Why Compromise Doesn’t Work

Why Compromise Doesn’t Work

by | Nov 29, 2020 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction

by Doug Pollock / Friends of OSU Old Growth

In a recent, eloquent defense of a “no-compromise” approach to protecting our dwindling wild areas, author George Wuerthner quotes Bob Marshall, founder of the Wilderness Society:

“We do not want those whose first impulse is to compromise. We want no straddlers, for, in the past, they have surrendered too much good wilderness and primeval areas which should never have been lost.“

Mr. Wuerthner provides a long list of key conservation victories, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and Olympic National Park – all of which were protected because heroic people refused to compromise. He cites notable failures, as well, writing:

“Pragmatists, in the end, leave messes for future generations to clean up.  Capitulating to local interests with half-baked compromises in the interest of expediency typically produces uneven results.  Either they do not adequately protect the land or create enormous headaches for future conservationists to undue often at a significant political and economic expense.“

The National Forests system was originally set up by President Theodore Roosevelt to protect forests from commercial activity – not log them.  Compromises made by Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief of the Forest Service, resulted in mining companies (and later timber companies) gaining access to our National Forests.  In the early 1900’s, almost no one could imagine that the seemingly limitless supply of virgin timber on private lands would one day be exhausted.  They could not conceive that in a few generations’ time, timber companies and their partners in government agencies would be fighting tooth and nail to log the dwindling amount of old growth in our national forests – our collective natural heritage.

Lessons for the Elliott  Mr. Wuerthner’s impassioned writing has left me wondering what lessons future generations will glean from the current process surrounding the Elliott State Forest (likely to be handed over to OSU with their timber-centric “research design” in the coming weeks).  How will they see the unusually short public outreach/comment period and the rush to complete the OSU plan in time for the Land Board’s approval?  How will they judge our mainstream environmental groups who seem afraid to openly criticize the egregious shortcomings of the plan and process?  Will future Oregonians accept that compromise was the best we could hope for with the Elliott State Forest?

Insight from the Advisory Committee:  In a recent email, Bob Sallinger (Portland Audubon member serving on the Advisory Committee) clarified the current situation with OSU’s draft plan for the Elliott:

“The draft plan calls for cutting up to 3287 acres of mature forest (between 65 and 152 years of age) over a period of a couple or two decades using selective harvest (20%-80% retention). Several hundred acres within this 3287 acres are on the younger side (65-100 years old) but the majority is in 100-152 year range…

I don’t think there is anybody in the conservation community that thinks it is a good idea to cut these older stands or that the research benefits outweigh the benefits of preserving 100% of the older stands…Ultimately the question the conservation community will need to decide is whether they can live with the tradeoffs in this plan…

Pretty much 100% of the changes and concessions over the past year have been made to address conservation concerns. Despite that fact, if conservation interests sign-off, it looks like we will have consensus among all stakeholders including tribes, timber, counties, hunters and rec, and schools…

So bottom line is that there are definitely tradeoffs in this plan. There would be under any management scenario. In a perfect world we would lock up the entire Elliott as a carbon/ biodiversity reserve. However the same issues that have necessitated a decades long battle over the Elliott are still in play today.

Folks will have to decide whether the inclusion of things like clearcuts in  about 14,000 acres of existing plantations  (under 65 years of age) or selective harvest in a limited number of stands >65 are deal breakers or not.  In doing so, I would encourage folks to think carefully about the other pathways that are available to us.“

I have great respect for Bob.  He has been a true conservation hero on the Advisory Committee.  But the 12-member committee was compromised at the outset by the inclusion of hardliners with vested economic interests (Douglas County Commissioner Chris Boice is a great example). When Bob writes about the need to live with tradeoffs and reach consensus among all stakeholders, I wonder what happened to the broader group of stakeholders – the citizens of Oregon. I also wonder why experts in forest ecology and carbon were not included on the committee – while timber interests were.

When it comes to the fate of the Elliott, surveys show Oregonians overwhelmingly support conservation.  When I see DSL and the Land Board showing such great deference to OSU, I wonder, “Where’s the deference to Oregonians?”  When it comes to this state forest, one ought to defer to the citizens of this state.  And when it comes to compromise and tradeoffs, one has only to look at the millions of acres of clearcuts in our state and federal forests to understand that we’ve already compromised our natural heritage.

Pictures Tell the Story:  OSU’s latest draft plan for the Elliott State Research Forest (ESRF) is an unwieldy mix of contradictions, obfuscation, and technical jargon put together by folks who clearly are not adept at communicating with a broader audience.  When it comes to understanding this fundamental issue of compromise in the Elliott, pictures are the key.

The map below shows the locations of older trees (indicated by darker shades of green) in the Elliott State Forest.  It is important to note that significant quantities of older trees are scattered across vast stretches of the Forest.

Tree age classes in the Elliott State Forest (darker = older)

This next map shows the habitat of threatened birds (marbled murrelet in red and northern spotted owls in blue) in the Elliott. Predictably, the habitat is closely aligned with the older stands.

Habitat for threatened birds in the Elliott State Forest

This final map shows how the OSU would divide the forest. The purple areas (denoted as “CRW”) would be “conservation research watersheds”, with limited logging allowed. The dark green areas (labeled as “MRW Reserve”) will be subject to experimental treatments (= logging) in the coming decades. The orange areas (labeled “Extensive”) will undergo thinning in which 20-80% of the trees are to be cut (including thousands of acres of older trees). The light green areas (labeled “Intensive”) are composed of trees less than 65 years of age, and will be subject to clearcutting.

OSU’s research design for the Elliott would perpetuate clearcutting or fragmentation in well over half the forest (conservation reserves shown in purple)

Viewed from the perspective of older trees and habit for our threatened birds, OSU’s plan for the Elliott is a complete disconnect. As the maps clearly show, it would sacrifice a majority of the Forest to continued clearcutting and fragmentation.

George Wuerthner’s eloquent words could not be more applicable to the Elliott:

“In far too many cases, there is a tendency to believe that it is necessary to appease local interests typically by agreeing to weakened protections or resource giveaways to garner the required political support for a successful conservation effort. However, this fails to consider that in nearly all cases where effective protective measures are enacted, it has been done over almost uniform local opposition.

In those instances where local opposition to a conservation measure is mild or does not exist, it probably means the proposal will be ineffective or worse—even set real conservation backward…Nevertheless, many environmentalists now believe that due to regional parochialism and lack of historical context, significant compromises are necessary to win approval for new conservation initiatives.“

The Elliott State Forest has already been heavily compromised – OSU’s plan would perpetuate the mistakes of the past.

The essence of OSU’s plan for the Elliott – the area on the west side would be protected, the area to the east would face continued fragmentation via a complicated matrix of “forest management” (including ~14,000 acres of clearcutting).

Featured image: Lewis and Clark River 2148s.JPG, ©2013 Walter Siegmund, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en.

White Shamans and Plastic Medicine Men

White Shamans and Plastic Medicine Men

by | Nov 28, 2020 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy

Indigenous teachings are thousands of years old. People born into these traditions are raised into knowledge that those born outside do not—and should not—have. Do not steal from others traditions. Instead, research your own family history and connect to your own roots.

This award-winning documentary deals with the popularization and commercialization of Native American spiritual traditions by Non-Indians.

Important questions are asked of those seeking to commercially exploit Tribal rituals and copy sacred ceremonies and those vested with safeguarding sacred ways. The film represents a wide range of voices from Native communities, and speaks to issues of cultural appropriation with humour, righteous anger, and thoughtful insight.

Written by Daniel Hart Youtube copyright notice : “Alice Di Micele-Not For Sale (24:16)”, sound recording administered by: CD Baby 

The Problem

The Problem

by | Nov 27, 2020 | Agriculture, Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Climate Change, Mining & Drilling, Toxification

The Problem

by Lierre Keith
From the introduction to the book Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet.

“You cannot live a political life, you cannot live a moral life if you’re not willing to open your eyes and see the world more clearly. See some of the injustice that’s going on. Try to make yourself aware of what’s happening in the world. And when you are aware, you have a responsibility to act.”

—Bill Ayers, cofounder of the Weather Underground.

A black tern weighs barely two ounces. On energy reserves less than a small bag of M&M’s and wings that stretch to cover twelve inches, she flies thousands of miles, searching for the wetlands that will harbor her young. Every year the journey gets longer as the wetlands are desiccated for human demands. Every year the tern, desperate and hungry, loses, while civilization, endless and sanguineous, wins.

A polar bear should weigh 650 pounds. Her energy reserves are meant to see her through nine long months of dark, denned gestation, and then lactation, when she will give up her dwindling stores to the needy mouths of her species’ future. But in some areas, the female’s weight before hibernation has already dropped from 650 to 507 pounds. Meanwhile, the ice has evaporated like the wetlands. When she wakes, the waters will stretch impassably open, and there is no Abrahamic god of bears to part them for her.

The Aldabra snail should weigh something, but all that’s left to weigh are skeletons, bits of orange and indigo shells. The snail has been declared not just extinct, but the first casualty of global warming. In dry periods, the snail hibernated. The young of any species are always more vulnerable, as they have no reserves from which to draw. In this case, the adults’ “reproductive success” was a “complete failure.” In plain terms, the babies died and kept dying, and a species millions of years old is now a pile of shell fragments.

What is your personal carrying capacity for grief, rage, despair?

We are living in a period of mass extinction. The numbers stand at 200 species a day. That’s 73,000 a year. This culture is oblivious to their passing, feels entitled to their every last niche, and there is no roll call on the nightly news.

There is a name for the tsunami wave of extermination: the Holocene extinction event. There’s no asteroid this time, only human behavior, behavior that we could choose to stop. Adolph Eichman’s excuse was that no one told him that the concentration camps were wrong. We’ve all seen the pictures of the drowning polar bears. Are we so ethically numb that we need to be told this is wrong?

There are voices raised in concern, even anguish, at the plight of the earth, the rending of its species. “Only zero emissions can prevent a warmer planet,” one pair of climatologists declare. James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia hypothesis, states bluntly that global warming has passed the tipping point, carbon offsetting is a joke, and “individual lifestyle adjustments” are “a deluded fantasy.” It’s all true, and self-evident.

“Simple living” should start with simple observation: if burning fossil fuels will kill the planet, then stop burning them.

But that conclusion, in all its stark clarity, is not the popular one to draw. The moment policy makers and environmental groups start offering solutions is the exact moment when they stop telling the truth, inconvenient or otherwise. Google “global warming solutions.” The first paid sponsor, Campaign Earth, urges “No doom and gloom!! When was the last time depression got you really motivated? We’re here to inspire realistic action steps and stories of success.” By “realistic” they don’t mean solutions that actually match the scale of the problem. They mean the usual consumer choices—cloth shopping bags, travel mugs, and misguided dietary advice—which will do exactly nothing to disrupt the troika of industrialization, capitalism, and patriarchy that is skinning the planet alive.

As Derrick has pointed out elsewhere, even if every American took every single action suggested by Al Gore it would only reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 21 percent. Aric tells a stark truth: even if through simple living and rigorous recycling you stopped your own average American’s annual one ton of garbage production, “your per capita share of the industrial waste produced in the US is still almost twenty-six tons. That’s thirty-seven times as much waste as you were able to save by eliminating a full 100 percent of your personal waste.”

Industrialism itself is what has to stop.

There is no kinder, greener version that will do the trick of leaving us a living planet. In blunt terms, industrialization is a process of taking entire communities of living beings and turning them into commodities and dead zones. Could it be done more “efficiently”? Sure, we could use a little less fossil fuels, but it still ends in the same wastelands of land, water, and sky. We could stretch this endgame out another twenty years, but the planet still dies. Trace every industrial artifact back to its source—which isn’t hard, as they all leave trails of blood—and you find the same devastation: mining, clear-cuts, dams, agriculture. And now tar sands, mountaintop removal, wind farms (which might better be called dead bird and bat farms).

No amount of renewables is going to make up for the fossil fuels or change the nature of the extraction, both of which are prerequisites for this way of life. Neither fossil fuels nor extracted substances will ever be sustainable; by definition, they will run out. Bringing a cloth shopping bag to the store, even if you walk there in your Global Warming Flip-Flops, will not stop the tar sands. But since these actions also won’t disrupt anyone’s life, they’re declared both realistic and successful.

The next site’s Take Action page includes the usual: buying light bulbs, inflating tires, filling dishwashers, shortening showers, and rearranging the deck chairs. It also offers the ever-crucial Global Warming Bracelets and, more importantly, Flip-Flops. Polar bears everywhere are weeping with relief.

The first noncommercial site is the Union of Concerned Scientists. As one might expect, there are no exclamation points, but instead a statement that “[t]he burning of fossil fuel (oil, coal, and natural gas) alone counts for about 75 percent of annual CO2 emissions.” This is followed by a list of Five Sensible Steps. Step One? No, not stop burning fossil fuels—“Make Better Cars and SUVs.” Never mind that the automobile itself is the pollution, with its demands—for space, for speed, for fuel—in complete opposition to the needs of both a viable human community and a living planet. Like all the others, the scientists refuse to call industrial civilization into question. We can have a living planet and the consumption that’s killing the planet, can’t we?

The principle here is very simple.

As Derrick has written, “[A]ny social system based on the use of nonrenewable resources is by definition unsustainable.” Just to be clear, nonrenewable means it will eventually run out. Once you’ve grasped that intellectual complexity, you can move on to the next level. “Any culture based on the nonrenewable use of renewable resources is just as unsustainable.” Trees are renewable. But if we use them faster than they can grow, the forest will turn to desert. Which is precisely what civilization has been doing for its 10,000 year campaign, running through soil, rivers, and forests as well as metal, coal, and oil. Now the oceans are almost dead and their plankton populations are collapsing, populations that both feed the life of the oceans and create oxygen for the planet.

What will we fill our lungs with when they are gone? The plastics with which industrial civilization is replacing them? In parts of the Pacific, plastic outweighs plankton 48 to 1. Imagine if it were your blood, your heart, crammed with toxic materials—not just chemicals, but physical gunk—until there was ten times more of it than you. What metaphor is adequate for the dying plankton? Cancer? Suffocation? Crucifixion?

But the oceans don’t need our metaphors. They need action. They need industrial civilization to stop destroying and devouring. In other words, they need us to make it stop.

Which is why we are writing this book.

THE DEEP GREEN RESISTANCE BOOK
Strategy to Save the Planet:

https://deepgreenresistance.net/en/resistance/the-problem/the-problem/

The Women Of Kendeng Set Their Feet In Cement To Stop A Mine In Their Lands.

The Women Of Kendeng Set Their Feet In Cement To Stop A Mine In Their Lands.

by | Nov 25, 2020 | Direct Action, Mining & Drilling

The women of Kendeng set their feet in cement to stop a mine in their lands. This is their story.

This article was written by Febriana Firdaus on 13 November 2020 and published originally on Mongabay. 

  • Across Indonesia, hundreds of communities are in conflict with companies seeking control of their resources. In some cases, the resistance has been led by women.
  • Journalist Febriana Firdaus traveled across the country to meet grassroots female activists and delve into the stories behind their struggles.
  • This article is part one of a series about her journey, which has also been made into a film, Our Mothers’ Land.

Serene, prosperous, fertile. These words come to mind as I stand at the top of a hill in Tegaldowo village, on the island of Java, in Indonesia, one Sunday evening in 2019. It is an idiom used to describe this giant island, with its rich soils, verdant rice paddies and teak forests. But the tranquility hides a more turbulent story.

Across Indonesia, the world’s third largest democracy, mass demonstrations have erupted. Some 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) to the east, anger at decades of mistreatment of indigenous Papuans has spilled over into violence. In the capital, Jakarta, students are taking to the streets in their thousands, protesting against a raft of new laws many fear will erode civil liberties.

Among the most contentious features of the new legislation is concern that it will enable the government to criminalize farmers and activists fighting against extractive companies taking their land. Already, hundreds of communities are locked in simmering conflicts with firms that have logged their forests, mined their mountains, and transformed their farmland into plantations. Many of these people once hoped that the president, Joko Widodo, would tip the scales in the favor of the powerless.

But in the coming months those hopes will be dashed. By November 2020, the government will sign into effect sweeping new legislation that appears to entrench the power of oligarchs, and of the private firms responsible for damaging the nation’s environment, including its vast rainforests.

For many communities engaged in the fight to protect land rights and the environment, the hills in which I stand hold huge resonance.

It is not just a hill, but a karst: a limestone formation that undergirds the North Kendeng Mountains and stretches 180 kilometers (112 miles) east to west. The rock has been eroded over time to form a giant warren of underground caves and rivers, providing clean water to the people of the region throughout the year.

The Indigenous people of Kendeng consider the karst to be their Ibu Bumi — their Mother Earth. She nurtures and even breastfeeds the land, in their lore, allowing them to grow rice and other crops.

“Mother Earth has given, Mother Earth has been hurt, Mother Earth will seek justice,” sings Sukinah, a farmer who accompanies me as she patiently checks the corn in the field that surrounds us. She moves nimbly, dressed in slippers and a traditional Javanese blouse called a kebaya.

You can read the full article here:

https://news.mongabay.com/2020/11/the-women-of-kendeng-set-their-feet-in-cement-to-stop-a-mine-in-their-lands-this-is-their-story/

This article was co-produced with The Gecko Project. Read part two of the series here.

The Impacts Of Thacker Pass Mine

The Impacts Of Thacker Pass Mine

by | Nov 24, 2020 | ANALYSIS, Mining & Drilling

In October, DGR conducted an on-the-ground fact finding mission to the sites of two proposed lithium mines in Nevada. In this article, we look at the facts regarding the plans Lithium Nevada company has for mining and processing lithium (mainly destined for making electric car batteries) in northern Nevada, at Thacker Pass.

The company, now with shares owned by a Chinese mining company, claim their open-pit strip-mine will be a “green mine.” Much of this material comes from Thacker Pass. Special thanks to Aimee Wild for collating this material.

Why Lithium?

Lithium is the lightest metal on the periodic table of the elements. It is cost effective. It is an excellent conductor. Lithium batteries power cell phones, laptops and now cars. The batteries are rechargeable and last longer than other batteries. Lithium is also used in heat-resistant glass, ceramics, aircraft metals, lubrication grease, air treatment systems and some pharmaceuticals.

Interest in the mining of lithium as an important commodity is soaring. Lithium is located in the earth’s crust, oceans, mineral springs and igneous rocks. To be able to extract it economically an area, concentrated lithium is needed, hence the interest in the Nevada site.  Thousands and thousands of tons of lithium are extracted, processed, transported and utilized every year.

Thacker Pass Mine

Thacker Pass Mine is owned by Lithium Americas. They have a mining project in South America (The Cauchari-Olaroz Project) which is currently under construction, and of course in Nevada, the proposed Thacker Pass mine. Ganfeng (a chinese based mining company) is one of the largest shareholders of Lithium America. This increases the potential for mining and  processing to be shipped overseas.

Local communities have struggled to get to the bottom of the plans for the mines. The brochures are complicated and convoluted. What is clear is that the local people have been chosen as a guinea pig. Most Lithium mines in South America involve pumping saltwater brine on barren salt flats where the lithium slowly floats to the top, is skimmed off, and is then purified for use in batteries.

​In Australia they use spodumene ore, which is higher quality than the product Lithium Nevada plans to use. There are concerns linked to  how the poorer quality lithium will be processed and the transport of chemicals into the processing areas. There are concerns regarding the transportation of refinery waste by rail cars, and shipping.  The plans include transporting waste sulfur, by truck to the mine site, where it will be burned and converted to enormous quantities of Sulfuric Acid on a daily basis. Processing (burning) elemental sulfur, creates sulfur dioxide, sulfur trioxide and ultimately sulfuric acid—all of which are toxic and harmful to life.

Radioactive Waste?

There are concerns that the processing of lithium could ‘accidentally’ expose naturally-occurring uranium. Of course there have been promised by the company to ensure that any radioactive waste will be contained by a “liner.” This seems wholly inadequate when considering there is a water source nearby, and  processing plants can have accidental fires or explosion. We know from global disasters (Fukoshima and Chernobyl) that the impact environmental disasters involving radioactive waste can devastate human and non-human communities. Transporting chemicals to or from processing plants increase the risk of accidents, and the smell of sulphur in nearby neighborhoods is likely to be overwhelming at times.

Clarity Needed On The Impact Of Thacker Pass Mine

Opposition to these plans are likely to strengthen when the public understand the plans and the potential impact, and when the information is not shrouded in convoluted documents. In short, the mines almost certainly will be destructive to water fowl, to any life in the rivers and lakes nearby, and impact on the water table.

The air quality is likely to reduce, and the storage and transportation of toxic chemicals increases non-intentional leakage/accidents. If understood correctly the plans to dispose of some waste include a tailing pond, which could contain a) toxic solids, b) harmful discharges c) could impact air quality, and d) could leach into ground water. The mining and processing of lithium is destructive to people, non-human life, the land, the water and the air.

Is It Carbon Neutral?

Burning sulfur does not create carbon, so in that respect the facts are correct. However, as with all green capitalist extraction plans this is a small percentage of the whole picture. The whole picture (or the fact based plans) are obscured with overly complex plans and emperors-new-clothes type scenarios. The process of burning sulfur creates harmful (toxic) chemicals and removes oxygen from the atmosphere.

A conservative estimate is that the processing plant will require over 10,000 gallons of diesel per day to run. In additional to this is the fuel needed to transport the sulfur from the refinery (yes; it comes from an oil refinery) to the mine site. You also have the fuel needed to transport the workers and the electricity needed to keep the plant functioning.

There are concerns that the lithium from this project could be shipped to China for processing in the future. Lithium Americas has been loaned substantial amounts of money from Ganfeng and Bangchak. The Chinese Mining company already own shares in Lithium Nevada and could intentionally own more rights if the loan is not paid back.

So, carbon neutral—no. Friendly to the environment—no. There is not much difference between mountaintop removal coal mining and mountaintop removal lithium mining. Both are exceptionally destructive.

You can read more about lithium mines here: www.portectthackerpass.org. Join our newsletter for more info on lithium mining and greenwashing.

Fuck Veteran’s Day: A Vet’s Lament

Fuck Veteran’s Day: A Vet’s Lament

by | Nov 18, 2020 | Colonialism & Conquest

U.S. Marine Corps veteran Vince Emanuele offers the reader a systemic analysis of the culture of war, it’s purpose, and the destruction it leaves behind.

by Vince Emanuele / Counterpunch

“They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.”  Ernest Hemingway

“War and drink are the two things man is never too poor to buy.” William Faulkner

I served with the United States Marine Corps, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, Alpha Company, 3rd Platoon, 1st Squad, 3rd Fire Team, as a Squad Automatic Machine Gunner from September 2002, until January 2006. During that time, I was twice deployed. First, in 2003, in southern Iraq, during the initial invasion and occupation of Iraq. Then, again in 2004–2005, in Al Qaim located in Al Anbar Province, during the height of the insurgency in Iraq.

In 2008 I testified to U.S. Congress about war crimes the U.S. military was committing in Iraq in the name of democracy and freedom: the wanton killing of non-combatants, the torture of prisoners, the mutilation of dead bodies, the cover-ups, lies, and complete disregard for Iraqi life.

Seventeen years after the invasion of Iraq and Americans remain split in their opinion of the war.

Interestingly, Trump ran and won on a quasi-antiwar platform in 2016. Rhetorically, he railed against the military-industrial complex, Bush’s neverending wars, and “interventionist” policies. Republican voters preferred his message to the Neoconservative party line. So much for polls. Trump didn’t out-hawk the hawks in the GOP — he provided a different message. And it resonated. No matter what the left says about Trump’s base, there’s no evidence to suggest they’re champing at the bit for another foreign war.

Fortunately, recent polls show that most U.S. veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are opposed to the wars and regret their time served overseas. In other words, “it wasn’t worth it.” Not surprising. In my experience, while most veterans might not say so out loud, privately and in the company of fellow veterans, they’re more than willing to speak critically of the wars and do so regularly.

In 2017, roughly 45,000 Americans died from suicide.

Of those, 6,139 were veterans. Most veterans who kill themselves do so because we regret what we’ve done overseas: the people we’ve killed, the friends we’ve lost, all for nothing. We have experienced what some experts call ‘Moral Injury.’ Others commit suicide because they were raped, violently assaulted, hazed, or simply because the military is a harsh fucking place to be at times.

These days, I have a love-hate relationship with my military service. On the one hand, it made me grow up in ways that were necessary and extremely helpful. I met lifelong friends and forged bonds that can only be established in war and through tremendous shared collective sacrifice (something this nation needs now more than ever, a conversation for another day).

As a result of my service, I’m a more disciplined, wise, and emotionally hardened person.

Some people might say that becoming emotionally hard isn’t a good thing. I disagree. This world is a fucking bitch and many men would like to divorce her. Better to prepare for the worst and hope for the best than the opposite. Better to maintain some armor and avoid problems instead of allowing people to walk all over you.

During my service, I also became a more compassionate person. Discovering compassion through war might seem like a major contradiction, a warped irony, it is. On the other hand, my time in the USMC was personally and socially destructive. I put my family, friends, and former lovers through hell, a story most vets can understand. I became addicted to cocaine and alcohol and eventually ended up in an inpatient program at the North Chicago VA. I spent years wondering whether I should get out of bed or stick a gun in my mouth.

Today, my views concerning military service are much more nuanced than they were when I was 22 years old and fresh out of the corps. It’s taken a lot of time, reflection, and hard work to place those experiences in their proper context, to explore different perspectives.  Surely, you’ve heard the expression, “There’s life before your parents die, and life after your parents die.”  The same is true of war. Life before war seems like a distant dream, a vanishing horizon of memories.

Life after the war is crystal clear.

I can recall week-by-week events from ten years ago. I can remember entire months from 2014, 2015, and 2018, what I was doing on specific days, projects I was working on, and the like. It’s wild how the mind works, what it chooses to remember, and chooses to discard to the netherregions of the brain. Childhood memories, like ghosts from the war, revisit me in my dreams, where they stalk, haunt, and entertain.

As much as my views have changed on a number of topics, my views on Veteran’s Day have not. I hate this holiday. I loathe Veteran’s Day because it’s superficial, like most shit in today’s society and culture. What most people call friends, I would call penpals. What most people call lovers, I would call fuck buddies. So it goes in modern America…

On a day that should be shrouded in shame, corporations advertise discount mattresses, while chain restaurants provide menial giveaways — the same chain restaurants that financially benefitted from the wars, the wars that have destroyed some of our lives. And people wonder why veterans lose it? Americans act shocked when a veteran picks up a gun and goes on a killing spree. I’m shocked it doesn’t happen more often.

Americans seem to love superficial displays of patriotism.

They underpin our entire history and existence. They form the way we view the world and those in it. Patriotism gives Americans a sense of fulfillment and meaning. Without it, we’re not a country — we’re just a bunch of states who, as the last election shows, share less and less in common with each passing year.

Where we go from here, no one knows. What we do know is that Biden’s cabinet will be stacked with military-industrial types. The Neoliberals and Neoconservatives will call the shots when it comes to U.S. foreign policy, which means neverending support for Israeli war crimes, more drone strikes, coups, extensive operations in Africa, and no drawdown of troops in Iraq, Syria, or Afghanistan. Massive surveillance of U.S. citizens will continue. U.S. Empire will march on, until or unless mass social movements exist that are capable of stopping it.

I don’t know too many veterans who joined the military to fight and die for oil companies, weapons manufacturers, and bankrupt geopolitical interests. Most veterans join the military for good reasons. After all, we live in such a selfish and hyper-individualistic society — it’s not surprising that someone would want to join the military and get away from the dominant culture of “Me! Me! Me!” Here, we should attempt to better understand what draws people to military service.

Nevertheless, as we used to say in the corps, “Good intentions, bad judgment.” No matter how well-intentioned one might be, joining the United States military has nothing to do with protecting our freedom. Some marines have understood this for a long time.

In 1935, General Smedley Butler wrote, War Is A Racket, a scathing text about the true origins of the U.S. military empire and the capitalist interests it serves:

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China, in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

It’s worth again noting that Butler wrote those words 85 years ago. Since then, the U.S. Empire has only grown in size. Additionally, the military-industrial complex is bigger and enjoys more influence in U.S. Congress and White House than at any previous point in U.S. history. If this trajectory doesn’t change, the empire will eat the republic and this little experiment will be cast into the dustbin of history.

For those of you reading this who’ve already done your time, hell, even for those of you who remain in the military, remember this: we signed our name on a dotted line, willing to give our lives, not for a specific president or political party, but in the defense of the U.S. Constitution. If you no longer believe in that oath, I understand. However, if you do believe in the oath, understand what it means: “protecting the U.S. Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

No Iraq, Somali, Pakistani, Palestinian, Libyan, or Syrian poses a threat to our constitution. The Republican Party represents a threat to our constitution. The Democratic Party represents a threat to our constitution. Wall Street poses a threat to our constitution. These are the domestic enemies our oath was referring to. Focus your anger and energies on them, not ordinary citizens, our brothers and sisters, or supposed “foreign threats.” Our problems are staring at us in the mirror.

Veteran’s Day should be a day of national reflection.

If I had it my way, every American would be forced to stand for three hours in the morning and listen to the politicians who vote for wars read off the names of every servicemember and veteran who’s died since 9/11. In the afternoon, Americans would be forced to listen to the testimony of Iraqis, Afghans, Syrians, and other victims of U.S. militarism. And in the evening, they would be forced to volunteer at a veterans hospital. No sports. No bars. No shopping. No sales. No nothing. Then and only then, will we get the attention of people in this country. Shutdown Netflix for a day and see how quickly Americans pay attention.

Meanwhile, to my fellow veterans, welcome home. You made it. You might not be in one piece physically or mentally, but goddamnit, you’re here. You’re alive. And sometimes, that’s all we have. Don’t spend too much time alone. Don’t drink too much. Workout. Have sex. Write. Paint. Play. Create. Smoke pot. Eat mushrooms. Discover yourself, not in some hippy-dippy bullshit way, but in a visceral way. You, more than anyone, should understand just how short life can be.

As the great director and antiwar veteran, Oliver Stone, once wrote, “Those of us who did make it have an obligation to build again, to teach to others what we know, and to try with what’s left of our lives to find a goodness and a meaning to this life.”

You won’t find that meaning in superficial displays of nationalism. That’s why I say, Fuck Veteran’s Day.

This article was originally published in CounterPunch, you can read the full and original article here.

Vincent Emanuele is a writer, antiwar veteran, and podcaster. He is the co-founder of PARC | Politics Art Roots Culture Media and the PARC Community-Cultural Center located in Michigan City, Indiana. Vincent is a member of Veterans For Peace and OURMC | Organized & United Residents of Michigan City. He is also a member of Collective 20. He can be reached at vincent.emanuele333@gmail.com