Peace,
Clean Energy, And Priorities
By Rand Clifford
02 May, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Read
Part I
Read
Part II
(Part Three of the Series:
Perspectives On Our Changing Climate)
Remember...the
president throwing out the ceremonial first pitch for the Washington
home team on the opening day of Major League Baseball? This tradition
started in 1910 by William H. Taft has been, if not laid to rest, at
least put into a coma in 2005 by George W. Bush. A certain facsimile
sputtered in 2006 when Cheney’s bullet-proof vest bulked his red-and-blue
Washington Nationals jacket, and under massive security, to a soundtrack
of boos and jeers, from in front of the mound Cheney threw a limp sinker
into the dirt. That was it. Neither Cheney nor his Bush will ever again
willingly expose themselves to such public reality, so widely despised
by the American People that for years both have spoken only to groups
sanitized of all but loyal supporters. And beneath the perfunctory platitudes
shoveled at the "Great American People", contempt and loathing
for The People has petrified into our top leaders’ perspective.
So with We The People despising our leaders, and our leaders despising
us back, any progress toward Peace and Clean Energy...let’s just
say, they’ll never throw out a first pitch. Only dragged kicking
and screaming will they ever approach genuine progress for The People,
at the expense of their defacto constituents.
Considered the father of
modern fascism, Benito Mussolini said that fascism could more accurately
be called corporatism, the marriage of government and big business.
This Bush administration and their cheerleading mainstream media have
stripped the term fascism of all meaning with such contrived oxymorons
as "islamofascist", simplifying popular conception down to:
fascism = BAD! But if we could ask Mussolini, surely he would say our
government is as classic an example of corporatism as the world has
seen. Take for example the invasion and occupation of Iraq; for the
American People this has been a profound disaster; for war-profiteering
corporations it has been paradise. War is the most profitable enterprise
going. Moral strictures have even spun off a whole separate industry
to manufacture justifications for killing and maiming innocent people
for profit, an industry lubricated by religion. For an excellent example
of corporate fortunes in war, look at Halliburton’s 284% increase
in war profits for the second quarter of 2005. [1] With former CEO Dick
Cheney currently belted into our War Pilot Seat, success of Haliburton
securing no-bid rides into pseudo-performance contracts, plus slightly
more conventional contracts—performance of which is currently
under illusory investigation, profits of Haliburton and subsidiaries
could eclipse oil company profits, the most obscene of all time. And
when it comes to alternative fuels, old battle-hardened warrior Cheney
would be first to tell you that they are for sissies. Oil, now that’s
a Man’s kind of energy. Maybe that snarl on his face goes with
a chip on his shoulder over being deprived of his chance for live combat
in Viet Nam because he had "other priorities"—but he
can kick-ass with that world-class snarl and send other peoples’
sons and daughters into the meat grinder of war like nobody else. He’s
also a terror with a shotgun, mowing down ducks released from cages
while relaxing with Supreme Court buddies, even shooting other buddies
in the face when hapless quail fail to obey The Snarl. He is SO good,
hunting partners and even their families abjectly apologize for any
embarrassment caused The Snarler and His family by partners sticking
their face in front of a blast. OOPS, MY FACE—er, FAULT, Richard,
er, Dick. And then there’s Dick’s Bush, who was also deprived
of live combat in Viet Nam because the skies of Texas needed a pilot
seasoned in cocaine and booze and privilege for protection.... The point
here is, with these combat-deprived warriors telling us it’s going
to be a Long War, possibly spanning generations, a self-defense affair
because the enemy hates our freedoms, and we will not be safe until
we root out the Haters Of Freedom from every nook and cranny (wherever
there’s easily-recoverable oil), we simply can’t afford
peace—we have other "priorities".
Corporatism lives by a single
priority: corporate profit. That’s the main reason our government
has been one of the last two in the world to even tacitly acknowledge
the existence of a burgeoning problem with the potential to toast civilization,
fast. The main driver of global warming is carbon dioxide released from
the combustion of fossil fuels (oil, coal and natural gas are lumped
here into Big Oil {BO}). Any replacement of fossil fuels by Clean Renewable
Energy hits BO in the profits. Their first line of defense was denial,
the pouring of millions into convincing the public that global warming
is not real. It’s already very difficult to convince people that
what is happening is not really happening, and though returns on their
denial-dollars investments are evaporating, those dollars keep flowing.
[2]
BO, by its very nature, is
branching out in profit protection. Eight major automakers have current
plans to commercialize fuel cell vehicles. [3] And as the options for
providing hydrogen to the fuel cells are being politicized down to natural
gas, gasoline, or diesel, fuel cell vehicles have been getting some
rather high-placed nods. Methanol and ethanol are renewables that can
also provide hydrogen, but they are less, as BO’s euphemism for
profitable goes, "versatile".
Biomass ethanol is our greatest
hope for clean and renewable transportation energy now; biomass diesel
our best clean energy for industry. [4] Both of these technologies have
potential to hit BO profits hard. For another angle of profit protection,
witness Arthur Daniels Midland (ADM: "The Supermarket to the World")
trying to twist the ethanol discussion into a "food versus fuel"
framework, as though corn is the only—or at least the very best
feedstock for ethanol. For ADM, corn is best, and they certainly have
receipts for the enormous political favor they have purchased—enough
to set records for corporate welfare. [5] ADM would have a profit crisis
if the genuine very best feedstock for ethanol were utilized: hemp biomass.
Various modes of energy are available from hemp and its seeds. [6, 7,
8] But hemp is a venerable pioneer, having already been demonized since
the thirties for threatening the profits of Hearst, and du Pont—if
you don’t count the government’s "Hemp For Victory"!
campaign in the final years of WWII. [9] Hemp is a true agricultural
superstar, only crop that can be grown in all 50 states, and with little
or no petrochemical inputs (fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides....)
As a rotational crop, hemp actually improves soil. A thriving biomass
hemp industry would be a boon for local economies, empower farmers,
create jobs, help balance the carbon cycle—fighting global warming
while minimizing petroleum imports...and that really is just for starters.
Perhaps the benefits of hemp are clarified by what a profit nightmare
it would be to BO, ADM, Monsanto—elucidated by the fight they
will put up if, like Canada, the U.S. smartens up into restoring to
The People what is truly our most valuable resource.
Hemp is nature’s greatest
"fixer" of solar energy, breathing in carbon dioxide and exhaling
oxygen while turning sunlight into a cornucopia of useful, superior
materials. Nothing grows faster, is easier to grow, or treats the soil
better. Much of the solar energy the Earth has bathed in for billions
of years has been fixed biologically, and through various metamorphoses,
been stored as fossil energy. But the cheap, abundant energy of the
eons carries a lethal legacy. Not only is oil extremely toxic, carbon
locked up in fossil fuels will destroy balances that make Earth so hospitable.
It’s almost as though all that stored energy is a test for humanity:
If you are clever enough to tap the energy of eons, are you wise enough
not to destroy yourselves with it?
We can live within our current
energy systems, everything needed is constantly provided. But, everything
we want, that’s the dark side. Will we show the wisdom to live
on what is freely given, or will we dig out what was given over billions
of years to have a big rush of energy we do not need? Will our cleverness
for tapping what we want, for such instantaneous and exclusive profit,
compromise our very existence, or will wisdom to live within our energy
systems mean we’ll be able to look back on this hospitable speck
in space, and thank the wisdom in humanity for conquering the want,
and redefining the concept of profit?
Our current energy architecture
have led to global warming, a potentially-terminal problem at least
for civilization and the majority of Earth’s higher species. Everything
we need to rebalance the carbon cycle is in our hands. But the enemy
that has gotten enormously powerful delivering us to this crucial predicament
will use this power to protect their profits. All the corporations.
All the profits to be made warring for fossil energy reserves, and maintaining
current energy architecture. All the profits from the upcoming conflicts
over fresh water that global warming is guaranteeing. All the Armageddonists....
There’s going to be
hurricanes of rhetoric about feasibility, cost-effectiveness, price-at-the-pump,
ad nauseam. But there is only one issue: profits. Do the corporations
hang on to the vast majority while killing most everything off, or will
The People gain control of profits, and point us back toward life?
[1]Halliburton Watch
http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/earnings072205.html
[2] Newsweek Hides Global
Warming Deniers Financial Ties to Big Oil. http://www.topangaonline.com/wboard/messages/9658.html
http://www.topangaonline.com/wboard/messages/9658.html
[3] Fuel Choice for Fuel
Cell Vehicles. http://www.hydrogenassociation.org/newsletter/ad43fcev.htm
[4] Special Report: Fueling
Controversy. http://www.gnn.tv/print/2247/
Special_Report_Fueling_Controversy
[5] Archer Daniels Midland:
A Case Study In Corporate Welfare. http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-241.html
[6] Hemp Biomass For Energy.
http://fuelandfiber.com/Hemp4NRG/Hemp4NRGRV3.htm
[7] Hemp as Biomass.
http://www.harbay.net/biomass.html
[8] Hemp as a Fuel / Energy
Source.
http://www.hemphasis.net/Fuel-Energy/fuel.htm
[9] Hemp for Victory. http://www.globalhemp.com/Archives/Government_Research
/USDA/hemp_for_victory.shtml?print=yes
Rand Clifford lives in Spokane, Washington, and welcomes
your comments at: t[email protected]
His novels CASTLING and TIMING are published by StarChief Press:http://www.starchiefpress.com
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