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

Insects In Peril

Insects In Peril

by | Nov 17, 2020 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction

In this article, Jeremy Hance describes ongoing concerns regarding collapsing insect populations.

By Jeremy Hance / Mongabay

  • In June 2019, in response to media outcry and alarm over a supposed ongoing global “Insect Apocalypse,” Mongabay published a thorough four-part survey on the state of the world’s insect species and their populations.
  • In four, in-depth stories, science writer Jeremy Hance interviewed 24 leading entomologists and other scientists on six continents and working in 12 nations to get their expert views on the rate of insect decline in Europe, the U.S., and especially the tropics, including Latin America, Africa, and Australia.
  • Now, 16 months later, Hance reaches out to seven of those scientists to see what’s new. He finds much bad news: butterflies in Ohio declining by 2% per year, 94% of wild bee interactions with native plants lost in New England, and grasshopper abundance falling by 30% in a protected Kansas grassland over 20 years.
  • Scientists say such losses aren’t surprising; what’s alarming is our inaction. One researcher concludes: “Real insect conservation would mean conserving large whole ecosystems both from the point source attacks, AND the overall blanket of climate change and six billion more people on the planet than there should be.”

In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, in the heart of a what was increasingly a global lockdown, the rains finally came to East Africa. They came after several years of drought and less-than-stellar rainy seasons. And with these rains, came the insects, says Dino Joseph Martins, the executive director of the Mpala Research Center. “There’s been this beautiful flash of butterflies and everybody’s with their families or at home, or trying to entertain their kids that are not in school, and looking at things in the garden or going on walks,” Martins said in August.

Martins, an entomologist and butterfly aficionado, has become so “inundated” by questions from curious insect onlookers in lockdown that he’s considering “quitting social media” just to have some time to breathe again.

“I think there has been a much broader appreciation of nature [during the pandemic] and it’s because of the loneliness of lockdown, the isolation,” says Martins. “This has been such a blow for so many people.” But, according to the scientist, the pandemic has also unexpectedly awakened many people to the marvels of the natural world and our interconnectedness with it.

It’s a happy anecdote in a year that has seen not only wrenching global change due to the pandemic, but also reams of new research on the potential decline of insects around the world, often dubbed more dramatically as the “insect apocalypse” by the media.

New data fills out increasingly complex global picture

A year after publishing Mongabay’s June 2019 series The Great Insect Dying, I reached out again to some of my scientific sources to see how they viewed new findings across the previous twelve months. None of the seven researchers I spoke with expressed a major shift in their well informed views, which ranged from concern over regional declines, to a wider belief that global insect diversity and abundance may be gravely in trouble.

This article was written by  and published in Mongabay on the on 11 November 2020. You can read the full, original article here:

https://news.mongabay.com/2020/11/one-year-on-insects-still-in-peril-as-world-struggles-with-global-pandemic/

Land and Water Are Not Political Currency

Land and Water Are Not Political Currency

by | Nov 16, 2020 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction

by Blake Lavia and Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo / Talking Wings Collective

Oct 9th, 2020, Movimiento por la Defensa de la Sierra, Coatepec, Veracruz, Mexico

Five thousand acres of cloud forest are currently being threatened in Coatepec, Veracruz, Mexico. This land is, at present, being held by squatters, who, with the backing of local politicians, have claimed to be the forest’s rightful owners. They displaced dozens of families and are threatening one of Mexico’s most vital ecosystems. These 5,000 acres of land contain three municipal parks and one archeological site.  While the land’s original stewards and forest protectors are engaged in a legal battle with the “invaders,” the deforestation of this fragile ecosystem has already commenced. This act of environmental devastation has wide political/economic ramifications. If you control Coatepec’s mountains, you control the subsistence and livelihood of millions.

The Coatepec Cloud Forest

The cloud forest above Coatepec is known as “la fabrica de agua” (the water factory). It is one of the last “water factories” of its kind in Mexico, and it moderates the weather of the entire region. The clouds that roll in from the Gulf of Mexico are captured by the forest canopy, the moisture forming a thick mist that shrouds the mountainside. Trees, moss, and orchids collaborate in an infinitely diverse ecosystem to retain the water that feed the region’s rivers, bringing life to the valleys bellow. The cities of Coatepec, Xalapa, and Cardel rely on this water, not to mention most of the communities of central Veracruz.

Globally, cloud forests are bastions of biodiversity. They harbor animal, and plant that are threatened by the shifting tides of the climate crises and uncontrolled land use. Coatepec’s cloud forest now hosts 90 plant, animal, and fungal species on the verge of extinction. Coupled with the biodiversity loss, the destruction of this ecosystem holds serious repercussions for the entire watershed. Without the cloud forest, the rivers will run dry, and the entire region will see considerably less rainfall. In short, the destruction of the cloud forest will spell drought and devastation for all.

The Invasion

In January 2019, a faction of the “Central Independiente de Obreros Agrícolas y Campesinos” (The Independent Organization of Agricultural Laborers and Farmers) set up an encampment on the 2,000 acres of cloud forest known as the Jinicuil Manso estate. CIOAC verbally threatened more than 500 original stewards of the land and claimed to be the legal owner of the property. While the information is difficult to corroborate, local activist networks say that the organizers of the CIOAC encampment came from outside the region, and do not hold legal rights to the said property. The community members who own land in the Jinicuil Manso estate submitted complaints to the local authorities. While the government “invited” the squatters to move off the premises, they requested that the community members refrain from engaging directly with CIOAC, to prevent physical aggression.

The situation was further complicated in February 2020, when the local authorities issued a “measurement and demarcation notice,” requesting that all the landowners submit paperwork confirming their title to the land. Many of the land’s stewards were not aware of the government’s decree. Others did not have the paperwork to prove that they owned their properties, even though the land had been in their family for generations. The local government never specified the reasons for this “demarcation notice,” and never compared the documents submitted by the land’s stewards with those provided by CIOAC. Instead, they refused to consider the documents submitted, and appear to favor CIOAC’s land claim, a land claim that local activists argue has been falsified.

The Electoral Politics of Water and Land

The local community groups, such as “Por la Defensa de la Sierra de Coatepec,” and the individual landowners, are currently involved in court cases with CIOAC. Throughout the process, it has it became clear the larger political forces are involved in the illegal “settlement” of the cloud forest. The CIOAC members have direct connection with major political parties in the area, with whom they have garnered ample political support. In addition, they have publicly thanked the governor of the State of Veracruz, Cuitlahuac García Jiménez, for his backing (though it is unclear whether this was just political posturing on the part of CIOAC).

Land, environmental destruction, and electoral politics has been devastatingly intertwined in Mexico for decades. When CIOAC first “invaded” the cloud forest, they invited citizens from the surrounding regions to squat on the appropriated land. Community members who did not own land of their own, and/or were seeking greater financial stability, settled in the cloud forest. Forest protectors have observed between 100 to 300 community members in the encampments at a time. They cut down trees, hunt the local fauna, and set up their septic systems to run off into the precious streams. When forest protectors attempt to plant trees or talk with the squatters, the squatters respond violently. They have been known to brandish guns and machetes, defending the land that has been promised to them.

Political figures from various parties in the region have sought to partner with the CIOAC settlers, nurturing a solid voting block of support. Leading up to the future regional and national elections, the ruling political parties have reacted favorably to the CIOAC’s land claims. However, underneath the surface, the forest protectors and activists claim that there is an even darker story. The people that live in the encampments of Jinicuil Manso could also be serving as a human shield, emptying the land for a larger economic interest that seeks to control the most vital resource of all: water.

The Conquest of the Cloud Forest

While at first glance the squatters could appear to be land hungry farmers, they are in fact just a cog in the virulent political system. Local activists believe that the squatters could be a facade for a political and economic interest that seeks to take over the forest of the region. Nestle, Coca-Cola, and other international corporations have huge factories in Coatepec, and have been seeking to control the region’s water supply for decades. Over the last series of elections, the community members have seen this same political/environmental ploy play out, though not to this level of devastation.

Veracruz is one the deadliest regions for land and water protectors in the world. “Por la Defensa de la Sierra de Coatepec” continues to organize throughout the region, raising awareness about the plight of the cloud forest, and the people that have been displaced. However, the settlers began threatening the lives of the forest protectors. When the organizers tried to negotiate with them in person, they were attacked with machetes. In the end, the CIAOC managed to scare most of the forest protectors into silence by actively threatening their families, while local authorities have turned a blind eye.

Action

While many forest protectors are too afraid to speak in public or to the press, the fight is not over. On the 29th of November 2020, “Por la Defensa de la Sierra de Coatepec” will return to the stolen land to begin reforesting the trees that have been cut down. They will also initiate a barter market with the local community members who have been directly affected by the theft of land. While many forest protectors have been forced to move to surrounding cities to protect their families, they are willing to risk their lives to defend and bring life back to the cloud forest.

How You Can help!

–  Follow the “Movimiento por la Defensa de la Sierra” on social media and share the story with everyone you know.

–  Show your support by commenting on their page, and/or sharing a video of support.

Philippines: Northern Negros National Park Threatened

Philippines: Northern Negros National Park Threatened

by | Nov 13, 2020 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction

This article is based on communication from a comrade in the Negros province of the Philippines. There is ongoing destruction of the natural world in this area due to road construction, a planned airport, and clearing of the rainforest. The people on the front lines, being most affected, are calling for international solidarity and support.

On October the 18th this year, the first direct action regarding the Northern Negros National Park was taken by a group of concerned people. Food Not Bombs Bacolod Volunteers and concerned citizens have started a campaign to raise awareness about the ongoing destruction of the rainforest in the Negros area of the Philippines. The group has begun disseminating information to ensure other know about the ongoing harm being caused and to stand firmly IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE FOREST.

The group, focused their work in the city of Bacolod distributing printed placards, information flyers & leaflets and have been clear they are in direct opposition to any act of destruction. Food Not Bombs Bacolod condemns these injustices and the actions of the Local Government of Negros Island which sanctions the destruction of the  remaining rainforest of the island.

About Northern Negros National Park

A seasonally flooded caldera in Northern Negros National Park. Photo by Androkoy, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International.

The Northern Negros Natural Park is a protected area of the Philippines located in the northern mountainous forest region of the island of Negros in the Visayas. It is spread over five municipalities and six cities in the province of Negros Occidental and is the province’s largest watershed and water source for seventeen municipalities and cities including the Bacolod metropolitan area.

The park belongs to the Negros–Panay Biogeographic Region. It is one of two remaining lowland forests on Negros island, the other being in the Dumaguete watershed area in Mount Talinis on the southern end of the island in Negros Oriental.

The park is a habitat to important fauna including the Visayan spotted deer, Visayan warty pig, Philippine naked-backed fruit bat, and the endangered Negros shrew.

Number of endemic and threatened species of birds have been documented in the park, which includes the Visayan hornbill, Negros bleeding-heart, white-winged cuckooshrike, flame-templed babbler, white-throated jungle flycatcher, Visayan flowerpecker and green-faced parrotfinch.

Flora documented within the park include hardwood tree species (Dipterocarps), as well as palms, orchids, herbs and trees with medicinal value. Very rare is the local species of the cycas tree (locally called pitogo), probably a Cycas vespertilio, considered living fossil from the times of dinosaurs. Another prehistoric flora is present in the park like the tree ferns and the also protected Agathis philippinensis, (locally known as almaciga).

While We Were Distracted

As we know during 2020 most nations have been preoccupied trying to survive lockdown. During this time the local government of Negros Island, Protection And Management Board,  Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) failed in its responsibilities to protect the remaining watershed and rainforest. Road construction on the island started in the midst of Global Pandemic.

Instead the DENR legitimized the road construction on the Island and in doing so has increased the likelihood of communities on the island being destroyed in the medium to long term.  The DENR, along with the Department of Public Works and the Department of Highways have acted in a way that swept aside the needs of local communities, that ignored the rights of the natural world and in doing so have colluded to strengthen their power. In short they have become the mechanism and tool of destruction for the island.

The Aerotroplis Project

The plans to build a new International Airport in Manila has also hit the radar of environmental activists. The people and environmental groups in Bulakan and Bulacan have shared concerns about the devastation this will cause to the natural world, to wildlife (including fish) populations, bird populations, air pollution, and airplanes flying in the sky.  As always the focus is on economic benefits rather than the health of planet or people. There has been little or no analysis of the environmental impact.

Leon Dulce, national coordinator of Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment (Kalikasan-PNE), told the BusinessMirror that the presence of the bird populations are bioindicators of good ecological health. He stated “This is of crucial importance in these times when there are multiple epidemiological risks from pandemics, socioeconomic loss, and climate emergency all emerging from the disrupted environment. Massive land-reclamation activities in Manila Bay threatens the last remaining wetlands where migratory birds roost. The Bulacan Aerotropolis is one of the biggest threats that will destroy 2,500 hectares of mangroves and fisheries. It is outrageous that transportation mega infrastructure is being touted for economic recovery when global transportation is expected to remain disrupted until 2021.”

Critical Mass Ride

Following the actions from Food Not Bombs Bacolad, on November 8th Local Autonomous Networks held a discussion to consider the ongoing problem. They agreed to organize a coordinated Critical Mass Ride. The ride involved concerned people in the Archipelago from the different islands of the Philippines gathering to travel around the main city to raise awareness.
Food Not Bombs and Local Autonomous Networks have issued a call to action to support them in opposing the road construction and the subsequent destruction of the Rainforest that will kill the livelihood of hundreds of families.

The call to action in the Archipelago is just a start. They have been clear they will not stop nor be silenced until the destruction planned has been stopped. They are calling for International Solidarity to all readers.

Join The Resistance. Join The Fight!

Save the Remaining Forest & Watershed of Northern Negros Natural Park, Stop the Patag-Silay-Calatrava-Cadiz Road Construction.  STOP the Bulacan Aerotropolis Project.

It’s Not “Revenge Porn” or Deepfakes — It’s Digital Rape

It’s Not “Revenge Porn” or Deepfakes — It’s Digital Rape

by | Nov 11, 2020 | Male Supremacy, Pornography

In this piece, Max talks about revenge porn and deepfakes as a new form of pornography. Pornography has always been a tool for the subjugation of women by patriarchy. The article further relates subjugation of women to the subjugation of the natural world.

By Max Wilbert

Our culture is a culture of violation, a culture of breaking boundaries: the boundaries of women, of children, of forests, of oceans, of the living planet itself, even of the atom and the gene.

Where does the impulse to violate come from, and how is it encoded and transmitted from generation to generation?

One method of transmission is via pornography, one of a broad set of cultural tools used to inculcate patriarchy and pass it from generation to generation. Susan Griffin, in her book Woman and Nature, writes that “above all, pornography is ritual. It is an enacted drama that is laden with meaning, which imparts a vision of the world. The altar for the ritual is a woman’s body. And the ritual which is carried out on this altar is the desecration of flesh. Here, what is sacred within the body is degraded.”

As Gail Dines and other radical feminists argue, the sadistic brilliance of pornography is that is sexualizes these rituals, hiding them behind a veil of arousal, so that excitement becomes linked to dominance and subordination. Acts that would be anathema to our child selves become normalized, then eroticized.

Revenge Porn and “Deepfakes”

This understanding of pornography as ritualized degradation helps explain two of the newer forms of pornography: revenge porn and “Deepfakes.” As the slow burn of printed pornography exploded with the advent of the internet, now the internet is enabling new forms of ritualized degradation of women and violation of boundaries.

Most people are unfortunately familiar with the phenomenon of “revenge porn“—the practice of men sharing explicit photographs or videos of women online in order to degrade them—which has become all too common over the last decade. “Deepfakes” are newer and make degradation so much easier: computer-generated pornography, often created using AI/Machine Learning technology to swap a woman’s face onto another person’s body.

The technology to create Deepfakes has escalated quickly over the past several years, and now realistic-looking Deepfakes can be created relatively easily, or even automatically. Last month a report exposed that users had uploaded images of more than 680,000 women, without their knowledge or consent, to an automated service on Telegram to create photo-realistic Deepfake pornography. And another expose showed that TikTok stars—often underage teenagers—are ending up on porn websites.

Digital Rape

How can we describe this new form of violation? Sophie Maddocks, a PhD candidate at the New School, writes that feminist activists are increasingly seeking to re-name revenge porn and Deepfakes as ‘Non-consensual pornography’, ‘image-based sexual abuse’, and ‘digital rape.’

Like Susan Griffin, Maddocks points towards an understanding of pornography not as sexual expression, art, or the singular act of bitter men, but as what Andrea Dworkin called “the blueprint of male supremacy.”

“Pornography incarnates male supremacy,” Dworkin wrote. “It is the DNA of male dominance. Every rule of sexual abuse, every nuance of sexual sadism, every highway and byway of sexual sadism, is encoded in it. It’s what men want us to be, think we are, make us into; how men use us; not because biologically they are men but because this is how their social power is organized. From the perspective of the political activist, pornography is the blueprint of male supremacy.”

The Ecological Crisis and Patriarchy

As Lierre Keith says, if you could reduce feminism to one word, it would be: “No.” The  drawing of boundaries is essential to not just individual bodily and mental health, but to the health of the entire planet. And what is industrial civilization but the cultural urge to violate the entire planet?

Patriarchy is thousands of years old, and it will not be dismantled in a day, or a year, or a decade. But for as long as it has existed, so has resistance. Movements to dismantle porn culture and stop the proliferation of digital sexual abuse are widespread and growing. These problems are deeply entrenched, and confronting the culture of violation will require people in all walks of life to make commitments and take action, over lifetimes.

Deep Green Resistance is primarily an ecological organization, but we are also a feminist organization, because we recognize the links between patriarchy and the destruction of the planet.

Only to name one of the most obvious, the problem of overpopulation is mainly caused by the subjugation of women—legally, economically, culturally, sexually. And the path to solve overpopulation is simple: educate women, and provide culturally appropriate family planning and healthcare. When this is done, population growth disappears. There is no technical mystery here; the problem is changing the culture and restructuring power.

In Margaret Atwood’s prophetic book Oryx and Crake, global warming wreaks havok on a world falling further into dystopia. The most violent forms of child rape pornography are normalized, and young kids watch the “Nitee-Nite” show for live streams of people committing suicide. Soy-based artificial foods and genetically-engineered creatures fill every plate, and as the world descends further into chaos, well-meaning people spend their money airlifting food to starving polar bears in an ice-free Arctic rather than in confronting or dismantling the systems that are destroying the planet.

This is the world we are heading towards, but it is not inevitable. Our only hope lies in what Dworkin calls organized political resistance. Each day, I read these words and remind myself of our task:

[W]hen I talk about a resistance, I am talking about an organized political resistance. I’m not just talking about something that comes and something that goes. I’m not talking about a feeling. I’m not talking about having in your heart the way things should be and going through a regular day having good, decent, wonderful ideas in your heart.

I’m talking about when you put your body and your mind on the line and you commit yourself to years of struggle in order to change the society in which you live… A political resistance goes on day and night, under cover and over ground, where people can see it and people can’t. It is passed from generation to generation. It is taught. It is encouraged. It is celebrated. It is smart. It is savvy. It is committed. And someday it will win. It will win.

Dumping Fukushima’s Water into the Ocean

Dumping Fukushima’s Water into the Ocean

by | Nov 7, 2020 | Toxification

In this article, Robert Hunzinker writes about the current situation regarding the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident which has led to the spillage of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean and also water containment issues with worrisome consequences.

By Robert Hunzinker / Counterpunch.

For nearly a decade the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant has been streaming radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. As it happens, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Co.) struggles to control it. Yet, the bulk of the radioactive water is stored in more than 1,000 water tanks.

Assuredly, Japan’s government has made an informal decision to dump Fukushima Daiichi’s radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. A formal announcement could come as early as this year. Currently, 1.2 million tonnes of radioactive water is stored.

The problem: TEPCO is running out of storage space.

Government of Japan’s solution: Dump it into the Pacific Ocean.

Third-party expert solutions: Build more storage tanks.

Environmental groups insist there is no reason why additional storage tanks cannot be constructed outside the perimeter of the plant. They accuse the government of seeking the cheapest and quickest solution to the problem. All along, authorities have promised the site will be safe in 40 years. Really, only 40 years!

According to IAEA’s Director General Grossi, who visited Fukushima in February 2020, dumping radioactive water that is mainly contaminated with tritium meets global standards of practice.

In that regard, advocates of nuclear power utilize a subtle storyline that convinces, and deceives, the public into accepting nuclear power, however reluctantly. It goes something like this: “There’s nothing to worry about. Nuclear power plants routinely release tritium into the air and water. There is no economically feasible way to remove it. It’s normal, a standard operating procedure.” Nevertheless, as shall be explained in more detail forthwith, there is nothing positive about that posture, absolutely nothing!

According to TEPCO, all radioactive isotopes will be removed, except tritium, which is hard to separate. Still, similar to all radioactive substances, tritium is a carcinogen (causes cancer), a mutagen (causes genetic mutation), and a teratogen (causes malformation of an embryo).

The good news: Tritium is relatively weak beta radiation and does not have enough energy to penetrate human skin. The principal health risks are ingesting or breathing the tritium.

TEPCO has deployed an Advanced Liquid Processing System that purportedly removes 62 isotopes from the water, all except tritium, which is radioactive hydrogen and cannot easily be filtered out of water.

However, the filtration system has been plagued by malfunctions. According to Greenpeace International, within the past two years TEPCO admitted to failures to reduce radioactivity to levels below regulatory limits in more than 80% of the storage tanks. Reported levels of Strontium-90 (a deadly isotope) were more than 100 times regulatory standards with some tanks at 20,000 times:

“They have deliberately held back for years detailed information on the radioactive material in the contaminated water. They have failed to explain to the citizens of Fukushima, wider Japan and to neighboring countries such as S. Korea and China that the contaminated water to be dumped into the Pacific Ocean contains dangerous levels of carbon-14. These, together with other radionuclides in the water will remain hazardous for thousands of years with the potential to cause genetic damage. It’s one more reason why these plans have to be abandoned.”

Cancer is the main risk to humans ingesting tritium. When tritium decays it emits a low-energy electron (roughly 18,000 electron volts) that escapes and slams into DNA, a ribosome or some other biologically important molecule. And, unlike other radionuclides, tritium is usually part of water, so it ends up in all parts of the body and therefore, in theory, can promote any kind of cancer. But that also helps reduce the risk because tritiated water is typically excreted in less than a month. (Source: Is Radioactive Hydrogen in Drinking Water a Cancer Threat, Scientific American, Feb. 7, 2014)

Some evidence suggests beta particles emitted by tritium are more effective at causing cancer than the high-energy radiation such as gamma rays. Low-energy electrons produce a greater impact because it doesn’t have the energy to spread its impact. At the end of its atomic-scale trip it delivers most of its ionizing energy in one relatively confined track rather than shedding energy all along its path like a higher-energy particle. This is known as “density of ionization.” As such, scientists say any amount of radiation poses a health risk.

You can read the full article here.