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Give for Change

Donkeyphant
Volume 10

Summer 2002

Michael Lerner 
Talk Back 

Environmental Defense 

    


In This Issue:

The End of Everything

If you're under the age of 40, you're likely to see a large number of extinctions in your lifetime.  The media probably won't bother to report on them so you'll have to keep your eyes peeled.

Here is a disturbing email that I received from Penny Patterson, founder of The Gorilla Foundation:

We received some very disturbing news recently: as many as 90% of all eastern lowland gorillas may have been killed during the past three years. This means that there are probably fewer than 1,000 eastern lowland gorillas left in the Congo.

I am currently watching Surf Crazy.  It's an incredible documentary shot in 1959.  It is clear that planet earth has dramatically changed for the worse in the short period of 50 years, an infinitesimal duration of universal time.  The ocean waters of 1959 Hawaii are crystal clear.  The beaches are bleach white and devoid of garbage and tourists.  Mexico seems a lot safer than it is today, which is a direct result of the fact that the people of Mexico weren't nearly as poor as they are now, thanks to Bill Clinton and NAFTA.

Meanwhile, our illustrious pResident Georgie is pushing through NAFTA++, Low-Frequency Active Sonar, additional funding for the US War Machine, and the notion that US environmental laws no longer apply to our oceans.  This man is truly evil.  How much longer will Americans sit back and watch him make a mockery of our laws?  Answer:  until their wallets feel the pain.

Environmental laws were held dear by even the likes of Theodore Roosevelt.  We're dealing with a level of evil in the White House that the world has never before seen.  If Georgie could own slaves, they would be writing his speeches.  Oh my God!  It's true!  Sorry, Ms. Rice.  I know you're not a slave.  I know one African American woman doesn't represent millions of people with a similar genotype.  It's just very, very sad what you have to do for money.  History won't be kind to you or Mr. Powell.

Where, oh where, have the Democrats gone?

You have to wonder what the Religious Right are thinking.  Perhaps they don't care about God's "creation," including humanity.  Perhaps they're just waiting for the Glorious Rapture.  Go ahead and trash the planet, Georgie, because heaven awaits!

And they call Islamic Fundamentalists scary.

We're Having a War for Peace! 

The continued saber rattling towards Saddam Hussein's Iraq is an obvious act of bullying and aggression.

The people of Iraq have more to fear of the US than vice versa.  The US-enforced embargoes have kept the Iraqi people in a permanent state of poverty and starvation.  At least tens of thousands of Iraqis, mostly children, have perished due to lack of basic medical needs.  The endless US bombings have ruined Iraq's basic water, power, and sewage facilities.  

The political elite in the United States (even voiced recently by Al Gore) claim that Hussein is somehow keeping oil prices artificially high and is plotting to harm Americans via acts of terror.  Both of these accusations are based on myth.  The actions against Hussein have resulted in a lower supply of oil.  Therefore, crude prices have been held artificially high by the US elite, not by Saddam.  Secondly, UN weapons inspectors have never found evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  The game plan seems to be to continue to cast doubt indefinitely, rather than to let the facts speak for themselves.

Naturally, when Hussein was the CIA's willing puppet, Hussein could do no wrong.  Gassing the Kurds was perfectly acceptable by the US elite including Kissinger.

Now that Hussein's toys have been taken away from him, the full might of the US military and corporate machine is upon him.  Hussein is hardly a threat to the world's only superpower.  Even pappa Bush let him go over a decade  ago.  What is really going on?

Not surprisingly, it's all about oil.  US energy companies want a piece of Iraq's oil reserves.  Similarly, the Afghanistan "war" has more to do with oil than the Taliban or bin Laden.  In fact, the Afghanistan war was quite successful.  The new leaders in Afghanistan will allow the Unocal oil pipeline to be built, and the Afghan military will defend it.  Bribery goes a long way.

Those who are really in power in Washington don't really care whether bin Laden is alive or dead.  He has served their purposes well, and if he's alive, all the better for the next time when they need a good excuse to blow up part of the Middle East.

If Bush's men have their way, Iraq's oil will flow down the Unocal pipeline and into tankers in the Persian Gulf.  Now that's quite a business plan!

The second reason is, of course, political.  The Bush family has an axe to grind against Hussein.  Pappa Bush blames Hussein for losing a second term to Clinton.  GW has a fleeting chance to pay back a debt owed to his father.  After all, pappa Bush got GW into the Oval Office.

The third factor involves corporate interests beyond oil.  I'm talking, of course, about Raytheon, General Electric, and every other "defense" contractor of the military industrial complex.  There is a tremendous amount of money to be made manufacturing and trafficking weapons.  The CEOs of death put GW in office and now it's time to pay the piper.

9/11 has created an environment in which propaganda balloons can float without any bit of skepticism from politicians or the mainstream media.  Before the US military removes Hussein from power we must ask ourselves several questions.  Who will replace Hussein?  Will the US elite put someone worse in power and have to clean up the mess later?  Will the Iraqi people be consulted?  Will they be better or worse off?  How many billions of dollars in aid will this action end up costing taxpayers?

Using the war on Afghanistan as a guide, it's obvious that the US will install leadership in Iraq who will serve the needs of US corporate interests.  The suffering of the Iraqi people will continue with no foreseeable end while Americans continue to enjoy their gas-guzzling SUVs.

The fact that these questions are not being raised by our so-called free press is inexcusable and is further proof that Americans no longer live in a  democratic society.

More Options, Not Less

Just because labor union "leaders," many of whom actually work for big business, want corporations to expense stock options, doesn't mean it's a good idea.  Just because Ralph Nader supports this doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea.  Just because Warren Buffet thinks it's a good idea definitely doesn't mean we should take this proposal at face value.

We progressives reserve the right to disagree, and it's essential that we do so in public.  Otherwise we will be no better than the Donkeyphants.

Stock options aren't just for executives.  Yes, it's true:  executives own most of a company's stock.  And stock options represent the only means counteract the imbalance of power between the Board and those who do the work.

Stock options are the only way for employees to own a significant percentage of the company that employs them.  Ownership is something progressives should strive for, not condemn.  Otherwise, we'll end up with the rich owning 100% of everything, and we have already seen the consequences of that scenario:  they pocket the company's assets and flee behind lawyers and politicians.

The only appropriate response to stock options from labor unions is "me too!"  Unions should demand stock options for their workers.  Unfortunately, most labor unions are too weak and corrupt to actually fight for fairness for their clients.  Instead, they want to take away all of the perks so that everyone can wallow in pathetic "equality"; in other words, collective non-ownership and servitude to both unions and corporations.

No Justice, No Peace

There should be consequences if Attorney General John Ashcroft doesn't put Kenneth Lay (Enron) and John Sidgmore (Worldcom) behind bars.

We all know, deep down, that nothing will happen.  The pResident is one of them.  Like obedient children, the "left" won't do anything about it besides whine.

Hit the streets, kids.  Otherwise nothing is going to happen.  The fix is in.

Home Base (er, Land) Security

As Major League Baseball hurls toward a certain strike that will last for the rest of the 2002 season, I of course can not stop thinking about all this mumbo jumbo about Homeland Security.

Excuse me if I'm wrong, but don't the FBI, CIA, and NSA already exist?  Do we really need another suspicious tax dollar-guzzling arm of the US government?  I didn't think so.

Fire the heads of these organizations, and tell the new guys their heads are next if they drop the ball.  End of story.

What we really need is a solution that will keep the ballplayers playing.  Now there's an insurmountable task.

Sesame Street Almost Does the Right Thing

After adding commercials to morning children's television, it seemed like nothing could stop the downward spiral of PBS.  And then this happens.

I'm sure you've heard that the South African production of Sesame Street has decided to introduce a new puppet character.  This character is an HIV-positive child.  This character just wants to fit in and have friends.

Naturally, there is great resistance against this, especially in the US.  Parents are up in arms that Sesame Street is introducing the subject of AIDS to its child audience.  Presumably this is because AIDS, unlike polio or many other "acceptable" diseases, is transmitted by homosexual sex.  However, AIDS is transmitted in many other ways.  Nobody ever accused Americans of being well educated.

Those who oppose this new character are homophobic bigots.  Many people around the globe, and US Christians in particular, believe that those who are infected by HIV deserve it.  AIDS is God's punishment.  That is, until these mean-spirited jackals get HIV themselves via blood transfusions.

AIDS is a sad reality across the globe.  Little is being done to stop it, thanks to homophobia and racism towards Africans and their descendants. 

It's been over a decade since the death of Ryan White, made famous by Elton John, who was the first (well known) HIV positive child to attend public school in the US.  Since then, little progress has been made to eliminate the prejudice, fear, and ignorance that Ryan faced with such grace.

I hope the new puppet makes it to the US some day.

This Just In:  Women have Vaginas

Yes, it's true.  Apparently every woman has a vagina.  I am shocked I tell you.  Shocked.

I recently saw the Vagina Monologues on HBO.  All males should be required to watch this informative and entertaining show.  I can just see the religious right up in arms over this.  Boys should not have such information at their disposal.  Women should be treated as tools of sexual pleasure for men, and the less men know the better.

The most troubling part of the show was about the women of Bosnia who have been raped by the soldiers of both sides.  Shoving rifles and broken bottles up a vagina demonstrates that hell is indeed on earth, just a plane ride away.  This is going on everywhere around the planet.  700,000 women are raped annually in the United States. 

All the while our political "leaders," including women like Senators Boxer and Feinstein, are silently complicit, happy to define "terrorism" as violence against white males.