GranolaFag Weekly

From The Guardian

Until this year, Robert Kazini had never given much thought to whether he was fishing in Congolese or Ugandan waters; it didn’t matter.

Nor did it matter much to Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo — until prospectors found oil here.

Now, with crude nearing $100 a barrel and both countries dreaming of billions of petrodollars that could flow from Lake Albert, an ugly and at times deadly dispute over their border is jeopardising the livelihoods of locals like Kazini.

Do the people running these corporations have any decency?  I knew they were money-grubbing animals, but I’ve always assumed there was an unspoken agreement regarding the exploitation of Africa, the last patch of peaceful, unspoiled wilderness left on this planet. For millions of years Africans have lived in peace, with tribes sharing the land that sustained them.  Then came the white man with their  “magic fire” and “slave-catching nets” to take advantage of whatever and whoever they wanted.

WHY CAN’T WE JUST LEAVE THESE POOR PEOPLE ALONE? They have a hard enough life as it is.  We’ve already started destroying the climate they’ve appreciated since the time of the dinosaurs, why do we also have to destroy the water and land they live on? For a few more dollars?

The article doesn’t say which companies are the ones trying to steal the oil, but I’d bet it’s almost certainly American ones.  Europeans have the good sense and the human decency to let Africa just be Africa, they’re not greedy enough to exploit a peaceful people for a slightly larger bottom line.

Has anyone ever pointed out that the United States is 12% African-American  and Africa is 100% African-American, yet somehow they have zero crime and zero pollution? We should probably try and learn from those people instead of simply trying to take whatever we can from them.

From Reuters

 Climate change could end globalization by 2040 as nations look inward to conserve scarce resources and conflicts flare when refugees flee rising seas and drought, national security experts warned on Monday.

Now that climate change is obvious and “all up in your business” you won’t ignore it, will you, guys? When all it did was kill poor non-white people it wasn’t a big deal, but now that it threatens profit? SOUND THE ALARM!

“Some of the consequences could essentially involve the end of globalization as we have known it … as different parts of the Earth contract upon themselves in order to try to conserve what they need to survive,” said Fuerth, who was national security adviser to former Vice President Al Gore.

This may actually be one of the positive side-effects of all this madness: the end of globalization. No longer will America be able to rape foreign cultures in pursuit of the all-mighty dollar. I can’t wait for the day when money is worthless and we can all finally concentrate on what’s really important in life: love.

From CBS News

 Gore, whose documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” won an Academy Award earlier this year, was awarded the prize earlier in the day along with the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international network of scientists, for spreading awareness of man-made climate change and laying the foundations for counteracting it.

Looks like the Nobel people could no longer take the pressure to award the prize to someone who can actually make a positive difference in the world.

WE WILL NOT BE IGNORED!

President Gore (yes, I used that title on purpose!) and the UN are unstoppable, they know how to get results (their record is undeniable) and this is exactly what their movement needed to shock the public into realizing what exactly is going on.  It’s all downhill for the corporate fat-cats and their money machines. The world is waking up and realizing they’re selling poison. Al Gore is no friend of George Bush and the oil industry, he’s kicking ass and taking names.

I eagerly await their next move.

From The L.A. Times

The Senate today approved a long-debated measure that would expand the federal hate crime law to cover violence against gays, and in an unusual gambit to make it difficult for President Bush to carry out his veto threat, attached it to a defense bill.

It’s about freakin’ time! How many of us would still be alive if this had been passed 10 years ago? It disgusts me.

I realize this isn’t really on-topic for GFW, but it’s something I feel strongly about (watch out for gay marriage news, too!) and something I feel is critically important to this country. For too long gay men and women have been victims to senseless, hateful violence at the hands of ignorant homophobes and rednecks.

Being a gay man in today’s US isn’t easy. If you survive the job discrimination, the constant harassment, the lack of political representation (until Hillary gets to be President!), the physical violence, and the outright persecution, you still face horrors of AIDS and the loneliness caused by the closure of all the decent gay clubs in this country. Not many people know what it’s like to live like that, especially the racist a-holes that make the laws.

The bill’s supporters said they hope the hate-crime legislation is included in a final defense bill. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who has championed the legislation, noted that no president has ever vetoed a defense authorization bill. “We’re very hopeful that the president will sign it,” he said.

Ha! It’s so sweet that they attached a piece of good legislation to one of the President’s war-mongering bills. Try and veto that, George! You’d have to withdraw the troops from Iraq and Lord know we can’t have that! If Iraq was peaceful instead of overrun by your terrorizing hate troops I don’t know what we would do!</sarcasm>

From CNN

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday told delegates to a global climate change conference that countries around the world must work together to combat climate change, much as they cooperate against terror and the spread of disease.

Was that filed under “O” for obvious or “D” for Duuuhhhhh?

Climate change is the single most important crisis this planet has ever faced. Never before have we ever known anything like it, and these critical years have suffered incompetent and evil leadership. At least it looks now like at least one of them might kinda/sorta be “getting it.” Of course it’s Condie Rice, the one person in the administration who (I bet) actually had to work to get where she is in life instead of having everything handed to her on a silver platter. You go, girl! Of course, your boss is still pig-headed:

Bush said he believes every nation should set its own goals. The president expressed concern that setting strict targets would damage the U.S. economy. Instead, he said, industries should enact voluntary measures.

The US economy always has been and always will be fine. If we had universal health care and a decent welfare/social security system (like the rest of the civilized world) we wouldn’t even have reason to worry about the economy, anyway, the government would be shouldering their share of the burden.

Voluntary measures will not and cannot ever work. “Industry” is run by the same bunch of evil, greedy, straight, fat, white men that government is. They’ll never sacrifice a nickel to save the planet, they can never have enough. We need regulation by responsible parties: The government or the environmental protection organizations (Greenpeace, ELF, PETA, etc.) You don’t ask a fox to watch the henhouse, do you? No, you get the police to do it.

She listed three points that she hopes delegates will focus on during the conference:

 

An agreement on a long-term goal for greenhouse gas reduction.

The establishment of midterm national targets and programs tailored to each country’s economic and energy needs to reach the broader goal.

The encouragement of work with private industry to develop new energy technology that doesn’t risk but accelerates economic growth.

That’s a good start, but it’s not nearly enough. We’re in crisis and we need to act accordingly. My plan:

• The United States will cease production of all carbon dioxide by the end of the year. Anyone or anything found to be producing CO2 will face huge fines and/or prison terms
• Half of the land that is currently being wasted on suburban sprawl (strip malls, Wal-Marts, NASCAR tracks, etc.) must be torn down and replanted as permanently protected National Forest by 2010.
• The US must dedicate 25% of it’s annual Federal budget to remediating the damage it has done to the planet. The UN will supervise the spending of the money so Bush and his cronies don’t steal all of it.
• Corporate profits will be capped at $1,000,000 and any excess will be added to the environmental remediation fund.
• No new corporations are allowed to be created, except non-profits.
• Any new car sold from now on must be a hybrid or an electric

These simple, relatively painless steps are not only what is necessary to save our planet, but it’s what the US owes the rest of the world. Our children (well, not mine!) will thank us.