In this piece, Suresh discusses the impact of civilization on endemic communities and their right to live in isolation. Suresh tells us how these indigenous people have had their land, rights and identities stripped by encroaching industrial civilization.
In a world characterised by information, there are issues that have been made so invisible that the great majority of people do not even know that they exist. This is the case of the ethnic communities living in voluntary isolation. Most are not even aware that some of these people have not yet been contacted by the predominating society and in other cases, have resisted integrating it in spite or as a result of having been contacted.
To this ignorance is added a second one: that the very existence of these people is seriously threatened by the destructive advance of ‘development’. Roads penetrating into the forests to extract timber, oil, minerals or to promote land settlement for agriculture and cattle ranching, can be labelled ‘inroads of death’ for these people. They bring unknown diseases their bodies are incapable of coping with, destroy the forests that provide for their livelihoods, pollute waters, where they drink, bathe and fish. There are encounters with those who intend to take over their territory, the death of their millennia-old cultural heritage.
To understand the problem we need to divest ourselves of our ‘truths’ and try to put ourselves in their place.
All of us live in territories with precise limits. They do too. All of us are jealous custodians of our frontiers when faced with potential or real external aggression. They are too. All of us have our feelings of nationality, with a specific language, culture and wisdom. They have too.
What would we do if a group of armed foreigners entered our territory without our permission? The same as they do; we would resist in every possible way, including armed resistance. However, while we may be considered to be ‘heroic patriots’, they are classified as savages. Why is this? Simple, because we are the ones to legitimize resistance (violence).
It is important to emphasize that these people were never asked if they wanted to be Indian, Asian, African, American or European. Each government – colonial or national – simply drew up a map of straight lines and determined that all the territories included within its frontiers ‘belong’ to the corresponding country or colony – irrespective of these people having been there much before the very idea of even the concept of state. They have been ‘nationalised’.
Again this begs the question: what would we do if we had to face a similar situation? Would we accept the imposed change of nationality or would we resist it ?
Surely, we would do everything possible to continue being what we are and what we want to be. The difference, of course, is that these people are in no position to, ultimately, resist the devastating advance of modernisation (industrialisation). For this reason, all of us who believe in justice and dignity, have an obligation to provide them with the support they need– although they do not ask for it– to defend their liberty and rights, and, finally, prevent the silent or invisible genocide that they are being subject to.
We should not be surprised thatthere are people who do not want to either assimilate or integrate into the kind of life that we live; a system that pauperises millions, destroys whole ecosystems – land, water, forests, fisheries, space and atmosphere. These people are neither poor nor ignorant. They are most certainly different and have demonstrated the most uncommon wisdom, whose history is a mystery even today.
When the first ‘conquistadores’ travelled down the combined drainage basin of the rivers Amazon and Orinoco, in the 16thcentury, they found populous settlements, hierarchical chiefdoms and complex agricultural systems all along the two rivers. The ‘Indians’, they reported, raised turtles in ponds/freshwater lagoons, had vast stores of dried fish, made sophisticated glazed pottery, and had huge jars, each one capable of holding a hundred gallons. They also noted that these people had dug-out canoes and traded up and down the Andes. Behind the large settlements, they noted many roads leading to the hinterland. These stories were later discounted as the puff of promoters trying to magnify the importance of their ‘discoveries’, as the banks of the rivers have been almost devoid of people since the 18thcentury. All through the 20thcentury, the archetypal Amazonians were ‘hidden tribes’, hunter-gatherers and jhum cultivators, who lived mostly upstream, at the headwaters, away from even the settlers within.
With the benefit of hindsight and new insights from history, social anthropology and archaeology, we can nowsee that these two opposing perceptions of Amazonia are strangely and tragically related. Archaeology now teaches us that lowland Amazonia, even in areas of poor soil and brackish water like the upper Xingu, was indeed once quite densely populated. Regional trade and dynamic synergies among and between the Amazonians had led to the sub-continent being thickly populated by widely differentiated, but inter-related groups or communities, who specialised in local skills to both work and use their unique environs in diverse and subtle ways.
The onslaught of modern/western societies brought about much of this complexity/diversity to an end. Warfare, conquest, religious missions, and the scourge of old world diseases reduced whole populations to less than a tenthof the pre-Columbian levels. Slave raids, by European invaders traded the ‘red gold’ of enslaved ‘Indians’ for the goods of western industries, stripped the lower rivers/reaches bare of any remnant groups. Raiding, enslaving and competition for trading opportunities with the whites created turmoil in the headwaters. The myth of the empty Amazon became a reality as the survivors moved inland and upstream to avoid these depredations.
In the late 19thcentury, overseas markets and advances in technology created new possibilities of exploitation/extraction. In particular, the discovery of the process of vulcanisation, led to a global trade in non-timber forest produce, such as, rubber and other plantations almost exclusively for military-industrial-commercial use. The onerous task of bleeding the climax vegetation and the land rich in deposits, linked to global trade and finance, yielded fortunes for entrepreneurs prepared to penetrate the headwaters and enslave local communities to serve the global marketplace.
Tens of thousands of indigenous people perished as a result of forced contact, labour and disease.
This forced them to flee even deeper into the jungles, to break contact completely with a changing world that brought them death and destruction of life and ‘property’.
Of course, not all the indigenous people at the headwaters are environmental/ecological refugees escaping the brutalities of contact. However, the impact of the outside world on even the remotest headwaters is often underestimated. For many, not only in Amazonia, the search for isolation has been an informed choice – the logical response of a people who have realised that contact with the outside world almost certainly brings only ruin, not benefits.
This century’s industrialised societies are being further drawn into the last reaches of the Amazon, where these people now live in voluntary isolation, for timber, minerals, oil and natural gas. If we deplore the consequent horrors of the earlier invasions, can we now really say that the advanced industrial society is more civilised? Can we respect the choice (rights) of other communities to avoid contact and leave them alone in their homeland, undisturbed?
The ‘Last’ Frontier – The Case of the Negrito in the Andamans.
Outsiders are invading the reserve of the isolated Jarawas (Sentinelese, Onges and others) in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. They are stealing the game on which they depend for their life and livelihood. Women and children, in particular, seem to face the brunt of this invasion. Despite a Supreme Court order to the local administration to finally close, for example, the highway which runs through the reserve, it remains open, bringing death, disease and dependency.
The Jarawa are one of the four Negrito communities who are believed to have travelled to the Andamans from Africa some 60,000 years ago. Two of the local communities, the Onge and Andamanese, were decimated following the colonisation of their islands – first by the British and later by India. The present population of the Andamanese is a ridiculous 40. Both the communities are now dependent on government handouts. The Jarawas resisted contact with the settlers from mainland India until 1998. The fourth, the Sentinelese, live on their own island and continue to shun all contact.
The Jarawas are hunter-gatherers and even their population size is far below the critical mass (270). They use bows and arrows to hunt small game. Today, hundreds and thousands of Indian and Burmese settlers and poachers are hunting along the coast, depriving the Jarawas of their vital game. The issue has become so acute that in many areas the once abundant game has almost become extinct. The same is true vis-à-visthe other communities as well.
The main highway which runs through the Jarawa reserve, known as the Andaman Trunk Road, has thrown open their homeland for exploitation and extraction. As a result, foreign or alien goods and exotics are being introduced into the region. Although the local administration is trying to restrict contact, which may be a step in the right direction, it is by no meanssufficient to secure the future of the communities at stake. All the same, opinion is still divided within the establishment to both assimilate and integrate the communities into the mainstream.
The Consequence ofImposed or Involuntary Contact – The Case of the Malapandaram in the Southern Western Ghats of Kerala.
The Malapandaram are a nomadic community numbering about 2000 people who live in the high ranges of the Southern Western Ghats along the south-west coast of the state of Kerala in South India. Early writers described them as the primitive tribes of the jungle and saw them as socially isolated in a pristine environment. But, the Malapandarams have a history of contact with the caste Hindus settled in the plains and have been a part of a wider mercantile economy. They are basically collectors of minor forest produce, such as, spices, honey and medicinal plants. They, therefore, combine subsistence food gathering –small game and birds – with the collection of other usufructs.
The majority of Malapandarams spend most of their life living in forest encampments occupied by one to four families. These encampments consist of two to four leaf shelters, made of mud (clay) and thatch. These ‘settlements’ are obviously temporary as they reside in a particular locality only for about a week before moving elsewhere.
The Malapandarams see themselves and are described by outsiders as ‘Kattumanushyar’forest people. They closely identify themselves with their living space, which is not only a source of livelihood, but also an environment where they can sustain a degree of cultural autonomy and social independence (inter-dependence). Hence, they tend to live and constantly move around the margins of the forest ecosystem. This enables them to engage in a barter system, while avoiding control, harassment/exploitation and even violence as a result of conflicting interests. In short, the verdant canopy is their only refuge.
With the establishment of colonial rule – the British (imperial) Raj – and the artificial creation/formation of the state of Travancore, the Southern Western Ghats became a property for the very first time. In the annuls of their history, owned and abused with impunity by the state through its extensive network of forest bureaucracy. Since1865, a number of Acts (laws) were enacted and enforced periodically in order to‘manage’the forests, as well as, its residents (biotic and abiotic), almost exclusively for politico-economic reasons (profit). A majoroutcome: the sedantarisation of the nomadic communities as fixed or permanent settlements. They were, thus, denied any rights, customary and/orotherwise, tolife and livelihood based on their renewable natural resource base. The ultimate manifestation of this involuntary transition has resulted in an identity crisis due to the economics of intimidation. That is, today, they are no more forest dwellers, but rather have been forced to become agriculturists (bonded, landless and marginal agricultural labourers/farmers).
’Independent’ India has only increasingly, ever more aggressively, moved from feudalism to neo-feudalism, colonialism to neo-colonialism and, now liberalism to neo-liberalism.
Suresh Balraj is an environmental anthropologist and social ecologist based in South India. He has been working in forestry, agriculture, and fisheries for several decades with a focus on community-based renewable management. He is a guardian forDeep Green Resistance.
Featured image: Cave of the Hands in Santa Cruz province, with indigenous artwork dating from 13,000–9,000 years ago, by Mariano, CC BY SA 3.0.
We Need Your Help
Right now, Deep Green Resistance organizers are at work building a political resistance resistance movement to defend the living planet and rebuild just, sustainable human communities.
In Manila, Kathmandu, Auckland, Denver, Paris—all over the world—we are building resistance and working towards revolution. We Need Your Help.
Not all of us can work from the front lines, but we can all contribute. Our radical, uncompromising stance comes at a price. Foundations and corporations won’t fund us because we are too radical. We operate on a shoestring budget (all our funding comes from small, grassroots donations averaging less than $50) and have only one paid staff.
Current funding levels aren’t sustainable for the long-term, even with our level of operations now. We need to expand our fundraising base significantly to build stronger resistance and grow our movement.
We share this because the ability to read terrain and maps, and to understand how geography influences operations, is a critical skill for resistance movements. Guerilla resistance movements always find safety in forests and mountains. Know the land.
Terrain analysis, an integral part of the intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB), plays a key role in any military operation. During peacetime, terrain analysts build extensive data bases for each potential area of operations. They provide a base for all intelligence operations, tactical decisions, and tactical operations. They also support the planning and execution of most other battlefield functions. Because terrain features continually undergo change on the earth’s surface, data bases must be continuously revised and updated.
Purpose
This field manual prescribes basic doctrine and is intended to serve as a primary source of the most current available information on terrain analysis procedures for all personnel who plan, supervise, and conduct terrain analysis. The manual discusses the impact of the terrain and the weather on operations.
Part 1: Terrain Evaluation and Verification, Natural Terrain and Surface Configuration
Maneuver commanders must have accurate intelligence on the surface configuration of the terrain. Ravines, embankments, ditches, plowed fields, boulder fields, and rice-field dikes are typical surface configurations that influence military activities.
Elevations, depressions, slope, landform type, and surface roughness are some of the terrain factors that affect movement of troops, equipment, and material.
Landforms
Landforms are the physical expression of the land surface. The principal groups of landforms are plains or plateaus, hills, and mountains. Within each of these groups are surface features of a smaller size, such as flat lowlands and valleys.
Each type results from the interaction of earth processes in a region with given climate and rock conditions. A complete study of a landform includes determination of its size, shape, arrangement, surface configuration, and relationship to the surrounding area.
Relief
Local relief is the difference in elevation between the points in a given area. The elevations or irregularities of a land surface are represented on graphics by contours, hypsometric tints, shading, spot elevations, and hachures.
Slope or Gradient
Slope can be expressed as the slope ratio or gradient, the angle of slope, or the percent of slope. The slope ratio is a fraction in which the vertical distance is the numerator and the horizontal distance is the denominator. The angle of slope in degrees is the angular difference the inclined surface makes with the horizontal plane. The tangent of the slope angle is determined by dividing the vertical distance by the horizontal distance between the highest and lowest elevations of the inclined surface. The actual angle is found by using trigonometric tables. The percent of slope is the number of meters of elevation per 100 meters of horizontal distance.
Slope information that is available to the analyst in degrees or in ratio values may be converted to percent of slope by using a nomogram.
Vegetation Features
Plant cover can affect military tactics, decisions, and operations. Perhaps the most important is concealment. To make reliable evaluations when preparing vegetation overlays, analysts must collect data on the potential effects of vegetation on vehicular and foot movement, cover and concealment, observation, airdrops, and construction materials.
Types
The types of vegetation in an area can give an indication of the climatic conditions, soil, drainage, and water supply. Terrain analysts are interested in trees, scrubs and shrubs, grasses, and crops.
On military maps, any perennial vegetation high enough to conceal troops or thick enough to be a serious obstacle to free passage is classified as woods or brushwood.
Although trees provide good cover and concealment, they can present problems to movement of armor and wheeled vehicles. Woods also slow down the movement of dismounted troops. Individual huge trees are seldom so close together that a tank cannot move between them, but the space between them is often filled by smaller trees or brush. Closely spaced trees are usually fairly small and can be pushed over by a tank; however, the resulting pileup of vegetation may stop the tank. Trees that can stop a wheeled vehicle are usually too closely spaced to bypass.
Trees are classified as either deciduous (broadleaf) or coniferous (evergreen).
With the exception of species growing in tropical areas and a few species existing intemperate climates, most broadleaf trees lose their leaves in the fall and become dormant until the early spring. Needleleaf trees do not normally lose their leaves and exhibit only small seasonal changes.
Scrubs include a variety of trees that have had their growth stunted because of soil or climatic conditions. Shrubs comprise the undergrowth in open forests, but in arid and semiarid areas they are the dominant vegetation. Shrubs normally offer no serious obstacle to movement and provide good concealment from ground observation however, they may restrict fields of fire.
For terrain intelligence purposes, grass more than 1 meter high is considered tall.
Grass often improves the trafficability of soils. Very tall grass may provide concealment for foot troops. Foot movement in savannah grasslands is slow and tiring; vehicular movement is easy; and observation from the air is easy.
Water Features
Safe water, in sufficient amounts, is strategically and tactically important to Army operations. Water that is not properly treated can spread diseases. The control of and access to water is critical for drinking, sanitation, construction, vehicle operation, and other military operations. Military planners are concerned with areas with the highest possibilities for locating usable ground water. They must consider all feasible sources and methods for developing sources when making plans for water supply. Quantity and quality are important considerations. Terrain analysts can use the methods and systems available to locate both surface and subsurface water resources.
Quantity
Water quantity depends on the climate of the area. Plains, hills, and vegetation are good indicators of water sources.
Large springs are the best sources of water in karstic plains and plateaus. Wells may produce large amounts if they tap underground streams. Shallow wells in low-lying lava plains normally produce large quantities of ground water. In lava uplands, water is more difficult to find, wells are harder to develop, and careful prospecting is necessary to obtain adequate supplies. In wells near the seacoast, excessive withdrawal of freshwater may lower the water table, allowing infiltration of saltwater that ruins the well and the surrounding aquifer.
Springs and wells near the base of volcanic cones may yield fair quantities of water, but elsewhere in volcanic cones the ground water is too far below the surface for drilling to be practicable. Plains and plateaus in arid climates generally yield small, highly mineralized quantities of ground water. In semiarid climates, following a severe drought, an apparently dry streambed frequently may yield considerable amounts of excellent subsurface water. Ground water is abundant in the plains of humid tropical regions, but it is usually polluted. In arctic and subarctic plains, wells and springs fed by ground water above the permafrost are dependable only in summer; some of the sources freeze in winter, and subterranean channels and outlets may shift in location. Wells that penetrate aquifers within or below the permafrost are good sources of perennial supply.
Adequate supplies of ground water are hard to obtain in hills and mountains composed of gneiss, granite, and granite-like rocks. They may contain springs and shallow wells that will yield water in small amounts.
Tree species can also indicate local ground water table presence. Deciduous trees tend to have far-reaching root systems indicating a water table close to the ground surface. Coniferous trees tend to have deep root systems, which depict the ground water table as being farther away from the ground surface. In desert environments, vegetation is scant and specialized to withstand the stress of desert life. Vegetation type is dependent on the water table of that location. Palm trees indicate water within 2 or 3 feet, salt grass indicates water within 6 feet, and cottonwood and willow bees indicate water within 10 to 12 feet. The common sage, greasewood, and cactus do not indicate water levels.
Quality
Quality will vary according to the source and the season, the kind and amount of bacteria, and the presence of dissolved matter or sediment. Color, turbidity, odor, taste, mineral content, and contamination determine the quality of water. Brackish water is found in many regions throughout the world but most frequently along sea coasts or as ground water in arid or semiarid climates.
Contamination
Potable water is free from disease-causing organisms and excessive amounts of mineral and organic matter, toxic chemicals, and radioactivity. Although surface water is ordinarily more contaminated than other sources, it is commonly selected for use in the field because it is more accessible in the quantity required. Ground water is usually less contaminated than surface water and is, therefore, a more desirable water source. However, the use of ground water by combat units is usually limited unless existing wells are available. Rain, melted snow, or melted ice may be used in special instances where neither surface nor ground water is available. Water from these sources must be disinfected before drinking.
Pollution
Water may be contaminated but not polluted. Streams in inhabited regions are commonly polluted, with the sediment greatest during flood stages. Streams fed by lakes and springs with a uniform flow are usually clear and vary less in quality than do those fed mainly by surface runoff. Generally, the quality of water in large lakes is excellent, with the purity increasing with the distance from the shore. Very shallow lakes and small ponds are usually polluted.
Obstacles
An obstacle is any natural or man-made terrain feature that slows, diverts, or stops the movement of personnel or vehicles. Obstacles are classified as natural, such as escarpments, or man-made, such as built-up areas and cemeteries. They are further categorized as existing-present natural or as man-made terrain features that will limit mobility or as reinforced-existing features that man has enhanced to use as obstacles, such as gentle slopes reinforced by tank ditches, pikes, or revetments that limit mobility of maneuver units.
For classification purposes, obstacles must beat least 1.5 meters high and 250 meters long and have a slope greater than 45 percent (that which military vehicles are unable to travel). Obstacles that will be delineated should be in areas where they are of primary importance for the diversion of crosscountry movement.
Obstacles include escarpments, embankments, road cuts and fills, depressions, fences, walls, hedgerows, and moats.
Urban Areas
Urban-area intelligence is important in planning tactical and strategical operations, targeting for nuclear or air attack, and planning logistical support for operations. Knowledge of characteristics in urban areas may also be important in civil affairs, intelligence, and counterintelligence operations. Although information is frequently accessible, the amount of detail required necessitates a substantial collection effort.
The first aspect of urban intelligence includes geographic location, relative economic and political importance of urban areas in the national structure, and physical dimensions such as street shapes. The six street patterns are rectangular, radial, concentric, contour conforming, medieval irregular, and planned irregular (in the new residential suburbs of some countries).
The second aspect includes physical composition, vulnerability, accessibility, productive capacity, and military resources of individual urban areas. Urban areas are significant as military objectives or targets and as bases of operations. They may be one or a combination of power centers (political, economic, military); industrial production centers; service centers; transportation centers; population centers; service centers (distribution points for fuels, power, water, raw materials, food, manufactured goods); or cultural and scientific centers (seats of thought and learning, and focal points of modem technological developments).
Buildings can provide numerous concealed positions for the infantry. Armored vehicles can find isolated positions under archways or inside small industrial or commercial structures. Thick masonry, stone, or brick walls offer excellent protection from direct fire, and ceilings for individual fire. Cover and concealment can also be provided by the percentage of roof coverage. For detailed information, see FM 90-10.
Transportation
Analysts preparing terrain studies must carefully evaluate all transportation facilities to determine their effect on proposed operations. Analysts may recommend destroying certain facilities or retaining them for future use. The entire transportation network must be considered in planning large-scale operations. An area with a dense transportation network, for example, is favorable for major offensives. Networks that are criss-crossed by canals and railroads and possess few roads will limit the use of wheeled vehicles and the maneuver of armor and motorized infantry.
The transportation facilities of an area consist of all highways, railways, and waterways over which troops or supplies can be moved. The importance of each area depends on the nature of the military operation involved. An army’s ability to carry out its mission depends greatly on its transportation capabilities and facilities.
Highways
Military interest in highway intelligence of a given area or country covers all physical characteristics of the existing road, track, and trail system. All associated structures and facilities necessary for movement and for protection of the routes, such as bridges, ferries, tunnels, and fords, are integral parts of the highway system.
The severe abuse given to roads by large volumes of heavy traffic, important bridges, intersections, and narrow defiles makes them primary targets for enemy bombardment.
Railroads
Railways are a highly desirable adjunct to extended military operations. Their capabilities are of primary concern and are the subject of continuing studies by personnel at the highest levels.
Railroads include all fixed property belonging to a line, such as land, permanent way, and facilities necessary for the movement of traffic and protection of the permanent way. They include bridges, tunnels, snowsheds, galleries, ferries, and other structures.
Bridges
Structures and crossings on highways or railways include bridges, culverts, tunnels, galleries, ferries, and fords. For the purpose of terrain intelligence, they also include cableways, tramways, and other features that may reduce or interrupt the traffic flow on a transportation route. Bridges and culverts are the structures most frequently encountered; however, any feature that may present a potential obstacle is significant in a military operation.
Any type of structure or crossing on a transportation route is an important portion of the route regardless of the mode of transportation. Maps, charts, photographs, and other sources contain valuable information that analysts should exploit.
Highway and railway bridges and tunnels are vulnerable points on a line of communications. Information about prevention, destruction, or repair of a bridge may be the key to an effective defense or the successful penetration of an enemy area. A bridge seized intact has great value in offensive operations, since even a small bridge eases troop movement over a river or stream.
Pipelines
Pipelines that carry petroleum and natural gas represent an important mode of transportation. White rail, water, and road transport are used extensively for transporting fluids and gases, the overland movement of petroleum and refined products is performed most economically and expeditiously by pipeline. Crude-oil pipelines are used only to transport crude oil, while many refried-product pipelines carry more than one product. These products are sent through the pipelines in tenders, or batches, to keep the amount of mixing to a minimum. Because of their most vital link in an industrialized country’s energy supply system, coal and ore are also carried in pipelines as slurry.
Terminal Facilities
Refinery terminals consist of numerous tanks for the separate storage of crude oil and refined products. Facility size and type depends on whether the refinery is located near the source of supply or consuming center, Refined-product dispensing terminals contain a variety of products for final distribution. –
Natural gas is generally stored in bulk, below the ground, and under high-pressure, Large underground gas storage pools, usually caves or quarries near consuming centers, are often used to store gas for seasonal or emergency needs. Above ground, natural gas is stored mostly under pressure in spherical tanks, but large telescoping tanks are sometimes used for low-pressure storage. Natural-gas receiving terminals are located at the producing field and contain facilities for conditioning the gas for pipeline transmission. Natural-gas dispensing terminals are located at consuming centers and include dispatching and metering facilities and sufficient storage facilities to meet peak demands.
Storage tanks, found in varying numbers at all petroleum installations, are easily recognized. Volatile products such as gasoline and kerosene are generally stored in floating roof tanks. These tanks have roofs that float on the liquid to reduce space in which vapor might form. Nonvolatile products such as fuel oils and crude oil are stored in fixed-roof tanks. Petroleum gases are generally liquefied and stored under pressure in spherical tanks or in horizontal cylindrical tanks. The number and variety of tanks in a storage installation indicate the quantity and types of product stored. Areas of great extent and capacity are called tank farms.
Ports and Harbors
Information about ports, naval bases, and shipyard facilities is essential for estimating capacities, vulnerability, and other items of military significance.
Ports are settlements with installations for handling waterborne shipping. Principal port facilities are berthing space, storage space, cargo-handling equipment, cargo transshipment facilities, and vessel-servicing facilities. Ports are classified on an area-wide rather than a worldwide basis, and a principal port in a small maritime nation may be equivalent to a much lesser port in the more extensive port system of another country. In wartime, principal and secondary ports and bases are prime targets for destruction, and the relative importance of minor ports increases.
Right now, Deep Green Resistance organizers are at work building a political resistance resistance movement to defend the living planet and rebuild just, sustainable human communities.
In Manila, Kathmandu, Auckland, Denver, Paris—all over the world—we are building resistance and working towards revolution. We Need Your Help.
Not all of us can work from the front lines, but we can all contribute. Our radical, uncompromising stance comes at a price. Foundations and corporations won’t fund us because we are too radical. We operate on a shoestring budget (all our funding comes from small, grassroots donations averaging less than $50) and have only one paid staff.
Current funding levels aren’t sustainable for the long-term, even with our level of operations now. We need to expand our fundraising base significantly to build stronger resistance and grow our movement.
The Philippines is poor because of a 500-year legacy of colonization. Today, the Philippines is in a neocolonial situation: it is an economic colony.
Poverty kills millions per year. And now, in the midst of coronavirus, government violence, corruption, incompetence, and indifference to the poor is exposed more starkly than ever.
This piece begins with vignettes from Deep Green Resistance organizers in the Philippines, and concludes with a piece from the Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal detailing the Duterte administration’s response.
Homeless people are being arrested for not following home quarantine.
A group of children arrested were arrested for violating curfew and put into a dog cage.
Politicians, celebrities, and the rich are able to access coronavirus testing even they don’t have any symptoms, while poor people with symptoms receive no tests.
CoViD-positive patients without serious symptoms are being discharged from hospitals but have nowhere to go.
Philippines: The Duterte regime and the COVID-19 pandemic — the case of a weak but authoritarian state
Update: On March 23, Duterte put to Congress the erroneously titled “Bayanihan Act of 2020”. The word ‘bayanihan’ means community assistance or ‘communitarian’ and the spirit of ‘bayanihan’ means assistance given voluntarily and without any monetary consideration by a member of the community. The title itself is fake, a lie. Nowhere in the bill does the spirit of ‘bayanihan’ prevail. The doctors, nurses, health workers, grocery employees, transport workers and all the frontliners who are heading the fight against COVID19 are not empowered in this bill — instead it extends more power to Duterte, the bureaucracy and his minions. This bill is sinister in many ways, as it aims to give wide powers to a president who’s proven to being incompetent in dealing with the pandemic.
March 23, 2020 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — In the Philippines we have a combination of the worst features of the state under the current conditions of global capitalism. The capacity of the Philippine state to provide even the modicum of public services, systems and related infrastructure, such as health, water, power, housing, public transport, public education, etc., has been gutted after decades of structural adjustment programs, debt and the dictates of neoliberal economic policies imposed by international financial institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, ADB, bilateral and multilateral agreements with imperialist countries, enthusiastically embraced by the country’s technocrats and successive elite governments. This ailing public sector, co-exists with ‘the strong arm’ of a state that has maintained and even increased its capacity to mobilise the military and the police to impose a range of authoritarian measures, from a war against the urban poor resulting in the death of tens of thousands, mainly youth, in the guise of a campaign against drugs, to martial law in the Southern island of Mindanao. Today, this dual character of both a weak and strong armed state, is starkly demonstrated in the Duterte regime’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As of March 22, the Department of Health reports 380 cases of COVID-19, with 17 recoveries and 25 deaths – a high mortality rate of approximately 7%. With no mass testing undertaken these figures are unreliable. Meanwhile health services are starting to flounder and health workers are falling ill though the anticipated exponential rise of the disease is still ahead of us.
Eleven hospitals and medical centres have issued an “urgent appeal” that an “alarming number” of their personnel were under the 14-day mandatory quarantine for individuals exposed to COVID-19 patients, as persons under investigation “continue to flock” to their emergency rooms every day. These hospitals and medical centres report that most of their “regular rooms have been turned into COVID-19 isolation areas,” leaving less healthcare resources for non- coronavirus patients who also have life-threatening conditions.
“The panic is escalating, mortality is increasing, our supplies of personal protective equipment are running short, our frontline staff are increasingly getting depleted as more of them are quarantined or physically and emotionally exhausted, and a number of our medical colleagues are already hooked to respirators fighting for their lives in various ICUs [intensive care units] … Even our ICUs are getting full. Soon we will have a shortage of respirators. We have every reason to be scared; we are, indeed very scared because we feel that we are on our own to face our countrymen in dire need of help.”
Despite the number of DOH-confirmed cases that is comparably lower to infections in other countries, the appeal points out that they are dealing with COVID-19 patients with “increasing mortality“, which in turn exposes their attending medical staff to more danger than usual. The country has no comprehensive universal health care program and one of the most expensive health services in the region.
Instead of addressing the weakness in the health system and infrastructure as its main priority, the Duterte regime’s strategy has been to declare a lockdown of the entire capital region around Metro Manila – the National Capital Region – from March 15 to April 14, which it describes as “imposing stringent social distancing measures”, with land, domestic air and sea travel to and from Metro Manila suspended, mass gatherings prohibited, community quarantine imposed, government work suspended (except for a skeletal workforce) and the suspension of classes. The announcement was made by President Duterte at a press conference ringed with the chiefs of the PNP and AFP, and police and troops immediately deployed at checkpoints to prevent people from travelling in and out of the NCR. No attempt was made during subsequent press conferences given by the President to explain the public health measures to be undertaken, such as testing programs, for which there is now a rising clamour. This was followed by an announcement on March 17 of the entire island of Luzon placed on lockdown described by government officials as an “enhanced community quarantine,” which limits the movement of people going in and out of the island region, home to at least 57 million.
We are currently under “enhanced community quarantine,” which is strict home quarantine for all households, with transportation suspended, provision for food and “essential health services” regulated, and with a heightened presence of uniformed personnel to enforce quarantine measures. This has been enforced with Barangay checkpoints (local checkpoints within Local Government Units), for which a pass is needed to pass through, with very limited movement which includes only the driver of the vehicle on the main highways such as Edsa or the driver and one assistant. These checkpoints, visible outside my bedroom window, now cordon off and isolate barangays around Metro Manila. Except for groceries and drug stores, all shops have been closed. Some barangays have even imposed 24-hour curfews.
Duterte has repeatedly announced that anyone violating this state of enhanced community quarantine will be arrested, including for “resistance and disobedience to persons in authority” under the provisions of the penal code. Students, workers and people simply trying to shop for food are now being arrested.
Unlike in South Korea where the military and police carried out temperature checks, testing, clean up and disinfecting, the armed personnel at the checkpoints here are doing none of this. In the first few days they weren’t even provided with basic safety equipment, such as masks and hand sanitizer.
The most immediate impact has been on workers and the army of the unemployed who make their livelihoods in the ‘informal sector’, who have been prevented from making a living. On the first day of the lockdown this led to tense scenes at the checkpoints ringing the borders of the NCR, with commuters venting both their anger and despair at the checkpoints. The impact on the livelihoods and lives of working people and the poor has been immediate and devastating. Our organisers are unable to provide assistance to the communities that they work in, such as providing food, masks, etc., in meaningful numbers, at most being only able to assist a couple of hundred households at any one time.
Meanwhile, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has announced a one-time financial assistance of P5,000 for every worker who could not work during the one-month lockdown. This is already a very measly amount (USD 3 per day for 30 days), and yet the assistance can only be procured if the employer sends the required documents to the DOLE. Workers are not allowed to do it themselves. Many are also complaining that their employers do not want to avail of this, as they still want workers to report to work during the lockdown. And for those who are locked down outside Metro Manila, they could not even petition their employer to follow up the assistance. Contractual workers are practically blocked from availing of the assistance as their ‘employer’ is a third party agent which may not even be registered in the corporation list of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Workers in the informal sector receive no assistance, and the government merely advise them to contact the local government units for work related to anti-COVID19 campaign in the communities.
The Department of Social Welfare and Development has temporarily suspended its poverty alleviation cash grants for the social pension and unconditional cash transfer (Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps) as well as the distribution of 4Ps cash cards to the country’s poorest families to supposedly “minimize the exposure of the beneficiaries and DSWD employees to the threats of COVID-19”.
The situation in the Philippines stands in stark contrast to other countries in the region, such as Vietnam and South Korea, which are being looked upon as examples of how to deal with the pandemic. Vietnam, bordering China, with a population of around 97 million, has managed to contain the spread of the disease, successfully keeping the number of cases at 76 (as of March 19), with no deaths, over two months after the first cases were reported. A key part of the containment strategy was to develop a fast and affordable test kit in one month, which according to the WHO should have taken four years to develop. The test, developed by a group of Vietnamese researchers from the Institute of Biotechnology under the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, costs about $15, and is capable of returning results within 80 minutes, with a specificity of 100% and sensitivity of five copies per reaction.
South Korea, with a population of around 51 million, as of March 19, has conducted more than 307,000 tests, the highest per capita in the world, with 633 testing sites nationwide. Results are swift, too, coming by text within 24 hours. Korean healthcare, a highly regulated, efficient single payer system, is also prepared to face epidemics. Broad government powers acquired during the MERS crisis has given South Korea one of the most ambitious tracking apparatuses in Asia. Health authorities can sift through credit-card records, CCTV footage, mobile-phone location services, public-transport cards and immigration records to pin down the travel histories of those infected or at risk. Admittedly, a double-edged sword, this tracking system proved to be effective in curbing the recent COVID19 crisis in the country.
Philippines, with a population of 109 million, has only six testing sites across the entire country — three hospitals in the NCR, and one each in Baguio, Cebu and Davao. There’s now a rising clamour for mass testing. A petition by Scientists Unite Against COVID-19, an alliance of more than 1,000 biologists, health experts, and other individuals, as well as 336 organizations, has called for widespread testing to be conducted, as mitigation strategies such as social distancing and community quarantine are not enough and for expanded, decentralized, testing facilities across the country.
According to March 10 media reports, only 2000 kits were available. Duterte’s family members and other Duterte cronies have been given preferential treatment, even though they don’t meet the Department of Health criteria that only the elderly, those with underlying conditions and those whose ailments have progressed to severe or critical would be tested for the virus. People have commented angrily on social media, with some labelling it a “test kits crisis”, describing the preferential treatment given to the President’s family and cronies as “shameless, obscene and disgusting”. On March 21 media reports said that 100,000 new test kits have arrived, donations from China, South Korea and Brunei, but this will only be for testing of severe or vulnerable persons under investigation and not for mass testing.
A test kit was quickly developed by scientists from the University of the Philippines and is capable of fast detection of the novel coronavirus, but it will only be available for use only after two to three weeks, the time it will take the Department of Health to validate the tests.
Some local government units (LGUs) are taking the initiative. The Pasig City Mayor ordered thelimited mobilization of tricycles in the city to bring health workers and patients with immediate medical needs to hospitals. His appeal to the national government to allow the use of tricycles for public health and safety, since a maximum of only two passengers are allowed in the vehicle, was rejected. All Pasig City Hall employees will be paid full salaries with hazard pay and overtime for those employees in the frontlines. The City of Marikina is another LGU taking positive steps, with the initiative to set up local testing units using the University of the Philippines test kits. The regime has responded by threatening mayors with criminal charges, saying they would “closely monitor the compliance of LGUs in the directives of the Office and to file the necessary cases against the wayward officials.”
Duterte has announced a ₱25.1 billion ‘war chest’ to fight COVID-19, but only ₱3.1 billion has been allocated to actually combat COVID-19, including the purchase of test kits and drugs, while the ₱14 billion boost to the tourism budget will, we suspect, be used to “bail out” the anticipated losses of airlines, hotels, casinos, resorts, and tourism-related capitalists. Only ₱2 billion has been allocated to compensate workers affected by the crisis.
The left and progressive movement here has been campaigning against Duterte’s military response to a public health crisis and has been put forward a platform of demands that include: Mass testing for all citizens; Free hospitalization of victims, persons under investigation (PUI), and person under monitoring (PUM) for COVID-19; Mass disinfection in all communities; Food and water rationing for workers and the poor; Distribution of face masks, hygiene kits, vitamins, and contraception; Assistance to farmers, drivers, and other affected workers; Release of 4Ps for beneficiaries; Paid emergency leave to uninsured workers; Refund tuition to students due to class suspension; Price control of commodities; Electricity, water, and communications to be provided 24/7; Allowing vehicles and tricycles to provide transport to medical workers and people with medical needs; Suspension of rent, water, electricity, communications, and other fees; Disarming the large numbers of military and police forces deployed so as not to cause terror to the people; and a debt moratorium.
Internationally, authoritarian trends are also being inflamed, corporate profits prioritised and public health measures relegated to an afterthought at best. According to March 21 media reports, the US Justice Department has asked Congress for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies — part of a push for new powers that comes as the coronavirus spreads through the United States. The move has tapped into a broader fear among civil liberties advocates and Donald Trump’s critics — that the president will use a moment of crisis to push for controversial policy changes. And even without policy changes, Trump has vast emergency powers that he could legally deploy right now to try and slow the coronavirus outbreak. British government statements on ‘herd-immunity’ have more than a hint of eugenics.
As of March 23, 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has killed 14,655 people worldwide. More than 77% of these deaths are outside China, where it started. In less than three months it has gone from being an outbreak in Hubei Province, to a global medical, economic and social crisis. Data from China suggests many countries are at the beginning of an exponential rise in infections. Comparisons of death tolls and number of cases in different countries show large differences in the death rate between countries. These do not follow a simple, linear pattern of rich countries fairing better than poor countries, although this is one trend (Italy’s GDP per capita is more than three times that of China’s and South Korea’s GDP per capita is slightly lower than that of Italy, for example). They reflect differences between countries in wealth, priority given to healthcare, willingness and ability of governments and states to take control of the economy, social solidarity and trust between society and authorities responsible for the response to the pandemic. Overall, capitalist society is proving unable to respond rationally to the pandemic, which will massively increase the death toll and the social and economic impacts.
The COVID-19 crisis needs to be considered as part of the environmental crisis created by capitalism that is threatening humanity with extinction. Scientists for some time have been warning of increasing frequency and severity of epidemics caused by novel pathogens, with recent pandemics including SARS, MERS and Swine Flu providing warning. Climate change itself increases the spread of pandemics. Moreover, the causes of pandemics such as COVID-19 include many factors also fuelling climate change as well reflecting the more general breakdown in the world’s ecosystems, and their ability to sustain life, as a result of the capitalist mode of production. Factors include industrialised agriculture, wilderness and ecosystem destruction, concentration and movement of people, and pollution. Unless the global environmental crisis is addressed, there will be an in increase in the frequency and severity of novel pandemics. In this regard pandemics are no different to the typhoons, fires, droughts, etc, whose increased frequency and severity is associated with the looming Anthropocene apocalypse.
Imperialism has exacerbated the crisis in many ways. Decades of structural adjustment and imposed debt have left the countries of the Global South without the health and social welfare infrastructure needed for normal times, let alone during a lethal pandemic. The international division of labour that creates unprecedented wealth for the Western capitalist ruling class involves massive labour migration of workers with little or no access to healthcare, while absurd degrees of international travel — for “business” and leisure — are part of elite lifestyles. Imperialist war further degrades the ability of societies to provide healthcare, while horrifically increasing the need for it. War also creates massive population displacement. War, poverty and racist immigration policies have created a large population of highly mobile, undocumented people with no access to healthcare and well beyond the reach of any screening or tracking. The European and US capitalist economies are dependent on the labour of undocumented refugees and migrants.
The use of crippling economic blockades by the Western imperialists, the US in particular, further exacerbates the crisis. Before the COVID-19 pandemic appeared, Venezuela and Iran were both already struggling with severe shortages of medicine and medical equipment due to US sanctions. In Iran this has meant the impact of the pandemic has been particularly devastating. The chaos created by major imperialist wars on Iran’s eastern and western borders means that this devastation is rapidly spreading to neighbouring countries. The six decade-long blockade of Cuba is threatening a particularly perverse impact on the global COVID-19 pandemic. Confirming that the blockade is a response to the positive example set by Cuba’s socialist revolution, the impoverished, blockaded island has prioritised healthcare to such an extent that the US elite cannot hide from its own population the fact that Cubans have significantly better healthcare than working class Americans! Moreover, Cuba has pioneered “medical solidarity” with more doctors and health workers serving poor communities throughout the world than the World Health Organisation. The BBC reported on March 22, that the pandemic-traumatised population of Italy (a rich imperialist country) were enthusiastically welcoming the arrival of Cuban medical personnel while European Union officials fretted over the “bad optics” of Italians seeing aid arrive from Cuba, China and Russian, but not the EU. The Western countries could provide finance and technology to enable Cuba to increase its worldwide medical solidarity. Instead the US is working on tightening anti-Cuban sanctions to prevent countries from receiving Cuban medical aid.
The COVID-19 pandemic has illuminated many normally invisible social and economic relationships of capitalist society and has exposed much of its exploitative and irrational nature. Paradoxically — because people are its agent of transmission — the pandemic is both anti-social and social. It is anti-social because the fear of contagion from other people can exacerbate the social divisions, individualism and alienation inherent in capitalist society (and ruling class entities are enthusiastically using the pandemic to fuel these, for example US leaders calling it “the Chinese Virus”). But it is social because combating the virus is dependent on recognising that the overall health outcomes for everyone (included society’s most privileged) is dependent on the outcomes of the whole of society, including the most exploited and marginalised. This is true for both within and between nations.
Marxist geographer David Harvey wrote on March 20: “The economic and social impacts are filtered through “customary” discriminations that are everywhere in evidence … the workforce that is expected to take care of the mounting numbers of the sick is typically highly gendered, racialized and ethnicized in most parts of the world. It mirrors the class-based work forces to be found in, for example, airports and other logistical sectors. This ‘new working class’ is in the forefront and bears the brunt of either being the workforce most at risk from contracting the virus through their jobs or of being laid off with no resources because of the economic retrenchment enforced by the virus. There is, for example, the question of who can work at home and who cannot. This sharpens the societal divide as does the question of who can afford to isolate or quarantine themselves (with or without pay) in the event of contact or infection.”
COVID-19 has also illustrated that the ineffectiveness of military/police/border security responses in protecting the elites from some aspects of ecological collapse (including pandemics) does not stop these being the default responses. The neoliberal capitalist state is unable to deal with crises even when it would benefit capitalist society to do so. Social solidarity is a necessity for surviving catastrophe but in capitalist society social solidarity is a challenge to the existing order. The responses of Vietnam and Cuba reflect the merits of socialism both in terms of rational organisation of society (and use of infrastructure and resources) and in terms of social cohesion.
The inability of capitalism to respond to this pandemic that threatens the whole of global capitalist society — including its elites — is reflective of capitalism’s genocidal and suicidal response to broader environmental apocalypse. The demands that the movement has campaigned for now re-emerge with a deadly relevance and urgency. Let’s put them up again, adapted to the current context. All of the above demands show the necessity of our campaigns and of socialism.
How a culture behaves during a time of crisis is directly related to how it used to behave before the crisis. The capitalist authoritarion nature of the Duterte regime seen now is no more than an extension of the capitalist authoritarion nature of the Duterte regime before the pandemic hit. In the book “Deep Green Resistance“, Aric McBay uses a few potential scenarios to describe how the conditions during a collapse will differ based on what the conditions were before the collapse.
by Sean Butler and Will Falk / Featured image: an aerial photograph showing harmful algae blooms in Lake Erie in August of 2017. These are believed to be caused by the effluent runoff from factory farms in the watershed. Public domain photo by NOAA.
Rights of nature advocates often repeat the words, “The structure of the legal system makes meaningful environmental protection illegal.” It’s a bold claim, but for most people it’s too vague to mean anything. Most folks (understandably) don’t know the difference between a federal district court and a circuit court of appeals, let alone what we mean by the “structure” of the legal system.
But it’s actually quite simple. We’re referring to two aspects of the American legal system: (1) laws and regulations at the federal, state, and local (city and county) levels and the relative hierarchy among them; and (2) the holdings of various state and federal courts throughout the history of our country, which establish “precedent” for what those laws and regulations actually mean.
Perhaps nowhere in recent memory has the “structure of the legal system” been laid bare more clearly than in the aftermath of the passage of the Lake Erie Bill of Rights by the citizens of Toledo, OH in February 2019. The Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR) grants Lake Erie the rights to exist, flourish, and naturally evolve; grants the residents of Toledo a right to a healthy environment; and “elevates the rights of the community and its natural environment over powers claimed by certain corporations.”
Although remarkable on its face, LEBOR is only one of dozens of similar local laws that have been passed in recent years in cities and counties across the United States. What is truly remarkable is the response LEBOR has received from existing institutions.
Mere hours after the City of Toledo certified LEBOR’s election results, entrenched interests opposed to environmental protection leveraged the existing structure of American law to mount an urgent opposition to LEBOR. Drewes Farms Partnership (“Drewes Farms”), represented by a corporate law firm, sued the City seeking an injunction against enforcing the law on the basis that LEBOR violates Drewes Farms’ “civil rights.” The State of Ohio was allowed to intervene in the case to argue for LEBOR’s invalidation while the grassroots community group, Toledoans for Safe Water – who drafted LEBOR and ushered it through Ohio’s citizen initiative process — was barred from the case by the federal judge. Then, the Ohio State legislature (at the request of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce) included in its 2019 budget a provision explicitly making it illegal for local governments to make or enforce laws ascribing legal rights to nature.
In short, the existing legal system and those who profit from it brought the full weight of the legal system against LEBOR. To really understand what is meant when we say that the structure of the legal system makes meaningful environmental protection illegal we need to dig into the specifics of this onslaught.
LEBOR’s opponents make primarily two legal arguments against it. First, they claim that LEBOR should be invalidated because it infringes on corporate constitutional rights. Second, they argue that LEBOR is preempted by state and federal law that reserves the right of the state of Ohio and the federal government to legislate on environmental matters.
Drewes Farms makes the corporate constitutional rights argument very clearly in the complaint it filed in federal court, claiming that:
“LEBOR causes real and concrete harms on Drewes Farms by violating the United States Constitution including but not limited to:
Depriving Drewes Farms of its fundamental right to freedom of speech and to petition the courts under the First Amendment;
Violating Drewes Farms’ right to equal protection by targeting it for liability based solely on the fact that it operates as a partnership business entity;
Violating the Fifth Amendment protection against vague laws by exposing Drewes Farms to strict criminal liability and massive damages and fines under a standardless Charter Amendment; and
Depriving Drewes Farms of its rights without due process.”
This 2010 map shows the location of major factory farming operations in Ohio and corresponding water quality readings. Ohio has among the highest density of CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) of any U.S. state. Map by Kim Michalson.
Just so we’re clear, Drewes Farms, a non-human legal entity, lays claim to rights under the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution AND claims that those rights are violated by a law that recognizes nature’s right to exist, flourish, and naturally evolve.
Meanwhile, the State of Ohio, in its Complaint for Declaratory Judgment and Injunctive Relief plainly states that “[t]he Ohio Constitution art. XVIII § 3 does not allow a municipality to enact an ordinance that prohibits regulated activity authorized under state permits issued pursuant to state laws of general applicability.” To support its claim, the State cited a recent Ohio case in which the judge ruled “[s]tate laws with state-wide application preempt local ordinances that discriminate, unfairly impede, or obstruct general laws regulating oil and gas activities.” In other words, the Ohio state constitution itself specifically prohibits any local government to enact laws that prohibit activities that are permitted by state laws.
The fundamental issue with both of these arguments is…they are absolutely, totally, and completely right. Under current American jurisprudence, Drewes Farms does have civil rights under the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments (among others), and LEBOR does violate principles of preemption.
And that is precisely the problem.
Because American law has long recognized corporate civil rights and has long used preemption to invalidate local laws that provide for stricter regulations than federal or state governments, the State of Ohio and Drewes Farms would have us believe that this should be the end of the discussion. But, ending the discussion here leaves several problematic assumptions unchallenged. Arguing that LEBOR should be invalidated because it infringes on corporate rights only makes sense if corporations should enjoy those rights under our system of law. And arguing that LEBOR should never be enforced because it violates established principles of preemption only makes sense if preemption is beneficial to American citizens.
So, we must dig deeper. We must ask: Why do corporations exist? What are corporate rights? Why does the American legal system afford corporations rights in the first place? We must also ask: Why does preemption exist? Why does the American legal system protect the state and federal governments’ power to preempt laws passed by local communities? And, is there a connection between growing corporate power and preemption?
While there is a debate about what corporations should exist to do, the fact remains that corporations exist to amass wealth, or to borrow one of corporate apologists’ favorite phrases, to “maximize shareholder value.” We can see this argument clearly in the hugely influential essay published in 1970 by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman in The New York Times Magazine aptly-titled “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits.” Environmental author and philosopher Derrick Jensen, in The Culture of Make Believe, is more direct:
“To expect corporations to function differently than they do is to engage in magical thinking. We may as well expect a clock to cook, a car to give birth, or a gun to plant flowers. The specific and explicit function of for-profit corporations is to amass wealth. The function is not to guarantee that children are raised in environments free of toxic chemicals, nor to respect the autonomy or existence of indigenous peoples, nor to protect the vocational or personal integrity of workers, nor to design safe modes of transportation, nor to support life on this planet. Nor is the function to serve communities. It never has been and never will be.”
Wealth is power. This is especially true in the legal system. Many people envision law as an all-powerful list of rules that dictates what someone can or cannot do. Similarly, many people think of rights as a list of privileges that specify what a person is entitled to do or entitled to be free from. As such, many people imagine that they can simply invoke these rights to be safe. But, it is a mistake to think that rules written somewhere in a book of statutes or rights listed in the Constitution have the power to jump off the paper where they are written and enforce themselves.
The key to understanding law and rights lies in understanding how they are enforced. Judges enforce law and rights by making decisions in court. And those decisions in court, in turn, are enforced by the police who are entitled to use physical force to ensure a judge’s decision is adhered to. When most people think about how this works, they envision examples such as President Eisenhower’s use of the National Guard to desegregate schools to uphold African Americans’ Fourteenth Amendment rights. But, a more apt and contemporary example is reflected in how the police were used at Standing Rock. Dogs, water cannons, and military-style weapons were turned against nonviolent protesters once the owner of the pipeline project, a corporation, won a favorable court ruling. These corporate rights-holders harnessed the state’s police power through the courts.
A typical “animal waste lagoon.” These containment ponds continuously leach into groundwater, and often overflow. Public domain photo by NRCS.
Rights, then, are power, too. When shareholders form a corporation, the corporation gains the privilege of “corporate personhood.” Because American courts treat corporations as “persons,” corporations have long exercised rights, including those afforded the highest level of protection under the Bill of Rights’ Contracts Clause, Due Process Clause, Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause, First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, Fifth Amendment Takings and Double Jeopardy Clauses, Sixth Amendment, and Seventh Amendment.
These rights have, for the most part, been judicially created and have consistently expanded throughout American history. The word “corporation” is found nowhere in the Constitution. Despite this, in 1819, in Dartmouth College v. Woodward, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Contract Clause of the Constitution granted private business corporations protection from governmental interference in internal governance. In 1886, in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, the Supreme Court ruled that a corporation is a person under the law and is therefore entitled to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. In 1922, the Supreme Court ruled in Pennsylvania Coal Company v. Mahon, that coal corporations were entitled to protection under the Fifth Amendment “Takings Clause” and that the government must compensate corporations for property value lost due to mining regulations. In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that federal laws which limited corporate spending in elections violated corporate First Amendment “free speech” rights in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Committee. Then, in 2014, the Supreme Court, in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, allowed corporations to deny its employees health coverage of contraception to which the employees would otherwise be entitled because corporations are entitled to First Amendment freedom of religion protection.
This might not seem problematic on its face, but recall that rights only have practical effect to the extent that rights holders can access the courts in order to ask a judge to enforce those rights. Corporations, that exist to, and have grown quite adept at, amassing wealth, have greater means to put behind the legal enforcement of rights. This naturally means more cases won by corporate plaintiffs, more caselaw upholding corporate rights, and therefore, by extension, more caselaw expanding the sphere of corporate civil rights. And the sheer number of cases bear out this reality. As an example, consider this: between 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, and 1912, the Supreme Court ruled on only 28 cases involving the rights of African Americans and an astonishing 312 cases on the rights of corporations, it is easy to conclude that the Fourteenth Amendment has done a better job protecting the rights of corporations than that of African Americans.
At the same time, the expansion of rights in one sphere necessarily produces the curtailing of rights in another. Deep ecologist John Livingston describes the problem:
Effluent discharge pipe. Public domain image from USDA.
“We sometimes forget that every time a court or legislature – or even custom – confers or confirms a right in someone, someone else’s right is nibbled at: the right of women to equal employment opportunity is an infringement of the freedom of the misogynist employer; the right to make a profit is at someone else’s cost; the right to run a motorcycle or a snowmobile reduces someone else’s right to peace and quiet in his own backyard; the rights of embryos impinge upon the rights of the women who carry them. And so on.”
In other words, the expansion of corporate rights shrinks the rights enjoyed by citizens and communities. Because American law extends to corporations many of the same constitutional rights humans enjoy and because corporations exist to accumulate wealth, we should not be surprised when corporations use their power to do exactly that at the expense of the rights of human beings and nature.
The other major legal argument made against LEBOR is that it is preempted by state and federal law. Preemption is a doctrine that says the law of a higher jurisdiction should displace the law of a lower jurisdiction when the two jurisdictions conflict. The American legal system is divided basically into three jurisdictions: federal, state, and local law (local law is a general term for the law of the smallest legislating entities American law allows, entities such as municipalities, cities, or villages). When federal and state law conflict, American courts interpret the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution (Article VI, Section 2) to mean that federal law should displace state law. Similarly, state law usually trumps local law when the two conflict.
Corporations, using their superior wealth and their constitutional rights, have found tremendous success in influencing federal and state legislatures, especially pro-business, conservative legislatures and persuading them to enact aggressive new preemption laws. When local governments pass laws with stricter restrictions than the federal or state legislatures, corporations lobby legislatures to employ preemption to attack these local laws. This typically happens in one of two ways. First, government lawyers, primarily attorneys general, assert the doctrine of preemption in court. The State of Ohio’s arguments against LEBOR are a perfect example. Second, legislatures pass legislation known as “blanket” preemption to expressly forbid local ordinances that contradict state law. And, in fact, the Ohio House of Representatives recently employed blanket preemption when it adopted its 2020-2021 budget with provisions that prohibit anyone, including local governments, from enforcing rights of nature laws.
That’s what preemption is. The more important question is: Why does American law protect the federal and state governments’ power to preempt laws passed by local communities? The answer, quite simply, is corporate power.
The modern preemption doctrine was born from an 1868 decision written by Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice John Dillon in The City of Clinton v. The Cedar Rapids and Missouri River Railroad Company. The case involved an attempt by the people of Clinton, Iowa to prevent railroad corporations from building railroads through their town. An ordinance was passed by the Clinton city council which prohibited any “railroad company from constructing its track through or upon any street within the limits of the city, and from occupying the same for right of way or other railroad purposes.”
In the decision, Dillon struck down Clinton’s ordinance and described his philosophy of the limited powers of municipal corporations and other local governing entities. This philosophy is now known as “Dillon’s Rule.” He wrote:
Municipal corporations owe their origin to, and derive their powers and rights wholly from, the legislature. It breathes into them the breath of life, without which they cannot exist. As it creates, so it may destroy. If it may destroy, it may abridge and control. Unless there is some constitutional limitation on the right, the legislature might, by a single act, if we can suppose it capable of so great a folly and so great a wrong, sweep from existence all of the municipal corporations in the State, and the corporation could not prevent it. We know of no limitation on this right so far as the corporations themselves are concerned. They are, so to phrase it, the mere tenants at will of the legislature. 24 Iowa 455, 475.
A pig at a factory farming operation. These industrial farms are the largest source of nutrient pollution in Lake Erie. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ Via Mercy for Animals.
And, Dillon’s Rule was later adopted by the United States Supreme Court in 1907 in Hunter v. Pittsburgh.
As you can see, from the outset, preemption has been, quite literally, about corporations “railroading” local communities who do oppose destructive corporate projects. Today, preemption has grown into a powerful tool wielded by, especially, conservative, pro-business state legislatures. Judge Jon D. Russell and Aaron Bostrom, in a white paper titled “Federalism, Dillon Rule and Home Rule” recently written for the American City County Exchange (an organization that “helps to advance limited government and free market principles in local government through model policies, conferences, and online collaboration”), provide a solid example of the rationale employed by state legislators to defend preempting local laws.
Russell and Bostrom write:
The Dillon Rule guarantees a certain level of uniformity throughout the state…Rather than having vastly different policies and codes in each local jurisdiction, the state can create uniform tax codes and licensing policies, making it a business-friendly environment. Without commonality between local governments on these issues, businesses find more red tape than opportunity, making it difficult for the state and businesses to prosper.
Dr. Lori Riverstone-Newell, an expert in the interaction of governments in the American system, describes how in the past few years, “a growing number of state officials have sponsored and supported preemption legislation with the intent to weaken local authority and to thwart local progressive policies.” In simpler terms, conservative state legislators are learning how to use preemption to prevent progressive communities from enacting progressive laws.
We can see why some commentators argue we live in a corporate state. If the fundamental element of a democracy is the right of the people to enact and enforce the laws to which they are subject, then preemption is fundamentally an anti-democratic concept, especially as the doctrine has been influenced and wielded by entrenched economic interests and the state and federal legislators who support (and who are, of course, supported by) those interests.
Indeed legislators are not working alone; they are implementing policies pushed by corporate lobbyists. Dr. Riverstone-Newell explains, “Recent preemption efforts can be understood, at one level, as part of longstanding campaigns waged by industry groups hoping to stop or limit progressive local policies in order to create a friendlier business environment for themselves.” She describes how industry groups and trade associations first began pressuring state legislatures to rein in their cities in the late 1980s. R.J. Reynolds, the tobacco corporation, “pressed states to enact preemption laws in the 1980s as a central strategy to overcome local smoking restrictions and bans.” Abby Rapoport, a journalist writing for The American Prospect, reports how the National Rifle Association launched a campaign in the 1990s for state preemption of local gun regulations. This campaign was so successful “43 states now have some form of maximum preemption preventing localities from passing additional gun regulations on top of state law.”
It may very well be that “a certain level of uniformity” of laws in different jurisdictions enables business to “prosper,” but having reached the point in our nation’s history where we are confronting ecological collapse, we have to ask ourselves, whether blanket uniformity and unchecked economic growth and prosperity are the only values that matter to us. Or, instead, might it be that local environmental protection laws are key to protecting local ecology? Might it be that the unique ecosystems in one ‘jurisdiction’ require unique laws and regulations in order for them to thrive? Why should we expect that laws protecting swamplands in Florida be the same as those protecting the Nevada desert? If we are to see our way through the current environmental crisis, we can’t simply accept the doctrine of preemption on its face; we must consider the value of it, and its history and development, in order to determine whether or not it is compatible with the future we want for our grandchildren and the planet.
The failure to recognize how American law makes sustainability illegal is a primary reason environmentalists have failed to keep the health of the North American continent from deteriorating over the last century. Because we fail to recognize this, we keep seeking to protect the natural world through legal and political processes that do not – cannot – work. The late corporate anthropologist Jane Anne Morris described our predicament clairvoyantly:
Lake Erie (left) is the 11th largest lake in the world. Public domain NASA photo.
“Our campaigns follow the gambling addiction model. The last bet didn’t pay off but the next one might if…if…if we just had a new, improved tripod, three more experts, more labor or church support, ten more elected officials on our side, a hundred more people at the demo, or a thousand more letters in the mail…Who are we kidding? We are just doing the ‘same old thing’ over and over again and fooling ourselves that it might work next time. We are stuck in a feedback loop where our failures are interpreted as signs that we should repeat our failed tactics, but try harder. This is what it is to be colonized.”
Lawyers, and their clients, are especially vulnerable to falling victim to Morris’ gambling addiction model. The adversarial, competitive nature of law where two or more sides jockey for the approval of a judge makes it easy for losing parties to conclude that if they just hired a more expensive law firm, or if they just argued an issue differently, or if they just cited this case instead of that case then they would have won. The problem, however, is not that we need to try harder; the problem is that the structure of American law prevents our ability to implement strong enough measures to truly protect the natural world.
The people of the City of Toledo, recognizing that corporate rights and preemption must be confronted and overturned to protect Lake Erie and all those who depend on her, voted to enact the Lake Erie Bill of Rights. The arguments made by the State of Ohio and Drewes Farms Partnership are currently the law en vogue. This is one of the major reasons American law makes sustainability illegal. This must change if the natural world, and all of us who depend on her, are going to survive the current ecological predicament. To achieve a sane, sustainable culture, corporate rights and preemption must go.
Nigeria is the largest oil producer in Africa. In the Niger River Delta, offshore oil platforms, drilling rigs, and processing facilities dot the landscape. As a formal colonial vassal state to the British Empire, oil extraction is headed by Shell Oil, which has extracted billions in value from the country.
Nigeria has been called “the world capital of oil pollution.” It is estimated that the Niger Delta has absorbed oil spills equivalent to an Exxon Valdez (~20 million gallons) every single year for more than half a century. The land, air, and water is highly poisoned. Acid rain from gas flaring is a major issues, killing crops, poisoning land, and destroying building. And the revenues from the extraction have accrued almost entirely to Shell and a few hand-picked colonial lackeys.
In the wake of decades of this industrial devastation of the largest wetland in Africa, nonviolent resistance movements arose, led by people such as poet and activist Ken Saro Wiwa. These movements were violently destroyed by the Nigerian state in cooperation with Shell’s private military. Saro Wiwa who was executed by the Nigerian military dictatorship in 1999 on blatantly false charges.
Following this unsuccessful resistance campaign, the people of the Niger River Delta decided to escalate. Some went underground and formed The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) in 2005. Using sabotage, speedboats, and surprise attacks, MEND was at one point able to destroy 40% of the oil export capability of Nigeria, the largest oil exporter in Africa.
You may be thinking, what does this have to do with me?
Regardless of where you live in the world, there is much to learn from MEND. Here in United States, where I write this article on occupied stolen land, the environmental movement has been unable to stop even the growth of oil production. The U.S. is now the leading oil producer globally (14.46 million barrels per day). The environmental movement has failed to stop this, let alone reverse it.
New research released yesterday shows that Shell Oil and other major producers are expected to ramp up oil production by 35% in the next ten years.
Meanwhile, a few hundred poor Nigerian people, with limited training and funds, were able to stop 40% of their nation’s oil production. They did this by acting as a liberation movement and attacking the colonizing force’s ability to maintain war. In other words, they targeted infrastructure.
In 2016, we published an article calling for serious resistance in the form of “ecological special forces”—trained, small units of activists operating clandestinely to sabotage and otherwise stop industrial capitalism, civilization, and empire.
This article will expand on that piece by looking at skills and techniques that serious underground resistance actionists would require to be more effective.
Skills for Serious Resistance
Knowledge of industry operations
To be effective, ecological commandos need to study the industries they are fighting. They need to understand factors such as:
Type of equipment necessary for a given operation
Basics of mechanics
How to identify critical and vulnerable components of heavy machinery and infrastructure
Common security measures taken at industrial sites
Work rotations and scheduling
Basic physics and engineering
To effectively dismantle and/or sabotage larger infrastructure, resisters will need to understand the applied principles of force, mass, momentum, pressure, structural integrity, and so on.
Chemistry
It goes without saying that the ability to use common substances to create demolitions charges is essential for effective underground resistance work. This includes how to access the necessary raw materials without exposing your identity.
Electrical
Knowledge of circuits and timers is essential for clandestine resistance fighters and relatively easy to learn.
Security
This includes digital security (such as the ability to conduct digital research anonymously), operational security, stealth, and social engineering (acting). It should also include knowledge of the forensics and research tools (both physical and digital) used by law enforcement, and a mastery of basic activist security culture.
Physical fitness
There are scenarios in which physical fitness can make-or-break success for resistance groups. Ecological commandos take their health and fitness extremely seriously.
Money
As a ballpark figure, a continental-scale resistance movement might need a budget between $100,000 and $1 million to gather supplies, maintain cover stories, and for basics like food, lodging, and transportation. Funding is critical for ecological commandos. Additionally, they should have secure methods for buying materials (preferably with cash).
Much of the above will depend on networks of support. These networks need to be prepared to maintain an “underground railroad” where no questions are asked. They should also know and use secure/anonymous communications channels, preferably offline.
