful and enduring reminders of what this country can produce, when people are given the opportunity. These bridges, all up and down the west coast of the lower 48 are still in use today (though are probably in need of major rehabilitation by now!).

As well as structures like Timberline Lodge, on Mount Hood, east of Portland, OR, which has served as a destination ski resort and getaway since it's opening in 1938, bringing enjoyment and beauty to millions of people over the past 70+ years.

If the US government doesn’t comply with these employment laws, unemployment will continue to increase, and many serious problems will develop within five to ten years, at most. Overtly fascist politicians trying to take power, and great social unrest, with rioting in all major cities at least as bad as that which occurred between 1965-68.

http://www.ushistory.org/us/54g.asp

Cheers.

IT'S ABOUT TIME

2011-08-03T14:56:00.000-07:00

Published on Friday, August 3, 2023 by The Messenger/UK

Cheney Trial: Former U.S. Vice President Denies All Charges

Dick Cheney ushered into New York courtroom in first court appearance since Green revolution

by James Thurston

Former U.S. Vice President Richard Cheney has denied all charges against him as his trial began in New York today.

Standing erect behind a heavy gage wire cage, the 83-year-old spoke just once to confirm his presence and enter his plea. "I deny all these charges and accusations categorically," he said.

Cheney stands accused of genocide, waging aggressive warfare in violation of U.N. and Nuremberg Trial statutes, economic corruption involving collusion with energy companies to dictate U.S. foreign and domestic policy, torture in violation of U.S. and International Law, and crimes against the U.S. constitution, in regards to illegal surveillance and repression activities against political opponents. If found guilty, he could face life imprisonment.

The spectacle was aired live on global television networks, bringing much of the World to a standstill as people across the globe huddled around TV sets and watched the former U.S. leader in the dock. It was the first time Cheney had appeared on television since 10 February, when he gave a defiant speech in Houston, Texas, refusing to submit to his arrest warrant. He fled Houston the next day, but was apprehended at the Dubai airport, after his private jet landed.

Amid chaotic scenes in the makeshift courthouse, with lawyers shouting over each other to get the judge's attention and running street battles raging outside between supporters and opponents of the former vice president, the sight of Cheney standing defiant as a prosecutor read out some of the names of the hundreds of thousands killed by his illegal and aggressive war on the sovereign nation of Iraq in 2003-2008, is likely to be one of the defining images of this decade's ongoing political unrest in North America.

Cheney's ex-colleagues and co-defendants, former U.S. president George W. Bush, and ex Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, also protested their innocence. As many as 25 former Bush/Cheney administration officials are also facing similar charges."I am delighted that I see him in a cage," Saeeda Hassan Abdel-Raouf, the mother of a 22-year-old pregnant woman, who was among those killed in Baghdad during the initial invasion of Iraq, in 2003, told reporters. "I feel that my daughter's and grandchild's souls are finally starting to be at rest and that their blood will cool."

Cheney was ferried from the Dubai airport last week by U.S. military transport, and has been held, along with the others, in a hastily constructed courthouse near the U.N. building in New York. Despite the judge's insistence that anybody disrupting proceedings would face an automatic 24-hour prison sentence, the trial regularly descended into confusion as lawyers put forward various technical arguments regarding legal aspects of the case.

At one point a lawyer demanded that Cheney undergo a DNA test, claiming that the ex-v.p. actually died in 2016 and had been replaced by an impostor.
More seriously, Cheney's defence lawyer Charles Matson hinted that former one-term U.S. president Barack Obama, – may be called as a witness, to answer for his and his adminstration's refusal to investigate Cheney's alleged crimes. It is said by those close to former Pres. Obama that he is very nervous about what may emerge from the current legal proceedings.

Although the first day was dominated by legal wrangling, it soon became clear that those expecting a swift verdict would be disappointed. Cheney's prosecution file is believed to run to over 12,000 pages, and his defence announced plans to call more than 1,000 witnesses.

Cheney's trial was adjourned at the end of the session until 15 August while Bush's will begin on Tuesday. The former vice president and president will be kept in holding facilities near the courthouse until their trials resume and begin.

Amnesty International and other human rights organisations have expressed that Cheney's prosecution must be conducted fairly. "This trial presents a historic opportunity for the U.S. to hold a former leader and his inner-circle to account for crimes committed during their rule," said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty North American director.

"But if the trial is going to be a meaningful break with the U.S. government's record of impunity, it must be both fair and transparent – justice demands no less. Not only must the trial be fair but it must be seen to be fair, not least by the families of the soldiers and innocent civilians who died during the Iraq war and occupation."

Outside the building where the court is sitting thousands of soldiers and riot police failed to prevent groups of rival demonstrators from clashing. Old "Republican" supporters hurled rocks at police, media and a giant screen broadcasting the trial, chanting: "We will demolish and burn the courthouse if they convict Cheney." Fifty-three people were reported injured in the skirmishes.

Current Progressive Party U.S. President and former Indigenous activist and writer Sherman Alexie appealed for all sides to remain calm, whilst a fair and impartial trial is conducted. His administration is quite worried that further escalations in tensions between the southeastern states, especially Texas, and the rest of the U.S., which has generally supported the apprehension and prosecution of Cheney, Bush, and other officials, could lead to outright civil war. And possibly the secession of several states, from the U.S., notably Texas. Though those close to President Alexie have said that he has expressed privately on occasion that he wishes "those racist bastards get their backward states out of our country". President Alexie offered no comment however, when questioned about this by reporters last week.